“Fairy Lin?” Little Spring frowned worriedly at me.

I blinked. Shit. I’d zoned out again.

I patted his head in thanks. “Not everything is lost. There are seeds down here, and we can use them to grow our own Vines of Stellar Rebirth.”

I took out a batch of my formation flags and quickly set up an obfuscation formation around the dirt piles. Because of the large area and complicated terrain, this actually took a good hour.

Since my junior brother couldn’t exactly help, he went off to go do whatever over by the pond.

Once I finished setting up, I grabbed my sword, then I once again used sword Qi to slice into the area where a good amount of seeds were located and transplanted them into the space. With a thought, I had the space dump a bit of spiritual spring water on them.

While I was grabbing stuff, I brought in a few of the larger blue-grey stones from the cliffside and set them up near the seeds so they could eventually climb up them. I’d need to construct a proper trellis later but this was a start.

I’d done some tests on earlier plants we’d picked up, and while it didn’t increase the growth rate that much, it did make plants stronger and more vibrant over a very short period of time.

This meant that we’d still need to buy some from the nearby city.

When I finished, I wiped the sweat off my forehead and nearly collapsed onto my boulder seat. My side ached like a bitch. It wasn’t a good sign that my injuries were getting worse over time instead of better.

The scent of cooked fish blew past me and I peered over at Little Spring, who’d somehow managed to catch a couple, gut them and cook them in that short amount of time. He brought one of them over to me and grinned.

“You should eat something when you're hurt. It helps you heal.”

I nearly grimaced at the mundane fish on a stick but took it anyway.

“Thank you. You did a very good job,” I said, not meaning a word of it.

He put in a lot of work for this, and while I didn’t like that he was so focused on some mundane useless thing like cooking, I appreciated the sentiment.

Still, I peered suspiciously at the charred exterior. This was fine... Right?

I took out a clean knife and peeled away the black scales. The outside portion of fish looked cooked. Promising. I grabbed a bit of salt from my bag and sprinkled it over the cooked meat.

Ever so slowly I took a bite. The flavor of fish overwhelmed my tongue. I nearly spit it out. Maybe it was the way he cooked it but this thing was beyond fishy. Still, I forced myself to finish the bite. I peered up at him. He looked so hopeful.

Fuck.

I took another bite and swallowed quickly. I placed my hand on my stomach and handed the fish back to him. “Ah, I’m so full. I had a grain liberation pill earlier so...”

He bit his lip and his eyes looked a little watery. “Fairy Lin. We’re both still growing. We need to eat. If we don’t eat then we can’t grow big and strong.”

I opened my mouth to respond and then closed it.

In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure that a growing body could grow better by just living off spiritual energy. I mean, it sounded plausible but, I hadn’t done careful research into it. And, part of me was hoping that not eating would stunt my growth in certain chesty areas.

Seriously, fuck that dumbass author.

I sighed. “In my past life, I practiced grain liberation. Those few things I did eat were spiritual dishes made by Immortal Chefs. Those are cultivators who create special food and tea infused with spiritual energy which help a cultivator become stronger. So, to me, mundane food is practically unpalatable. I only ate it before because I would die if I didn't.”

He nodded sagely.“So it’s not that my cooking is bad, it's just that I don’t make the kind of food you're used to.”

“Exactly! You’re an excellent little chef. I’m just used to things you can’t make.”

“Then we’ll have to find some you can eat.”

“Sure,” I lied. Immortal dishes were too expensive. How the fuck could our currently poor asses afford them? “In the meantime, I’ll stick with grain liberation pills. I’ll even make my own once I get a good cauldron. They’ll be very nutritious, I promise.”

“Then we’ll do that. But I still think you should try and eat some normal food sometimes.”