Back at the inn, Chen Ping offered his parents a concise explanation. Scarred Bear would be joining them, handling menial tasks and ensuring their safety within the Sect.

His parents eyed the scarred man’s ferocious visage with evident trepidation. However, seeing the calm, unshakeable certainty in their son's expression, they swallowed their fears and nodded.

Chen Ping didn't depart immediately. He instructed his parents and Yuan Jingtian—Scarred Bear had insisted on reclaiming his birth name, terrified of using a bandit moniker in the presence of a Master—to rest at the inn.

Using the pretext of handling lingering administrative matters at the mine, he slipped away alone.

He navigated the tunnels until he found a deep, abandoned shaft. After sweeping the area with his Divine Sense to ensure absolute solitude, he vanished into the jade pendant.

A flash of warm white light enveloped him, depositing him once more within the mysterious dimension.

He retrieved the jade box and carefully extracted the withered Five Elements Yin Spirit Vine. The vine’s dark purple hue had darkened to a sickly black-violet, and the luminescence of its five-colored root system was fading fast.

Spirit plants of this caliber possessed a unique biological imperative. Upon reaching a decade of maturity, the root system would naturally differentiate into distinct branching nodes. In theory, these nodes contained the complete genetic blueprint of the plant and could be excised to cultivate independent clones.

In practice, however, the difficulty was astronomical.

For a spirit herb of this rarity, successful division propagation was virtually unheard of. One slip of the knife usually meant the death of both the cutting and the parent plant.

But Chen Ping had no alternatives. He had to gamble on the Black Earth’s heaven-defying fertility to sustain the severed roots.

He focused his mind, treating this not as gardening, but as surgery.

He summoned his Dharma Artifact jade knife. His goal: dissect the tangled cluster of five-colored roots into five distinct sections, following the faint, erratic pulse of their energy veins.

Each section needed to contain a primary attribute root and the critical meridian nodes connecting it to the others. He had to sever the physical connection while maintaining the metaphysical resonance of the Five Elements cycle.

If the cycle broke, the roots would wither into useless organic matter. If he maintained the resonance, the Black Earth could theoretically regenerate the missing elements, regrowing a complete Yin Spirit Vine from a single attribute.

It was a task requiring microscopic precision. A mortal surgeon would have found it impossible.

Fortunately, Chen Ping had Divine Sense.

Under his mental gaze, the microscopic energy channels expanded into visible highways. The jade knife moved with fluid, liquid grace, dancing between the tangled roots.

An incense stick’s worth of time burned away.

Chen Ping exhaled a breath he seemed to have been holding for an hour.

Resting on the jade plate before him were five severed root sections. Each was barely the length of a pinky finger, slender, emaciated, and dull.

Yet, the elemental signatures remained distinct.

One shimmered with a pale, metallic gold. Another held the verdant potential of wood. The others pulsed with watery blue, ember red, and heavy, earthy yellow.

The physical links were severed. The profound circulation of the Five Elements had plummeted to a critical low, the energy field flickering like a candle in a gale.

It was now or never.

Chen Ping carried the jade plate to the edge of the Black Earth. He selected five equidistant points in the soil. With a flick of his finger, he manipulated his Qi to bore five shallow, precise planting holes.

Holding his breath, he wrapped the first root segment in a gentle cocoon of Qi and lowered it into the earth. He repeated the process four times.

He covered them with fine, loose soil, leaving only the faintest tip of the spiritual light exposed to the air.

Task complete. He stepped back, his gaze locked on the soil.

There were no earth-shattering phenomena. No golden lotuses blooming from the ground. There was only the silent, terrifyingly potent vitality of the Black Earth seeping downward, wrapping the fragile roots in a nurturing embrace.

Time trickled by.

Chen Ping’s heart remained suspended in his throat.

One incense stick... half an hour...

Suddenly, the soil above the five planting sites darkened, appearing slightly moist. The faint, dying spiritual light on the exposed tips stabilized. The flickering, chaotic pulse of the roots smoothed out into a rhythmic, steady hum.

They had stabilized.

They were alive!

A rare look of unbridled joy broke across Chen Ping’s face.

The mysterious Black Earth had not failed him. The vitality of the Five Elements Yin Spirit Vine had been locked in. Now, it was simply a game of patience—waiting for the roots to regenerate and develop their medicinal potency.

Chen Ping nodded, satisfaction radiating from him. He exited the space, his stride energized.

With this resource secured, his parents truly had a shot at the Immortal Path.

He returned to the inn, gathered his entourage, and began the journey back to the Qingyun Sect.

During the return trip, Chen Ping found an opportunity to verify his theory.

Under the guise of a routine physical checkup, he pressed two fingers against Yuan Jingtian’s wrist, sending a thread of Qi into the man's meridians.

Yuan Jingtian didn't understand the purpose, but he didn't dare resist. He stood rigid, sweating slightly, allowing the Master to probe his internal state.

The investigation settled the last of Chen Ping’s doubts.

It was real. A structure resembling a Spirit Root had manifested within Yuan Jingtian’s dantian. It was a complete set: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth.

Although the aptitude was mediocre and the roots varied in thickness—hardly a genius configuration—it was undeniably a genuine Five Elements Spirit Root.

There was one interesting anomaly: the Wood attribute root was slightly thicker and more active than the other four.

Chen Ping hypothesized this correlated with the specific root segment Yuan Jingtian had devoured. The main root of the Yin Spirit Vine he ate likely leaned towards the Wood spectrum. Or perhaps Yuan’s own physiology had a natural affinity for Wood.

Regardless, the discrepancy was negligible. It didn't disrupt the overall balance. For all intents and purposes, Yuan Jingtian was now indistinguishable from a naturally born cultivator with a Mixed Spirit Root.

Crucially, the "Life Force Burning" side effect was absent.

The standard Yin Spirit Vine granted power at the cost of longevity. But these regenerated roots provided a stable, safe foundation.

The implication was staggering. The Black Earth didn't just clone the plant; it purified it.

Once the five segments in his spatial garden matured, his parents could consume them. They would gain stable Spirit Roots without sacrificing a single day of their lifespan.

True, they were elderly. Their bones were set, their meridians stiff. A Mixed Spirit Root was hardly ideal for rapid advancement.

But it was a start. It was a genuine ticket to the Immortal Path.

It was hope for longevity.

With the Black Earth providing an infinite supply of resources, Chen Ping could brute-force their cultivation. Foundation Establishment? With enough pills, it wasn't impossible.

As for the wider implications—mass-producing cultivators using this method—Chen Ping shelved the thought. That was a danger for another day.

His priority was his family.

If their Spirit Roots also lean toward Wood like Yuan’s, Chen Ping mused, I’ll simply procure Wood-attribute cultivation manuals for them. Adapt and overcome.

Several days later, the group arrived at the Qingyun Sect’s Hundred Herb Garden.

The garden was tranquil, the air thick with the scent of medicinal foliage.

Chen Ping introduced his party to the regular sect servants. The cover story was simple: his parents were here to retire in his care, and Yuan Jingtian was a new personal attendant hired for heavy lifting and elder care.

The servants didn't ask questions. In the sect, Managers often brought family in to enjoy the spirit-rich environment. It was a common perk of the rank. They bowed and accepted the orders.

Yuan Jingtian, however, stood freezing, staring at the small cluster of simple huts.

Disappointment washed over him like cold water.

This is it?

This was where Registered Disciples lived. It wasn't even as grand as the courtyards assigned to the Outer Disciples he used to envy from afar. And his job? Serving two mortals?

It sounded like a dead end.

He kept a stiff smile plastered on his face, but deep in his eyes, a flicker of regret and confusion swirled. Had he bet on the wrong horse? Was this "Master" just a low-level manager with delusions of grandeur?

Chen Ping caught the micro-expression instantly. He said nothing. Let the man doubt. Loyalty forged in doubt was stronger than blind faith, provided the eventual payoff was sufficient.

He settled his parents into the most comfortable quarters, then turned and walked straight into his private Pill Hall.

For the next month, Chen Ping vanished from the world.

Inside the Black Earth space, a new harvest of Qi Gathering Pill ingredients had matured. It was time to convert raw resources into hard capital.

He entered a flow state.

Ignite furnace. Control heat. Inject herbs. Condense fluid. Extract pills.

His movements were economical, stripped of all flair. It was the efficiency of a machine.

The scent of medicinal herbs in the Pill Hall thickened until the air itself tasted sweet. His speed was frightening, his failure rate negligible.

In thirty days, he fired the furnace thirty times.

A typical apprentice might succeed once in five tries. A master might hit fifty percent.

Chen Ping successfully refined fifteen batches.

Eighty Qi Gathering Pills.

The yield per batch was consistently high—five, sometimes seven pills. For a Foundation Establishment level alchemist, this would be standard. For a Qi Condensation cultivator, it was monstrous.

Chen Ping stared at the jade bottles lined up on his workbench, his expression flat. To him, this wasn't a miracle; it was simply mathematics.

He decanted thirty pills into three larger bottles.

He stepped out of the smoky Pill Hall, squinting against the sunlight. He found Yuan Jingtian by the herb beds, clumsily hacking at weeds, his mind clearly wandering a thousand miles away.