Lin Xiu hurried out of the house, rag still in hand.
She immediately spotted her husband squatting by the vegetable patch, his shoulders twitching slightly.
“Dear?” Her voice was laced with panic.
Lu Qinghe didn’t raise his head, merely shaking it.
He shook it violently.
Lu Yuan stood up.
“Mom, Dad is fine.” Lin Xiu didn’t buy it.
She saw the wet patch on the back of her husband’s hand where he had wiped his face.
Her heart sank.
“Is he really fine?” Her voice dropped low.
“Yeah,” Lu Qinghe finally spoke, his voice raspy.
He lowered his hand, his eyes bloodshot, but a grin was stretched across his face.
“Xiu’er…
my soul power moved earlier.” Lin Xiu froze.
She didn’t understand bottleneck nodes or cultivation mechanics.
But she understood her husband.
For fifteen years, she had watched him sit in silence for half an hour every night, only to wake up the next morning looking even more exhausted.
She had seen every bit of his suffering.
It moved?
Those two words spun in her head.
“Is it…
is it really true?” Lu Qinghe nodded heavily, taking his wife’s hand and pressing it against his chest.
His heart was thumping hard and fast.
Lin Xiu’s hand began to tremble as well.
Lu Yuan watched silently.
The dusk deepened around them.
He turned around, scooped up half a ladle of cool water, walked back, and handed it to his father.
“Drink some water to calm down,” he said.
“This is only the beginning.” Lu Qinghe took the ladle and gulped down several mouthfuls.
The icy water quelled some of his agitation.
He let out a long, heavy breath.
“Xiao Yuan, that method…
it really worked?” “Preliminary verification confirms it’s effective,” Lu Yuan corrected mildly.
“The loosening sensation means the Basic Activation Method succeeded in stimulating the node.
However, there’s still a long way to go before a true breakthrough.” He spoke with calm composure.
Listening to him, Lin Xiu felt the heat in her chest cool down slightly.
“So…
he still has to keep training?” “He has to keep training,” Lu Yuan nodded.
“And without stopping.
He must memorize the sensation he felt today until it becomes second nature.” Lu Qinghe clenched his fist.
“I’ll remember.” Dinner was a quiet affair, but the atmosphere had fundamentally changed.
Lu Qinghe shoveled rice into his mouth much faster than usual.
Lin Xiu’s hand was much steadier when she served the dishes.
Lu Yuan ate slowly, deep in thought.
His father’s loosening bottleneck was a good sign, but it was also the start of trouble.
Maple Leaf Town was too small; even the tiniest incident would spread like wildfire.
A civilian Spirit Master stuck at a bottleneck for fifteen years suddenly showing signs of a breakthrough was more than enough to attract unwanted attention from others trapped at the bottom.
He needed to plan ahead.
That night, Lu Qinghe practiced behind the house for half an hour as usual.
Less than fifteen minutes after closing his eyes, he caught that faint pulling sensation again.
It felt like a tiny vortex gently tugging whenever soul power flowed past the bottleneck node.
It was faint, but undeniably real.
When he finished training and returned to the room, his footsteps were noticeably lighter.
Lin Xiu had already made the bed and was sitting by the edge of the brick bed, mending clothes under a dimmed oil lamp.
“How was it?” she asked in a low whisper.
“It moved.” In the dark, Lu Qinghe kept his voice very low, as if afraid he might scare it away.
He turned over to face the wall.
“The strength of that ‘vortex’ felt just a tiny bit stronger.” Lin Xiu hummed soft agreement in the dark, her needlework pausing.
After a long moment, she whispered, “As long as it moves, that’s what matters.” In the adjoining small room, Lu Yuan lay with his eyes open.
The slight joy brought by his father’s loosening bottleneck vanished quickly.
Reality was like a cold stone pressing against his chest.
Soul power cultivation, at its core, was a matter of energy.
His father’s body had been depleted of soul power for fifteen years; his meridians were like cracked, sunbaked fields.
The Basic Activation Method was merely a ditch dug to divert water—but if there was no water in the ditch, what was there to divert?
There had to be water, a continuous supply of it, to flush through that obstacle.
Where would that water come from?
Beast meat, medicinal herbs, or even higher-quality grains—any of them would work.
But all of them cost money.
Lu Yuan was all too aware of his family’s income.
His father sold manual labor, his mother took odd jobs, and they had a tiny vegetable patch behind the house.
They had to pinch every Copper Soul Coin they earned; how many could possibly be left at the end of the month?
On top of that, his own body was severely malnourished, thin as a hemp stalk with weak meridians.
Without a solid foundation, forcibly accelerating his soul power absorption would be like pouring water into a cracked bamboo tube—it would inevitably split open.
Money.
This shackle was far more real and far heavier than having a Waste Martial Soul.
Lu Yuan closed his eyes.
Complaining was useless.
Knowledge was his key, so he would use that key to find a path.
If he couldn’t afford ready-made resources, he would find cheap or free ones.
Soul power on Douluo Continent permeated all things; there were bound to be things that people overlooked.
He needed information.
Every plant and tree around Maple Leaf Town had to be cross-referenced in his mind.
At breakfast the next morning, the porridge was thin enough to reflect their faces.
Lu Qinghe took an extra coarse flour cake and chewed on it vigorously.
“There’s a lot of work today.
They’re building a barn on West Street, and meals are included.” He paused.
“I’ll work harder and save up.” He didn’t say what he was saving up for.
Lin Xiu lowered her head and poked at the pickled vegetables, picking up only the smallest piece.
Lu Yuan finished the last gulp of his porridge and looked up.
“Dad, do you feel exceptionally hungry after training?” Lu Qinghe was startled.
“A bit…
my stomach feels empty.” “When soul power becomes active, it burns energy faster.
Eating just this won’t be enough to replenish it,” Lu Yuan said evenly.
“It would be best to get some meat or eggs.” The room fell silent for a few seconds.
Lu Qinghe’s Adam’s apple bobbed, but he didn’t reply.
Lin Xiu’s chopsticks froze at the edge of the dish.
“Let’s just keep training first,” Lu Qinghe finally said, his voice dry.
“As long as the method works.
As for the rest…
we’ll figure something out.” After breakfast, the house emptied out.
Lu Yuan was in no hurry to cultivate.
He dragged a stool over to sit by the doorway, his gaze sweeping over the low dirt wall toward the undulating mountain ridge outside town.
To the west lay low mountains harboring low-level soul beasts and herbs.
To the east were farmland, and further out, a river.
The information was too fragmented.
He had to see things for himself.
Over the next few days, aside from his non-negotiable cultivation and guiding his father, he spent his time wandering the town and its outskirts.
He walked slowly, observing carefully.
Wild grass by the field dikes, moss along the riverbank, and the things farm chickens and ducks pecked at.
He squatted near the grocery store, listening to the casual chatter inside while catching glimpses of cheap, dust-covered herbs on the counter.
His memory database operated silently, cross-referencing and filtering.
Most were mundane items.
The few that showed a hint of soul power reaction were either available in microscopic quantities or simply not worth the effort to process.
He wasn’t in a rush.
On the afternoon of the fifth day, he wandered to the southern side of town.
This area was close to an abandoned post road and had few passersby.
A half-collapsed dirt wall enclosed a patch of wasteland, with several rotting wooden posts sticking out from the weeds.
He had heard elders mention that someone had tried to cultivate a medicinal garden here years ago before abandoning it.
Lu Yuan climbed over the low wall.
Nettles, foxtail grass…
In the shaded corner of the wall, several clumps of dark purple vines crept along the soil.
Their leaves were tiny, three-lobed stars, covered in an almost imperceptible layer of greyish-white fuzz.
He squatted down without touching them.
Examining the leaf shape and venation, he leaned in and sniffed—a faint earthy scent mixed with a slightly astringent aroma after the rain.
In a remote corner of his memory database, a entry lit up.
*…Star-shaped three-lobed leaves, purple stems, covered in extremely fine greyish-white soft fuzz, prefers shade and moisture…
Name: Starlight Vine.
Often misidentified as a non-soul weed.
Squeezing and settling the stem juice using specific techniques yields a minuscule amount of clear liquid.
Extremely mild in nature, contains weak vitality energy capable of nourishing meridians and relieving soul power fatigue.
Unrecorded by mainstream sources due to low yield, weak potency, and tendency to cause diarrhea if improperly processed…* Lu Yuan opened his eyes.
This was it.
It had a weak effect, was troublesome to process, and had side effects if done wrong.
That was precisely why nobody wanted it.
However, his database contained the “specific techniques.” Peel off the outer layer, compress the stems longitudinally using wooden tools to extract the juice, let it settle in a ceramic vessel overnight, and collect the top layer of clear fluid…
No soul power was required, nor complex equipment—just patience.
Most importantly, it was right here, free for the taking, and growing in abundance.