Chapter 117: Neighbourhood
The process of changing cultivation arts was incredibly difficult and cost Fengyu a lot of time.
His income should’ve become a lot less in that time, but a surprise happened in the first month after he started... Mother Duck got pregnant with a new spiritual egg!
She told Fengyu about it and instantly entered mother mode, eating a lot, asking for spiritual power assistance and even asked Fengyu to go out with her. She bought a few spiritual grasses and other items to supplement her own pregnancy.
Fengyu was extremely surprised but he followed her and completed all her requests. He even stopped the process of re-cultivating for her sake!
Why did he change his cultivation art? Wasn’t it to make his ducks even more powerful?
Now that he had this happening, he naturally focused on this and didn’t force himself to split his attention between these two.
Because of that, he didn’t lose any profit.
Days passed and he got two letters over a month.
First was the letter informing him they had found a mission for him, and that he had a year to accept it. After a lot of consideration, he didn’t take it right away and instead decided to wait until at least Mother Duck completed her pregnancy.
The second letter came a bit later, containing different information...
Fengyu invited Ming and Ling today to discuss it with them.
He prepared his own home - a simple hut at the edge of the duck village. Used to living simply, he didn’t suddenly change and build his own villa, instead simply living closer to his ducks.
Ming and Ling entered his field rather casually, their eyes emitting radiant light without them knowing.
"It seems your own cultivation is progressing well!" Fengyu commented as he invited them into his hut.
"Haha, senior brother, after you told us last time that focusing on finding our own path is the best, we did indeed focus on our path. Although the so-called Spiritual Inspiration didn’t manifest, both Ming and I have gained a new idea on how to approach it."
Fengyu looked at them in surprise, one of his plans seemingly going well.
He didn’t ask more, fearing his own personality of giving advice might influence them, resulting in an Impure Inspiration.
Telling them to sit down, he opened the letter and presented it to them.
< The Neighbourhood Community of the fields SE 1-500 hereby invites the new residents of the field SE-84 to the Neighbourhood Gathering. >
This was the first sentence. Following were date, time and everything else about this gathering.
Fengyu looked in surprise at this even though he had seen it a day ago. This letter... was too confusing!
"Senior brother, this... what does this mean?" Ling asked when she saw Ming looking at her confused.
"Neighbourhoods, aren’t they easy to understand? It just means we’re living close to each other. As for community, well, to be honest, I don’t really know what they mean by it. But from the gist of this letter, it seems to be a mutual aid alliance of the whole neighbourhood!"
"Then, should we go?" Ming asked hesitantly, his introverted personality making him unwilling to get too close to many strangers, especially so many at once. 500 fields, the number of people already caused him a headache!
Fengyu looked at him then at Ling, seeing her eyes wavering. Although she seemed brave, in fact, she was also introverted. She was just a different kind of introverted - not scared of talking, discussing and negotiating with strangers, but scared of familiarising with them too much. A neighbourhood obviously would mean familiarising a lot.
"Junior brother and sister, you’re worrying too much. Although this neighbourhood seems a bit difficult, this is an opportunity!
Don’t forget, in our current situation, it’s best if we integrate and get help.
According to the receptionist in the outer city hall, it is these neighbourhoods that attract the attention of second-stage beasts and ensure we only fight enemies of our own rank.
If we’re together in this community, exchanging ideas and trusting each other, then naturally those seniors will be more willing to help us.
There might be rules forcing them to help us, but who says they have to do their best? If they’re a bit late, or if they only take the beast away for a short time before letting it return... won’t we suffer in the end?
This gathering is an opportunity." Fengyu looked deeply at them, making a decision.
In fact, there was another reason he didn’t say.
These 500 fields in this corner of the eastern gate, they seemed like a lot, but Fengyu knew from Shanqing that Inner Citizen also had the right to rent these fields.
After all, the special letter of recommendation’s privilege was entering the peaks, while renting a field was a secondary privilege. So it was natural that Inner Citizen also gained such a privilege.
Based on this, the number of people renting these fields was a lot. Every cultivator who rented this would have many years to live, and just because Fengyu always had 60 years as deadline didn’t mean that 60 years was his lifespan - the lifespan of a Qi Refining cultivator was 120 years.
This meant that under normal circumstances, once you either get a letter of recommendation, become an Inner Citizen, or maybe even though other means, you will be able to rent these higher end fields.
Spiritual Planters and Herders swarm to these fields, and even crafting masters will try to rent them if possible, hoping to use them to create a special terrain more suitable for their own craft, using a large space instead of being cramped in a small courtyard.
Many reasons lead to the fact that the number of renters should be high, yet Fengyu was able to rent right away.
What did this mean?
It meant that the beast tide every year clearly resulted in an extremely high number of casualties even in their eastern fields!