The Martial Saint Started from Scavenging

He first went to the medicinal herb garden in the yard, grabbed a handful of soil, and smelled it.

[Skill Panel Feedback: Spirit Soil (Inferior Grade), contains trace amounts of spiritual energy, suitable for cultivating low-level spiritual plants.]

Although it was only a substandard product, it was enough for Ye Sheng.

He carefully planted the spirit plant seeds that he had scavenged from the abandoned alchemy room, which were not yet completely dead. Then, he transplanted the main root of the "Hundred-Year-Old Green Vine" that he had revived with the power of Ye Kai's creation to the very center of the herb garden.

After doing all this, he returned to Ye Kai's room and placed the potted green vine that had already sprouted several tender leaves on the windowsill.

"Brother, from now on, you can sit here every day and look at these flowers and plants," Ye Sheng said to Ye Kai, pointing to the herb garden outside the window.

Ye Kai nodded, seemingly understanding but not quite. Little did he know that from this moment on, his Dao Calamity Body, described in the "Chronicle of Customs" as capable of "devouring everything," would unleash an astonishing power of "creation" within this small Willow Garden.

Ye Sheng will begin his rise in the Qingyun Sword Sect from this small herb garden. Of course, he also needs to do his job as Liu Qing's "exclusive spiritual plant grower" well.

Every morning, he would go to the "Hundred Herbs Garden" located halfway up Yaowang Peak to do his work.

The Hundred Herbs Garden is extremely large, resembling a giant garden suspended in the air. It is divided into hundreds of areas, each managed by a different Spirit Plant Master.

As one of the sect leader's personal disciples, Liu Qing naturally received her master's blessings and was allocated a sizable private medicinal herb field. Ye Sheng's job was to tend to the dozens of spiritual plants in this field.

This might be a tedious and arduous job for others. But for Ye Sheng, who possesses the skills of herbal identification and scavenging, it's like a fish in water.

With these two skills, he can easily distinguish the habits of each spiritual plant and know how much water, light and spiritual energy they need at each stage.

He can even use his scavenging talent to sense and discover some hidden, hard-to-detect diseases and pests deep in the soil, and deal with them in advance.

In just half a month, Liu Qing's previously neglected medicinal herb field was transformed into a vibrant and thriving place under his care.

Even Zhu Zhang, the steward in charge of inspecting the Hundred Herbs Garden, praised him highly and even reported to his superiors that the spirit plant master newly recruited by Senior Sister Liu Qing was a rare spirit plant technician.

Ye Sheng simply smiled indifferently at this, and continued to keep a low profile every day, focusing most of his energy on his own small medicinal herb garden in Liuyuan.

Under the catalysis of Ye Kai's heaven-defying "power of creation", the many spiritual plants in the herb garden are growing at an almost insane speed.

What were originally just seeds sprouted in a few days; what were originally just seedlings blossomed in half a month. And that century-old green vine was growing even more amazingly, with dozens of emerald green vines sprouting from its originally withered roots and covering half a wall.

Every day, Ye Sheng would pick some mature spiritual plants and secretly refine them into pills in the dead of night.

His alchemy skills are also improving rapidly. The skill progress bar shows: [Alchemy: Beginner 57/100]

A month passed quickly, and the quality of the Qi Condensation Pills that Ye Sheng refined became higher and higher, and he was even able to refine medium-quality ones occasionally.

He didn't take these pills to the black market; instead, he kept them all. He used some for himself and Ye Kai to cultivate and regulate their bodies. He carefully stored the rest away.

He planned to use these pills to secure his place in the sect and exchange them for more useful resources. After all, the black market was just a place for menial laborers to trade privately, and they couldn't get anything good there.

Everything seemed to be moving in a positive direction, and the two brothers lived a stable and peaceful life.

March passes in the blink of an eye. Within the Willow Garden, the grass and trees are lush and vibrant with life.

The small herb garden in the courtyard was no longer the desolate place it once was. All sorts of dying spiritual plants that Ye Sheng had "scavenged" from the abandoned alchemy room or "accidentally" discovered while working in the herb garden were now radiating amazing vitality.

A vast expanse of lush green calming grass swayed in the wind, releasing a soothing fragrance. Clusters of fiery red flame flowers bloomed like burning flames, their scorching aura causing the surrounding air to distort slightly. The century-old green vine had grown wildly to over three zhang tall, its thick tendrils coiling like dragons around the walls of the small building. The rich wood-attribute spiritual energy made the entire Willow Garden seem like a natural spirit-gathering array.

Ye Kai, the "greatest contributor" to all of this, has also fully recovered. Not only has his body healed, but his once frail physique has also become much stronger thanks to the nourishment of various spiritual plants and pills. Now, he has a rosy complexion and bright eyes, and is no longer the sickly, medicine-fed man he once was.

What surprised Ye Sheng even more was that Ye Kai's "Dao Calamity Body" seemed to have undergone a slight change as it continuously nurtured the spiritual plants.

Ye Kai was no longer easily devoured by the Yin Sha Qi as before; instead, he was able to control that strange power of devouring and creating more freely.

Now, he can even actively "accelerate" the growth of a specific spiritual plant, allowing it to complete a growth process that would normally take years or even decades in a short period of time. Of course, the price he pays is that he will be weak for several days as a result.

As for Ye Sheng himself, his gains over the past three months have been even greater. Nourished by the rich spiritual energy of Willow Garden, coupled with a continuous supply of pills, his strength has also been greatly enhanced.

Name: Ye Sheng

[Skill: Activated to level 8]

Standing meditation: Beginner level 215/500

[Basic Knife Techniques: Beginner 308/500]

[Internal Breathing Method: Beginner Level 489/500]

[Burning Blood Blade Technique: Beginner 352/1000]

Herbal Identification: Beginner 77/500

[Alchemy: Beginner 102/1000]

[Trap Creation: Beginner 45/500]

[Thousand Faces Illusion: Beginner 21/500]

Among them, the [Internal Breathing Technique] is about to break through the bottleneck of the entry level. The internal energy in his dantian has grown to the size of a rushing stream, powerful and pure. He is only one step away from the Bone Forging Realm.

His skills in [Herbal Identification] and [Alchemy] have also broken through to the beginner level. With the help of the skill panel, he can now refine several kinds of low-level pills, and the quality is stable at the mid-grade level.

Even the skills of [Trap Creation] and [Thousand Faces Illusion] have been unknowingly broken through to the beginner level.

It can be said that if Ye Sheng were to face that silver-masked assassin again, he would be confident that he would not be at a disadvantage in a head-on confrontation, even without resorting to a sneak attack.

What intrigued Ye Sheng was that during these three months, neither Liu Qing nor Liu Chui, nor even their servants, had visited Liu Garden.

One day while working, Ye Sheng learned some news about Liu Qing from other plant growers.

It turned out that from the day Ye Sheng moved in, the Liu family had to urgently summon Liu Qing and Liu Chui back due to an urgent matter.

However, this also saved Ye Sheng the trouble of explaining to Liu Qing why there were so many spiritual plants in the herb garden.

He planned to refine the spiritual herbs in the herb garden into pills as soon as possible before Liu Qing returned to the sect, so as not to arouse her suspicion.

That afternoon, Ye Sheng had just returned from working at the Hundred Herbs Garden when he saw Ye Kai enthusiastically watering a newly planted "Ice Heart Grass" in the herb garden.

"Brother, you're back!"

Upon seeing his elder brother, Ye Kai immediately put down the water ladle and ran over with a smile.

"Hey, slow down."

Ye Sheng smiled and ruffled his younger brother's hair. Looking at Ye Kai's healthy and lively appearance, Ye Sheng felt very satisfied.

"Brother, look, this Ice Heart Grass has grown another inch taller today!" Ye Kai said, pointing to a spiritual plant radiating cold energy at his feet, as if showing off a treasure.

"Hmm, she's good-looking."

Ye Sheng nodded, but in his heart he was thinking about whether he should ask Liu Qing for help after she returned to the sect, to see if she could get a high-level internal energy cultivation method suitable for martial artists from the sect's "Wanfa Peak".

The internal energy cultivation method he is currently practicing is ultimately just an incomplete version, and of low quality, which is gradually failing to keep up with the speed of his strength growth.

In fact, aside from dealing with herbs, Ye Sheng had been diligently cultivating and improving his cultivation level for the past few months. Sometimes he thought that perhaps he could really live a peaceful life with his younger brother in the Qingyun Sword Sect.

But the tranquility he longed for was completely shattered by the arrival of two uninvited guests.