Chapter 55 | The Divine Ability Practitioner

“Life's Flame?”

As the vibrant green flame radiating intense vitality rose from Lu Ming's palm, Lu Qingyan and Lu Jinglei's eyes suddenly lit up. Only now did they remember that this spiritual fire Lu Ming had obtained from his fortunate encounter seemed to possess an extremely unique ability.

Nurturing all kinds of herbs?

There were many strange and bizarre spiritual fires in the world, but such a rare ability was still completely unheard of.

Could this flame really make unripe Moon Spirit Grass mature?

“Ming'er, I found the Moon Spirit Grass that is closest to maturity from the medicinal garden. Give it a try,” Lu Jin said. To avoid putting too much pressure on Lu Ming, he kept his tone as light as possible. “If it doesn't work, don't force it. If we lose this year's revenue from the Moon Spirit Grass, so be it. The Thunderfire Hall is in a much better position than before, so we won't be driven to a dead end.”

Lu Ming did not say much. He simply selected a stalk from the unripe Moon Spirit Grass on the table and examined it. The Moon Spirit Grass was like white jade all over, with a faint moonlight flowing through it, and it had three jade-like leaves.

Generally, Moon Spirit Grass was only considered mature when it grew four leaves, whereas these three-leaf stalks were just a bit short of their maturation time.

Lu Ming turned his gaze to Life's Flame rising from his right hand, a trace of nervousness and anticipation surfacing in his eyes. Burning a spiritual herb with fire to increase its age? It sounded like a fairy tale. If he hadn't obtained this fortuitous encounter himself, he wouldn't have believed it either.

In the next moment, Lu Ming hesitated no longer and tossed the three-leaf Moon Spirit Grass directly into Life's Flame.

Lu Jin, Lu Qingyan, and Lu Jinglei all held their breath, their eyes fixed intently on the rising green flame.

The Moon Spirit Grass fell into the flame and was instantly swallowed. However, in the next instant, deep astonishment surged in the eyes of all four people in the room, including Lu Ming.

Because the Moon Spirit Grass in the flame was not burned to ashes. Instead, as the flame licked it, the herb began to radiate a bright moonlight. Its slightly withered stem and leaves became as smooth as polished jade.

The Moon Spirit Grass unfurled its leaves within Life's Flame, greedily absorbing the abundant vitality contained in the fire.

“It actually works?!” Lu Jinglei whispered in a mixture of disbelief and wild joy.

“Amazing,” Lu Qingyan also praised in awe.

A smile finally appeared on Lu Jin's aged face, which had been grim all day, and his tense, withered shoulders gradually relaxed.

Under everyone's joyful gaze, Lu Ming maintained the burning of Life's Flame. After about half an incense stick's time, they watched as a white jade-like leaf rapidly grew from the stem of the three-leaf Moon Spirit Grass.

With that, the three-leaf Moon Spirit Grass had fully matured under the influence of Life's Flame!

Lu Ming reached out and pulled the Moon Spirit Grass out of the flame. The four people present stared at the fourth white jade-like leaf, falling into a long silence.

Evidently, this scene had had a massive impact on them.

Ultimately, Lu Ming was the first to snap out of it. He handed the four-leaf Moon Spirit Grass to Lu Jin, who took it carefully. After inspecting it for a long time, Lu Jin exclaimed in amazement, “This is indeed a mature Moon Spirit Grass. Furthermore, its medicinal potency is incredibly robust. It's of the highest quality among four-leaf ones. In the past, our medicinal garden couldn't produce more than a few of this caliber in an entire year.”

Lu Jin then looked at Life's Flame burning in Lu Ming's hand and sighed. “No wonder our Lu family ancestors were willing to pay such a heavy price to preserve this fortuitous encounter.”

“Ming'er, how is your energy consumption?” Lu Qingyan asked with concern.

Lu Ming smiled and said, “I'm fine. These Moon Spirit Grass stalks were already close to maturity, so accelerating their growth is quite easy. I can keep going.”

Had he not made his breakthrough, Lu Ming might have found it difficult. However, now that he had condensed four Divine Ability Dharma Inscriptions, his primordial energy was far more abundant than before, allowing him to sustain much more.

Thus, he took a second unripe Moon Spirit Grass and continued to accelerate its growth.

Lu Jin and the other two stopped disturbing him. They closed the door and stood guard outside, remaining highly alert.

The secret of Life's Flame obviously could not be exposed, or it would surely attract greedy eyes. The current Thunderfire Hall could not protect such a rare treasure.

Lu Ming's maturation process lasted for three whole hours, continuing late into the night.

Only when his primordial energy was completely depleted did he finally stop, exhausted. Yet, despite his physical fatigue, his face was filled with excitement and thrill, for there were now twenty mature, four-leaf Moon Spirit Grass stalks laid out on the table before him.

The spiritual herbs covered the tabletop like a collection of exquisite white jade, flowing with a mesmerizing luster under the lamplight.

Lu Jin and the other two could not help but stare blankly.

Their Thunderfire Hall's medicinal garden could only produce about fifty mature Moon Spirit Grass stalks a year. Yet, in just three hours, Lu Ming had matured twenty. The impact of such a contrast was simply too overwhelming.

Lu Jin glanced at the remaining unripe Moon Spirit Grass stalks next to them, of which there were about forty. This meant that once Lu Ming finished maturing them all, they would have sixty mature Moon Spirit Grass stalks. Not only would this fully make up for the medicinal garden's losses, but they would even have a surplus.

“Haha! That dog Lin Changkong colluded with the Peach Mountain Bandits to cut off our Thunderfire Hall's revenue, but he never expected our Lu family to have a Divine Ability Child like Ming'er!” Lu Jinglei laughed heartily in wild joy, venting the frustration he had bottled up all day.

Lu Ming smiled as well, finally finding the time to tell Lu Jin about his conversation with Zhou Xuan.

“Oh? Zhou Xuan said that if there is evidence, he will step in to punish the Golden Gang Sword Hall?” When Lu Jin heard this, a look of surprise appeared on his aged face. After all, based on his understanding of the Ward Office, as long as the battles didn't turn the ward city into a bloodbath, they generally ignored the competition between the Divine Ability Halls.

The Ward Master's willingness to do this was highly likely due to Lu Ming. It seemed Lu Ming had managed to establish a preliminary relationship with Zhou Xuan during this period.

“But where are we going to find any evidence? Unless we capture the Peach Mountain Bandits and get them to confess, Lin Changkong will never admit to it no matter what,” Lu Jinglei grumbled.

“There's no rush. An opportunity will present itself eventually. As long as we stabilize the Thunderfire Hall's situation and wait for Ming'er to grow, all grudges will be settled in due time.” Lu Jin did not show any impatience. Currently, the most important task for the Lu family was to protect Lu Ming and allow him to grow; everything else could be endured.

“Ming'er, go and rest quickly. You can mature the remaining Moon Spirit Grass tomorrow. We're going to be very busy for a while.” Lu Jin instructed Lu Qingyan to put away the twenty matured Moon Spirit Grass stalks, and then urged Lu Ming to rest with deep concern.

Feeling the fatigue spreading through his body, Lu Ming did not push himself further and nodded in agreement.

...

And as Lu Jin had said, Lu Ming was incredibly busy over the next few days.

Every day, not only did he have to complete his primordial energy cultivation and mature the Moon Spirit Grass, but he also had to cultivate the True Explanation of the Six Refinements of Clear Qi he had obtained from Zhou Xuan. He used the Consciousness Forging Method within it to temper his consciousness and condense his spiritual sense.

At noon, he also had to head to the Ward Office to draw golden patterns with Zhou Xuan's assistance, cultivating the Golden Sun Flame Banner.

Finally, he had to squeeze out time to help Lu Jin heal. After the healing session, he was dragged by Lu Jin to practice the hall's only Upper Divine Ability, the Thunderfire Whip.

As for the fire fusion method of the Buddha's Fury Flame Lotus, it was even more profound and extensive, requiring him to slowly grope his way through.

After a few days of this, Lu Ming was thoroughly exhausted from the sheer volume of tasks.

Fortunately, the rewards were equally immense.

Lu Ming had matured all of the Moon Spirit Grass stalks—sixty in total. Moreover, their appearance and quality were top-notch, easily qualifying as supreme-grade.

With these sixty Moon Spirit Grass stalks, they could finally deliver the goods to the Li family.

However, although they had made up for the medicinal garden's current losses, Lu Ming was not satisfied. After all, even if they sold these Moon Spirit Grass stalks to the Li family, the profits would only slightly improve his own cultivation conditions. Lu Qingyan and Lu Jinglei would still have to pinch pennies for their cultivation. Lu Ming needed to find a way to change this.

In the past, he lacked the ability. But now that he had discovered the wondrous utility of Life's Flame, if he could make good use of its herb-nurturing ability, Lu Ming was confident he could truly change his family's desperate situation.

Thus, Lu Ming had Lu Jin bring back another batch of Moon Spirit Grass from the medicinal garden. However, this batch was much younger than the previous one, which significantly reduced the efficiency of the maturation process.

By the day they were scheduled to deliver the goods to the Li family, Lu Ming had only managed to mature another forty stalks. Combined with the previous batch, they had exactly one hundred.

This was already a massive shipment. Its market value alone was worth ten thousand heavenly gold sand, equivalent to an entire year's revenue for the Thunderfire Hall in the past.

But through this experiment, Lu Ming's hope of simply tossing herb seeds into Life's Flame to rapidly obtain mature herbs was temporarily dashed. While Life's Flame could indeed accelerate growth and increase a herb's age, the strength of the vitality contained within the flame depended on the intensity of Lu Ming's own primordial energy.

With Lu Ming's current foundation as a Grand Divine Ability Practitioner, he was probably unable to achieve this step.

Nevertheless, being able to take spiritual herbs that were slightly lacking in growth and push them a step further from unripe to mature was already a qualitative change. Thus, Lu Ming was not overly greedy.

On this morning.

Having finished his cultivation, Lu Ming arrived at the entrance of the Thunderfire Hall. Lu Jin, Lu Qingyan, and Lu Jinglei were already waiting there, fully prepared.

Today was the day of the delivery to the Li family.

“I heard that Lin Changkong will personally go to the Li family this time, claiming he wants to monopolize all the Moon Spirit Grass shares they will need in the future. This is clearly targeted at us. He's truly ruthless, wanting to starve our Lu family to death,” Lu Qingyan said.

Yet, Lu Jin and Lu Ming's expressions remained unchanged, and even Lu Jinglei only let out a disdainful, cold sneer.

With Lu Ming's miraculous method, Lin Changkong was simply dreaming if he thought he could suppress their Thunderfire Hall through the Moon Spirit Grass.