BOC Lore Post: On Plant Growing Formations

Saw some confusion in the comments for last chapter. Speifically this one.

"Doesn't this chapter break the lore of BoC? The outer disciples being given a qi-infusion technique with the (hidden) intent of using it for cultivating plants, indicates that the concept of using your qi to enrich your surroundings is not foreign to them. Yet, all the earlier parts of BoC talks about this as if it's heresy and was only conceived of because of the isekai nature of the protagonist. Sure, you want Jin not to have just invented everything out of thin air, but the concept of willingly parting with your own qi was blasphemous to the extreme in the earlier chapters, to the point that when Bi De did it elsewhere, it was the first time in centuries, if not millenia, that the earth spirits had experienced it."

its a failure on my part if something has to be explained out of setting, but here it is.

Theres a difference between nurturing Spiritual Herbs, and what Jin ended up doing. Shou does not give his Qi to the earth. None of the disciples in the CSS are.

 The outer sect is relegated to gowing the masses of herbs as a Qi training excersise, and to benifit the sect. Its a chore.

A few will wonder if theres a better way to do that, seeking knowledge, and finding more comprehensive, but more difficult formations. This does not nessisarily improve quality, but it would speed up your chore/make it easier/allow you to basically automate it.

Rou crafted a superior formation, one that was good enough it dramatically improved the quality of the herbs, because instead of just using one of the new techniques, he combined all of them, which actually took more Qi, and didn't speed anything up. But Rou was a perfectionist, and in his mind success was not producing herbs the fastest, but producing the best. If he had the best, for only a bit more expenditure, then the quality would enable him to get better prices, so he could buy more things. Time now for time later. It also fit with Shen Yu's teachings, where the goal was basically perfection.

If he only used it for his job (getting useful herbs) that would have been fine. But once he got to his farm? Instead he just pumps his Qi into everything. Instead of carefully using his Qi for descisive, maximum impact, Hes draining himself compeltely. He is fundamentally not doing cultivation because what he was doing was basically a 0 return on investment.

In the Shrouded Mountian Sect Big D specifically notes when hes forced to tend to the garden that hes not only not advancing, but he might be regressing until he learns the breath of life. In giving it all to the Earth, he wasn't going anywhere, and when other people took the herbs, it was a net loss for him.

So. When Shou uses his formation he uses the minimum amount of Qi to achive his goals of growing plants that will be useful to his cultivation, and he occasionally also grows things for his wife. His formation is crisp, clean, scientifically calcuated to give his plants their Qi requirements.... and exactly their Qi requirements. He has identified what he needs to do and does that. It is efficent. He accelerates their growth as much as he can when he can get away with it. Shou could grow like 100 harvests of rice in a week, and then the lands barren, but he has what he wanted.

Jin's formation and philosophy on the other hand is everything gets some. Those worms hes not going to eat? Qi. That rock? Qi. the dirt? Qi. The birds who steal my crops, the bugs that eat their leaves, the trees and the grass and the air? Everything gets juiced. He entends his power to everything, and so everything receives his gift.

He spends his Qi into the earth instead of finding Qi filled earth. He spends into rice instead of finding a Dragon vein to do it for him. Instead of a thousand formations to protect his investment, theres songbirds fattened on Gold Grade Rice they've stolen from his fields.

Its winter now. Shou is just assuming THIS is how he uses his Qi. If he came in spring everybody would be like "what the hells is this boy doing?!"

 When you put the top grade 10K USD a pound fertilizer on the herbs that will sell for 20K a gram, everyone goes "yeah, that tracks."

When you then turn around and give that same fertilizer to sunflowers because they're pretty, everyone looks at you like you're a moron.

Its fundamentally different than the standard operation.

A little bit rambly but hopefully it got the point across.