Sacred Mountain had two holy locations - Sacred Orchard and Bestial Garden.
The orchard surrounded the garden. Thus, in order to reach the latter, one must go through the former.
The deepest part of Bestial Garden has rarely been tread because of an increasingly suppressive force in there.
Thus, for many students, the orchard remained the safest and easiest place for gains.
Zhou Qiushi’s group entered the orchard and instantly smelled a pleasant fruity fragrance. This scent couldn’t be found anywhere else.
However, instead of using one’s sense of smell, one must use their spirits to detect the fruits.
Entering this place made one feel very comfortable as if something wonderful was washing their body and soul. The latter felt good enough to leave the body.
“This smell is amazing.” One person blurted.
Sure enough, the rest felt the same way. In fact, virtually every student who came here had this thought.
Everyone became immersed in this sensation, especially those who grew up in the system with a light-affinity merit law.
These scents naturally came from the sacred fruits. They were plentiful in the orchard.
This orchard wasn’t man-made. It had majestic mountain ranges and pristine forests instead of looking like a fruit plantation. The fruits scattered in the forests and valleys, even growing on the cliffs.
Recognizing the sacred trees was very simple - they just needed to have fruits even if the levels and types were different.
“Everyone, listen up. The fruits here are all sacred and available. However, only pick the nearly-ripe ones. Of course, you can’t do it before that anyway.” Du Wenrui looked around for a bit and reminded the group.
“Dean, how can we tell when they are ripe?” One student asked.
“Look at the light emitting from it, the stronger the light, the riper it is. However, after it is completely matured, it will fall to the ground and return to the earth.” Wenrui said.
“Really? Then we can grab all the matured ones back to the academy then give one to each student.” One excited student readied his spatial pouch, wanting to share with his friends back home.
“In your dream. If that’s the case, all of the fruits would be gone by now.” Wenrui smiled and said: “Remember, knock on the fruit three times. If it agrees and falls, it is yours. If not, then stop wasting your time since there’s only one chance.”
After hearing this explanation, the students began observing others attempting to do so. Sure enough, one student from another academy knocked on a glowing fruit three times yielding zero reaction.
“I’ll try too.” Another shouted and knocked three times. This particular fruit fell into his hand - a successful attempt.
“Let's get started.” Wenrui told his group and followed the mountain road. He didn’t try to pick any for himself.
“Over there! Come, fast! There’s a sacred tree with many ripe fruits!” A Repentance student saw a tree on top of a hill with many fruits on the branches.
Zhou Qiushi and the others rushed over and hastily began the knocking process on each fruit. Alas, they didn’t get anything.
“Don’t forget to be sincere and respectful. Try with that mindset in your dao heart.” Wenrui advised.
Qiushi understood the fastest. He paused his breathing and calmed his mind before slowly knock three times.
“Bam!” Sure enough, a yellow fruit around the size of a thumb fell into his palm.
“I did it!” He celebrated.
The others started following his lead. Just a while later, another shouted: “I got one too!”
Several more found success but not everyone.
“There’s another tree over here.” One of them noticed another sacred tree. This one was even larger with fruits from top to bottom.
The fruits here were different. They looked like apples with the shade of jade.
“So many…” They stood in front of the tree, awed.
“Let’s hurry.” They climbed the tree and started knocking.
A few became irritable and started slamming into the trunk of the tree, hoping to knock a few fruits down.
“Bam! Bam! Bam!” Alas, the fruits didn’t move at all.
Meanwhile, Du Wenrui and Li Qiye strolled behind them.
“Sincerity and respect?” Li Qiye smiled at the dean: “That’s a bunch of crap. Why not tell them that a strong dao heart can overwhelm the fruits instead of this nonsense?”
“They’re still young with limited comprehension. It’s easier for them to enter the right mindset by telling them to worship the light with sincerity.” Wenrui smiled.
Li Qiye chuckled. He could see through the mysteries of this place.
The so-called sacred fruits were manifestations of this land’s fortune and light affinity. Because this light affinity was so strong underground, it gestated the land for years. The result was the fruits.
“Teacher, we got a lot of sacred fruits.” A student caught up to Li Qiye and Du Wenrui who got a bit far away from the group.
He had a bag full of various fruits - looking like pears, jujubes, and sesame fruits…
“Hmm, good job.” Wenrui nodded and smiled.
They have crossed through a ridge by this point. The rest started catching up.
“Junior Brother, are you not picking any?” Qiushi saw that Li Qiye had nothing and gave one of his fruits to him.
He didn’t ask why Li Qiye abstained from this activity. He believed that it might be because Li Qiye was a sinkin and couldn’t pick any. Thus, it was better to save face by not trying at all.
“I don’t like fruits.” Li Qiye shook his head.
Wenrui smiled after hearing this response. He naturally knew that these fruits weren’t enough to get into his sight.
“The fruits are better when we get farther inside.” Wenrui saw the students looking for more trees along the path and reminded: “There are nine ranks in total.”
He paused for a bit before continuing: “The gap between each rank is considerable. For example, one second-ranked fruit is equivalent to several hundred first-rank ones.”
“It’s that big?” The group didn’t expect this.
“Yes.” Wenrui smiled: “Thus, no need to be greedy for quantity. One ninth-ranked alone is more than enough. Of course, know your limits too, if you can’t pick the higher-ranked ones, then stick with the lower-ranked ones.”
“How can we tell the grade?” One student asked.
“The simplest way is to look at the number of people surrounding one tree.” Wenrui chuckled: “There are millions of fruit types here - gem seed, jade seed, jewel seed… It’s an entire field by itself so we can’t remember each one.”
The students exchanged glances. No wonder why no one else chose the trees they did when they first got here. It looked like the previous trees had a low rank.
“Don’t be discouraged, just act accordingly to your own capabilities, the higher-ranked ones are much harder to get. It’s better to have some lower-ranked fruits than to return empty-handedly.” Wenrui added.
“Dean, what is the best sacred fruit tree in the orchard then?” One curious soul asked.
“There is a supreme one at the end of the orchard.” Wenrui stared towards the distance.