Fu Anwen woke up to the smell of rice wafting through the house. He checked his surroundings and was pleasantly surprised to find that the dies were all behaving themselves. Jing was busy cooking, while the others were unpacking the wagons or decorating the new house.

  He still immediately blocked off every bedroom in his outer vision except for the one he woke up in, though.

  The house he found himself in was surprisingly nice. All of the houses he'd seen the previous night were small, with most of them only consisting of a single room. This house was rge and stylish enough to make even his old home back in the Jade Court look a little shabby. It seemed completely out of pce in this remote, rural vilge.

  After hopping out of bed and making his way to the kitchen, he climbed into a chair and watched his Aunty Jing cook. It seemed like they'd be eating a simple breakfast of rice and steamed vegetables.

  While it was a huge step up from travel rations, Fu Anwen still badly missed his old food.

  "Good morning, Little Prince," greeted Jing when she finally noticed him. "Breakfast will be ready in another few minutes. Can you go let everyone know for me?"

  "Okay," he nodded, hopping back down from the chair.

  He quickly made his way through the rge house to collect the four missing dies. Simir to their old house, the little girls were sharing a room on the first floor, while the older dies each had their own rooms on the second floor. Aunty Murong was the only exception, as her room was on the first floor right next to his own.

  After eventually being released from one of his mother's powerful morning hugs, Fu Anwen managed to inform the st of the dies and returned to the kitchen.

  A minute ter, when a pte of food finally arrived in front of him, Fu Anwen's disappointment reached peak levels.

  "Aunty Jing, what is this?" he asked in confusion, gesturing toward the food sitting in front of him.

  "What do you mean?" she asked, just as confused as he was.

  "Well, this almost looks like rice, only it's twenty times smaller, and it's not plump or translucent. It's not even glowing! And are these supposed to be little baby broccoli and carrots that someone cast an evil curse on?"

  He paused and squinted his eyes, "...or maybe two curses?"

  "You spoiled little brat!" his mother chided. "This is what regur people eat! Those are perfectly normal rice and vegetables."

  He looked up at her, even more confused than before after hearing her expnation. "Then what was I eating before?"

  "That was spiritual food," his Aunty Murong jumped in. "That's food only strong martial artists and immortal cultivators usually get to eat. Eating spiritual food every day was a privilege of being royalty."

  "But I'm still royalty!" he pointed out.

  "Just eat it," his mother ordered before taking a bite of broccoli herself. She froze for a moment after chewing it once, but quickly continued eating, adding with a full mouth, "It's...good."

  Fu Anwen had obviously read about the difference between mortal food and spiritual food before. He could even be considered a top expert on growing both types after reading so many books on farming and cooking.

  Still, reading was one thing, while experiencing was another.

  He picked up his chopsticks and gave the 'perfectly normal' food a try.

  ~-o-O-o-~

  'Maybe I could use formations? The field shapes and sizes would have to be modified to make that work, though. Hmmm...'

  An hour ter, Fu Anwen was back in his room updating his martial arts farming pns. The food at breakfast had made it abundantly clear that mortal food truly wasn't fit for human consumption. While it was an improvement over travel rations, the only thing that made eating travel rations tolerable was the knowledge that you'd be able to stop eating them as soon as you reached your destination.

  Eating mortal food every day for the rest of your life, though? Nobody should have to suffer like that.

  'What about underground formations? Or floating? No, underground would work best. Pce down one yer of stone, build the formations on top of that, then cover it with a second stone yer. Maybe six feet of soil on top?'

  Hundreds of simutions and adjustments quickly sped through his mind.

  'Perfect!'

  His formation knowledge was at the peak of the second rank, which was roughly the level of a peak Foundation Establishment realm cultivator.

  Each rank of an auxiliary skill like formations, alchemy, or puppet crafting correted to the equivalent realm of cultivation. While it was possible to master skills above one's own level like Fu Anwen had, that was a privilege only for top geniuses.

  The knowledge and abilities required to create second rank formations were usually only possessed by cultivators who had already advanced to the second realm. At that level, formations started involving a higher level of intricacy, more complex spiritual energy manipution, and could even interact with spiritual sense. Most Qi Refining cultivators couldn't check off a single one of those requirements, much less a mortal who hadn't even started cultivating yet.

  Fu Anwen was an anomaly. While he wasn't even able to detect spiritual energy of any kind, his deep level of understanding allowed him to create and modify formations so that they could activate and run on their own using only the spiritual energy naturally avaible in the surroundings. Of course, even that was only possible due to his ability to easily manipute materials at an incredibly precise level inside his internal space.

  After quickly finalizing the formation designs and calcuting the optimal sizes for each field, he created a version of the Farming Arts that was designed for growing formation-assisted spiritual crops instead of mortal crops.

  His customized Farming Arts included the Body Refining and Internal Energy arts that every member of his new sect would need to practice, plus numerous skills, all of which had been designed to assist with farming.

  Even though the Farming Arts had been designed for farming, it would be a mistake to assume that they weren't any good for fighting. Skills that can detect and kill mice and insect pests hundreds of feet away were also quite useful against human and beast enemies.

  While his new Farming Arts would undoubtedly produce healthier and tastier crops, he felt that the previous version meant for growing mortal crops would still be useful, since many of the world's territories cked spiritual energy. For all he knew, he might even be living in one of those barren areas right now.

  He shuddered at that thought, since it would mean he would likely be stuck eating mortal food for the next few years, at least.

  Now that the unpnned distraction caused by his disgusting breakfast was over, Fu Anwen moved on to his scheduled pns for the day.

  It was finally time to build his own house.

  First, he needed to get away from his Aunty Murong. He didn't know exactly how strong she was, but he knew that Grandmaster rank martial artists had hearing so good that they could even hear a person's heartbeat from a hundred feet away. If she suddenly noticed his heartbeat disappear from his room the moment he blinked into his inner space, his secret would be found out right away.

  Fortunately, he had a pn.

  ~-o-O-o-~

  "Mom, I'm going out to explore," Fu Anwen reported to his mother.

  "Okay, sweetie. Take Aunty Mei with you when you go," his mother agreed, happy that he wanted to learn more about the vilge she'd grown up in.

  "No! I'm old enough to go out on my own now!" he yelled, stomping his feet.

  Okay, maybe it wasn't the most brilliant pn he'd ever come up with, but he would wield the fact that he was six years old like a weapon. Once his mother experienced his first tantrum, she'd be happy to see him go.

  Fu Qingyu was surprised to see her son who was always extremely polite and mature suddenly act up, but she didn't think too much about it.

  However, she realized that her son was actually right. There really wasn't anything to worry about near this remote vilge.

  The worst thing that had happened in the vilge in the past fifty years had been the trouble between Old Man Jenkins and that pig, and that old pervert had clearly gotten what he'd deserved.

  Plus, Murong Qingyu had told her earlier that a team of secret guards had recently cleared out any dangerous beasts within fifty miles of the vilge. The most dangerous creature left was probably a chipmunk.

  "Fine. Just make sure you come home before lunch. And don't bother anybody working in the fields! And stay out of the woods!"

  She was shouting by the end after noticing that her son had started running out of the house at full speed as soon as the word 'fine' left her mouth.

  'Too easy!' Fu Anwen gloated, proud that yet another of his pns had worked out fwlessly.

  He looked up and saw that the sun had barely risen.

  'Still about four hours before lunch, maybe? Plenty of time.'

  With the help of his sensing ability, Fu Anwen was easily able to avoid the eyes of any vilgers. His tiny body was actually useful for once, as all of the crops were taller than he was, which made staying hidden easy. After making sure that his Aunty Murong hadn't followed him, he took his first steps into the forest.

  The many weeks of impatiently waiting were finally ending!

  A few minutes ter, after crawling into the middle a dense cluster of bushes, his entire body suddenly vanished from the forest.

  ~-o-O-o-~

  "How are you so cute?!" Fu Anwen excitedly yelled out with his arms wrapped around a terrified baby deer.

  She had no idea where this strange creature had come from or what it was doing to her, but her instincts were telling her that she needed to remain as still as she possibly could.

  Baby deer didn't exactly have the best survival instincts. Fortunately, her current companion didn't mean her any harm.

  Queen Fluffytail, as Fu Anwen had named the adorable fawn, was looking much better now than she had been when Fu Anwen had pulled her into his inner space. Her steady diet of diced mushrooms and potatoes, along with occasional unripe berries from the many bushes scattered around, had done wonders for her health.

  The young boy had been looking forward to finally meeting the first inhabitant of his inner space in person, and the experience so far was surpassing every single one of his expectations. He quickly pulled over a stone bowl filled with mushrooms and potatoes, then gave them all a quick dice with his mental energy.

  The little deer wasn't concerned about the food suddenly appearing out of nowhere in front of her, as that was how all of her food had been showing up tely—all of it except the berries, at least. For some reason, she always had to walk over and eat those on her own.

  "I'm really busy right now, but we'll be able to py together every day from now on. I'm so gd I finally got to meet you!" he said, kissing the little deer on her head.

  After giving her a kiss, he suddenly vanished.

  Queen Fluffytail looked around. After she didn't see the strange creature anywhere, she slowly leaned forward and started eating the newly arrived mushrooms and potatoes.

  ~-o-O-o-~

  Fu Anwen, now floating in the center of his inner space, watched as the cute little deer lying in the artificial forest at the edge of his space ate her breakfast.

  He smiled and returned his attention to his next task.

  First, he took a deep breath.

  "The air seems to be the same in here as it is outside. It looks like the pnts are doing a good job of making the air breathable."

  "Next, it's time to test repositioning."

  He already knew that he could blink objects from one pce to another while they were inside his inner space. He had even used that ability on himself a couple of times with no issues.

  He could also still sense the outer world while inside his inner space. Even without testing, he knew that he could blink himself out of his space and arrive in any location within his sensing range.

  The goal of this next round of testing was to see if he could re-center the space on himself without going outside. Previously, the space had always been centered on his body's physical location, but now his body was located inside the space itself. He had no idea how that actually worked, hence his need for testing.

  While he would still be able to accomplish his goals even if his current idea didn't pan out, being able to travel while staying inside his inner space the entire time would make achieving his goals countless times faster, safer, and more efficient.

  He quickly blinked over to the border of his inner space. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to exert his mental energy in just the right way so that the sphere surrounding him snapped into pce with his body as the center.

  After his eyelids flickered rapidly for nearly a minute, there was a sudden change within the space. After opening his eyes, he broke into a smile.

  "Ha ha ha, I knew it would work!"

  He spent another ten minutes practicing, only stopping once he could recenter the inner space with a simple thought.

  He also tried to modify the re-centering process so that his location within the inner space swapped with the space's opposite border instead of the center, which would have had the effect of doubling his blinking distance and travel speed. Unfortunately, he could only snap the exact center of the space to his body's current position. His best guess was that it worked that way because, in some sense, his mind or body was the true center of the space.

  In truth, it didn't really matter why it worked the way it worked. As long as it worked at all, he was happy. The more complicated aspects could all be figured out once he grew stronger and learned more about high level martial arts and cultivation, allowing him to explore his body's secrets more deeply.

  After a series of rapid blinks, he had thoroughly explored the area within thousands of feet of the bushes he had used for his disappearing trick. Once he was certain that nobody had seen or followed him, he breathed out a sigh of relief.

  There was always going to be a risk the first time he blinked into the space. After the first time, however, he would never have to take the same risk again. From now on, he would always be able to blink into his inner space from a secure location that was protected by formations.

  As soon as he had that thought, he suddenly realized with some embarrassment, "I should have blinked out a formation and used it to hide myself this time, too."

  After thinking the situation through, there was no way around it. He had just screwed up and put himself at risk unnecessarily.

  "Foolish," he shook his head. "I have to remember this lesson in the future. Don't be arrogant, and definitely don't rush ahead without thinking just because the food you had for breakfast was terrible."

  He quickly filed away his newly learned lesson, then, with a victorious smile and another loud burst of ughter, blinked off into the forest.