Huh? Isn't this an adventure kingdom building game?!

Chapter 83: Chapter 83: The Other Side of the Mountain

"Master, what is this?" Wan Mingchuan had never seen such a beautiful stone before.

It was walnut-sized, round and flat, slightly cool to the touch, and emitted a soft blue glow that was quite gorgeous.

Jiang Yuan, bound to the system, was completely out of sync with regular cultivators and couldn’t feel the so-called spiritual energy within it. He could only reply according to the system’s analysis: "This is a Spirit Stone, an essential item for cultivators. It can be used to buy things or absorb the spiritual energy within it to enhance your cultivation. In the human world, where spiritual energy is scarce, your cultivation speed will slow down during the day. Using Spirit Stones to directly absorb a large amount of spiritual energy can greatly improve your cultivation efficiency."

A Spirit Stone? And it can be used to buy things? Isn’t that just money for cultivators?!

"Oh! The rat spirit made us mine, and the ores we extract are refined into Spirit Stones?" No wonder it seemed so familiar. Wan Mingchuan immediately understood that this small stone, which even the rat spirit was obsessed with, was very precious. His heart overflowed with gratitude for his master once again.

Jiang Yuan watched as the favorability increased steadily, bursting directly into two diamonds.

It would be so great if the favorability of the Ice-winged Eagle Yun Mo could be raised this easily. How could a paper peacock compare to the grandeur of a true demon cultivator serving as a mount?

"Master, I should help you with some work before cultivating." Wan Mingchuan carefully tucked the Spirit Stone into his pocket, explaining, "I need to exhaust my physical strength first. When there’s no work to do, I can only run around in the courtyard. But we’ve now reclaimed some farmland and built a mill, there’s not much space to mess around, so it’s better to do some work. It can help you share the burden and is also beneficial for cultivation."

Exhausting physical strength, huh...

Jiang Yuan still wanted to upgrade his farming skills but couldn’t find the right work to assign to him for the time being.

Today, he wanted to forge enough iron ingots in one go and build a Bait Workshop and stove. After all, one can make bait to increase the probability of catching better quality fish, and the other can cook meals, which is part of the basic setup and the sooner it’s built, the more convenient it will be.

But he wasn’t comfortable letting his apprentice go out and chop trees alone.

Although there were no demon beasts or monsters in the wilderness during the day, the surroundings were still deep mountains and forests. What if there’s a predator? He wasn’t sure to what extent his apprentice’s cultivation had progressed, nor if he had self-protection abilities. It’s safer to stay at home.

"How about this, I’ll teach you a set of..." He pondered and suddenly had a flash of inspiration. Although he didn’t know Taiji, Wing Chun, or military boxing, he did know calisthenics!

The third set of national calisthenics for primary and middle school students, "Dancing Youth", was imprinted in his mind from leading it during school. After all, it’s just about doing something to exhaust physical strength. Running only exercises leg muscles and wears out the knees easily, while calisthenics moves the entire body and avoids injuries.

"Ahem, I’ll teach you a way to exercise and exhaust physical strength." Jiang Yuan felt a bit embarrassed to say, "I’ll teach you a set of calisthenics," and directly started demonstrating.

Wan Mingchuan finally got to learn a skill from his master and watched every detail of the movements with excitement and enthusiasm, wanting to engrave them in his mind.

Fully focused, he quickly learned the entire set of exercises.

Then Jiang Yuan harvested rice, planted more, and watered. After that, he put the rice in the mill to de-husk, and then sat at a makeshift table made from a tree stump in the courtyard to practice incense making and level up skills.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!"

Meanwhile, Wan Mingchuan, having learned a new skill, energetically shouted slogans while doing the exercises. As his master had instructed, he stretched out each movement using full strength to get it right, and soon he was panting heavily.

He gritted his teeth and persisted until he was sweating profusely all over his body, feeling the energy flowing out of him, and then sat cross-legged to breathe in the abundant spiritual energy contained within the Spirit Stone.

The master and the apprentice each had their own tasks. In the courtyard, the Melting Workshop spewed out white mist, continuously forging iron ingots; the waterwheel turned, slowly driving the millstone; the crops in the farmland grew at their own pace. The small courtyard was vibrant with life, flourishing in the warm spring breeze.

In stark contrast to the tranquility at Shuiyun Lake was Riverfront Village on the other side of Cattery Ridge.

It wasn’t even noon yet, and everyone’s stomachs were growling with hunger.

No matter the age or gender, they all looked listless, with pale faces, dragging their lethargic bodies to work in the fields.

"When will these days ever end?" Finally, a young man couldn’t help but complain, "They say nice words about just working and having meals ready at mealtime, but all we get every day is boiled wild vegetables!"

He angrily threw the hoe in his hand to the ground, "I can’t stand the hunger anymore. Whoever wants to work can do it themselves!"

Ever since the village chief took all the provisions, and eating and working were unified under command, they hadn’t had real food for a long time. At least before, with home-cooked meals, even if it was a mix of grains and wild vegetables with few grains, it was enough to fill the belly and stave off hunger; even a broth with scattered grains at least had a hint of the taste of grain.

But now? Freshly dug wild vegetables with roots boiled in water, served in a bowl, mostly black water with a small amount of mushy wild vegetables. Even after two bowls, it didn’t stave off hunger, and even their urine smelled of earthy wild vegetables, sticking to their ribs from hunger, making it hard to sleep at night.

"If you don’t work, you want to become a vagabond?" The young man’s father kicked him, but since he was equally malnourished, he was light enough on his feet that even the kick lacked force, "Get up and work, we will gather enough offerings soon to perform the rites, and once Lady Nuwa blesses us with divine protection, we won’t have to worry anymore."

The young man didn’t move, weakly saying, "Even if I were a vagabond, at least I could eat wild vegetables until full. We work every day and still can’t get even a few wild vegetables, while the Big Three families just sit at home feasting!?"

"Pah! Blame it on your bad birth, if you were born in a family of the Big Three, you’d feast too. If luck were on your side, born to a wealthy family in town, you’d have white bread every day! If you couldn’t choose to reincarnate, why end up in a poor family?"

Looking up at the village not far away, the sons of the He Family were carefree and joyous, playing games on a full stomach, while he was dizzy from hunger, exhausted and broken.

The huge disparity was evident; the young man’s despair deepened, and he collapsed to the ground, murmuring bitterly, "In such poverty, you all struggle, so why marry and have children? Why make me live such a harsh life too!"

Without lifting his head, his father continued working, muttering, "If I don’t marry and have children, who will carry on the family line? Without descendants, I’d be the end of the line! Your mother gave birth to twelve of you, and only three survived; you’re lucky enough. Living in Riverfront Village at least earns us Lady Nuwa’s protection. If you were born into vagabond families, you’d have been eaten by demons and turned to dung by now!"

"You willingly being slaves for the Big Three isn’t enough, but you want your descendants to be slaves too and feel grateful for it?" The young man was numb, "In my opinion, Wan Mingchuan is right! We should stand up and fight against the Big Three, and see whether our numbers can overpower their reliance on Lady Nuwa’s power!"

Upon these words, the villagers who had been working with their heads down all looked up at him with numb, indifferent expressions.

"Gousheng, aren’t you going to discipline your son for saying such things? If you get us exiled from the village to become vagabonds, I’ll be the first not to forgive you!"

"The village chief already said, everyone in the group eats, lives, and works together. If not enough work is done, we all starve together; if there’s any complaint, we all get punished together. If you don’t want to live, don’t drag us down with you!"