The group landed underneath the entrance to the house inside the Dimension.
Xiao Tu got up and patted himself to get rid of the dust on him. "Woah! This place is amazing, it's so big, I can see why you never showed us before! If information about something like this got out, you'd be hunted forever."
Shang Yang looked out into the distance. "Ye Xiu, are those plots of land for growing herbs? Why do you only have so few things growing? You've only used up to two plots of land."
Ye Xiu scratched his head. "I have to harvest and plant everything by myself. It's tiring and time-consuming. Most of my time is used for training and lessons in smithing and alchemy so I don't really have the extra time to plant any more herbs and plants. I actually have to spend quite a bit of time to harvest the plants because the dimension actually has time dilation and herbs grow much faster here than the outside."
Shang Yang's face was completely shocked, "Time dilation? My father said that's probably one of the hardest formation types known to him. Formations that can tamper with time are probably one of the most complex formations due to the fact that you are subverting so many of the natural laws."
Ye Xiu was shocked inwardly, 'They know about the natural laws of the universe from my previous life? Just what else could they possibly know which is similar to my previous life?'
"Well, you can only stay here for 72 minutes of the outside world time in here. It's basically 12 hours in here."
Shang Yang glared at Ye Xiu. "Do you not realise how valuable this is? How have you not abused this privilege earlier? I know that generosity and humbleness can only go so far."
"I may have put the time dilation part of the dimension to the back of my mind?" Ye Xiu replied meekly.
Calming herself down, Shang Yang continued to speak. "I can't believe you even said that you had no time to plant anything. That's basically 12 hours you could spend on cultivating the land with new herbs and plants! What have you been doing the entire you are in here? Training? Sleeping?"
"I took time to wash in the cleansing pool before leaving the dimension?"
"I'm going to ignore what you said about only spending time for washing up and ask the sensible question. What benefits does that cleansing pool of yours provide?"
"I'm not quite sure but it definitely contains purification and recovery effects."
Shi Die had fallen asleep when they had been talking to each other.
Xiao Tu started poking Shi Die. "Is Shi Die standing up? Whilst sleeping?
"Yes, yes he is." A reply came from Ye Xiu when he went over to the front of Shi Die to wave his hands in front of him.
"Ignore him for now, I still have things to say!" Shang Yang placed her hands on her hips. "I'll help you manage the gardens if you don't have the time to do it. I'll probably look for you so I can enter the dimension to do whatever I need to do."
Ye Xiu nodded to Shang Yang's suggestions. "There's also a technique library that we can use instead of the academy's library. I know for sure that this library is much more extensive compared to their library. The only thing is that thought it is much more extensive, I'm very certain that most of the books in the library don't cover too much of the basics."
"Only the manuals and scrolls for techniques, cultivation styles and fighting styles are extremely in-depth so that they start from the very beginning of the way to train to the extremities that technique has been found to go to."
Xiao Tu's eyes were sparkling in delight when he heard about the library. "Can I go visit the library now? Pleeease? I want to see what things are in the library! I'm so interested now."
"Calm down Xiao Tu. The library won't be going anywhere so you don't have to be in such a rush. You can take your time to look through them later on. I'll have to allow you guys through the defences of the house first. The defences would probably kill you guys if you tried to forcibly enter the house."
"I won't be able to allow you guys to enter some of the rooms but opening up the bedrooms, dining room and library should be enough for now right?"
Shang Yang nodded. "Yeah, that'll be enough. Just let us put Shi Die into one of the bedrooms whilst we do whatever we can in the remaining we have."
Ye Xiu quickly granted access for his friends to get past the defences and they put Shi Die down. Shi Die even stir from his sleep and was resting extremely peacefully.
Xiao Tu looked at Ye Xiu. "Now may we go to the library? I promise I won't touch anything without your permission!"
Sighing at his friend's behaviour, Ye Xiu gestured for Shang Yang and Xiao Tu to follow him. They walked through the corridors to get to the library. "When you go into the library and want to look at something, please be gentle with whatever you find. I don't want to risk them being damaged in any way, shape or form."
Xiao Tu nodded eagerly and bounded into the gigantic library as Ye Xiu opened the doors for him. "I give you the permission to take whatever you want to as long as you put it back and not damage it."
"Sure, no problem, you can just leave m in here for now."
Shang Yang and Ye Xiu left Xiao Tu to savour the library. "Where are we going to next?"
Ye Xiu was thinking. "There's a place in the dimension which was unlocked recently because I had managed to get past the Qi barrier and made it into the Qi Cleansing Realm."
Shang Yang had a quizzical look on her face. "So different functions unlock in the dimension whenever you get stronger or pass a trial? I guess that's definitely a way to prevent a person from becoming too power-hungry and reliant on the resources that you can have here."
"I don't mind really, it helps to keep up the mystery of the dimension. It also allows me to not focus too much on it because I know I can some of the things that are found in the dimension in the outside world. It helps me to not rely on the dimension but the main reason why I don't really use the dimension too often beside for washing up is due to me pushing the things I should do for later but forgetting them."
Shang Yang patted Ye Xiu on the head. "That's fine, it won't happen as often now. Xiao Tu, Shi Die and I are always going to be here to remind you of things that you'll forget. You won't have to worry about losing out as much than before."
Ye Xiu blushed before smiling. "Thanks."
Shang Yang continued patting his head. "Now could you tell me more about how the garden works? You said that things grow faster there."
"Since time in the dimension goes ten times faster than the outside world, the plants already grow ten times faster. You can also water the herbs and plants with the cleansing pool's water to further speed up the growth. Anything planted there grows ten times faster than the outside world. So things basically grow a hundred times faster than the outside world. Due to this, I've had to harvest the things found here often and that's why I don't have as much time to plant."
Shang Yang struck a thinking pose before clicking her fingers together. "Why don't you leave some of the herbs out for a longer period of time. You know that in alchemy that the older the plant is, the better it is."
"I just harvest them when they are ready because I need most of the ingredients here to make pills so I can sell them out to the public for some money. I've been making a lot more pills recently because of how expensive the food here in the academy is so I will try my best to grow as much as I can to keep up with the demand."
"That won't be beneficial for you in the long run. How about keeping at least one plot of land for herbs to grow for a longer period of time? Don't you think that'll be much better? You can use the herbs that are not as aged as the ones in that plot of land to make the pills. Those herbs can be used for special occasions."
"I can see that most of the herbs that you have here are pretty common but I can definitely see some of the rare herbs that would only appear once every few decades. You also have to tell me how the herbs and plants are surviving in the plot of land. Some of them aren't even supposed to survive in this type of environment but you can still see them growing healthily."
"Apparently, planting them in the plots of land provides them with whatever they need. No matter what type of plant or herb. It's strange but I think that my predecessor had probably needed to grow a lot of precious things with different types of environments so they made this place for them to grow."
"That's definitely neat. While you are busy with your smithing lessons, I can take that time to go find rare plants for us in the future when we can get out of the academy. I don't have anything to do on the days that you have your lessons so it should be perfectly fine. That way we won't waste as much time. After all, we'll be sharing the dimension space together won't we?"
"Yeah, we will. I think we should get back to the library so we can check up on Xiao Tu. We can also go look for some techniques and manuals for you to learn. You have a very small repertoire that does you good but I think it would be better for you to expand in just in case of emergencies and you aren't able to use your normal techniques." Ye Xiu started pushing Shang Yang in the direction of the library.
The pair walked back into the library where they spotted multiple books and scrolls splayed across the tables and floor. Xiao Tu was looking through each of them with intense concentration before putting back most of the things he had taken out before reaching for more things he could find.
"Xiao Tu, you seem very concentrated. Is there anything that you found that interests you to learn or is there nothing?" Shang Yang asked curiously.
Xiao Tu didn't take his eyes off the page and continued scanning through them. "There are plenty of things here. It's just that I can't seem to figure out which ones I might want to learn. The ones that do seem interesting don't match up to my fighting style so I'm not quite sure if I want to pick it up."
Ye Xiu sat his buttocks right on the floor next to Xiao Tu and idly looked through the things that Xiao Tu had displayed. "You should learn at least one different style to what you normally use. If somebody manages to figure out a way to counter you then what use would that particular style be? It's best to have alternatives to turn to."
Xiao Tu's frustrated face slackened into a more calm expression before sighing. "You're right, I'll choose something that'll work for me, don't worry about it. I've definitely spotted a few body cultivation techniques that I might want to learn though. The current one I'm cultivating is reaching it's limit soon so I might want to switch over these more advanced ones."
"That's good." Ye Xiu rested his head on Xiao Tu's shoulders and Shang Yang slept in one of the library chairs as Xiao Tu kept on his perusal of the library.