Beneath the Still Earth

The mist lingered over Mudvale like a secret. Cool, damp, and oddly calming, it blanketed the early morning earth with a hush only the wild understood. The world seemed content to whisper instead of shout. Birds sang in muted harmony, and dew clung to the edges of every leaf and blade.

Shen knelt by the herb row, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His fingers, stained with the dark, fragrant soil, carefully coaxed a fennel sprout into its new home. He worked with the tenderness of someone who had learned the value of quiet persistence, who had bled enough in his old world to appreciate the serenity of this one.

A soft chirp caught his attention.

Yue, his divine fox companion—currently disguised as a clumsy, single-tailed furball of mischief—lay sprawled across a sun-warmed rock nearby. Her tail twitched in perfect time with the breeze, her wide eyes tracking a fluttering leaf as though it were a personal affront to her authority.

When the leaf dared to land near her snout, she pounced. Missed. Rolled. And, somehow, managed to look victorious.

Shen glanced her way and smirked. "Ah, yes. The mighty celestial predator. Guardian of cabbages."

Yue sneezed violently, sending the leaf sailing again.

The farm had known a rare week of peace. The fence remained unbreached, the wilds stayed respectfully distant, and Lan—the hunter who'd stumbled onto the land by accident and left with bandaged ribs and a pie—had visited once more with gifts and warnings.

Shen had declined the invitation to the village gathering. Crowds still made his spine itch.

He'd escaped a world of hierarchy and cruelty, transmigrated into the broken shell of a bullied sect member, and clawed his way to the edge of peace. The kind of peace that tasted like warm broth and smelled like tilled earth.

Let others chase glory.

He had carrots to plant.

[System Notification: Soil Sage – Rootbound Path]

Cultivation Progress: 8% (Dormant Seedling)

Skill Acquired: Herbology (Level 1) Passive

Unlocked: Green Touch – Enhances the vitality and growth of non-spiritual plants.

New Feature Available: Essence Infusion (Basic) – Enables trace essence introduction into prepared soil plots.

Shen wiped the back of his hand across his forehead.

"Essence infusion, huh?"

He eyed the section of soil he'd left untouched beside the cabbage row. It had been freshly tilled, fertilized with compost, and marked carefully. But he hadn't dared infuse anything yet. Spirituality in soil was a delicate balance. And he, while supported by a strange but helpful system, was no grand cultivator.

"Let's not blow up the daikon," he muttered.

Yue appeared beside him, sitting elegantly on his foot.

He looked down at her. "You'd blow up the daikon."

She blinked slowly.

Then chirped.

"And you'd enjoy it."

By midday, clouds gathered overhead, gray and lazy, bringing with them a gentle drizzle. Shen stood beneath the lean-to, working on a new thatch cover for his rain barrels. The sound of rainfall created a pleasant percussion on the roof.

Yue, defying any logic of feline or fox behavior, was gleefully dashing between puddles, chasing frogs that croaked in alarm. Her soaked fur stuck up in every direction, making her look like a puffball struck by lightning.

"You're going to catch something worse than a frog," Shen warned, weaving fibers between stakes. "I hope your divine lineage includes resistance to idiocy."

Yue bounded into the catchment barrel.

SPLASH.

Water sloshed out. Shen stared.

A small face popped up from the surface, victorious and soaking.

He sighed. "Incredible. A water fox. The legends did not prepare me for this."

That evening, the wind picked up. Not a storm, just the forest murmuring its ancient secrets. The trees groaned gently, their leaves rustling like gossiping villagers.

Shen sat near the fire pit, slowly sharpening his axe. His eyes flicked toward the far end of the field, to the section he'd marked for spiritual experimentation.

Something had changed.

He stood, cautious. Yue padded silently behind him.

At the center of the essence plot, a sprout had emerged. Luminous green, its small leaves shimmered faintly. A rhythmic pulse traveled through its stem, as though it had a heartbeat.

[System Alert]

Unknown Growth Detected.

Essence Signature: Incomplete.

Status: Stable.

Monitor for mutation.

Shen crouched beside it.

"I know how this story goes," he murmured. "Soon you start moving, start talking, start asking me to overthrow the heavens."

Yue sneezed on the sprout.

It glowed brighter.

Shen looked at her. "You're not helping."

The next morning, while Shen cleaned out the barrel (and extracted a soggy fox for the fourth time), he heard a whistle from the treeline.

Lan.

But he wasn't alone.

Two others followed—one with a ledger strapped to his side, the other in the robes of a provincial scribe.

Shen dried his hands on a cloth. "More visitors?"

Lan grinned. "Don't look so excited. These two are here to make it all official."

The scribe stepped forward with a short bow. "Claimant Shen. We are here on behalf of Magistrate Dhen to finalize your land registry and perform a cultivation inspection."

"Now?"

"Indeed."

Shen looked up. Rain still fell in a thin drizzle.

The scribe did not flinch. "Government timing, sir. We pride ourselves on efficiency and minimal convenience."

Shen opened the gate. "Welcome to Mudvale."

The inspection took time. The scribe asked precise questions about crop rotations, fencing, irrigation, and storage. Shen answered as best he could.

Then they reached the spiritual plot.

"Did you infuse this manually?" the scribe asked, eyeing the glowing sprout.

"Not intentionally," Shen said.

"How did it activate?"

"Living here. Breathing here. Digging holes."

The scribe squinted. "Fascinating."

He examined the plant, careful not to touch it.

"It's... untamed," he muttered. "Not hostile. But not cultivated. This is frontier growth."

"Should I dig it up?" Shen asked.

"It is your land. Your risk."

Shen nodded.

By dusk, the visitors had gone. Lan remained to share roasted sweetroots and smoked fish. They sat beneath the awning, watching the mist creep over the fields.

Yue snored softly in her basket, belly round from a generous meal.

"You know," Lan said, sipping from a clay cup, "you're becoming a local legend. They're already calling you the Field Hermit."

"Very mysterious," Shen muttered. "I plant radishes."

"You glow at night."

"That was once. And technically, it was the sprout."

Lan raised his cup. "To Mudvale."

Shen raised his own, a small smile ghosting his lips. "To roots that grow deeper than fear."

The night curled around them, warm and content.

And somewhere in the field, the strange sprout pulsed with life, whispering secrets to the soil.

End of Chapter 11