And what kind of special breathing methods were being established? Well, let's see, thought Gaia as she split part of her attention toward various organizations and individuals around the world. She did not need to observe every person directly, as much of her attention could be divided across different places while her subconscious handled the more routine monitoring. Still, some breathing methods were interesting enough that she wanted to take a closer look at how they were developing. One of those methods had appeared in a rather unexpected place in southern China.
In Hunan Province, far from the major cities and tucked away in a remote village, lay some of the most fertile farmland in all of China. The land had belonged to the Wang Clan for generations, and because of that, the settlement had eventually become known simply as Wang Farmstead. The clan had controlled the village for at least three hundred years, surviving through periods of turmoil that had caused enormous disruption throughout the country. Their isolation had protected them from some of the worst consequences of those upheavals, although it had also meant that they were among the last people to receive assistance from the government whenever problems arose.
Despite that disadvantage, the Wang Clan had always been able to live in relative comfort. Their farmland was simply too fertile for them to become truly poor, even during difficult periods. The family had learned to rely on the land rather than outside assistance, and generation after generation had been raised around the same fields. Farming was not merely a source of income for them; it was the foundation upon which their entire community had been built. That history had made the clan unusually attached to the land they cultivated.
They had also been incredibly lucky when mana arrived.
A mana vein had developed within their village, although nobody in the Wang Clan knew why it had appeared there. They had no special understanding of mana veins at the time, nor had they done anything intentionally to create one. It had simply formed within their territory, giving the village access to a resource that many other communities desperately wanted. Rather than abandoning their home in search of better opportunities, the Wang Clan remained where they were.
Their decision had proven to be an excellent one.
During the Trial, the people of Wang Farmstead had killed enough goblins to gather the resources necessary to establish a faction. It had taken considerable effort, but the clan had managed to preserve itself and eventually restore much of the status it had possessed before the turmoil that had affected the country. The Wang Clan had survived, retained its land, established a faction, and now possessed a mana vein within its own territory. In many ways, the clan had flourished beyond belief.
One might therefore expect the Wang Clan to have decided that farming was beneath them.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
The Wang Clan remained farmers, and their continued dedication to agriculture was precisely what had made their new breathing method so interesting. Gaia had been watching them because their method was unlike many of the others she had encountered. Instead of being designed primarily around combat, cultivation speed, or some other obvious advantage, the Wang Clan had developed a breathing method that directly connected cultivation with their profession.
And Gaia was very interested to see where that would lead.
"Hey, do you think Grandpa's method will work?" asked one of the young people working in the rice fields.
"I have no idea," replied another young man. "But if the method was accepted and improved before being distributed to us, then it should work."
The young man speaking was the grandson of the clan patriarch, and his skin had become noticeably darker from spending so much time working outside under the sun. He was not particularly bothered by it, though. Working in the fields was simply part of his daily life, and he had grown up surrounded by people who treated farming as something worth taking pride in.
He could still remember the confused expressions on the faces of nearly every family member when his grandfather had first introduced the new breathing method. Nobody had expected the patriarch to come up with something quite so strange. The actual cultivation process itself was not particularly impressive when compared with the breathing method that the Chinese government had already distributed throughout the country.
In fact, the young man knew that the country's standard method was better at directly improving cultivation.
That was not where the Wang Clan's method was supposed to compete.
Their breathing method possessed an unusual side effect that could potentially make up for its slower cultivation speed. Plants that they carefully cultivated and eventually harvested would generate a small amount of wood mana for the cultivator who had cared for them. Each individual plant only produced a small amount, but the Wang Clan cultivated enormous numbers of plants.
That changed the calculation considerably.
If someone spent their entire day working in rice fields, tending plants, protecting them, and eventually harvesting them, then every plant they cared for could contribute a small amount of wood mana. The individual gain might be insignificant, but hundreds or thousands of plants could produce a considerable amount over time. Instead of choosing between cultivation and their profession, the Wang Clan could potentially perform both simultaneously.
And that was where the real potential of the breathing method appeared.
According to the five-elements theory the clan had studied, wood energy was considered one of the gentlest forms of energy. It was associated with regeneration, life, and growth, making it particularly suitable for cultivation. The Wang Clan therefore believed that using the wood mana generated by their crops could compensate for the slower growth rate of their breathing method and potentially provide advantages that the standard Chinese technique could not.
They had no proof yet.
Only one member of the family had reached Mortal status, meaning that the clan had not yet been able to conduct a proper long-term test. Even after reaching Mortal status, the first real harvest would take another six months. Only then would they be able to determine exactly how much wood mana the plants generated and how useful that mana would be for cultivation.
Still, the family remained optimistic.
The young man had no doubt that almost everyone in the family had spent considerable time looking through every cultivation novel they could find. If there was one thing humanity had been good at after the arrival of mana, it was searching fictional stories for ideas that might suddenly become useful in reality. The Wang Clan had done exactly that, taking inspiration from countless cultivation stories and trying to determine which ideas could actually work.
They had already come up with quite a few possibilities for how they could make use of the wood mana their crops generated.
If the method worked as expected, it could give the Wang Clan a permanent advantage in farming. They would not have to abandon their profession in order to become stronger. Instead, every improvement they made to their farms would also improve their ability to cultivate, while their cultivation could potentially make them better farmers.
That possibility alone was enough to keep the family interested.
"Let's get back to work before we get yelled at," said the patriarch's grandson as he glanced around the fields.
He had good reason to be cautious. An elder catching them standing around talking instead of working would not be particularly pleased, especially when the clan's rice was currently selling extremely well. The crops contained a considerable amount of mana, making them especially valuable to wealthy people who wanted to purchase the rice for themselves or their children.
The reason was simple.
Mana contained within food was easier for the body to absorb than mana obtained from the surrounding environment in some circumstances. As a result, wealthy families were willing to pay considerably more for Wang Clan rice. That created a rather straightforward incentive for the clan.
The more rice they grew, the more they could eat themselves.
And the more they could sell, the more money the clan could make.
For a family that had already spent generations farming, the opportunity was almost too good to ignore.
Meanwhile, Gaia was carefully observing the different ways the Wang Clan's breathing method might develop. She was particularly interested in how the relationship between the plants, the cultivators, and the wood mana would evolve once more members of the clan reached Mortal status. She quietly established additional procedures within her subconscious to monitor the family and alert her if they began developing the breathing method in a direction she had not anticipated.
Gaia was quite positive about both the breathing method and the clan surrounding it.
The Wang Clan was dedicated to farming, and that dedication was precisely what interested her. She hoped they would become excellent farmers rather than abandoning their profession after gaining access to cultivation. Their commitment to agriculture could become extremely valuable over the long term, especially because the plants humanity would eventually cultivate could become far more complicated than the crops they grew today.
Some plants would take decades to mature.
Others might require extremely precise environmental conditions.
Some could potentially demand constant attention from people who understood exactly what they were doing.
For those kinds of plants, farming would require more than simply following instructions. It would require people who genuinely loved farming and were willing to dedicate themselves to understanding the plants they cultivated. Gaia could already see the potential value of a clan that had spent thousands of years developing that kind of knowledge.
And the Wang Clan was not the only group creating unusual breathing methods.
The Trade Families had been particularly creative.
Their methods tended to be easier for Gaia to predict because each family specialized in a particular profession, meaning their cultivation methods naturally reflected the work they performed. Yet predictable did not mean boring. Gaia appreciated the creativity involved in turning an ordinary profession into a foundation for cultivation.
The Roth family was an excellent example.
Their breathing method revolved around forging.
Instead of simply absorbing mana from the environment, the Roths tempered their mana while they worked at the forge. The process caused the mana to become denser before it was absorbed into their bodies and eventually incorporated into the picture within their hearts. The method connected their cultivation directly to the work they performed every day.
And, much like the Wang Clan's method, it appeared to be working.
The effects were already visible in the quality of the weapons and armor produced by the Roth family. Their forging had improved considerably, and the equipment they hammered out was of a higher quality than anything they had been capable of producing before the arrival of mana. Their profession was no longer merely supporting their cultivation.
Their profession had become part of it.
Gaia watched these developments with considerable interest.
The Wang Clan was turning farming into cultivation.
The Roth family was turning forging into cultivation.
And the various other Trade Families were developing methods that reflected their own specialized professions. Each one was different, and each one represented another possible direction humanity could take.
For Gaia, that diversity was exactly what she wanted to see.