Chapter 3
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Chapter 3: Something Big Has Happened!
In the deep of night,
Wang Chen lay in bed, tossing and turning.
He found it hard to sleep.
The reason he couldn’t sleep wasn’t that the bed board was too hard, but that his heart was very restless.
Although he had accepted the fact that he had crossed over and was determined to live well in this new place,
Wang Chen’s nerves were not tough enough to be free of worries.
Through the memories of the original owner, he discovered that this world was far from peaceful and was full of dangers.
The Yunyang Sect had one hundred thousand Outer Sect Disciples and eight thousand inner sect disciples.
There were two hundred Purple Palace masters and three Golden Core true masters!
Their power was truly formidable.
Logically, such a sect would be a great place for refuge.
However, most of the sect’s cultivation resources were concentrated in the hands of true masters, high-ranking officials, and their favored disciples.
Outer Sect Disciples struggled to squeeze into the inner sect, while those within the inner sect engaged in open and secret struggles.
Wang Chen, as a low-level Outer Sect Disciple, had no control over his own destiny.
Let alone the unattainable Golden Core true masters; even a speck of dust flicked by a Purple Palace master landing on him would be like heavy mountains.
It could easily crush him to dust!
And if he left the mountain gate, the outer realms were plagued by monsters and demons, with Bandits and Rogues running rampant.
The life of a loose cultivator was even more dangerous and difficult.
As for the mortal world, without spiritual energy to nourish them, without spiritual grains and elixirs to consume,
those cultivators who remained in the mundane world would quickly fall in cultivation level.
In the end, they would become ordinary mortals,
and live an even worse life!
Wang Chen thought long and hard.
He decided to…
Survive.
He would work hard farming to make a living, slowly uncovering the secrets of the Cultivation Panel, accumulating strength bit by bit.
He didn’t seek to become an immortal or a saint; he just wanted to stay alive.
As he thought this, Wang Chen’s heart gradually calmed, and he unknowingly drifted off to sleep.
…
"Doggie!"
"Doggie, are you at home?"
The shouting outside woke Wang Chen from his dreams.
He rubbed his eyes and realized that it was already daylight.
“Doggie! Doggie!”
The urgent calls forced Wang Chen to quickly throw on his outer garment, get out of bed, and rush to open the door.
Outside the gate of the small courtyard, enclosed by a fence, stood an elderly man dressed in an ancient robe, his face deeply lined with wrinkles.
“Old Sun?”
Wang Chen asked groggily, “What’s wrong?”
The old man, visibly anxious, was his neighbor and also a spiritual plant farmer from the outer sect of the Yunyang Sect.
His surname was Sun, and everyone referred to him as Old Sun.
He had reached the fourth realm of Qi Training in cultivation.
Though Old Sun’s cultivation level was nothing remarkable, he had spent his entire life tending to spirit fields and had amassed a wealth of experience.
Currently, he managed thirty acres of land.
“Something terrible has happened!”
Old Sun exclaimed frantically, “I just discovered a land rhinoceros in the spirit fields!”
Land rhinoceros?
Wang Chen shuddered, his nerves instantly on edge.
The land rhinoceros wasn’t actually a rhinoceros; it was a beetle that voraciously devoured the leaves and ears of spirit rice.
The spirit fields were plagued by many pests, such as gray-eyed moths, green rice insects, leaf-eating ants, long-horned snails, and so on.
Each of these pests had specific methods for prevention and eradication.
But the land rhinoceros was the most troublesome to deal with!
“Doggie, you need to check your fields right away.”
After shouting, Old Sun turned and hurried off, saying, “I must go to Old Zhang’s house to seek help!”
Land rhinoceroses rarely appeared.
However, if one was spotted in the spirit fields, it was certain that there would be a nest—or even multiple nests—
or perhaps an entire swarm!
This pest wouldn’t just harm Old Sun’s crops alone.
The thought of the land rhinoceros’s destructive power sent a chill down Wang Chen’s spine.
The spirit rice he had planted in spring was just a month away from harvest.
Now, with this pest infestation, the summer harvest would undoubtedly be severely diminished.
If he couldn’t pay the full rent for the fields, he would undoubtedly be expelled from the outer sect.
The steward of the spirit fields wouldn’t care about excuses; failure to meet the quota meant expulsion, with no room for leniency.
Wang Chen immediately hurried to his own spirit fields.
Yesterday evening, he performed Cloud Walking and Rain Dispersion, nurturing the spirit fields, which became vibrant and sprouted numerous weeds.
These weeds possessed an incredibly tenacious life force, their roots delving deep underground, making them difficult to eradicate completely. Even after removing the main root, they could still sprout again, necessitating diligent digging and shoveling.
At the moment, Wang Chen had no time to concern himself with the weeds.
He walked step by step along the ridge, fully focused on searching for pests hidden among the rice leaves.
This was no simple task.
Ten acres of spirit fields were neither too large nor too small.
Finding a land rhinoceros the size of a baby’s fist among thousands of spirit rice plants taller than a person required not only experience but also a stroke of luck!
Wang Chen searched back and forth through two acres of the spirit fields, beads of sweat forming on his forehead.
His physical strength was holding up, but his mind was on high alert.
Not finding a land rhinoceros was a relief, but his greatest fear was missing one that was there!
He kept his eyes wide open, scanning each spirit rice plant, continuously activating his spiritual awareness to enhance his senses.
The spiritual awareness cultivated through Qi Training significantly improved a cultivator’s perception.
Unfortunately, spiritual awareness was not the same as divine sense; it could only passively receive information and couldn’t actively scan.
If he possessed divine sense, it could sweep across dozens or even hundreds of acres of spirit fields in an instant, leaving no pest hidden.
But that required reaching the Purple Palace Level.
Wang Chen had nearly exhausted half of the spirit fields in his search and still found nothing.
Instead of relaxing, he grew even more tense.
Suddenly, Wang Chen’s vision blurred, and the spirit fields before him turned into a sea of deep green.
He seemed to hear the surrounding spirit rice whispering softly to him, conveying some kind of message.
One voice stood out clearly.
Wang Chen’s attention naturally shifted toward it.
He narrowed his gaze.
Amidst the lush green, he spotted a glaring hint of black.
Wang Chen instinctively blinked.
His vision sharpened instantly, and he locked onto a black bug perched on the stalk of the spirit rice.
It was the land rhinoceros!
The land rhinoceros resembled a stag beetle, its entire body glossy black, with curved, sharp horns atop its head.
Its claws clung tightly to the rice stalk as it greedily devoured the unripe spirit rice.
Upon spotting the target, Wang Chen held his breath and slowly approached the spirit rice where the land rhinoceros was located.
The shell of the land rhinoceros was extremely hard; even a knife couldn’t penetrate it.
Moreover, it was highly alert; if it sensed danger, it would immediately burrow into the ground.
No amount of digging would bring it out.
Thus, to eliminate the land rhinoceros, he needed to strike with a fatal blow while it was unprepared!
Wang Chen fixed his gaze on the target and silently raised his right arm.
He tucked his thumb, ring finger, and little finger away, while his index and middle fingers formed a sword finger.
He pointed at the land rhinoceros three feet away.
The energy from his dantian flowed along the meridians of his arm directly to his fingers, causing a dazzling golden light to shimmer at the tips.
“Swift!”
Wang Chen suddenly whispered, thrusting his finger forward like lightning.
A sharp ray of energy shot forth instantly.
Metal Finger Technique!
The land rhinoceros, sensing danger, released its grip and fell to the ground.
However, the golden ray passed by, and the fist-sized bug was sliced into two halves!
“Ha!”
Wang Chen laughed out loud upon landing the hit.
It felt utterly exhilarating!
