Chapter 44 - Natural Spirit Formation

"Thank you, Kazuo-san for making this old body feel young again." The last villager who came for the massage holds Red's hand between his palms in gratitude.

"You've worked in the farms all your life, sir. If I can help you enjoy your retirement better, I'm glad." Red smiles at the old man.

"Yes, yes. Thanks to you, I have the strength to travel to the city to visit my grandchildren. Maybe I'll go tomorrow." The old man is still not letting go of Red's hand.

"Old man. It's best to let Master Kazuo and his students rest. They have worked all afternoon." Chief Masuda pries the old man off Red.

"Heh, heh. You two young-ins. Learn well from your teacher. If there's still a real God on our world, then your master is doing his work." The old man addresses Fumio and Kotone as his last word in, before walking out of the village center.

"Phew… It's finally done. You've received thanks all afternoon, but as the chief of this village, I sincerely thank you, Master Kazuo." It is the chief's turn to express his thanks.

"No. Just looking at them feeling better is enough for me." Red shakes his head.

"You're a good man, Master Kazuo. I hope more people are like you." Chief Masuda shakes his head.

"Anyways. It's almost midnight, but I hope you still have the energy to have dinner." He offers.

"We have to refuse, Masuda-san. We have to go back to the city." Red refuses.

"At this hour? I can't let you!" Chief Masuda insists.

"Besides, I already prepared your accommodations. Not only that, some old ladies insisted on preparing a feast for you in secret earlier, with the villagers all contributing the ingredients for your dinner." He explains.

"Well, in that case, I guess we can stay the night." Red, not wanting to refuse the old villagers' sincerity, accepts.

"Unless you want to go home, Kotaru? Someone must be waiting for you." Red asks Kotone, whose life revolves around Haruto.

"He can take care of himself, Kazuo-san." Kotone is more curious in spending the night at a rural village.

"Good! Now give me a few minutes to lock the place and I'll bring you there." Chief Masuda excitedly goes back to his office to grab the keys.

"How are you two?" Red asks Fumio and Kotone, finding the two too quiet.

"I feel hungry, boss. Heheh.." Fumio scratches his head.

"But aside from that, I feel great." He adds.

The expression on his face tells Red and Kotone that he enjoyed the work.

"I had fun as well, Kichirou-san. Thank you for bringing me along." Kotone says, smiling remembering the thanks and the smiles she received throughout the afternoon. 

A few minutes later. 

Chief Masuda parks the car in the clay road and turns off the engine. He just brought Red's group to their accommodation for the night.

After getting out of the car, the strangers to the place look around.

They are currently in the yard in front of an old and well-preserved, two-story traditional house located in the middle of a hill a few kilometers away from the village center, surrounded by lush vegetation.

Fumio and Kotone, cannot help but be spooked looking at the shadows and silhouettes of the overgrown shrubbery around the house. The grey moonlight hitting the leaves are not helping with the eerie feeling.

"It looks a bit spooky, no?" Chief Masuda notices the faces of the two students.

"I'm sorry. I did not consider how this place would look like during the night." He can only apologize.

"Masuda-san. I have to say, I love this place." Red, on the other hand, appreciates the view from the yard, overlooking the hilly and green terrain of Hinohara. Unlike the three, his eyes can see through the darkness.

He then looks up, "The sky is unstained, displaying the moon and the stars in their full beauty.", and says in appreciation.

This makes Fumio, Kotone and Chief Masuda look up and they cannot help but take in the purplish-blue beauty of the sea of stars in the night sky.

"And it seems that I can enjoy the view of the mountains and hills during the day." He turns to Chief Masuda.

"I only figured that people of the city would appreciate the peace and quiet of the countryside. It looks like I always took for granted the sky." Chief Masuda is proud of his decision of brining the trio to this accommodation.

"Right. Whose house is this, by the way? You didn't have someone give up their house for a night just for us, no?" Red asks.

"Ah. You don't have to worry. This is a house of one of our former elders who passed last year." Chief Masuda explains.

This makes Kotone and Fumio flinch, amusing Chief Masuda.

"Oh. Don't worry. Chouko-san didn't die here. She actually lived her final two years in the city with her son and his family and departed while being surrounded by people who loved her." He clarifies, making Fumio and Kotone at ease.

"I see. By any chance, does Chouko-san's property include the land surrounding the house? They look like abandoned vegetable farms to me." Red asks.

"Yes, the entire hill, in fact. Unfortunately, her son, Tadao-kun, has already made a good career in the city so he can only ask the village association to take care of the property. Even if he didn't ask, many would volunteer. After all, Chouko-san was one of the pillars of the village and has helped many people." Chief Masuda smiles for a moment before wearing a disappointed face.

"Unfortunately. The village, as you see, is aging. The younger ones migrated to the city for better opportunities and education for their kids. No one has the energy to tend to Chouko-san's land, no matter how fertile it is. Even when she was still alive, she just farmed a small part of it.

"Even when she offered other farmers to rent it for a cheap price, they already had enough on their hands. In fact, when Tadao-kun inherited this, he actually offered it to the villagers to be borrowed for free, but even then, no one took the opportunity."

"A shame." Red nods.

To himself meanwhile, he finds this place very useful. Apart from the property being in the middle of nowhere, vegetated by lush pine trees and wild shrubs, Red noticed, since they entered the vicinity of the area, that the place is rich in spiritual energy.

He then gets down on one knee, stabs his hand on the clay ground and grabs a handful of it. He closes his eyes for a moment, and shakes his head as he opens his eyes.

He then walks to the nearest shrub, takes a leaf from it, and takes a bite of it.

After savoring the taste of the leaf, he takes a deep breath. 'Natural Spiritual Energy Gathering Formation' He cannot help but grin.

He feels that the hill they are currently in, just happens to be in the middle of a natural Spiritual Energy Gathering Formation which is made up of the pattern formed by the natural arrangement and distribution of the nearby hills and mountains in the distance.

Although he has not scoured the entirety of Japan, he has traveled around enough to figure out that natural spiritual energy works the same as that in the infinite realms.

The countryside offers a thicker atmospheric spiritual energy than the cities. Not because of nature, but because of its population. He knows that the more people who can use spiritual energy, i.e. the superiori, populate a certain area, that area's atmospheric spiritual energy is used more and therefore is deprived with it.

That is why when Red first visited Hinohara village a few months back, he did not find the thicker spiritual energy a surprise. Especially when Hinohara Village only have a population of 1,500 and those 1,500 people live in houses that are a distance away from their neighbors. 

Tonight however, when the group are on their way up the hill, Red feels that the atmospheric spiritual energy of the hill is around seven to eight times thicker than the rest of Hinohara Village's; an environment that is very useful to a cultivator. 

He first suspected that the source of it is a mineral vein that is rich in spiritual energy, but that guess is scratched as he did not sniff out anything special from the handful of clay he grabbed from the ground.

As for why he is sure that the cause of the rich spiritual energy comes from a natural spiritual formation, it is because of the leaf he took a taste of. The shrub it came from grew lush not because of the spiritual energy from the ground, but from the spiritual energy in the air. 

"Boss, what are you doing?" Fumio asks, expressing not only his, but Kotone's and Chief Masuda's confusion of Red's actions.

"Just… having a feel of the land." Red gets over his excitement.

While he has been using spiritual gathering seals and formations in his apartment to grow his plants, the spiritual energy in the city is thin, so there is a limit to how much spiritual energy the gather seals can condense.

While he can also apply spiritual gathering seals in a rural place, he cannot afford the materials to make enough seals that can cover an entire hill unlike the Natural Formation he is in, currently does.

"Do you know about farming, Kazuo-san?" Chief Masuda asks as he found Red's actions pretentious.

"Not really. I'm more of a gardener, really. I grow the herbs I use to make my massage solutions. And those plants require good soil and environment." Red explains.

"I see." Chief Masuda believes Red's words this time.

"By any chance, is Tadao-san looking to sell this property?" Red asks.

"He is." Masuda nods. "Are you interested?" He asks.

"I actually am." Red says, surprising Chief Masuda.

Chief Masuda was just making small talk, but he did not expect Red to take his question seriously.

"Well. Even if you're interested in this place, are you sure you can take care of it?" He asks, feeling protective of the property.

"Of course." Red simply smiles at the man.

Chief Masuda does not know why, but somehow he trusts Red.

"Let's talk about it some other time." He nods.

"To the matter at hand, dinner? The ladies were done cooking an hour ago and already left, so the food must already be cold." He then leads the group in the house.

Red and his students find the dining table in the dining area, full of food. Vegetables, duck, chicken, and pork, all cooked in different ways are lying prettily, just waiting to be devoured.

Chief Masuda then materializes an orange transparent box between his hands and expands it to cover the entire table. Fumio and Kotone nod at how convenient the ability is.

A few minutes later, "Please. Enjoy." Chief Masuda is done warming the food.

"Join us, Chief." Red offers.

"No, no. I'll be in the dog house if I don't eat the dinner my wife prepared at home." Chief Masuda refuses.

"Well, then. That's understandable." Red nods, feeling that Chief Masuda's excuse is true.

"Uhn. If you need a ride to the bus stop tomorrow, just give me a call. And, you can all just leave the dirty dishes in the huge basin in the backyard. I'll have someone clean them up tomorrow." Chief Masuda instructs one more time, and leaves. 

"Help yourselves." Red starts eating immediately.

"Thanks for the meal…" The hunger in his two students override any sort of hesitations.

"Hmm… Don't look as good, or as tasty as our breakfast in Chofu… but… Somehow…" Fumio cannot express the joy he is feeling as the warm food enters his stomach.

"It's the best food I've ever had in a while." Kotone agrees.

"Good." Red nods.

"At first, I just wanted to help the old folks around here. But feeling their gratitude, tasting the care in their food they offer, feeling the pride they put in growing these ingredients they can hardly sell, I just had to come back a few more times." He shares.

His explanation somehow makes the food taste even better for Kotone and Fumio.