“These two pieces of land are yours. They are practically the same. So choose who owns which by yourselves.” Jianmen led Caroline and Jason around the two pieces of empty land, then proceeded to a forest on their left side: “This forest is … well, a forest, with some magic inside. Do note that you can find a lot of interesting stuff in there. You just need to look for them and maybe hit the library often to know what they are. You can ask me but I’d expect you to try to get to know them by yourselves first. So far you can only find plants, fruits and mushrooms there. When you are ready you can bring in spirits and spirit animals or even your familiars and let them stay there.”
“How can we find them?” Caroline asked: “Spirit animals and familiars, I mean.”
“Well, usually you can find them in magical places and special realms.” Jianmen answered as he brought his students into the forest: “And here’s some motivation for you: in the audit program at Grant Academy you’ll get a chance to visit some of their magical realms. It is like this place but much much bigger in terms of scale and much more dangerous.”
“Oh! Okay, I thought I couldn’t be looking forward to it more! ” Caroline laughed: “Will you teach us about it before we go?”
“Yeah… no.” Jianmen shrugged: “Spirit animals and familiars are not my forte. I’ve never had one and I haven’t cared enough to read about them in detail.”
“What? How can you not?” both Caroline and Jason asked.
“Just haven’t met the right one. I guess.” Jianmen shrugged, then he pointed at a piece of black fungus on the ground near the root of a pretty tall tree: “This is the Obsidian Lingzhi, a kind of semi-magical ganoderma fungus. Kind of a signature product of this forest. If you look you can find quite many. In the future when I teach you about basic Xuanli medicine, you’ll get a chance to learn more about it.”
“What does it do?” Jason asked: “Lingzhi is pretty widely used in Chinese medicines right? Does it have the same effects in Xuanli medicine?”
“Similar but not necessarily. It has the basic property of enhancing your bodies and can help restore your Xuanli. It is the main ingredient of your medicinal bath water, and is also in your wine.”
“Hah, so it is edible what does it taste like?” Jason picked up a small piece of the Obsidian Lingzhi and sniffed it.
“You can take a bite and see.” Jianmen smiled.
With Jianmen’s semi-affirmative answer Jason did not think about it too much and took a small bite.
“Ah! Phew! Pft pft pft!” bitter, sour, dry and burning hot tastes assaulted Jason’s entire mouth at the same time and almost made him fall on the ground, all he could do was spit the small piece out and use the wine from his flask to cleanse his tongue: “Boss! Why!? What the hell?!”
“It’s an acquired taste. I can tell you that.” Jianmen was laughing loudly, but still helped Jason cleanse his palate with a snap of his fingers.
“Is it really that bad?” Caroline picked up the piece of Obsidian Lingzhi Jason dropped on the ground and took a close look: “I mean… it looked bad but your reaction’s a bit much.”
“It tastes like - burning coal powder mixed with metal.” Jason took a few more sips from his flask: “This is in the wine? I can’t taste it at all!”
“Because it’s processed.” Jianmen also picked up a small piece of Obsidian Lingzhi, crushed it with his hands, then raised the black and shiny powder gently before Caroline and Jason’s eyes: “It contains very small traces of natural Xuanli inside, with some additional nutrients and some other substance that can be of medicinal use. It can also be found in the wild in Asia. And some of the traditional superstitions proved to be true - when properly processed, it can be used to improve and enhance even normal people’s health and vitality. And thus some other slightly unrelated superstition arose - that it contains some male enhancement properties. While in fact it is just a byproduct of health and vitality.” As he spoke, some light brown liquid seemed to be extracted from the black powder, while the black powder slowly turned to dark red in the process.
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“Eww.” Caroline shook her head and threw the piece back to Jason.
“What happens if it is not properly processed?” Jason asked, out of curiosity.
“For cultivators on layer two and above, your Xuanli is already able to filter out and burn the toxins away, so it won’t cause any harm to you.” Jianmen gently turned his hand, the light brown liquid was sealed into a small crystal vial that appeared from thin air, and the dark red powder formed into a small solid cube: “But for normal civilians, it will cause severe liver damage. Liver cirrhosis is one of the common effects.”
“Well, at least it can always make SOMETHING hard.” Jason winked at both Jianmen and Caroline, but was met with a prolonged moment of silence.
“Let’s go and see the creek and lake, shall we?” Jianmen pretended to shiver at Jason’s bad joke, then extended his hand in the direction from which the water sounds came.
“Oh, come on, that was at least a little funny!”
When they reached the side of the creek, Caroline and Jason finally saw animals in this big “farm” - there were a lot of fishes in the water, big and small, simple and colorful, innocent looking and ugly and dangerous.
“Now, here is the one of two only sources of danger in this farm.” Jianmen said: “Don’t worry, neither of them is lethal, but if you’re not careful, they will give you a lot of pain.”
“Okay, which one?” Caroline knelt down by the coast of the creek, staring at a fish with camouflage, rocky and rough scales and spiky fin.
“That one’s poisonous to normal civilians but harmless to you, and really tasty.” Jianmen waved his hand, and a small white fish was trapped inside a bubble of water and picked up while still in the water bubble by an invisible force out of the water and into the sky: “I was referring to this one - cover your faces, well, infact, cover your entire body.”
Caroline and Jason were confused, but they did what they were told just the same.
Jianmen twisted his hand, the water bubble broke, the small fish dropped on the ground and thus exposed to air. It immediately ballooned up to the size of a large dog with the five fins on the lower part of its body turning into short legs with claws. Just within a few seconds, the cute looking little white fish turned into a pale ugly hybrid monster between catfish and lizard. The monster flopped and hopped on the ground and squealed at three of them. Then, seemingly out of fear or preference for water, the monster turned around and jumped into the creek and turned into its previous form the moment it entered the water.
Caroline tilted her head and asked: “That’s it? Doesn’t seem too dangerous...”
Jason was about to say something, but then he saw that Caroline started diffusing her Xuanli protective shield around her: “Nonono, don’t ...”
The moment Caroline lifted part of her whole body Xuanli shield, a pungent and noxious smell hit her eyes and nose at the same time, which made her backoff by several steps and had to reconstruct her energy shield in embarrassment.
“Yeah well, it farted. Normally it pees and it’s much, much worse.” Jianmen was once again laughing loudly on the side.