Xia Yunzhao adjusted his mental assessment of Brother Xing.
Previously, he had only thought Brother Xing was well-informed and experienced. Now it seemed Brother Xing definitely had deep ties to cultivators…
He examined the leg art carefully and was delighted all over again. The Flowing Cloud Leg Art was a Yellow-grade movement technique that emphasized borrowing force to counter force and using softness to overcome hardness. Its method of exerting force was compatible with the Hundred-Form Palm, and combining the two would definitely amount to far more than one plus one equaling two!
Xiao Xia carefully put away the few sheets of paper. It was raining outside, and the little grass shelter was too cramped for him to practice a leg art. He would try it after the rain stopped.
Next, he looked at the four storage pouches he had obtained yesterday.
The other three cultivators’ storage pouches were quite ordinary, only somewhat better than those carried by the guards. The triangular-eyed cultivator’s was different: his storage pouch was already the highest level that a Qi Refining cultivator could use.
Only after making the comparison did Xiao Xia realize that the damaged storage pouch he carried was probably not Level One at all, but Level Two. That was why, despite being damaged, it still had slightly more space than the triangular-eyed cultivator’s.
He sorted yesterday’s supplies by category among several storage pouches, keeping the valuable things and anything he might need at a moment’s notice close to his body.
He packed everything he planned to sell together as well. Once the weather cleared, he would make a trip to Qingxi City.
While sorting, Xia Yunzhao discovered that he had finally gathered all the materials for several of the formulas and pill recipes in his possession.
With Xiao Qing around, he truly had no shortage of formulas. Many were things he had never tried before because he had lacked the materials: the Water-Purifying Gourd, Spirit-Seeking Compass, Aura-Concealing Pill, Mountain-Opening Pill, Fasting Pill, and so on. As for Protective Vine Armor, he had already made quite a lot, but to accommodate the ordinary people in the camp, he had replaced Ironwood with ordinary wood and refined them into lowest-grade magical treasures. Of course, another reason was simply that he had not found any Ironwood.
Now he had Ironwood too.
With nothing else demanding his attention, Xiao Xia took out the formulas and decided to try them today.
He first opened the alchemy furnace and refined a batch of Dew-Condensing Pills to warm it up. Although he had not refined any for quite some time, he was already very familiar with the recipe. The batch produced the full yield of five pills: two high-grade and three mid-grade, without a single low-grade pill. That meant his understanding of the recipe had deepened and the pills contained fewer impurities.
After putting the pills into a little porcelain bottle, Xiao Xia rubbed his hands together. Since he was on a roll, he brought out spirit rice, Huangjing, and Spirit-Gathering Grass. Next batch: Fasting Pills!
Xiao Qing’s lid was still going rattle-rattle. The damaged equipment inside was still being refined, probably because magical artifacts were tougher to chew and therefore took longer to digest. That did not interfere with using Xiao Qing, though. It was an alchemy furnace, after all, and refining pills was still its proper job.
After stealing a flame from the bonfire outside, Xia Yunzhao placed the spirit rice and Huangjing into the furnace.
He controlled the flame with spiritual energy, scorching the spirit rice and Huangjing until only their most concentrated essence remained… A moment later, the smell of cooked rice drifted out.
Xiao Xia: …
He knew it! Fasting Pills were a scam! Wasn’t this just concentrated rice?!
Once every impurity in the spirit rice and Huangjing had been refined away, he seized the right moment and threw in three stalks of Spirit-Gathering Grass. Instantly, a faint, fresh fragrance of vegetation mingled with the smell of rice, making it even more appetizing.
Xia Yunzhao formed a hand seal, controlling the roaring flame with spiritual energy as the pills gradually took shape. Crackle-pop! The sound came from the medicinal qi bursting inside the furnace.
“Set!” He pointed with the hand seal. The alchemy-furnace lid gradually stopped moving. Curious, he lifted it. The aromas of rice and pills floated out while three Fasting Pills spun merrily around the bottom.
Refining Fasting Pills was not difficult for him, so succeeding on his first attempt did not surprise him.
Of the three pills, two were mid-grade and one was low-grade. He picked up a mid-grade pill and examined it carefully. The color looked fine, but its fragrance was no longer as enticing as it had been during refinement.
He had a feeling these ingredients were capable of producing a high-grade pill. It was simply his first time refining this recipe, so he had wasted a little of the medicinal potency.
He reviewed the entire refining process in his mind, mentally tested several possible improvements, and took out another set of ingredients.
Time slowly passed, and the fragrance of pills drifted from the grass shelter from time to time.
Two hours passed before long.
Xia Yunzhao’s storage pouch now contained thirty-two Fasting Pills. Only two were high-grade, while more than twenty were mid-grade and a little over ten were low-grade.
His spirit rice and Huangjing had also been completely used up.
Although Fasting Pills were easy to refine, improving his mastery of them was the most difficult among all the pills he had made. With other pills, ten or so attempts were usually enough for him to more or less master the recipe. Fasting Pills always seemed to fall just a little short, and he rarely produced high-grade ones.
Xia Yunzhao was not discouraged in the slightest. Difficult improvement did not mean he was making no progress. He had a feeling that the batch currently in the furnace would break through.
A moment later, he opened his eyes and pointed a hand seal at the furnace. “Open!”
The furnace opened instantly. A full yield of five! Looking more closely… three high-grade pills and two mid-grade!
Xia Yunzhao smiled, put the pills away, and praised himself. “Not bad!”
Xiao Qing went rattle-rattle along with him.
Xia Yunzhao leaned over for a look. Only a few scraps remained in its belly. At this rate, it would probably finish digesting them in another hour.
So he left it alone to eat slowly and took out a set of artifact-refining materials for himself.
He was already thoroughly practiced at refining Protective Vine Armor. Although he had replaced the material with Ironwood, the difficulty did not increase, and he casually refined two sets and put them into his storage pouch.
Come to think of it… he suddenly remembered that Shang Shuangze did not seem to have any protective magical treasure on him. Why not refine one for him too?
So he brought out another set of materials and refined another two sets, putting them aside separately.
Next came the Water-Purifying Gourd and Spirit-Seeking Compass.
Xiao Xia was less confident in artifact refining than alchemy. He carefully studied both blueprints and ultimately chose to begin with the simpler Water-Purifying Gourd.
Although both were Level-One magical artifacts, the Water-Purifying Gourd had far fewer functions than the Spirit-Seeking Compass. The Spirit-Seeking Compass could search for Level-One and Level-Two spirit items within thirty li, while the Water-Purifying Gourd purified water sources, turning ordinary river water, rainwater, and the like into drinkable water containing faint spiritual energy. A single gourd could hold ten shi of water… Converting that, it was roughly twelve hundred jin.
…All right, perhaps it was not fair to call that less useful. For people living in the wilderness, it was quite practical.
Xia Yunzhao took out Thousand-Jointed Bamboo, Purified Sand, and Ironwood Charcoal. Come to think of it, he had found a stalk of Thousand-Jointed Bamboo before, but it had not matured at the time, so he had left it alone. Once this rain ended, it should have matured.
One hour later, a jade-green gourd carrying the fresh fragrance of bamboo appeared in Xiao Xia’s hand.
The gourd was only palm-sized. If one did not know it had been refined from Thousand-Jointed Bamboo, it looked as though it were carved from jadeite, and its surface was exceptionally smooth. Wisps of spiritual energy escaped from the mouth, which looked rather wasteful. Once water was added, however, that spiritual energy would be used to purify it.
Xiao Xia studied the handsome Water-Purifying Gourd and thought for a moment. According to what Brother Xing had told him, Qingxi City had quite a few resident cultivators, and even more passed through every day. What were all those people coming to Qingxi City to do?
He certainly no longer believed the rumor that “cultivators don’t enter the Liancui Mountain Range.”
If so many cultivators spent their days running around the mountains, and Qi Refining cultivators had not yet reached the point of going without food or water, then demand for Water-Purifying Gourds should be fairly high, shouldn’t it? It was a Level-One magical artifact, after all. Pricing one at eight hundred spirit pearls wasn’t unreasonable, right?
Xiao Xia was not actually short on spirit pearls at the moment. Thanks to the triangular-eyed cultivator’s generous contribution, he now had more than twelve thousand! His little money pouch was so stuffed that it could not hold them all, and the overflow sat in a corner of his storage pouch in a small triangular heap.
But who would ever complain about having too many spirit pearls? Besides, he still had a gluttonous alchemy furnace to feed.
Perhaps sensing his silent criticism, Xiao Qing jumped straight into his arms. Its lid sprang open so violently that it nearly struck his chin. The progress bar that appeared filled with a whoosh, then a new bar appeared and filled as well… Only after that did its speed slow, finally stopping at one fifth.
Xia Yunzhao peered inside. Sure enough, all the scraps had been digested. Those magical artifacts must have contained quite a lot of spiritual power. These days, filling two of Xiao Qing’s progress bars required at least a thousand spirit pearls.
A gust of wind passed. Two sheets of paper floated out of the bronze alchemy furnace and drifted slowly downward.
Xia Yunzhao quickly reached out to catch them—
【Yellow-Grade Spell: Earthfire Art. Draw the fire of the earth veins into your palm. Used offensively, it can purge evil; used otherwise, it can temper a hundred herbs. An essential all-purpose tool for killing enemies, refining pills and artifacts, and drawing talismans. I’m begging you—stop burning firewood to refine pills and get yourself something a cultivator should actually use!】
Xia Yunzhao: …
He knocked Xiao Qing on the head again and again through gritted teeth. “If you didn’t want me burning firewood to refine pills, you should’ve let me draw the Earthfire Art sooner!”
Xiao Qing did not care in the slightest. It rolled out of his arms, shameless as ever, and happily found somewhere to sleep.
Complaining was one thing, but Xia Yunzhao knew Xiao Qing had no control over what he drew. In the end, it all came down to luck. At most, Xiao Qing could sneak its own opinions into the written descriptions.
Still, the Earthfire Art was a pretty useful spell. The triangular-eyed cultivator had fought with fire-attribute spells, so Xia Yunzhao could learn this one and use it in battle later.
He looked at the other sheet. Another culinary recipe.
He was not especially interested in culinary recipes, but remembering that the last one had also come with instructions for butchering slaughter-beast meat, he still read it carefully… Fine. That kind of good luck did not happen every time.
He put this culinary recipe together with the other two and consigned all three to the shelf.
＊
The light rain outside continued to patter. Xia Yunzhao did not leave the camp for the next two days.
He refined another five Water-Purifying Gourds, planning to leave them with Du Yan and see how they sold. At the same time, he refined a Spirit-Seeking Compass.
The Spirit-Seeking Compass was indeed more difficult than the Water-Purifying Gourd. His first three attempts all failed. He had only five pieces of Star-Pointing Wood; if all five attempts failed, he would run out of materials.
Fortunately, he was not quite that unlucky. His fourth attempt finally succeeded.
He also refined one batch each of Aura-Concealing Pills and Mountain-Opening Pills. An Aura-Concealing Pill could hide the user’s aura for fifteen minutes, while a Mountain-Opening Pill made both palms incomparably tough and could be used together with the Hundred-Form Palm.
Both were Level-One pills suitable for cultivators in the Qi Refining stage.
Besides that, he refined several more batches of Lingwei Pills. These lowest-level pills were no longer especially useful to him, but quite a few people he knew were ordinary mortals, and for them the pills could still save lives. Keeping some on hand was no trouble.
Busy like this, he blinked and three days had passed. It was already the day he had arranged to meet Shang Shuangze.
It was still raining outside. Aside from the hunting party that had gone out to hunt, no one else in the camp had left.
Xiao Xia thought about it, then went out to keep his appointment anyway.
The rain was slightly heavier than it had been a few days ago. Fine droplets quickly soaked through his clothes, and the cold pressed in.
Fortunately, Xia Yunzhao was already at the fourth layer of Qi Refining. His physique was more than twice as strong as an ordinary person’s, so this degree of cold was nothing. It was merely a little uncomfortable.
He activated the Lightness Technique while recalling the Flowing Cloud Leg Art in his mind and practiced it along the way.
Within the dense curtain of rain, the already extremely fast figure suddenly paused, then became even faster—his steps landed with greater firmness and power, while the splashes he made in puddles became much quieter.
One hour later, Xia Yunzhao reached their usual meeting place and saw the familiar white figure.
Shang Shuangze was waiting there again. The fine raindrops burst apart half a palm away from him, not a single one touching his body. The spray formed a thin haze around him, reflecting the white light of his robes so that, from a distance, one tiny rainbow after another seemed to surround him.
Hearing movement, Shang Shuangze raised his head and saw Xia Yunzhao charging toward him from afar, kicking up sheets of water. Rain had soaked all of Xiao Xia’s clothes, his jet-black hair clung to his white-porcelain cheeks, and droplets hung from his brows and lashes. When he looked up at someone, he resembled a drenched puppy.
Xiao Xia saw Shang Shuangze’s dry robes and hair and exclaimed, “Wow!” The hand that had been about to tug at his sleeve stopped midway and retreated.
Shang Shuangze was silent.
Xiao Xia tilted his head, looking inexplicably like Xiao Qing: Huh?
Shang Shuangze paused, then began, “Hold spiritual energy within the qi sea and circulate it through Danzhong…”
Xia Yunzhao was still shaking water from his hair and did not react at all. “Hm?”
Shang Shuangze reached out and took his wrist. A gentle stream of cool spiritual power flowed from his fingertips into Xia Yunzhao’s meridians as his brief instructions sounded beside Xia Yunzhao’s ear. “Qi Sea, Danzhong, Guanyuan…”
That cool spiritual power guided Xia Yunzhao’s spiritual energy through the acupoints around his body before returning to the Qi Sea acupoint.
“…Like this, you can form a layer of spiritual-energy protection around your body and walk through rain without getting wet.”
By the time Xia Yunzhao understood, he was already dry. Sure enough, spiritual energy had formed a protective barrier around him. Raindrops went patter-patter against it, and tiny rainbows slowly appeared.
At the same time, Xiao Xia’s quick mind realized this was not merely a trick for avoiding rain. It was a protective spell. With spiritual energy guarding the entire body, it was essentially equivalent to a protective magical artifact of the same level!
He smiled. “Why would you casually teach me a spell like that? Don’t you have a master? Won’t your sect punish you?”
Shang Shuangze released his wrist and said calmly, “If it is useful to others, there is no taboo against sharing it.”
Xiao Xia considered those words and nodded. “That makes sense.” If every cultivator were that open-minded, Fangcun Pavilion would not be able to sell low-level cultivation methods for thousands of spirit pearls.
He continued with a smile, “Since you taught me a spell, I’ll teach you one too. Mm… I just don’t know whether you already know it.” He raised one finger, and with a pop, a tiny orange-red flame ignited above it.
Shang Shuangze studied the flame carefully. A moment later, he said, “Earthfire Art?”
“You recognize it?” Xiao Xia was surprised, then disappointed. “Looks like I can’t help you again.” Since Shang Shuangze recognized it, he had surely learned it already…
Shang Shuangze shook his head. “I have not. My constitution is unusual. I cannot cultivate Five-Element spells.”
“So that’s why you practice the sword.” Xiao Xia understood. “Then when I get a sword art in the future, I’ll give it to you.” Or perhaps a body technique would work too?
Committing his friend’s unusual condition to memory, Xiao Xia asked, “Have you been running around the forest all three days? Did you find the Hundred-Year Resilient Vine?”
Shang Shuangze first nodded, then shook his head. “No result.”
Xiao Xia had not been idle over the past three days either. Besides refining pills and artifacts and practicing the Earthfire Art, he had asked people in the camp for information while they ate. The lakeside camp might consist entirely of ordinary people, but they were extremely familiar with life in the mountains. Granny’s people, for example, had always lived deep in the mountains. They knew Liancui Mountain far better than Xia Yunzhao did.
When everyone heard Xiao Xia was searching for a Hundred-Year Resilient Vine, they gave him quite a few leads.
“An uncle in camp told me that three years ago, he saw a Hundred-Year Resilient Vine in a dense forest to the west, but several slaughter beasts were guarding it, so he didn’t dare approach to gather it. He hasn’t gone back since. Also, Sister Chang told me that thirty-some li east of here is a mountain hollow covered with at least ten thousand Resilient Vines, all of very good quality. The trip rope she made for Second Brother before used Resilient Vine gathered there together with slaughter-beast hide. With that many vines, there might well be a Hundred-Year Resilient Vine among them.”
“…And one of the older brothers in the hunting party told me there’s a kind of slaughter beast called a Vine-Eating Rat that loves eating Resilient Vine roots. They’re most common on the western ridge, so there may be another Resilient Vine growing area there that we don’t know about…”
Xia Yunzhao rattled off five or six leads in a row. “Everyone’s an ordinary person, though, and they haven’t been to these places in a long time. I don’t know whether the information is still accurate. Why don’t we check them all?”
Shang Shuangze said, “Thank you. You went to a great deal of trouble.”
Xia Yunzhao smiled at him, then lowered his head in thought. “These places are all in different directions, so we should decide the order. How about the place Uncle mentioned first? He actually saw a Hundred-Year Resilient Vine there, so the odds should be better.”
Naturally, Shang Shuangze did not refuse.
And so Xia Yunzhao led the way, with the white-robed sword cultivator following behind. Partly because Fellow Daoist Shang’s sense of direction was not exactly… Of course, the more important reason was that the two of them were now so fast that very few slaughter beasts beside the path could react in time. Most only managed to attack from behind after they had already passed. That made the person bringing up the rear more vulnerable.
Sure enough, several more slaughter beasts were stabbed to death along the way, and Xia Yunzhao skillfully stored them in his storage pouch. There were already quite a few complete slaughter-beast carcasses inside, almost filling it. A trip to Qingxi City was clearly unavoidable.
The two landed one after the other, pushed aside the wet leaves, and saw the place Uncle had mentioned.
Xia Yunzhao took one look and immediately groaned in regret. “Someone already dug it up!”
He ran over and looked down at the enormous hole, spreading his arms to demonstrate its size. “This big—it was definitely a Hundred-Year Resilient Vine! Look, there isn’t even grass growing in the hole yet. It can’t have been dug up very long ago!”
As the one who actually needed it, Shang Shuangze was calmer than he was. He merely consoled him, “The opportunity has not arrived. There is no need for regret.”
Xia Yunzhao refused to give up and ran a circle from left to right. They did not need an entire Resilient Vine anyway, only one section. Maybe whoever dug it up had been careless and left a piece behind…
He did not find any Resilient Vine, but he did find a huge patch of spirit mushrooms. They were Level-One spirit items too and usually appeared during rainy weather. Because they were uncommon, they sold for a decent price.
Xiao Xia was so annoyed that he stripped the entire patch bare, not leaving a single mushroom behind, and accumulated an enormous bagful.
Shang Shuangze followed behind him and quietly watched him gather every mushroom before saying four words: “Quite a bountiful harvest.”
Xia Yunzhao almost laughed from sheer irritation. He shot Shang Shuangze a look. “Who do you think I’m worrying for?!”
A hint of amusement flashed through Shang Shuangze’s eyes. “Thank you.”
Since there was nothing here, naturally they had to hurry to the next location.
Xia Yunzhao oriented himself and led the way. The next place was the one Chang Haiping had mentioned.
Neither of them said much as they set off again.
Neither had ever visited this place before, and when they arrived, both stopped in surprise.
In the mountain hollow, beneath a rain curtain that blotted out the sky, stretched an immense sea of Resilient Vines connecting earth and horizon. Xiao Xia had never known these small vines that grew everywhere could become so tangled and sprawling that they occupied an entire landscape, vast and magnificent.
Looking across it, he could not even see the end.
“There are way more than ten thousand here. There might be a hundred thousand!” Xia Yunzhao exclaimed, then brightened. “With this many vines, statistically there has to be a Hundred-Year Resilient Vine somewhere! Come on, let’s go look!”
Without even waiting for Shang Shuangze to respond, he grabbed him and headed inside.
The Resilient Vines around the perimeter were all young growth, so they simply continued deeper.
The whole land of vines had formed an ecosystem of its own. Birdlike slaughter beasts built nests and laid eggs among them, while smaller predatory slaughter beasts hunted prey…
The two did not disturb these low-level slaughter beasts and continued inward.
The Resilient Vines inside were much thicker. Xia Yunzhao was familiar enough with this spirit plant that he could roughly judge its age merely by thickness.
The value of Resilient Vine depended entirely on age. Vines over fifty years old and those under fifty years old did not command remotely the same price.
Yet no matter how they searched, the oldest vines they could see were only around eighty years old. Even those over ninety were rare, let alone a hundred-year-old specimen.
“Could this entire patch have grown within the last eighty years?” Xiao Xia wondered. Then he felt Shang Shuangze lightly press his shoulder. “What is it?”
Shang Shuangze raised his head slightly and looked ahead, his long sword appearing in his hand. “There is something there.”
“What?” Xia Yunzhao immediately lowered his voice and slapped a hand against himself, summoning the full version of his Protective Vine Armor. “A slaughter beast or a person?”
Shang Shuangze shook his head. “It seems to be neither…”
If it was neither a slaughter beast nor a person, then what could it—Before Xia Yunzhao could finish the thought, the ground began moving. At the same time, every vine around them started writhing like a nest of snakes. Instead of surging toward them, however, the vines retreated and opened a path.
The ground beneath them flowed rapidly forward like a conveyor belt, carrying them along.
Xia Yunzhao stared in astonishment and looked down—this was no ground at all. They were standing on an unbelievably thick vine!
Where was this vine taking them?
Xiao Xia looked up at Shang Shuangze questioningly.
Shang Shuangze mistook the look for fear and stepped slightly forward, placing himself in front of Xia Yunzhao.
A moment later, the “conveyor belt” stopped.
Xia Yunzhao looked up, then farther up, then farther still… and stared in shock. What an enormous Resilient Vine!
He had thought the vine beneath their feet was already outrageously thick, but compared with this, it was nothing!
The colossal Resilient Vine sat like a giant in the deepest part of the mountain hollow. Every vine around them was actually a branch split from its body. The thickest was nearly as broad as the hollow itself; if it were not coiled over the slopes on both sides, it could practically have filled the entire ravine!
Xia Yunzhao murmured, “It’s this huge… Forget a Hundred-Year Resilient Vine. This has to be five hundred, maybe eight hundred years old?!”
Shang Shuangze gave a slight nod, and the two looked at each other.
The good news: they had found a Hundred-Year Resilient Vine.
Uh. The bad news: it was eight hundred years old.