Priceless spiritual treasures surrounded Jumanji.
At the forefront of them was the **Black Honey Bee**, resting atop that strange patch of red soil.
The spiritual energy in the area felt thin, as if it were quietly waiting for the coming storm.
"Two months of seclusion in this barren place…"
"Two months in which I have to race against time, raise my rank, and push the quality of my spiritual farm to a whole new level."
He fell silent for a moment before continuing inwardly.
The **seventh-rank Dusknight Leech** held exceptional value and terrifying importance.
Its ability did not stop at merely raising the quality of a spiritual farm by one stage.
It could also **double the number of spiritual cores** a cultivator possessed.
And more frightening than that was the offensive ability it granted:
The power to control bodily heaviness and suddenly increase the user's weight to a shocking degree—
Turning every strike into something capable of crushing even the fiercest enemies.
Jumanji raised the three leech jewels between his palms.
Their surface was cold, and the spiritual pulse within them was faint.
He stared at the massive bee with eyes full of determination and clear awareness of the danger.
He muttered bitterly, "I have three leech jewels… but I don't have three bees."
At that moment, he fully understood the situation.
Trying to evolve all three jewels using a single source was a gamble balanced on the edge of a blade.
If it failed, the very foundation of his power could collapse.
And yet, he did not retreat.
Instead, a cold smile slowly formed on his face as he said:
"I know evolving this leech carries deadly risk… but there is no great reward in this world without a price."
Jumanji placed a hand over his chest and slowly closed his eyes, trying to gather his mental and spiritual strength to catch a glimpse of the future.
He wanted to see the outcome of his bold plan to evolve the **leech**—whether success would stand by his side, or whether failure was already waiting for him.
But no matter how much effort or concentration he poured into it, the future remained hidden.
His insight failed to pierce the veil of tomorrow, as though fate itself refused to hand him an answer before he fought the battle with his own hands.
"What a letdown. This arrogant leech refuses to show itself… but then why did it react when I touched that boy?"
Even though the **Gaze Leech** had activated before, it now stubbornly refused to respond.
Even with the thousand years of memories he had inherited, this leech remained strangely mysterious.
After a long stretch of silence and contemplation, Jumanji made up his mind.
He carefully placed the three leech jewels on top of the crouching bee's body, allowing the spiritual interaction between them to begin on its own.
"I don't have time to stand around doing nothing."
His gaze immediately shifted toward his most important task:
**Cultivating spiritual plants to restore his farm.**
Jumanji took out the rare seeds of **White Rice** and examined them for a moment.
"Alright. Time to get to work."
He spent the entire day planting them within the river, as this variety could only grow while fully submerged in deep spiritual water.
Then he brought out the eggs of the **Crimson Starfish** and carefully began digging special channels and pits for them.
Jumanji was now applying one of the golden principles of spiritual farming.
He looked over his work and the things he had planted, then murmured:
"Every living thing I release into my farm emits a unique kind of spiritual energy… and the **black seed** within the spiritual well feeds on it."
And with every increase in the density of that energy and the emissions of spiritual life, the growth of the farm would accelerate and its rank would rise.
The relationship was simple and direct.
The greater the spiritual power of the beings within it, the faster the farm would leap toward higher and loftier stages.
But Jumanji did not stop with those creatures and crops alone.
He decided to force the process forward by pouring a massive amount of pure energy into it.
He took out **one hundred bronze-rank spiritual cores** and **ten gleaming silver-rank cores**.
Then, with steady steps, he approached the Spirit Well.
"Alright… let's do this now."
With a swift motion, he began crushing the solid cores one after another, sending their fragments and concentrated energy cascading all at once into the well.
That amount of liquefied energy would normally take days—or even months—to gather naturally.
But he had compressed all that time into a matter of seconds.
The well, which had been silent only moments ago, suddenly turned into a boiling cauldron.
The energy within surged violently and overflowed its limits, while the thin white mist transformed into a raging tide that roared with force.
Waves of energy began crashing into the walls of the well with terrifying intensity.
The echoes of those impacts spread across the farm like war drums announcing the birth of a new era.
These were not ordinary collisions.
This was a **breaking of limits**.
Fine cracks began to spread across the cavern walls surrounding the well under the crushing pressure of that overwhelming spiritual force.
Jumanji watched everything with sharp eyes and the kind of calm that came just before chaos.
He understood exactly what was happening.
He whispered to himself as he observed the changes:
"My spiritual farm can no longer contain its current rank… and those cracks aren't signs of destruction. They're the birth pains of something greater."
It did not take long before the well could no longer contain the energy boiling inside it like a volcanic furnace.
Then, in the next instant—
It **exploded**.
The blast shook every corner of the spiritual farm with overwhelming force.
Jumanji took several steps back as he watched the eruption split the area apart.
Waves of spiritual energy burst outward with such density that all sight was swallowed.
Everything inside the farm turned into a world of pure white, drowned beneath the scattered force of exploding energy.
As time passed, the thick mist gradually began to draw back toward its center.
At that moment, Jumanji stepped toward the heart of the explosion.
And as the final strands of fog faded away, a majestic sight revealed itself before him.
A **vast spiritual pond**, more than ten times larger than the previous well.
At the center of its white haze rested a **black seed with two leaves**, radiating a captivating brilliance.
Unlike the seed that had once rested within the well with only a single leaf, this one had evolved together with the well itself.
A satisfied smile appeared on Jumanji's face.
He knew then that he had taken his **first true step toward the summit**, advancing into the **Second Stage of Rank One**.
Such rapid progress would be considered an astonishing achievement even among cultivators blessed with excellent-quality farms.
What Jumanji had achieved was something most others could only dream of.
His eyes gleamed as he gazed upon the pond, whose edges were made of white clouds where lightning danced quietly within.
The reason for this incredible leap was simple:
The dense flood of spiritual cores he had poured into it.
"I know this method will only work in the early stages."
"Once my farm reaches the higher ranks, these cores will lose their value and become nothing more than useless pebbles."
In the future, the true fuel for the growth of the central seed would no longer come from spiritual cores.
It would depend on the **quality of the seeds, plants, and spiritual beasts** that inhabited the farm.
Those would become the true driving force behind its ascension.
He cast one final glance at the cores he had left and let out a quiet sigh.
"Even the amount I just used would count as a national treasure for a third-grade tribe… but it was a risk worth taking."
A strange sense of lightness spread through every corner of his farm, as if the invisible pressure that had long weighed on it had finally been lifted.
And now that he had reached the **Second Stage of Rank One**, the effects of this breakthrough would soon become obvious.
The automatic production of spiritual cores within the farm would now **double**.
A low-quality farm that once produced one core per month would now produce two.
A medium-quality farm would jump from two to four.
And an excellent one would rise from three to six.
"Even if the number seems small, it's a cornerstone in the foundation of my future strength."
And the benefit did not stop at quantity alone.
The purity of the spiritual cores had also become sharper and cleaner.
More than that, if the **Spiritual Well** had once granted a cultivator enough power to endure and fight for only a short time—
Then the **Spiritual Pond** had elevated Jumanji to an entirely different level of stability and endurance.
It would allow its owner to fight for much longer, while also granting finer control and far greater authority over everything within the spiritual farm.
This was the nature of cultivation.
The higher a cultivator rose through stages and ranks, the harsher and more demanding the road became.
And when it came to the upper ranks, the difficulty only multiplied.
Especially since high-quality seeds were incredibly rare and difficult to obtain.
Anyone who wished to stand at the peak had to pay a heavy price.
There was no room for luck or shortcuts in this world.
And now, Jumanji stood firmly at the **Second Stage of Rank One**—
An achievement that could only be described as extraordinary.
If news of this rapid advancement were to reach the elders of the **Experia Tribe**, not one of them would believe it.
They would think it nothing more than fantasy, especially when compared to the original quality of his farm, which gave no indication that such miraculous leaps should have been possible.
But Jumanji gave himself no time to bask in pride or satisfaction.
Instead, he immediately returned to his grueling work.
Planting seeds.
Caring for sprouts.
Organizing spiritual creatures.
Whenever exhaustion began to overtake him, he would crush what remained of his bronze cores to restore his energy and throw himself right back into the struggle.
Two full days passed in relentless labor without pause.
By then, Jumanji had drained nearly all of his physical and spiritual strength.
After taking only a brief rest to recover himself, the time had finally come to inspect the place where he had left the struggle between the jewels.
His gaze shifted toward the **Black Honey Bee** and the **three leech jewels**…
To see what had become of the gamble he had begun two days ago.
**End of Chapter**