Cultivation is just so scientific!

Chapter 44 Petroleum

Li Shiming saw a village ahead and since it was still early, he canceled the blue glow on his leg, slowed down, and returned to a normal state.

This village, near the Central Capital, clearly suffered from poverty due to the mountainous terrain around it, with all houses made of thatch and mud.

”Six-sonʼs family is truly pitiful; their entire two acres have been destroyed by Magic Water. How are they to survive!” he heard villagers discussing as he walked into the village.

”Indeed, not just Six-sonʼs family, even the fields next to theirs are at risk!” another villager lamented.

For farmers, their fields are their livelihood; losing them is akin to losing their means to live.

”Old man, I am not familiar with this Magic Water; could you take me to see it?” Li Shiming felt a stir in his heart and greeted the speaking elder with a Confucian bow.

The elder looked up and saw Li Shiming in a Confucian Robe, hurriedly bowed deeply, too nervous to speak.

The other villagers nearby also bowed their heads, showing utmost humility.

Anyone dressed in a Confucian Robe is at least a Scholar, a status not ordinarily within reach of ordinary farmers.

The closer to Central Capital, the more the farmers are aware of the frightening power of the elite.

Li Shimingʼs Confucian bow intimidated the elder; speaking with a condescending attitude would have reassured the elder more than such a gesture.

Though Li Shimingʼs memories and emotions had fused, deep down he still believed in the equality of all people from his previous life.

”Old man, would you bring me to see the Magic Water?” he asked helplessly yet again.

”This old man does not deserve such honor, young master. If you wish to see the Magic Water, I am certainly obliged to show you the way!” the elder finally responded, still bowing, his hands fumbling in front of him.

The elder was not young, but he moved briskly, leading Li Shiming to a field outside the village.

This field was a low-lying area of about ten acres or so, surrounded by a landscape littered with rocks of various sizes.

It was apparent that the villagers had cleared the rocks from this land; the soil quality of these ten acres was poor and likely unproductive.

On the right side of the field, a thick black liquid had started bubbling up from the ground in the center of two acres.

Even before reaching the black liquid, a strong smell was evident.

”Itʼs oil!” Li Shiming thought, as he had suspected.

When the villagers mentioned Magic Water, he had thought of this possibility.

In this world, oil is not useless; ingredients for fierce fire oil like petroleum are indeed made from oil, but fierce fire oil is always classified, unknown to farmers, and even most scholars are unfamiliar with oil.

For the villagers, land where oil appears becomes contaminated by the oil, losing its ability to support crops, essentially ruining their livelihood like a natural disaster.

However, the significance of oil for Li Shiming was entirely different.

With oil, there are many possibilities such as diesel, gasoline, and plastics.

Oil, known as the blood of industry, with just one kind like diesel or gasoline, would allow him to create a more efficient generator, enabling many of his ideas to be realized.

”Old man, thank you for showing me the way!” Li Shiming then handed over one tael of silver in gratitude.

After the elder tremblingly accepted the silver, Li Shiming turned and left the village.

Buing this place would not require his presence; upon returning home he would instruct Steward Zhang to handle the matter.

The owner of the ten-plus acres of farmland, upon hearing that someone wanted to purchase it, didnʼt oppose the idea at all and instead gave his grateful consent.

Of course, the price offered by Li Shiming was high, enough for them to acquire an equal amount of good farmland.

A day later, the first two barrels of oil were transported to a residential property outside the city, which was also purchased for convenient storage.

The space in the machine room wasnʼt enough to refine oil on a large scale, but the advantage was that, under meticulous control of consciousness, even the most primitive equipment could refine a few basic substances.

The quality of the oil from that village was decent, with a diesel yield of forty percent and a gasoline yield of twenty percent.

In the days that followed, Li Shiming was very busy every day.

Every day, he used most of his Spiritual Power Pattern for spell practice to accelerate the speed of casting spells.

Because the more proficient and faster the casting of spells, the more it helped in the creation of talismans, which was a fundamental condition.

The oil refining process was highly polluting, so he went to the residential property outside the city every day to refine oil, constantly venting toxic gases out of the machine room space during the process to avoid affecting the growth of the Spirit Rice and the unknown Spirit Plant.

He also needed to monitor the growth of the unknown Spirit Plant, not knowing whether it was his luck or the plantʼs fate not to die, but under the daily nourishment of the ”Spring Breeze and Rain Skill,” both the spirit root seeds and the grafted branches of the unknown Spirit Plant had survived.

It was yet to be seen when the spores on the branches of the Spirit Plant would grow out and actually form leaves, as only then would the Spirit Plant have a basis for survival.

Steward Zhang didnʼt know what use the young master had for the foul-smelling black water, but he obeyed the command and had it transported daily by cart to the residential property outside the city.

He was also anxious, as the time for next springʼs imperial examination was drawing near, but the young master seemed to be not concerned about the exam.

As a servant, he could not offer advice, only hoping that the young master would come to his senses in time.

Li Shiming, the subject of Steward Zhangʼs concerns, was in the process of discontinuing the use of the existing steam engine.

A brand-new diesel generator had replaced both the steam engine and the original generator, offering greater and more stable power output.

Part of the diesel refined from the oil was stored by him in two empty storage bags placed within the machine room space, which helped to save as much space as possible.

Although the space inside the storage bags was only one cubic meter, it occupied just a tiny portion of the machine room space.

Most of the space in his machine room was now occupied by the Spirit Rice, along with an IBMz15, uninterruptible power supply, diesel generator, electric arc furnace, and the cultivation space for the unknown Spirit Plant, leaving very little spare space.

More diesel was stored underground at the residential property outside the city as a reserve resource.

Even if the oil in the fields were to be fully extracted now, he wouldnʼt need to worry about the diesel consumption next year.

He believed that, once he joined a sect, he would find a way to convert Spirit Stones into electricity, a method mentioned in ”Introduction to Runes,” although with just a simple description he was unable to create a Spirit Stone generator.

Li Shiming had a substantial amount of gold and silver, and these past days, Mo Yan had also been busy.

Since he was planning to join a sect, gold and silver would be useless, so he used these resources to have Mo Yan purchase a large amount of various ores.

Because the ores were devoid of Spiritual Energy, they were undervalued in this world; many ores that Li Shiming deemed extremely rare were treated as impure in this world.

Possibly because of the presence of a cultivation civilization, the civilization of this world had been suppressed, still valuing metals like gold and silver, which could be used as currency.

Once the various ores reached Li Shimingʼs hands, they were processed in the electric arc furnace, melted down and partitioned into different metals.

As the days passed, the resources he accumulated grew increasingly abundant.