Chapter 40: Xuechi Luo Has Been Discovered

Why did Su Jin spend so long squatting at home pondering?

That’s because Su Jin couldn’t figure out what that tiny thing was, or how it got into the courtyard.

The courtyard where Su Jin and the others now live was built during the original construction of Xiancheng, as part of the same batch of residential cave dwellings.

Listen—it’s a cave dwelling, not an ordinary residential courtyard.

Nor is it one of the simple temporary dwellings built later during the expansion of the outer city.

And certainly not those shabby wooden huts illegally constructed outside the city walls.

So what exactly is the difference between these residential cave dwellings, the array-equipped homes, and the shabby wooden huts?

Simply put:

Residential cave dwellings were designed like this: during the construction of Xiancheng, to help everyone efficiently utilize the spiritual veins and ensure every household could access spiritual energy without causing its gradual depletion through large-scale exploitation.

Cough cough, the main goal was to prevent unspeakable conflicts arising from disputes over who had access to spiritual energy and who, despite using spirit-gathering arrays, still received none.

The array masters who forged Xiancheng devised a solution.

They transformed every dwelling built atop the inner city’s spiritual vein into tiny spiritual nodes.

Several nearby tiny nodes, combined with a multifunctional composite array, could form a small cave-dwelling structure.

Within your own cave dwelling, you can only absorb the spiritual energy assigned to your node—even if you load a spirit-gathering array, you’re still limited to just your own patch.

Once you’ve absorbed too much, the flow cuts off and must wait a while before recovering.

If you overdraw too much, the main array on the spiritual vein might trigger an alarm—then the patrol squad will come knock on your door and invite you for tea.

These individual small cave dwellings are ultimately linked by a massive array capable of covering the entire inner and outer city, regulating the spiritual energy flow to every node. This balances distribution so every cave dwelling gets its share, while blocking malicious exploitation and preventing destructive mining of the spiritual vein.

Then what about the array-equipped homes built in the outer city?

In short, they involve driving array stakes into the ground.

These are residences that sustain their own arrays by drawing in the spiritual energy constantly leaking from the main spiritual vein.

Generally, outer-city array-equipped homes are provided by elder cultivators in a family for their own descendants who lack spiritual roots.

Though it borders on freeloading off Xiancheng’s spiritual vein, it’s permitted by the city—it’s called rational use of spiritual energy.

As for those shabby wooden huts outside the city, people simply buy array discs and install them inside or in the courtyards of ordinary wooden structures. But to activate these discs, they must supply their own spirit stones.

Neither residential cave dwellings nor array-equipped homes require you to supply spirit stones.

The Su family’s residential cave dwelling is over a hundred years old.

The Su family inspects and maintains it nearly every year; as soon as any damage appears, they repair it as quickly as possible.

The outer protective barrier of the cave dwelling has never malfunctioned.

The standard cave dwelling barrier doesn’t block wind, rain, or even insect eggs and tiny bugs blown in by the breeze.

But anything larger than a pigeon egg usually can’t get through.

So where on earth did this tiny thing come from?

“Huh? What?” Su Jin blinked, then said: “Oh! I remember—it’s my Xuechi Luo.”

“Xue… what?” Su Jin froze.

“Xuechi Luo,” Su Jin repeated.

“What the hell is Xuechi Luo?” Su Jin stared. “Is it a pet beast?”

“Not a pet, not a beast! Big brother, have you ever heard of a birth-bound witch spirit?” Su Jin said vaguely.

“Birth-bound witch spirit? You mean… that little thing is your birth-bound witch spirit?” Su Jin gasped.

“The birth-bound witch spirits that ancient shamans kept? I thought those things went extinct ages ago. Are those things recorded on stone tablets actually real?” Su Hua’s mouth dropped open wide enough to hold a duck egg.

“They might still exist—probably just rare. Anyway, I’ve got one.” Su Jin blinked.

“Call it over so I can see it,” Su Jin said after a moment’s thought.

He simply couldn’t resist his curiosity.

An ancient witch spirit.

Su Jin nodded and began using her soul force to search and summon Xuechi Luo.

Soon, a tiny white stalk with two emerald-green leaflets sprouted directly from the ground in front of her shoes.

“Xuechi Luo, say hello to your big brother and your niece,” Su Jin said.

The little sapling swayed its leaves toward Su Jin and Su Hua.

Su Jin and Su Hua both drew a sharp breath.

It’s real—and it’s a wood-affinity birth-bound witch spirit!

“This little sprout looks barely an inch tall,” Su Jin crouched down, staring in amazement.

“Xuechi Luo hasn’t grown yet—it’ll get bigger later,” Su Jin said.

“How did you get it? Did you pick it up somewhere?” Su Jin asked.

“No, it hatched from a seed,” Su Jin replied.

“What kind of seed hatches a birth-bound witch spirit?” Su Jin’s first thought was that it was impossible.

If any seed could produce an ancient witch spirit, he’d go get one himself.

“It hatched from the seed issued for the academy task. That batch had two hundred seeds; one was much smaller than the others, a red ginseng seed. I worried it wouldn’t sprout, so I put it in Xiao Wu Tian to nurture—once it sprouted, it became Xuechi Luo.”

Su Jin pointed at Xuechi Luo as she explained; the little plant seemed to understand her words and nodded its leaves in agreement.

“So what’s it good for?” Su Jin asked.

“It loosens soil, eats bugs, and helps red ginseng seedlings grow faster,” Su Jin said.

“Wait—if other seedlings just sit there getting eaten by bugs, why can this one eat them?” Su Jin asked, puzzled.

“Because it’s Xuechi Luo,” Su Jin said, as if it were obvious.

Xuechi Luo just eats bugs. Why? She didn’t know.

It must’ve mutated.

Mama always said: if you can’t understand something, it’s a mutation.

Su Jin: “...”

“Can it water other spiritual plants?” Su Hua asked curiously.

“No, it can’t water,” Su Jin said. “But I can.”

“Still, loosening soil and eating bugs is already useful,” Su Hua said. “Little aunt, now that you’ve got Xuechi Luo, your academy tasks will be much easier every year.”