The southern slopes of the safe hall basin rose in a row of gentle, sun-soaked tiered halls. For hundreds of years, wild brambles, tangled briars, and jagged granite shale had choked the hillside. That left it a lonely wasteland where only scrub pine and thorny mountain vines could find purchase.
Today, that wild slope had been transformed into fifty mu of terraced agricultural wonder.
Under the direction of Lu Ba and the badger stonework teams, broad retaining walls of dry-stacked granite stepped up the mountain like the stairs of a sleeping titan. Each terrace was dead level, packed tight with dark, crumbly mountain loam that smelled richly of decayed leaf litter and ancient earth-qi. Connecting the tiers was a network of hand-hewn cedar water chutes and stone aqueducts, channelling overflow from the upper mountain springs down through the terraces in a murmuring, crystal-clear cascade.
Lin Xiao hovered near the top terrace, comfortably nestled inside a wide, shallow wooden bucket lined with damp moss. He bobbed up and down like an azure water balloon, his surface shimmering with ribbons of gold and emerald light as he observed the bustling activity below.
Down in the third tier, Tie Shan was demonstrating the safe hall’s new agricultural hardware.
The towering earth-bear smith had stripped down to rough linen trousers, his massive furred shoulders glistening under the morning sun. Gripping the handles of a huge, heavy-tined turning plow forged from refined dark star-iron, Tie Shan drove the blade three feet deep into the virgin soil. With a booming grunt of laughter, he hauled the plow forward using sheer muscle and earth-affinity qi. That turned over thick, dark ribbons of earth as easily as a baker kneaded soft dough.
“Keep your fur out of the furrows, lads!” Tie Shan bellowed back at a team of younger badgers who were breaking up clods with wooden mallets. “Make the beds deep and loose! Spirit grain has roots like dragon whiskers—if the earth is hard, the ears won’t swell!”
A contingent of long-eared rabbit gatherers moved along the freshly turned rows with woven willow baskets strapped to their chests. Their nimble paws reached into the baskets, scattering plump, oval seeds across the damp furrows.
These were the seeds of wild Jade-Grain Spirit Rice, collected over weeks from secluded forest glades where wild pheasants had guarded them. In their raw state, the grains were small, grayish, and hard as pebbles. He needed decades of natural training before yielding edible spiritual nourishment.
In my last life, farming meant massive diesel tractors, man-made ammonia fertilizer, and praying the global supply chain didn’t collapse before harvest, Lin Xiao thought, rolling smoothly from one side of his moss bucket to the other. Here, we have a seven-foot bear blacksmith doing the work of a sixty-horsepower diesel engine, and my own belly acting as a natural organic compost processor.
He extended three slender azure tendrils over the edge of the bucket, dipping them into the main stone header basin that fed the irrigation water gates.
“Dao Spirit, initiate soil conditioning protocol,” Lin Xiao directed.
“Acknowledged, Host,” the Dao Spirit’s calm voice rang within his core. “Starting controlled micro-infusion of diluted Chaos Wood-Essence. Synthesizing microbial inoculant from earlier digested iron-bamboo rhizomes and fermented spirit yam compost. Ratio: one part ancient origin fluid to ten thousand parts mountain spring water.”
Deep within Lin Xiao’s Primordial Void dantian, a drop of ancient chaos qi stirred. The energy, dense and undivided, passed through his straining matrix. It turned into a vibrant, emerald-green nutrient broth.
With a soft, rhythmic pulsing of his semi-clear body, Lin Xiao released the refined fluid into the rushing mountain water.
Instantly, the clear spring water turned into an opalescent, jade-tinted elixir. The water surged down the cedar water chutes and flooded into the terrace paddies. Then, a startling transformation swept across the soil. The dark loam hissed with vital deep ring, exuding a warm, sweet vapor that smelled of fresh rain on hot stones. Tiny earth-qi nodes awoke, binding cold air and surrounding wood-essence deep within the seedbeds.
“Look at the water!” cried a young rabbit girl, pointing her trembling paws at the flooded terrace. “The water is glowing like melted gems!”
“Don’t just stare, child!” Elder Lu Ba shouted, his badger claws digging into the rich mud. “Cover the seed rows! Lord Xiao is breathing life into the mountain!”
Before the farmers could finish covering the furrows, the air heat above the valley began to shift.
A cool, invigorating mountain draft swept down from the northern peaks. It carried the distinct, ozone-charged scent of high-sky rain clouds. High above the southern tiered arena, a streak of brilliant azure light broke through the canopy.
It was Xiao Long.
The young river carp, whom Lin Xiao had rescued from a poisoned poacher snare in the dry riverbed, had grown into a thirty-foot Horned Azure Flood Dragon. Shimmering sapphire scales coated his snake-like body, while two semi-clear, pearl-white dragon antlers crowned his brow. Long, whisker-like barbels trailed behind his jaw. It caught the sunlight in prismatic refractions as he swam through the open sky as effortlessly as if he were cutting through deep mountain waters.
“Lord Xiao! Master! Is it time for the rain?” Xiao Long’s cheerful, youthful voice echoed eagerly across Lin Xiao’s telepathic link.
“Go ahead, Xiao Long!” Lin Xiao called back with an encouraging fluid ripple. “Give them a nice, gentle spring soak! Nothing too heavy—we don’t want to wash the topsoil down into the river!”
“Leave it to me, Master!”
Xiao Long let out a joyous, high-pitched draconic cry that echoed between the crescent peaks like a silver flute. Coiling his slender azure body into a tight spiral, he began to circle the upper air above the terraced tiered arena.
As the young dragon danced through the air, humidity condensed rapidly around his scales. Fluffy, snow-white mist gathered in his wake. It stretched into a thick, pearl-white cloud that hovered only fifty feet above the newly planted rice terraces. Unlike the harsh, pouring cloudbursts of seasonal mountain storms, this cloud was soft, warm, and radiant.
Then, the rain fell.
It dropped not in heavy. He drove sheets, but in a delicate, diamond-bright drizzle—a true Spirit Mist Deluge. Each droplet was infused with Xiao Long’s innate water-governing dragon qi. It fell so softly that it didn’t disturb a single grain of loose topsoil. The gentle mist blanketed the cinquefoil terraces. It soaked into the jade-conditioned earth with a heard, thirsty sigh.
What happened next stunned the assembled beastfolk into breathless silence.
Within three breaths of the dragon mist kissing the loam, the mud began to tremble. Millions of tiny, emerald shoots pierced the surface of the flooded paddies, uncurling like tiny green flags. With visible, breathtaking speed, the seedlings reached upward, drinking in the wood-essence from below and the dragon dew from above.
Snap. Rustle. Crackle.
The sound of vegetative growth filled the tiered arena like the rustling of silk robes in a royal hall. In less than an hour, the emerald shoots thickened into sturdy, jointed culms. Leaves broader and more vibrant than wild bamboo fanned out, catching the midday sun. By the time the afternoon shadows lengthened across the valley, the barren, rocky hillside had vanished entirely.
In its place stood fifty mu of waist-high, lush emerald rice stalks. He waved under the mountain breeze like a rolling green sea. Plump, heavy grain heads were already forming at the tips of the stalks, crusted with semi-clear, jade-like kernels that emitted a mouthwatering fragrance of sweet grass and warm cream.
Elder Lu Ba dropped to his knees at the edge of the terrace dike. He plunged his paws into the warm, fragrant water. Tears carved clean paths through the mud on his wrinkled cheeks.
“In forty seasons of working the stone valleys, I’ve never seen such a miracle,” the old badger whispered. His voice shook with deep respect. “A crop that takes six months of grueling sweat to sprout has risen in a single afternoon! The ears are fat as sparrow eggs. The spirit qi in a single grain is enough to nourish a cub for three days! Lord Xiao has turned a mountain of stones into the granary of heaven!”
Around him, dozens of beastfolk fell to their knees, bowing toward the top terrace where Lin Xiao sat innocently in his moss-lined bucket.
Lin Xiao blinked his white crescent eyes. He felt a warm, sheepish sensation ripple through his azure jelly.
Well, that certainly exceeded expectations, he thought, watching the green stalks sway. Dao Spirit, what kind of harvest are we looking at here?
A glowing chime sounded in his mind. The crisp box-shaped test matrix materialized before his panoramic sight:
Forty-five thousand jin of spirit rice, Lin Xiao calculated with deep, gastronomic satisfaction. That’s more than twenty tons of food. When this matures in two weeks, we won’t just have enough to feed everyone through the winter. We’ll have plenty left over for crispy claypot rice, steamed sweet rice cakes with osmanthus sugar, and best of all... Rice wine.
Xiao Long dropped from the thinning mist clouds, shrinking his body down to the thickness of an arm as he spiraled gracefully toward Lin Xiao’s bucket. The little dragon coiled playfully around the wooden rim, resting his chin on Lin Xiao’s squishy azure head and letting out a contented, purring chirp.
Lin Xiao extended a gentle slime arm, scratching the warm, smooth scales right between Xiao Long’s nascent dragon antlers. The dragon closed his large, golden eyes, sighing with blissful happiness.
“You did an amazing job, Xiao Long,” Lin Xiao praised him softly. “When the harvest comes in, I’ll cook you a giant bowl of sweet rice porridge with lotus seeds and mountain honey.”
Xiao Long’s whiskers twitched with delight, his slender tail flicking tiny droplets of spring water into the air. “Rice with honey! Master is the best!”
Tie Shan walked up the terrace path, leaning heavily on his star-iron plow. The giant bear looked out over the boundless emerald expanse, his chest swelling with fierce, honest pride.
“With fields like these, Lord Xiao, our safe hall will never bend its knee to mortal lords or traditional sects for a grain of bread,” Tie Shan said, his booming voice tinged with solemn emotion. “A man with a full belly and a solid roof over his cubs will fight ten tigers before he lets an invader trample his furrows.”
“We won’t be fighting tigers if we can help it, Uncle Tie,” Lin Xiao said with a lighthearted wobble. “Our goal is to eat well, drink well, and enjoy the sun. But it certainly doesn’t hurt to have twenty tons of rice in the cellar just in case.”
The evening sun dipped behind the western peaks. Then, bathing the emerald terraces in shades of violet and burnished gold, the sweet fragrance of the blooming jade rice drifted down into the residential village below. The beastfolk families, no longer refugees fleeing in terror, walked the dikes with smiling faces, marveling at the green sea that promised life, safety, and abundance for ages to come.