“Li Li, are you ready?” Jing called out from her kitchen.
‘Hold on, mom!’ He said back in an excited voice.
The ends of Jing’s lips turned up at his voice. She came outside her new home with a small Spirit Cake and fork in hand. She saw him playing with his new gift, SCP-124. SCP-124 was a plot of soil approximately 9 m2 in area and 14 m3 in size. This soil was no ordinary soil, not one bit. This plot of soil could grow any biological organism to its full potential in a relatively short amount of time. Time depended on how complex the organism was, with more complex creatures taking more time and less complex creatures taking less time. Nothing in SCP-124 requires external nutrients or other resources. So, Li Li wouldn’t have to feed anything grown in the soil qi or water or even sunlight if he wanted to grow things! But that wasn’t everything this little piece of fertile ground could do. It had a natural insect repellent on insects and other invertebrates not growing inside it. And lastly, any food grown inside SCP-124 was reported to be of very high quality, taste, and nutrition, no matter what kind of state the food was in beforehand.
Now Jing was interested in how exactly it determined what food counted as. Could a corpse be counted as food? What about wood from a tree? Termites consider that food. And since it said high quality, taste, AND nutrition, it had all of those enhancements and not just one or two. But it didn’t really matter what she thought about it. Mostly this was her son’s garden to play with. Since putting it in her backyard, she’s only thrown a few things inside it.
One of the things were the Cerulean Venus Flytrap seed she’s received long ago from a gacha spin. It quickly grew into a humongous plant with a head almost as big as her house. Its mouth was filled with teeth that could bite through steel and rock like they were candy with a ravenous appetite that could only be satisfied with the largest of spirit beasts. Li Li regularly flew into the sect carrying bulls, gorillas, Giant Turtles, and the like to feed her. He decided to name her Cerulean Devil.
Jing planted it in the soil to finally get it out of her inventory and to use it to protect anything she plans to grow in here that she doesn’t want to grow in Ying’s void world. But this carnivorous plant wouldn’t be able to do much on its own against cultivators in the Inner Court. So, Jing had to give it something to stand up to superior cultivators. She gave it a refined cherry. After eating it, it grew a cherry on the end of its two little leaf arms on its stem and with just a little infusion of qi, they could be tossed with enough force to shatter femurs, the strongest bone in the human body. As it continued to grow past its previous full potential with qi, it would only grow even stronger as time went on.
“What are you up to now?” She asked, taking a bite of her cake.
‘I’m making my Heavenly Demons!’ He responded with the Golden Goldfish in his beak.
He dropped it into the soil and in a matter of seconds, the planted fish started glowing a bright light. This light would cause the normal person to have to shield their eyes from the sight but Jing and Li Li had their eyes refined while the Cerulean Devil had a type of sight different from humans that wasn’t bothered by this light but it excited it anyway. It moved its large head around trying to see what was happening inside the soil while sweet nectar that looked like saliva dripped from its mouth. Li Li had to move its head back as he flew in the air. He didn’t want Cerulean accidentally eating his newest member!
Jing and Li Li thought that the light would eventually start to dim down but that didn’t happen at all. The Golden Goldfish continued to shine with a bright light as it swam through the air and looked at them both. Powerful yang energy radiated around the fish. This somewhat confused Jing because the Golden Goldfish was something given to her by the system and not something she refined. She figured that it was just some ordinary fish that wasn’t special at all because it was summoned when she had the reduced gacha luck penalty. Her first thought upon saving it from dying once she summoned it, was that it would be a cute accessory pet. Its shiny gold color looked nice to Jing so, she wanted to keep it around. But since her son was interested in it, she just gave it to him.
Li Li was more than happy to see that his first Demon had control over such a powerful type of qi. Yang qi, yin qi, spatial qi, and time qi. All those types of qi were rather powerful and hard to control for even the most talented of cultivators. Not even his mom had control over any of those types of qi. She just focused on regular water qi for some reason. At first, he just wanted to eat him for its juicy meat but then after getting this garden from his mom he decided against it. Even though Plinky, the Goldfish Devil, had a type of qi that was basically opposite from his own, he still wanted him to join his team. Yang qi directly went against his own. So, if Plinky was near his own strength, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that his own strength would be suppressed by Plinky’s!
“Become one of my Heavenly Devils!” Li Lisquawked.
“Will I get to eat if I do?” Plinkyblorped back.
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“You can eat all you want!”
“Okay.”
“I am Li Li. I am your leader but I am also your friend. You treat me well and I will treat you well. Take this as a gift for joining me.” He cut himself.
“Eat?” Plinky’s eyes were glued to the blood on the verge of dropping into his mouth.
“Eat.” Li Li nodded.
Li Li learned of the prowess of his blood from his mother. She told him about the power held in their bodies and he realized that he could use his blood to strengthen the power of his Heavenly Devils. He could also use it to feed Cerulean some if he couldn’t find any food for her in the Immortal Forest. Drill was the rabbit he was now because of eating his mother’s blood. Now Plinky was transforming into the fish he is now because of Li Li’s blood!
Muscle began to form all over Plinky’s small body as a brighter light began to shine from him. His internal organs began to glow with yang energy because of the intake of blood. Sharp teeth similar to Cerulean’s forcefully grew on the top and bottom row of his mouth. It was the first time that Jing and Li Li have ever heard a fish scream in pain before. Probably the first time anyone has ever heard a fish shriek.
By the time his transformation was over, he seemingly already forgot the pain he just went through as he sped through the air in circles.
“Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong! I’m strong!” He cheered.
“Plinky! Let’s go play in the Immortal Forest!” Li Li was excited to see what he could do as his first Demon.
“Okay!” They took off in the skies while Cerulean seemingly sadly watched them fly away.
“Don’t worry girl. You’ll be able to fly one day.” Jing patted the back of her head.
Jing couldn’t refine her as she was now because she was too big to fit inside her and she was attached to the soil of SCP-124. So, unless there was some way to make soil fly, she was stuck here. Before she left to do her plans for today, Jing gave her a piece of cake to remedy her loneliness. It was an Irresistible Sweet Smelling Cake. She ate this so that she would smell good today even though she doesn’t give off any body odor whatsoever after her refinement. Any girl would like to smell pretty if she had the choice.
So after leaving Cerulean, Jing left with the cakes she planned to sell today in her storage ring. She went to the center of the Inner Court where the most traffic of people would be walking by and made a stand. Jing took a stand out of her storage ring and sat behind it with a chair before placing her cakes on the stand. There were 4 cakes on top of the stand with the prices of each cake written on front of the stand. The most expensive cake was also the largest as it was placed behind the first three which were lined up by on how expensive they were from left to right.
The first cake was a Qi Recovery Cake. It would greatly boost the recovery rate of one’s qi for a substantial amount of time. Far superior to the pill version that would only last a few seconds due to the quick digestion time it takes to eat pills. For the second cake it was one related to cultivation, the Gathering of Qi Spirit Cake. Just like with the Qi Recovery Cake, it would enhance one’s ability to absorb qi in the nearby atmosphere far longer than the pill version which would only last minutes.
The third cake was rather special as it wasn’t related to fighting or cultivation. This was the Physical Performance Spirit Cake. Jing knew all too well about the bedroom problems that most of the men in the sect seemed to suffer from. There was rarely a day that Jing hasn’t heard someone having sex in the Golden Serpent Sect. With this cake, all those problems of theirs would be dealt with in an instant. It worked for both sexes but it was mainly for men. As the cake would significantly reduce fatigue, intensify the nerve endings in the genitals for the eater and their partner through touch, and send them into an uncontrollable state of arousal.
And the last cake was the Breakthrough Spirit Cake. This cake didn’t need any explanation. It did exactly as the name said it would. Whoever ate it would breakthrough to the next stage. Jing gave this cake to the Supreme Commander and knew that since it worked on him, its price had to be anything but cheap.
None of the Spirit Cakes were cheap in the slightest. Qi Recovery Spirit Cake cost 500 spirit stones. 500 low-ranked or 5 middle-ranked spirit stones. In comparison, the Qi Recovery Pill only cost around 50 spirit stones. 5 high-ranked spirit stones for the Gathering of Qi Spirit Cake or 5,000 low-ranked spirit stones, its effectiveness in battle was the reason for its high cost. The third cake only cost 10 high-ranked spirit stones because of the ingredients required to make it were not easy to find nor was the process of making it was easy to do. For the final cake, it costed 5 peak-ranked spirit stones or 500,000 low-ranked spirit stones. Only the wealthiest of elders in the sect would be able to afford such a thing.
Jing didn’t count on anyone buying the cake taller than herself. It was simply there to look pretty and make people’s imagination dance. All the other cakes were smaller in size and seemed less impressive sitting next to it. But all of them looked and smelled delicious. So, Jing waited with her little cake stand until someone came to see what she was selling.
Once people starting coming around to see, they immediately booked it after seeing the prices. The Grand Tournament was only a day away and people could not afford to waste their spirit stones on something they’ve never seen before. Many of the potential customers ran off after being scared and Jing soon figured that only the truly desperate would be willing to buy her cakes today. That was fine with her. She had no experience in business but knew a little bit about the psychology of people. Someone was going to buy one of her cakes today and once that person sees its effects, they’ll be back to buy another. Other people will see this person buy from her and they’ll be interested despite the prices. They’ll buy it for the hell of it and that would be another satisfied customer. Unfortunately, her cake business might eliminate the pill business of the sect once everyone starts coming to her to get her cakes but hey, business is survival of the fittest. This also means that she’ll have to prepare herself for those trying to slander or ruin her business.
“This little side project might be more fun than I thought...” Jing licked her lips as she thought about the small little chaos, she could bring with this.