Chapter 143: Artificial Cultivation

Han Xuhan walked a few steps forward while they bickered, distracted by the fact that they were standing very close to the central square of the island, near the bamboo shoot which Wang Three had pulled out through a hole in the ground.

The hole was not arbitrarily made, nor a consequence of Wang Three's mighty stomp, contrary to his assumption. Now that he was close enough to notice more details, he realized that the hole was almost square in size. He could see the borders of the sqaure running parallel around its mouth.

Straining his neck, he took a peek down and saw a remarkable scene. The hole extended a long way downward, reaching all the way to the bottom of the floating island. The bamboo shoot actually went down through it into the sea, its roots possibly at the rock bottom on the seabed!

How long was this thing?! At least close to a kilometer! Han Xuhan suddenly felt glad that he didn't have to learn physics, chemistry, and biology in this world. He would rather end up as a cripple and die in a ditch after being brutally mutilated than spend a lifetime deciphering the science behind this world of cultivation.

He found out that the tunnel's walls were mirror-smooth, save for some thick roots and shaved rocks that popped out from several areas. Then he noticed the circular mouth of an underground tunnel halfway down the hole and a lot of things suddenly clicked in inside his mind.

No wonder there weren't any houses, pavilions, or other necessary elements of a typical sect on the surface of the island! This entire floating island was designed like a beehive!

On its surface, they planted crops and messed around freely, but below inside the island lay the real sect!

"Enough of looking at that brat Three's hole. The honor of hosting the first guest cultivator shall belong to my hole!"

A shovel-sized hand grabbed his shoulder roughly and pulled him back before he could discern more details. Turning his head around, he realized that their argument had come to an end.

In the end, Ling Six, the painter, had won by 'exercising her right' as the spiritual leader of the team, a fact that everyone else had objected to half-heartedly.

Han Xuhan was dragged along with her dozens of meters away into a different square area.

Keeping him standing on the borders, she stomped hard on the center of the sqaure the same way Wang Three had a few minutes ago. This time, Han Xuhan was close enough to notice the movement of the qi rushing through her feet, running into the ground to open up the hole beneath the surface.

A magical lock opening technique? Truly sophisticated!

Were these guys really as simple as their behavior suggested? Or was he just being paranoid again? After all, every sect was bound to have its special side....right?

As the ground beneath her feet sank, Han Xuhan locked his sight on the soil that formed the shallow surface, extremely curious to understand where the relocated soil would end up once the hole was visible.

The soil broke down into tiny units with its descent. As if an invisible rock-crushing machine was grinding its way downward, the grains of sand were plastered at the sides of the tunnel, leaving a smooth surface behind. The entire process took less than a second, after which Han Xuhan found himself gazing at the sea through a new hole.

How?! What was the mechanism behind this technique? Did these people really live in tunnels even back in their home turf?

Ling Six had hopped backward right beside him after her stomp. Seeing his look of abject wonder, she seemed downright proud.

"Hmph! This is nothing! How can a measly island of this size capture the true charm and magnificence of our home? Come on, Big Brother! Little sister will let you discover a whole new world of fun!"

With a tug, she dragged him down with her as she leaned over and let the gravity do its work. The wind rushed to Han Xuhan's face, almost blurring his sight. Judging by the depth of the holes, Xuhan concluded that it'd take them roughly 4 seconds to cross past the bottom of the island. After the first second had passed, he opened his mouth to scream in terror.

Then he felt an abrupt change in the direction of their fall.

Judging by the noise and his limited vision, he deduced that she had kicked the wall of the tunnel to guide their fall into a slightly different angle.

THUMP!

Han Xuhan had the wind knocked out of his lungs, cutting off his scream. But he had already guessed her method. Hence he wasn't surprised to find himself crouching at the edge of a horizontal tunnel. Ling Six had used the momentum of the kick to land into the mouth of this horizontal hole on their way down.

"Your way of living sure is impressive, Sister Ling."

"Ahaha, it's nothing compared to our daily lives back home. We had to cut a lot of corners while redesigning this island since the material they allotted to each sect wasn't enough to copy our sect entirely."

The two of them roamed the narrow tunnel at a brisk pace. Ling Six let Han Xuhan take the lead, since walking behind her in there was pretty much the same as taking a hike with blindfolds on. The only source of light in the tunnels were small orbs that radiated a yellowish light, similar to bright sunlight at noontime. The orbs had been embedded on the ceiling of the tunnels every few feet away, banishing the darkness from the otherwise stuffy tunnels.

"You know, that's a terribly enormous amount of labor you've been talking about," Han Xuhan said. He was slowly getting used to his current situation. His thoughts now organized, he decided to fish for precious information and plot a scheme or two for the near future.

"According to the Celestial Gateway Spell, all the participant sects in the tournament are supposed to reach the Titanfall Archipelago at roughly the same time. So how come your sect got here so long before we did? Don't tell me this redesigning didn't take long."

Ling Six scratched her scalp with a dirty finger and replied, "Celestial Gateway technique? What a domineering title! Is that how you got here?"

"...Yes."

"Huh, you must hail from a pretty large sect, Big Brother. Red Ice sect, was it?"

"Something along those lines, yes," Han Xuhan quickly glossed over the issue and asked curiously, "You mean there's a different way of reaching this place? And the organizers of the tournament let you use it? No...it isn't just you. Even the Sunrider Sect definitely used the same method!"

"Well, this Sunrider Sect must be like us as well. This method was allowed to Sects that had too few disciples, from what I hear. Master said we don't have enough disciples to use the method other sects were using," Ling Nine answered.

"But wouldn't having too few disciples disqualify the sects, to begin with? Otherwise, any random practitioner could take in a couple of disciples and claim to be a participant!" Han Xuhan said in puzzlement.

"Nah. The organizers wouldn't be that dumb. Master thinks very highly of them. He even addresses one of the old grandmas from the Forestheart Foundation as 'Miss'! That's the highest amount of respect I've ever seen him give to anyone. Usually he calls his fellow cultivators Assh-ahem!"

Ling Nine's pause made Han Xuhan pause in his stride. But before he could form a thought on it, she loudly yelled in his ears,

"Look! Behold the majesty of artificial cultivation! The true pride of our sect!"

Following the direction she was pointing at, Han Xuhan found himself staring at a wide, circular cavern where several tunnels had met.

Instead of embedded orbs, the lighting in this area was the result of dozens of orbs floating gently, free of gravity. They emitted a gentle orange light. A faint, fragrant mist encompassed the entire cavern.

The overall design prodded the PTSD he had earned from his experience in the foggy region of the Holy Land of Laws, making his body turn stiff for a good few seconds.

Under the miniature suns, the floor of the cavern sported a sparse growth of vegetation. The colors of the plants were a bit off– with bright yellow leaves and dark purple trunks full of gleaming red ringspots. On Earth, these bushy plants would be considered severely afflicted by viruses, bacteria, and fungi.

To top it all off, the roots of the plants had pushed their way out of the soil stubbornly like some halophytes on Earth, creating an entire miniature jungle made up solely of roots around the vegetation, obscuring nearly half of the bodies of the plants. It would have been pleasantly interesting to look at had the grey roots not been covered by a layer of dirty, slimy substance.

"Artificial cultivation, huh?" Han Xuhan remarked, his mind still processing the information he had collected.

"Yup! Master said this is the most interesting project he has ever worked on– to make plants that aren't dependent on the sunlight at all. So far we've had a small success, and this is the result! Don't tell anyone though," Ling Six finished her words in a hurried tone as if suddenly remembering that this project was probably not meant for the public eye.

Han Xuhan bobbed his head up and down, trying hard not to recall his knowledge of basic botany. It would just screw things up in his head if he wanted their project to make sense scientifically.

"Don't worry, Sister Ling. Nothing related to this type of cultivation falls under my area of expertise. I have no idea what makes this project of yours special. I'll forget it in a jiffy."

Ling Six's face took on a look that could be labeled as 'displeased'. Han Xuhan bit his tongue, realizing that he shouldn't have treated their secret project so lightly.

Dammit! He had forgotten to use his biggest trump card– Social skills!

Thankfully, it didn't take Ling Six much time to recover and return to her bubbly persona. But for the rest of the trip, Han Xuhan noticed the small details in her behavior suggesting a sense of distance between the two of them.

Glossing over the secret 'leucoplast supremacy' project, she took him to visit their underwater plantation, which turned out to be very close to Wang Three's hole. The hollowed out giant bamboo was the main supplier of the water on their island, especially for the irrigation system.

"Don't the saltwater harm the plants? You couldn't have grown so many halophytes in the short span of a few days," Han Xuhan enquired at one point while watching streams of seawater being pumped out of the bamboo's body through needle-sized holes.

"We use special qi to nourish the plants, from the root to the topmost leaves. Our plants grow faster, stronger, and smarter than regular breeds. Our expertise in purifying harmful substances from plants is unmatched; at least that's what master's manual says," Ling Nine answered.

"It is one of the reasons why we chose to reside underground. Our cultivation techniques are beneficial to the plants in our surroundings as well."

"So hypothetically, would you be able to purify poisoned animals and humans?" Han Xuhan asked, finding this topic to be rather interesting compared to all the agriculture stuff.

Ling Six stroked her chin with a surprised expression on her face for a while before answering, "I have no idea! Never gave it much thought."

The two of them then proceeded to travel the entire expanse of tunnels within the floating island, visiting hole from hole, meeting new acquaintances who awaited their arrival eagerly. He got to eat some fairly delicious leafy food, saw some very beautiful plants, decided to forget some plants in order to evade nightmares, and finally spent an entire hour trying to comprehend a lecture on how agriculture is the only way to save civilization from utter ruin.

His gait unsteady and gaze unfocused, Han Xuhan climbed back outside from Wang Twenty-Four's hole using some outgrowth of roots on the wall of the tunnels.

Loud yells and a scent of charred meat invaded his chain of thoughts as he reached the surface of the island. Squinting under the rays of original sunlight, Han Xuhan found himself facing a...party.

"Man, wish I could change sects," he grumbled wistfully.