Starting as a spiritual plant master, may I eventually become the master of all lands.

Two months later, Song Chuan took the Spirit-Boosting Pill given to him by his great-aunt, and after a day and night of arduous cultivation, he finally succeeded in entering the fourth level of Qi Refining.

The breakthrough from the third to the fourth level of Qi Refining is a major breakthrough and the first bottleneck for cultivators.

It would normally take Song Chuan at least six months to reach the peak of the third level of Qi Refining, but with the help of the bead, he achieved it four months earlier.

However, the beads are of no use in breaking through bottlenecks, so he has to take the Chongling Pill.

Each pill costs ten spirit stones, which is quite expensive for a cultivator in the early stages of Qi Refining.

Over the years, he has only managed to accumulate twenty spirit stones.

At this moment, his face was full of joy.

After the breakthrough, a faint divine consciousness also emerged in his mind. This is a technique that cultivators only acquire after reaching the mid-stage of Qi Refining.

Divine consciousness is actually the unification of the five senses, which greatly enhances them.

He couldn't wait to open his divine sense, which spread from the thatched hut to the herb garden.

He could vaguely sense the movement of grass and wind in the herb garden, and even the condition of the nearby spiritual plants.

This feeling is very similar to how he observes the soil through the beads.

However, that's all the spiritual sense a Qi Refining cultivator can possess.

Moreover, cultivators cannot keep their divine sense open for long periods of time; once their divine sense is exhausted, they may become mentally impaired.

Just as he withdrew his divine sense, a thought struck him, and he got up and went outside.

He walked up to a sacred plant and gazed at it intently.

This is an "Oenothera japonica", one of the few first-tier spiritual plants in the herb garden.

The spiritual plant was growing well, but Song Chuan kept staring at its flowers.

Because Song Chuan knew that there was a "little thing" on this flower.

Song Chuan stretched out a hand and gently flicked the flower.

The flower trembled, and a white insect flew out from it.

This insect is the size of a fist and has a peculiar shape.

It has a pair of compound eyes on its head, a long and slender neck, six limbs and two wings, one of which is a pair of forelimbs that resembles a sickle.

But all of these parts look exactly like flower petals.

With a white hue tinged with pink, and a delicate texture, it is in no way inferior to a real flower.

Most importantly, it was imbued with a faint demonic aura.

However, it is still far from being a true demonic insect; it has only just begun to develop sentience.

Strangely, Song Chuan not only did not drive it away, but instead took out a pill from his pocket, scraped off some powder, and put it in his hand.

The insect suddenly spread its petal-shaped wings, landed in Song Chuan's palm, licked up all the powder, and returned to the flower, where it lay motionless.

In fact, Song Chuan discovered this insect in the medicinal herb garden just a few days after the Awakening of Insects.

However, this insect does not feed on spiritual plants; instead, it preys on the other insects in the herb garden.

Because this insect originally resembled a spirit flower, and was adept at hibernation and concealment, and had developed a trace of demonic aura and a bit of spirituality, it was practically the nemesis of many insects.

This gave Song Chuan a valuable helper, saving him from having to constantly divert his energy to get rid of the insects.

He would occasionally feed it.

However, the family's records of insects only mentioned ordinary insects that gnawed on spiritual plants, and he did not know the name of this strange insect.

Song Chuan thought the insect had already left, but he didn't expect it to still be hunting in the medicinal garden.

He clapped his hands, ignored it, looked around the herb garden again, and went back to his thatched hut.

He has now reached the fourth level of Qi Refining, which is somewhat unbelievable considering the normal cultivation progress of the four spiritual roots.

Generally speaking, the first three levels of Qi Refining are the easiest to cultivate.

If a person's spiritual root is detected before the age of ten, it is not difficult for them to cultivate to the third level of Qi Refining within ten years.

However, it can take a cultivator with four spiritual roots several years to go from the third to the fourth level of Qi Refining.

As you progress further, the cultivation process will become increasingly difficult.

This is why people with poor aptitude can waste their entire lives and never reach the late stage of Qi Refining, let alone Foundation Establishment.

With the help of his parents, Song Chuan cultivated to the third level of Qi Refining at the age of seventeen.

Having broken through to the fourth level of Qi Refining in just three years is quite fast for someone with four spiritual roots. If he had obtained the bead earlier, he could have done even faster.

Although breaking through his cultivation level was a joyous occasion, Song Chuan remained calm.

In the past two months, he would occasionally leave the herb garden and wander around the family compound, hoping to find out who was watching him.

Sure enough, the person he encountered most often was his fourth uncle!

This fourth uncle even asked Song Chuan with "considerable concern" when he would leave the family.

Song Chuan simply told him the truth at the time, and six months later...

Because Song Chuan knew that the beads could accelerate his cultivation, he would definitely break through his cultivation level ahead of schedule.

Moreover, Song Chuan told him that he would travel by land, passing through Yanshi Ridge, resting in Wucheng, and then continuing south.

The fourth uncle said, "Tell me when you leave, and your third uncle and aunt will see you off. Even though your second brother and sister-in-law are gone, you still have us, your relatives."

Song Chuan thanked his fourth uncle on the surface, but in his heart he cursed them all.

It seems that the parents' deaths are all related to these three people. I just don't know if there are any others involved.

But it's no use knowing now. My third uncle is at the seventh level of Qi Refining, while my fourth uncle and aunt are at the sixth level.

None of these three are people I can handle, let alone the others.

We can only go to Vine Flower Valley first, and then talk about it later when our cultivation level has improved.

It's ironic, no matter what the purpose of Teng Hua Valley's recruitment this time is, I'm now increasingly wanting to go there.

Now that my cultivation has reached the fourth level of Qi Refining, it's time to plan my departure.

The first thing to do is to acquire talismans and elixirs; if you can get magical artifacts, that would be even better.

Song Chuan currently possesses three talismans, all of which are low-grade, first-tier talismans used in the early stages of Qi Refining, and they are not particularly powerful.

One of these talismans costs about one or two spirit stones.

A mid-grade first-tier talisman is much more powerful, and even the most common one costs five or six spirit stones.

Even a mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator would need to save up spirit stones for a while to afford one.

Before becoming a spirit plant master, Song Chuan worked as a spirit farmer in his family for seven or eight years, earning only three spirit stones a month and barely accumulating any at the end of the year.

Last year, he became a spirit plant master, and his salary became six spirit stones, which made things much better.

He now has twenty spirit stones, enough to buy two mid-grade first-tier talismans for self-defense. He'll use the rest to buy some pills.

You don't know how poor you are until you go out.

These items can be purchased at the family's Spirit Item Pavilion, and the prices are lower than in the outside markets.

However, since the person in charge of the Spirit Pavilion is Third Uncle, Song Chuan didn't want to go there at this time and expose himself.

You should never go to the market unless absolutely necessary.

Because the market town is located at the junction of Guyang Town and the surrounding Donghe Town and Chensha Town, it is a gathering place for cultivators from the three towns. There are many people and a lot of people there, and it is also quite far away.

Song Chuan frowned, thinking to himself that he might be able to ask his aunt for help. After all, he was the one the family had sent out to handle things, so he should at least be given some reward.

So Song Chuan left the herb garden that night and quietly went to a courtyard in the back mountain.

This is the residence of the aunt who manages the Song family's medicinal garden.

The courtyard gate was ajar, and Song Chuan pushed it open and entered.