Cough. Cough. Cough.
The sounds of muffled coughing emanated from the corner of Aksai’s farmhouse.
Aksai was pulled away from the crowd by Aunt Reta, who delivered a shocking development while the rest of the guests conversed among themselves while enjoying the food Aksai had prepared well in advance.
The host of the feast almost choked on his food when he heard Aunt Reta bring up the subject of his marriage.
“My marriage?” he asked incredulously, looking at Aunt Reta. “where did this come from?”
The mother-like figure met Aksai’s gaze fearlessly before continuing.
“It’s about time you got married, Aksai. Although your cultivation speed is better than average, I can already tell that you are not particularly interested in building your foundation. Don’t worry. I am not criticizing you because I understand the reason behind it.
After all, these are troubled times, and finding opportunities to break through into the 2nd realm of Spirit cultivation has never been easy. Even if you cultivate diligently and take risks, there’s no guarantee of success in establishing your foundation.
Thus, I have no problem with you being an ordinary Spirit farmer like the rest of us. However, you have to accept a bride into your life so that you can pass on your legacy.
Your late parents would have wanted that from you. Since you have nobody, I’ll have to take their place and act as the elder of your house,” Aunt Reta explained in a hushed yet unhurried tone, challenging Aksai to question her authority with her gaze.
Aksai opened his mouth to speak but was unable to voice his opinions for some reason. Aunt Reta smiled when she observed Aksai’s silence, almost considering it to be his tacit understanding. She looked at him playfully before speaking in a low yet excited tone.
“I have already selected a girl for you. Look over there – what do you think of that girl?”
Aunt Reta gestured discreetly, pointing to a particular young maiden who had been invited to Aksai’s 18th birthday feast by Aunt Reta’s own initiative.
“Her name is Jasmine Linoyi. She is also 18 years old, and her parents are looking to marry her off soon,” Aunt Reta provided additional information about Jasmine to Aksai.
Aksai still couldn’t bring himself to speak and could only smile ruefully.
After all, part of the reason Aunt Reta had brought up the subject of his marriage was also because of his secret way of continuing his Spirit cultivation.
Aunt Reta would have never brought up the subject of Aksai’s marriage if she knew that he was already a 7th-stage Spirit Refiner.
With his current state, Aksai had about a 25 to 30 percent chance of establishing the foundation. If he could get his hands on some cultivation resources, that chance percentage could reach up to 50 percent.
A whopping 50 percent chance of establishing the foundation! This was already a base-case scenario for any Spirit cultivator who wanted to establish his foundation and enter the 2nd realm, becoming a legitimate Foundation Building Expert.
Normally, all the Spirit cultivators dedicated to the Path waited for the heyday of their lives to pass before they thought about settling down and having a family of their own. It was very common for such Spirit cultivators to marry after the age of 50 when their chances of building a successful foundation hit rock bottom.
After all, even if these Spirit farmers failed to build their foundation, they were not like regular mortals. They could have regular families even after the age of 50 with no problems in conceiving children.
However, were these standards applicable to Spirit cultivators dedicated to their cultivation journeys? Aksai had given the impression that he was not someone who pursued Immortality. One could say that his own act of hiding in deep waters had come back to bite him in the rear.
‘I guess I can play along for a while before saying no,’ Aksai thought to himself.
‘After all, if I say no directly, Aunt Reta will feel bad. I can always find some superficial reason to convey that the girl and I aren’t compatible.
I’m sure Aunt Reta wouldn’t force me to marry the first girl she has on her list,’ Aksai decided to himself and nodded internally.
Aksai had no plans to reveal anything about his cultivation to make the elderly woman drop the matter about his marriage. He trusted Aunt Reta and her son, but he didn’t trust the others. A secret was only safe if it was known to only one person. A secret that was known to two or more people was no longer a secret.
Reluctantly, Aksai followed Aunt Reta’s gaze and saw a simple yet beautiful girl who was busy talking to others by the feast table.
She had black hair, a bit of tanned skin due to working on the Spirit farm, and pretty features. She wore a simple long blue dress for the occasion and talked with the neighboring Spirit farmers with a light smile on her face. Occasionally, she would burst into a peal of laughter, highlighting her liveliness.
She had a cultivation base of the mid-stage Spirit Refining realm, which was pretty decent. Overall, she was a beautiful young girl who was full of life.
Jasmine had already congratulated Aksai on his birthday. The two exchanged pleasantries before Aksai left her alone so that she could talk to the rest of the guests.
Jasmine also belonged to a Spirit farming family employed by the Lakir Clan. Although Aksai did not know the girl or her family personally, he had heard about them due to being part of the same neighborhood.
Jasmine’s parents had a close relationship with Aunt Reta, so the latter took the initiative to invite her as well as her father.
Aunt Reta was a well-known talisman maker among the Spirit farming families. As such, Jasmine and her family had to show some respect for her invitation.
Aksai could find no fault within the girl at first glance. As such, he could only bite the bullet and respond to Aunt Reta’s query. “Jasmine… She… she is not bad,” Aksai smiled as he looked at Jasmine and then at Aunt Reta as he spoke.
“Right?” Aunt Reta’s elderly face lit up. She looked at Jasmine’s father, who was standing behind the girl, and gave him an approving nod. It seemed that some kind of deal had already been struck by Aunt Reta and Jasmine’s father. It was only the potential bride and groom who had been kept in the dark until now.
Aksai watched in silence as Jasmine’s father pulled her away from the crowd and asked something in private. Then, suddenly, the girl looked at him with complex expressions on her face. It seemed that she wanted to say something to her father. However, she controlled herself, said a few perfunctory words, and went to talk with the rest of the guests.
Aksai didn’t mind that Jasmine seemed to not have given her consent to marriage immediately. He just decided to adopt a wait-and-watch approach and got busy mingling with the rest, acting as a perfect host of the feast.
The rest of the feast went smoothly. Aunt Reta also secretly gifted Aksai with the early-stage 2nd order Talisman inheritance she had received from her late husband. This inheritance was recorded on a jade slip that Aksai could study on his own in his free time.
Aksai accepted the 2nd order inheritance with a smile on his face. Of course, this gift was not opened by him directly in front of the others. It was something he could only cherish in private.
The 2nd order talisman inheritance was the biggest gift Aksai had received on his birthday. It could allow him to make almost any 1st order talismans using the pointers mentioned in the inheritance as reference points.
Usually, cultivation families keep such inheritances a secret, not sharing them with outsiders even if they were not able to make use of them. They would only pass these inheritances to their direct descendants. The fact that Aunt Reta passed this inheritance to Aksai showed that she treated him as one of her own.
Apart from this precious 2nd order inheritance, Aksai also received some Spirit seeds and other compost and soil-type Spirit farming resources as gifts.
There were a lot of stalls in the Lakit City that had started selling unknown Spirit Seeds that the explorers dug out from the inheritance ground that had been in the buzz for more than two years.
Some of the Spirit Seeds obtained in the inheritance grounds were better variants of the well-established crops, which could yield maximum produce with minimal effort. As such, they were sought after by many Spirit farmers.
There were also some mysterious Spirit Seeds that were either too difficult to sprout because of their unknown origins and seemingly complicated sprouting conditions.
These mysterious Spirit Seeds were sold in the stalls like lotteries to the regular cultivators.
Of course, it was not just the Spirit seeds. Many items found in the inheritance ground were up for sale. One could say that they were driving the local economy within Wuyum County. The Spirit Seeds obtained in the inheritance ground were placed at the lowest strata of importance among these sellable items.
At this point, it was well-known in the neighborhood that Aksai liked collecting unknown Spirit Seeds. A medium-sized lot of Spirit Seed mixture was relatively cheap to buy and yet served as a novel gift idea for all the Spirit farming families.
After all, the gift held the once-in-a-million chance of becoming a rare and precious cultivation resource.
As such, most guests chose these bingo lottery-like Spirit Seeds as their gift for Aksai.
If he didn’t get anything from these Spirit Seeds, it could only be regarded as his bad luck. And if he managed to sprout some precious cultivation resources from the seeds, these guests could act as if it was they who had generously gifted the boy.
Of course, nobody expected anything like that would ever happen. If it was so easy to cultivate precious cultivation resources from the mysterious Spirit Seeds, many would have stopped what they were doing and concentrated on doing just that.
***
Hour of Snake (11:00 AM – 12:00 PM)
Aksai and Jasmine didn’t get to talk with each other in private for some reason or another during the feast. In the end, the feast came to an end and the guests started leaving.
The Spirit farming families were extremely busy every day, especially during the peak hours. As such, celebrations among Spirit farmers often took place at the start of the morning or late into the night.
Since Aksai had many things to do at night, he had decided to organize the feast during the daytime.
After completing his daily tasks, Aksai eagerly awaited the onset of nightfall, signaling the perfect time to embark on his ritual.
Retrieving several Spirit Seeds from his storage ring, each no larger than a quail’s egg, he muttered to himself, “it’s time to scratch these lotteries and see what I get this time.”
Assured that there were no problems in the surroundings, Aksai swiftly vanished into the darkness.
Aksai possessed a distinct advantage in his dealings with these lottery-esque Spirit Seeds, significantly increasing his odds of metaphorically striking gold.