Chapter 840: Cultivation Vs True Cultivation (Patreon)

A/N

I was only able to write 1 chap today, enjoy!

Chapter 840: Cultivation Vs True Cultivation

It took five days on foot to arrive at my destination, the reason for that was simple, I had decided to carry out the entire journey on foot, even though I could have cheated. But where was the fun in that?

There was something about putting one sandal in front of the other on a dirt road while feeling the sun beating down on my neck that I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. Maybe it was because there was always a lot going on in whichever world that I was in that I couldn’t do naturally as enjoying the experience.

Also, it gave me an opportunity to observe a world that still hadn’t adjusted to the new state of things. Farmers would stop working to bow at the blue banners that still hung over village gates, then pause mid-bow, and look around awkwardly to see if anyone noticed the little hiccup.

On the other hand, there were those who were taking advantage of the changes. Like there was this one boy in a hamlet who had painted a golden circle on a barn door with mud and was charging the city children a copper each to sit under it. Apparently, it would make them stronger. Despite the claim being questionable, the children of nobility wouldn’t give up a chance to improve their power, and for them the price was nothing.

As for me, I had decided to humour the kid and give him a copper because why not? He deserved it for the business sense alone. And someone like that would go far, especially in a world that was recovering.

Shaking my head, I looked at the long, narrow, green valley before me. There was a baby blue stream cutting the length of it, and a hillside cut into six wide terraces that came down toward the water. It was pretty clear that a lot of serious work had been put into building those terraces. The walls were each shoulder-high and dead level, there was no mortar, and the stone retaining it were laid dry.

On the top three terraces there were rows of something leafy I couldn’t identify. On the fourth, there were beans climbing frames made up of split poles. The bottom two were flooded and shining, with green shoots pushing up through the water in neat lines. And in the middle of the fourth terrace, there was a young man ankle deep in mud, he wore a straw hat and a sleeveless brown shirt, this was someone that had been one of the strongest people in the world around two weeks ago.

“You’re late,” Kal said, not looking up as he tied a bean vine to its pole.

“Late?” my right eyebrow arched up. “I didn’t know we had a meeting planned.”

“I told the monk to tell you a date,” he replied, wiping his forehead with his wrist, which left a streak of dirt across it. “But I’m guessing from your expression that he didn’t?”

I shook my head.

“I’m sure the monk has his reasons,” Kal sighed, straightening up with a grunt and placing a hand on his lower back as he did it.

Cairan had given me a wide berth after everything was said and done. I could tell that he didn’t want to bother me. Instead, he wanted me to meet the people in my own time when I was ready, and it took me longer than anyone expected to be ready.

“Come,” Kal gestured with his calloused hand, “the stone at the end of the third wall is loose and I haven’t fixed it.”

While we worked on mending the wall, I looked at the man beside me, and he looked completely different to the last time that I had seen him, which was now almost two weeks ago.

Obviously, the blood from his mouth had been washed clean, and the burst vessels in his eyes had been healed during the battle, but I was referring to something deeper than any of that. Throughout the time loop, there had always been a tightness around his eyes and a stiffness in his posture, but now they were gone, which made him look even younger.

“What I need is some help,” he said, not turning his attention away from the wall. “I didn’t call you over here to stare at me.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” I admitted. “You…you’re farming.”

“And?”

“But you’re a Rank 8.”

“I was a Rank 8,” he corrected, wiping the mud off his palms onto his trousers. “Now I’m just a man with six terraces and a drainage problem.”

Since I had been in the monastery, I had been thinking about what to say to everyone. One of the things that I had wanted to tell Kal was that without me being here to look over the world, it would need him, especially since there was a power vacuum and I wanted someone I trusted to fill it.

Yet seeing the life he was building for himself, I couldn’t say any of it. I couldn’t do this to him. The man had sacrificed more than anyone should, so how can I ask him to sacrifice more? However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t ask some questions to see where his mind is at.

“You know, you could get it all back,” I said. “With the level of comprehension you have, you could probably become a Rank 8 Golden Sun cultivator within a few years. Probably faster than anyone else, even the headmaster.”

“I know,” he murmured as he washed his hands in the irrigation channel.

“But you’re not going to…”

“For a length of time that even I wasn’t able to keep track of, cultivation was the only thing that I ever did in hopes that it would be enough to save everyone,” he sighed, sitting down with his back against the wall. “I’m done with it all. I have no interest in ranks. And I have no interest in being the strongest person in the world.”

“That’s fair,” I said, sitting down beside him. “So, you’re more interested in ‘actual’ cultivation now?”

“Yes,” a slight smile on his face, “I’d rather figure out why the fifteen purple-stem stuff that I planted ten days ago are all dead now.”

“All fifteen died?”

“Yes,” the smile turned to a smile of frustration. “I have no idea what I’m doing wrong.”

I couldn’t help it, that made me laugh. Here was a man who had faced a transcendental threat, and now he was annoyed at some vegetables.

“You laugh,” he shook his head, “but the vegetables are winning.”

***

Eventually, it was time to meet the rest of the household, who were at the back of the house.

On the left side, there was a fenced pen, holding back seven goats. The second they saw us, they shoved their heads through the gaps and began bleating with their tongues out. On the right side, there was a low shed that had chickens going in and out with that same stiff-legged importance that all chickens in every world have. And past the shed, tied on a long rope in the grass, a shaggy grey donkey roamed, not giving us the slightest bit of attention.

“You have goats,” I said, walking over to the fence.

Immediately, a small brown one that had a white face bit my sleeve.

“Hey,” I pulled my sleeve back. “That’s not food.”

It didn’t care, and it definitely didn’t have any intention of letting go, instead it chewed louder. With a sigh, I gave up resisting, I put my other hand on its head and scratched behind the horn buds. Its eyes rolled in pleasure as it leaned into my palm and pushed against it with enough force that I had to dig my heels into the dirt. And when I stopped scratching it a few minutes later, it headbutted my leg.

“Ow.”

“That is Turnip,” Kal said, walking over to scratch her side. “She is what her previous owner called a ‘menace’."

“Out of all the names you could have chosen for a goat,” I turned to look at him. “You named it Turnip?”

“I named all of them after things they’ve destroyed.”

That made me laugh because I saw the logic behind it.

When I climbed over the fence, the other goats jumped on me at the same time.

A second later, I was sitting in the mud with one standing on my thigh, a black one chewing my collar, a third one trying to get its head into my sleeve to check whether I'd hidden food up there, and the other three trying to climb my back. Before me, Turnip was tapping the ground with her hoof, ready to charge at me like a bull.

Inside my inner world, Yggy, who had now recovered from the explosion that created a Golden Sun, was going absolutely wild, wanting to come out and join in on the fun.

“Okay, buddy,” I whispered. “You deserve it.”

With that, Yggy manifested as a vine of respectable length for a farm, and we spent the next hour simply playing around, but we weren’t alone.

The chickens had seen the movement, and they had all marched over like a small battalion, demanding to know what was going on. One of them stood on my foot. The leader put its head sideways and looked at me with one eye for a very long time and then screamed. I have no idea why, but I didn’t try to figure it out because chickens didn’t need reasons to do whatever they did.

I probably would have stayed on the ground longer, but I noticed a man walking over from the other side of the barn. He was a wiry man with tanned skin and carrying water buckets on a shoulder pole. He set them down, then crouched to check on the front leg of one of the adult goats.

“The swelling has gone down,” he murmured, running his thumb down the joint. “She’ll be fine.”

“Told you,” Kal said.

“Elder, you…you told me to sell her…”

“But then you looked at me with that pitiful face, so I couldn’t bring myself to.”

I stood up slowly, careful not to disturb the animals. I recognised this man. The first time I had met him, he had taken the appearance of a sickly old villager, only to later reveal the true form that was now standing before me.

I knew better than to be deceived by the wiry frame, the memory of him ripping off his top to reveal a shredded physique was still fresh on my mind. Even though he was no longer the Rank 5 Skybound that he had once been in the past, he was still impressive as a mortal. Honestly, I never thought I was going to see him again.

“Li Bin,” I smiled. “It’s good to see you.”

At the mention of his name, his head snapped towards me. A look of recognition flashed across his face even though he had never met me in this loop, but the saviour of the world’s face was well known thanks to the elders’ collective decision to make the events that had transpired public, much to my frustration.

“S-Saint,” he whispered, head almost touching the ground before me. “H-how do you know this lowly servant’s name?”

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