Lingyu gathered his spiritual power and recovered the energy needed to continue watering.
After watering the first ten rows, he went to water the rows eleven to fifteen.
From then on, the flowing water was enough to water the rows sixteen to twenty. He manually watered rows twenty-one to twenty-five.
Another cycle of recovering spiritual power and trimming started. Finally, he used his last power to water the rows of twenty-six to thirty. This time most of the last few rows were watered and he only had to do a bit of individual work.
Fortunately, although his control of the spell was rather low, he was still able to somehow direct its size and duration.
In the end, after such a long time, he finally watered it all!
Going back to the centre, he recovered his spiritual power for a long time, and another round of trimming started.
"The first hundred vines have all been trimmed. At the end I became a bit faster.
Now let's calculate again…
My estimate initially was a total of six hours going through everything.
Ignoring the slight interruption in between, in the end I ended up with… nine hours!
But three of them are trimming, so they're not wasted. The task of trimming would have to be done in winter regardless.
Usually I wouldn't have to water in winter and I could focus on trimming. Though if I have the time to do it, I can continue throughout the winter and allow the grapevine to gather more power to fruit even better at the start of spring. Even if there is an emergency at one point, with the stored water, it wouldn't be too harmful.
I just have to give the plant enough time to absorb this water.
If it were like before, drenching the vines at the bottom, then the air circulation of half the leaves would be obstructed. In that case, the additional water can't be used and it will seep back into the earth.
Since it's already Spirited Earth, watering it more than necessary will just transform the earth below the spiritual field, it'll be pretty useless."
He wrote down his data into his notebook, taking the step he had wanted to do several times already!
Lingyu gathered his thoughts and focused his mind.
Sitting in the centre, allowing all these calculations to leave his mind.
He took out the porcelain bottle from his spatial bag.
Pulling out the seal, the scent of spiritual pills filled his nostrils.
Tilting it slightly, he let the pills fall into his other hand.
"One, two, three… ten! This is a full pill bottle!"
Pills are either sold as a single pill if it's precious or as a bottle of ten, usually when they are cultivation resources, they come in the form of bottles.
Lingyu carefully put the pills back into the bottle, leaving only a single pill in his hand before he sealed the bottle again.
"Currently my dantian's first bowl has been formed by 5%, which is midway through the second stage. Based on my prior speed, it would take me another two years to fill the remaining 5%, during which I will experience a minor bottleneck between 6% and 7%, and 9% and 10%. Though these bottlenecks can be easily solved by grinding them down.
A Qi Gathering Pill can be absorbed fully in three average cultivation sessions of an early-stage Qi Refining cultivator, which is 2 hours."
As he thought of this, knowledge points rose from his memories. Qi Refining cultivators technically still have the bodies of mortals. Because of this, absorbing spiritual power into their dantian is actually a strain on their meridians.
With the manifestation of the Qi Bowls, their dantian becomes a crucial organ of the body, strengthening it from inside out. Because of this, each minor stage lengthens the duration of daily cultivation.
The first stage of Qi Refining can cultivate for an hour, the second stage can cultivate for two, the third stage for three, and so on.
Only once cultivators reach the Foundation Building stage will they be able to absorb as much as they can, but at that stage, there will be other difficulties of cultivation.
"Each day of absorbing a Qi Gathering Pill is equivalent to three days of normal cultivation for me. This means this Qi Gathering Pill is equivalent to cultivating for three days but getting the benefit for nine days!
This whole bottle will be used in a month and will give me the whole cultivation speed for a quarter of a year! This should bring me to the brink of advancing to the third stage!"
A look of surprised delight appeared on his face. Such a pill had so many wondrous uses!
With this in mind, he didn't hesitate any longer and swallowed it directly.
It didn't have a taste and quickly flowed down his body, finally entering his stomach.
There, it was like a metal pellet, unmoving.
Lingyu knew that this was the dormant enclosed situation of the pill.
Concentrating his mind, he once again entered cultivation. This time, the distraction had already been consumed, so it was easy and he didn't feel the need to trim the vines to calm his mind.
Unlike before, when he cultivated this time, the specks of spiritual power directly came from his body. They rose from his stomach to his dantian!
When he inhaled and exhaled, he generally didn't absorb any spiritual power.
He did this according to the instructions. Doing so would create a closed cycle, a mini seal to force the dantian to absorb all the power of the pill!
This was a way to boost the efficiency of taking pills.
Two hours passed rather quickly.
Lingyu was fully engrossed in cultivation and didn't feel the passage of time at all.
"Cultivation can actually be so relaxing," he commented in astonishment. Previously he had difficulties concentrating, but the pill doing most of the work allowed his mind to relax, just following the motions.
"Ahh!" he shouted into the sky as he stood up, his body surprisingly flexible.
There wasn't a single creak or pain, it was as if… "As if I'm young again!"
"Hehe," he chuckled. If someone in his previous life heard him complain about a bad back in their early twenties, then they would likely laugh at him. But who made him sit eight hours a day from the third grade to his last semester of his bachelor, whether in school or at home gaming? Eight hours of sitting daily was the minimum even!
But while chuckling, a real feeling of understanding dawned on Lingyu.
"Haaah…" he exhaled strongly, 'It's just been a day since reincarnation, but I directly jumped into analysing things and understanding everything around me. Only now that I am a bit free, allowing my brain to think, do I finally feel the difference between being young.'
He shook his head. This was a bad habit. Since his teen years, whenever he was stressed or anxious, he would find many things to do, not allowing his mind to wander around.
Doing so would seem productive instead of wallowing in his room, making his mother worry.
But it also created a mindset where he wouldn't confront his issues directly, rather first focusing on clearing all issues around before confronting it.
'Though I don't know whether this is even an issue. It's just… overwhelming.' That was the only word he could think of when he thought of the whole concept of reincarnation and everything that moved so quickly.