It was a low-level storage pouch, and apart from beads there was nothing else inside.
It really did contain fifty thousand spirit pearls. Xia Yunzhao had not counted them, but he trusted that the Ji family would not falsify something like this.
Besides the spirit pearls, however, the pouch also held another kind of bead…
Forgive his ignorance, but Xia Yunzhao had never seen this material before. The beads were the same size as spirit pearls and likewise contained spiritual energy, but while spirit pearls were a warm jade green, these were gray-black. Mixed together, the two kinds stood out as distinctly as red beans mixed with green beans.
There were quite a lot of the gray-black beads too. At a glance, their number seemed roughly equal to the spirit pearls, which meant there were another fifty thousand gray-black beads inside.
That alone would not have mattered. The real problem was that those gray-black beads “pricked.” Xia Yunzhao had only wanted to take one out and inspect it, but the moment his spiritual power wrapped around the bead, it felt as though he had grabbed a burr and something instantly stabbed him.
It did not hurt much, but it was extremely annoying. One burr stuck to your clothing was manageable, but if your entire body ended up covered in them… Anyone who had spent time outdoors knew how irritating they were to remove.
Seeing Xia Yunzhao’s strange reaction, Du Yan and the others came over to look, then everyone burst into laughter. “Hahahaha! Ancestor Shen Ziming was vicious! Where did he even get this many Reverse-Spirit Jade Beads?! Hahahahaha!”
Xia Yunzhao thought, So you all know what these are?
Wei Ling was kinder and explained, “Reverse-Spirit Jade Beads are generally used by large cultivation families to train children. Once someone has drawn qi into the body, touching one feels like gripping a bundle of thorns and sends a reverse shock through the meridians. If you wrap one with divine sense, it causes a slight disturbance in spiritual power, but frequent practice with them increases precision in controlling spiritual power. I heard large families usually mix Reverse-Spirit Jade Beads together with spirit pearls and make children pick them out one by one. Each session improves the child’s spiritual-power control quite a lot.”
Then she clicked her tongue. “When we were little, my mother wanted us to train that way too, but the moment she took the Reverse-Spirit Jade Beads out, my brother grabbed a handful and ate them, so that’s why we escaped the suffering.” She patted Xia Yunzhao’s shoulder, struggling not to laugh. “Now it’s your turn.”
Xia Yunzhao: .
Shen Ziming and the person he owed money to had been terrible friends, right?! Absolutely terrible friends! You finally manage to pass down one ancestral instruction, and this is what you leave behind?! And it actually survived until now?! Your family lost the White Bone Spirit-Summoning Art, for heaven’s sake!!!
The Ji family head remained perfectly calm. “Farewell.” Then he turned and left, the Ji family members following him together with the enormous white skeleton. For some reason, Xia Yunzhao felt the Ji family head looked significantly more relaxed while leaving.
Surely it was because the family had recovered its lost technique. Definitely not because he had finally dumped this bag of green-beans-mixed-with-red-beans onto me, right?
The hand in Xia Yunzhao’s tightened slightly. Their hands had never separated, and Shang Shuangze also found it somewhat funny. “If it’s troublesome, feed them to Xiao Qing.”
Xiao Qing instantly woke up, poking a lid from Xia Yunzhao’s robes. I can! I can!
Xia Yunzhao shoved it back inside stubbornly. “No. I’m trying them myself.”
Partly out of curiosity, partly because he wanted to understand exactly how this increase in spiritual-power control worked.
He did not often directly manipulate spiritual power himself, usually relying on established hand seals and techniques, so in that regard he really was slightly worse than people native to the cultivation world. For example, those spiritual-power orbs Shang Shuangze casually formed. Xia Yunzhao could not make them.
Everyone divided the small amount of treasure remaining.
Xia Yunzhao did not even leave the treasure chests behind, collecting them too so he could feed them to Xiao Qing after returning home.
Everyone watched in hesitant silence… Is Fellow Daoist Xia really this poor? Should we have given him more treasure earlier?
With everything finished, Xu Ziyu prepared to return to his cave dwelling, while Du Yan said he needed to leave the city for a while. Xia Yunzhao, Shang Shuangze, Wei Ling, and Wei Tu all needed to visit the information shop, so the four went together.
Naturally, Wei Ling and Wei Tu were going there to settle their accounts. They maintained a standing request at the information shop to purchase complete slaughter-beast corpses, and the siblings had exceptional talent as body cultivators and consumed slaughter-beast flesh extremely quickly.
As for Xia Yunzhao, he wanted to purchase a route map to Ice-Soul Snow Mountain.
Originally, he had intended to buy information about Innate Snow Essence, so that expense had now been saved, but the map could not be avoided.
The four reached the information shop together. Xia Yunzhao lifted the curtain and stepped inside, then immediately stepped back out and looked around. I didn’t enter the wrong place, did I?
He stepped inside again. The counter was unchanged, but behind it stood a little girl of seven or eight, using a wooden box as a step while giggling at him. She wore a bright pink-red jacket, two little braids tied with red ribbons, and a red dot of rouge between her brows, making her look lively and adorable.
Seeing Xia Yunzhao leave and return made her giggle harder. “Customer, come in! This really is the information shop. You didn’t come to the wrong place.”
Xia Yunzhao pulled Shang Shuangze inside, with Wei Ling and Wei Tu following.
Xia Yunzhao said, “Uh… little friend, I’m here to do business. Where are the adults in your family?”
The girl said matter-of-factly, “I’m the shopkeeper. What information are you buying?”
Xia Yunzhao stared. “No, what kind of shop makes a child the shopkeeper? Is this reliable?”
The girl laughed again when she saw his face, her little mouth extremely quick. “What’s unreliable about it? I don’t need to go out and investigate anything. I only ask questions, collect money, then knock on the wooden wall. I could do something this easy when I was little!”
Xia Yunzhao thought, You are little now… But since they had already come, he asked, “I want a map from Qingxi City to Ice-Soul Snow Mountain. Do you have one?”
“Of course! Would the customer like a simple map or a detailed map? The simple map is two thousand spirit pearls, and the detailed map is ten thousand.”
Xia Yunzhao clicked his tongue. Eight thousand spirit pearls difference… “What’s the difference?”
The girl pursed her lips and smiled. “That depends. Mostly on how flush the customer is.”
At that moment, Wei Ling leaned over. “The information shop’s detailed maps are worth buying. They’re the best maps available on the market. I heard they even update the routes in real time.”
Once Xia Yunzhao heard the good reputation, he immediately chose the detailed map. After receiving ten thousand spirit pearls, the girl hopped down from the wooden box, pushed it over to the wall, climbed onto it again, opened a hidden compartment, and took out a bamboo tube.
Xia Yunzhao wondered whether she received a monthly stipend. Running around like this certainly exercised her entire body.
He opened the map and leaned close to Shang Shuangze. One glance was enough for him to realize the money had been worth it!
Not only did the map mark three routes, it listed danger levels, local specialties, nearby factions, and other information beside each location. It even included recommendations for what travelers should prepare for each route!
Xia Yunzhao skimmed the list and immediately identified several things they currently lacked, then began planning how to prepare them.
Wei Ling and Wei Tu collected the slaughter-beast corpses accumulated during this period. Adding those to the ones they had personally hunted in the mountains, they had enough for the immediate future.
Wei Ling again told her brother to pay. Wei Tu took out his money pouch and shook it upside down, but not a single spirit pearl fell out.
Wei Ling looked at him. “Brother, how did you spend money this quickly? Forget it. Use mine.” Then she took out her own bulging money pouch and paid for them both.
Wei Tu scratched his head. Right, how had he spent money so fast? His sister was so frugal she had barely spent anything since leaving home. Then he thought again. Wait, he had not bought much either, not even magical artifacts. Where had all his money gone? Had somebody stolen it?
Xia Yunzhao said goodbye to the comedic siblings.
Wei Ling said generously, “I’ll send a letter home later. If you two pass Blackrock Mountain, you absolutely have to visit Ironfist Fort. My mother loves making friends. She’ll definitely treat you well!”
Xia Yunzhao smiled warmly. “Definitely.”
*
The two finally returned to their own cave dwelling. It almost felt like returning after another lifetime.
They had only gone out for some fresh air after ordinary pill refining, yet they had witnessed the Heart-Illusion stage begin and stumbled straight into Fang Wenyuan’s conspiracy.
Fortunately, the outcome was good. Xia Yunzhao had reached Foundation Establishment, and both Hundred-Compartment Pouches were packed full.
As usual, the mother civet came to inspect the humans returning from outside, and Xia Yunzhao instinctively crouched and stroked her warm, soft back.
The mother civet arched immediately, fled, then sat down and began licking her fur. Rude human!
Xia Yunzhao secretly laughed, then naturally placed Shang Shuangze’s hand against his throat. “We’re going to Ice-Soul Snow Mountain. I’m not worried about anything else. I’m just worried about the little civet. I don’t know whether she’ll want to come with us.”
Shang Shuangze said, “Spirit-Claw Civets value freedom by nature. She probably won’t.”
Xia Yunzhao thought about it, then relaxed. “Forget it. She has survived in Liancui Mountain this long, so she should be able to take care of herself. We’ll just leave her more slaughter-beast meat.”
Next came inventorying the harvest from this excursion.
How should it be described? Even “massive harvest” was inadequate. It had to be a heaven-defying harvest!
First was what Xia Yunzhao obtained from Fang Yanya’s private treasury!
The spirit pearls piled to the ceiling had been nearly eighty percent consumed when he advanced to Foundation Establishment.
He had gone directly from the seventh layer of Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment, so besides the spiritual energy required for advancement itself, an enormous amount of spiritual power had been needed to repeatedly repair and reshape his torn meridians, which cost far more than the advancement. Adding both together created an astronomical number, yet only eighty percent of Fang Yanya’s spirit pearls had been consumed. That showed just how much wealth the old bastard had accumulated. He had hoarded every decent thing for himself.
When escaping the treasury, Xia Yunzhao had also swept his Hundred-Compartment Pouch across the ground and completely filled it!
The situation had been urgent, but his reactions were fast, and he specifically swept through the piles containing spirit pearls and high-level resources. Looking now, his Hundred-Compartment Pouch alone contained more than six hundred thousand spirit pearls!
More than six hundred thousand spirit pearls gathered together created an impressive sight and completely filled the compartment he had dedicated to storing money!
Besides the pearls were countless spirit herbs, spirit ores, and artifact materials piled into mountains inside the pouch.
The treasures divided with Du Yan and the others had been stored inside Shang Shuangze’s Hundred-Compartment Pouch.
Combining both piles, Xia Yunzhao made a rough count: five thousand seven hundred Level-One spirit items and more than seven hundred Level-Two spirit items, most of them spirit herbs and ores, along with more than three hundred spirit seeds. Magical artifacts and pills were the least numerous, but even so, the amount was extremely impressive.
The resources currently in their hands could support a small sect without any problem!
After making a rough estimate, they began carefully sorting everything as usual: things they could use together, things they could not use but were valuable together, things to sell together, and things nobody would buy that could be fed to Xiao Qing together…
Fortunately, both of them were Foundation Establishment cultivators now, and with divine sense, one glance revealed everything clearly. Otherwise, sorting this much stuff alone might have taken several days.
Even so, by the time everything had been categorized and stored properly, the moon already hung high overhead.
Xia Yunzhao looked at the storage pouches scattered around them with delight. “This is the joy of a harvest! Well? Happy?”
Shang Shuangze looked at his smile and answered softly.
Beside them, Xiao Qing bounced extremely high. Sorting was finished, so was the next step finally giving the child a full meal?!
Naturally.
They were wealthy now and no longer had to feed the child only garbage. Of course, letting Xiao Qing survive entirely on spirit pearls still would not do, but low-level spirit herbs and ores that could not be sold, or were barely valuable, could all become food.
Thus, Xiao Qing had far more to eat this time!
The child was ecstatic, rolled through the air, and landed directly in the pile of spirit items. Its lid fell off and it did not even care, simply waiting for its two owners to feed it.
Xiao Qing had never fought such a wealthy battle. After devouring the entire pile, the spiritual power it contained gave Xiao Qing enough energy for twenty consecutive pulls!
Twenty-two sheets of paper floated through the cave dwelling like falling snow.
After spitting them out, Xiao Qing showed no intention of sleeping and instead rolled around and played with Mingyun.
Seeing that many sheets made Xia Yunzhao excited too. “Quick! Let’s see what good stuff we pulled!”
Shang Shuangze chuckled and created several spiritual-power orbs, gathering the pages and sending them over.
The thick stack produced quite a good haul: three Level-One pill recipes, three Level-One artifact blueprints, two ordinary recipes, one Level-One spirit-cuisine recipe, two low-tier treasure maps, two low-tier blank talisman papers, three Level-Two pill recipes, two Level-Two artifact blueprints, the Myriad Spirits Pharmacopoeia (Volume One), a Profound-Grade Spell: Earthwalking Art, one spirit-beast food recipe, and one piece of gossip from Yanhuo Studio.
“Myriad Spirits Pharmacopoeia! That’s good stuff!” Xia Yunzhao immediately noticed the thick book. “I asked Qingmu before whether there was a book compiling different spirit herbs and medicinal plants. He mentioned the Myriad Spirits Pharmacopoeia, but unfortunately major sects monopolized the text. I didn’t expect Xiao Qing to pull one!”
Xiao Qing proudly puffed out its belly.
Shang Shuangze tapped its cold bronze stomach. “Your luck is good.”
Xia Yunzhao smiled. “Obviously. My luck has always been excellent! But this is only Volume One, and it records Level-One, Level-Two, and Level-Three spirit plants. That’s enough for us.”
He placed the Myriad Spirits Pharmacopoeia (Volume One) inside his Hundred-Compartment Pouch. Now he had something to read on the road to Ice-Soul Snow Mountain.
Then he started examining the papers from the beginning, starting with the three Level-One pill recipes.
Although he had reached Foundation Establishment and Level-One pills were less useful to him personally, pill recipes still mattered. The more pill recipes he learned, the clearer it became that improving pill refinement required attempting many different formulas and accumulating experience.
Besides, even if he did not eat the pills himself, he could refine and sell them!
With this beautiful vision in mind, he looked at the three recipes, then the corner of his mouth twitched.
What the hell were these?!
He did not even need to inspect the contents carefully. The names alone were enough: Mouth-Rinsing Pill, Nightglow Pill, Delicious Fasting Pill…
A Mouth-Rinsing Pill? Cultivators already possessed some self-cleaning ability through spiritual power, and if your mouth really smelled, couldn’t you just find a twig and brush your teeth? Why buy a pill specifically for it? Pills were expensive!
Then there was the Nightglow Pill. After taking it, one’s entire body glowed for two hours and became even brighter at night… Who hated themselves enough to eat that? Were they afraid slaughter beasts would have trouble finding them in the dark?
Compared with those two, the Delicious Fasting Pill suddenly looked useful! Normal Fasting Pills really did taste terrible, so perhaps some food lovers would be willing to become suckers for this one…
Speechless, Xia Yunzhao put all three recipes away. Forget it. He could experiment when he had time, and he certainly did not have time now.
Then he examined the three Level-One artifact blueprints: Refined-Iron Sword, Tough-Hide Armor, and Clear-Breeze Binding. Much better. The artifact blueprints were far more normal. At first glance, the three looked ordinary, but in reality they were not.
Whether coincidence or design, the three happened to form a complete equipment set. The Refined-Iron Sword provided offense, Tough-Hide Armor defense, and Clear-Breeze Binding slightly increased speed. This set was much more useful than the equipment set he had bought from Fangcun Pavilion!
Better yet, the refining methods and materials were extremely common, so if he could mass-produce them, he could definitely earn plenty of money.
Xia Yunzhao suddenly remembered something. Right, the Fang family had fallen. What happened to Fangcun Pavilion? Without its backer, had the shop collapsed too? Could he buy it and open his own store? He had artifact blueprints, pill recipes, and countless assorted resources, so he could absolutely support a shop!
Unfortunately, they were in a hurry to leave. Otherwise, this was genuinely worth planning.
The two ordinary recipes did not require discussion. The spirit-cuisine recipe was Five-Qi Origin-Gathering Mushrooms, made from five different types of spirit mushrooms and capable of nourishing vital energy and replenishing spiritual power. It sounded interesting, and if they happened to possess the ingredients, they could try it, though there was no need to gather materials specifically since Qi-Replenishing Pills worked better anyway.
Then he examined the two treasure maps. After the Floating Ark experience, Xiao Xia had developed great interest in treasure maps, but no matter how he studied these, he could not recognize the terrain, so the locations probably were not nearby and he could only put them away regretfully.
Then came the Level-Two materials. Again, he looked at the pill recipes first, and all three were useful: Bright-Eye Mind-Settling Pill, Cold-Dispelling Origin-Transforming Pill, and Jade-Essence Skin-Tempering Pill.
The first two needed little explanation because their effects were obvious from the names, while the final pill was particularly suitable for Xia Yunzhao now. Early Foundation Establishment required tempering skin, flesh, and bone, and the Jade-Essence Skin-Tempering Pill specifically tempered the skin.
Xia Yunzhao glanced through the recipe and laughed. “Perfect. We have every ingredient.”
Shang Shuangze understood immediately. “You can refine them on the road. Sell the low-grade and mid-grade pills, keep the high-grade ones.”
Xia Yunzhao burst out laughing. “The one who knows me best is Shang Shuangze!”
The two Level-Two artifact blueprints were the Spirit-Severing Dagger and Golden-Silk Inner Armor, and both were equally useful. The Spirit-Severing Dagger fit Xia Yunzhao’s habits almost absurdly well, while more importantly, the Golden-Silk Inner Armor was an early Level-Two defensive magical treasure that Shang Shuangze could use!
Xia Yunzhao immediately decided that whatever else happened, he had to refine the Golden-Silk Inner Armor first!
“Earthwalking Art…” Spells had always been the rarest category in the gacha pool, and out of twenty consecutive pulls only one appeared, showing just how valuable it was.
Xia Yunzhao carefully read through it and immediately brightened. “An earth-aligned spell! It lets me travel underground. Useful for both travel and fighting!”
Shang Shuangze examined it too. Although he could not cultivate the spell himself, his judgment remained excellent, and he nodded. “Combined with the Earthfire Art, its power will be greater.”
One additional method meant one additional chance of survival in this unpredictable cultivation world, so naturally that was excellent.
Still, one more spell also meant one more enormous spirit-pearl furnace demanding fuel… Xiao Xia suffered happily.
The next item was a Spirit-Beast Recipe: Milky-Fragrant Meatballs, supposedly highly suitable for spirit beasts and capable of increasing their favorability. He could make them for the mother civet.
Finally came the gossip from Yanhuo Studio…
“Yanhuo Studio? Never heard of it. Is it nearby?” Xia Yunzhao held the yellowed paper and strangely did not want to open it.
It reminded him of that IOU spanning hundreds of years. Those cursed Reverse-Spirit Jade Beads were still hanging at his waist!
Yet refusing to read it only made him more curious, so eventually he unfolded it and looked.
【Shh… I’ll tell you a secret, but don’t tell anyone! Before Yanhuo Studio’s master Lu Shi entered the Dao, he suffered terribly from hemorrhoids. Every night he groaned and sighed in bed until his wife frequently drove him into the study…】
Xia Yunzhao snapped the paper shut. He knew it! Not one respectable piece of gossip ever came from this thing!
*
The next day, Xia Yunzhao did not leave the valley at all. Naturally, he did not cultivate either, because he was refining pills.
Specifically, he was refining an antidote to the poison carried by the ghost faces.
The Ji family head had told him the Mist-Barrier Period would end within days, but Xia Yunzhao had already publicly promised to send antidote pills to Wanglai Pavilion, so he could hardly break his word.
Fortunately, the antidote was not particularly difficult. Inside the Fang family hidden chamber, Xia Yunzhao had found some records left by the poison pill cultivator, he had personally come into contact with the ghost-face poison, and long ago he had also used the Poison-Cleansing Spirit-Nourishing Pill to cure the Mountain Guardians…
Combining all that information, he understood the situation clearly. The ghost-face poison was difficult to cure once someone had transformed, but preventing infection was relatively easy. He could not save cultivators who had already become monsters, but preventing future mountain entrants from becoming infected was another matter entirely.
In only one day, Xia Yunzhao developed a Clearheart Detoxification Pill specifically targeting the ghost-face poison, then hurried to Wanglai Pavilion without stopping.
Du Yan sat behind the counter with a miserable expression. Over the past two days, countless people had come asking about the ghost faces and antidotes. He had thought removing the Fang family tumor would finally earn him several peaceful days, but instead Xia Yunzhao had found new work for him.
The moment Xia Yunzhao entered, Du Yan raised his head and cursed him entirely through his eyes.
Xiao Xia was thick-skinned. He dragged Shang Shuangze toward the counter. “I brought the pills! Worst case, we split the profit fifty-fifty.”
Du Yan snorted, his entire face saying, Who wants your tiny amount of money?
He picked up a pill and examined it, then raised an eyebrow. “You can actually create your own pill recipes?”
“Of course not!” Xia Yunzhao waved quickly. “I just combined the Clearheart Pill and Detoxification Pill, then borrowed part of the effect from the Poison-Cleansing Spirit-Nourishing Pill. It isn’t difficult to refine.” Then he continued, “The medicinal effects are a little mixed. Aside from preventing the ghost-face poison, it doesn’t do anything else. I didn’t refine many, only a hundred. I’ll leave them here. You set the price, and when I return, I’ll collect the money.”
Du Yan shook his head and concluded that Xia Yunzhao had fundamentally misunderstood his own talent. Everyone knew that combining two pill recipes should theoretically produce both medicinal effects, but there were countless pill cultivators in the world, and how many could actually do it?
Du Yan looked at Shang Shuangze, his expression clearly asking, He doesn’t know. You don’t know either?
Shang Shuangze inclined his head, his answer equally clear. As long as he’s happy.
Du Yan was speechless, then said, “With your pill-refining and artifact-refining ability, you could already open your own shop. Opening a shop in Qingxi City isn’t difficult. Never considered it?”
Xia Yunzhao had not expected Du Yan to think exactly what he had. “I have! I want to take over Fangcun Pavilion, but we’re rushing to leave.”
Du Yan considered it. “Fangcun Pavilion is currently in the Ji family’s hands. If you want it, they won’t charge you. How about this? Leave whatever pills you have available in the shop first. I’ll help manage them and build your reputation, and when you return, then decide what to do.”
Given Du Yan’s lazy personality, the man could barely be bothered running his own shop, so volunteering to manage one for Xia Yunzhao showed genuine friendship.
Xia Yunzhao immediately took out several pills he did not need.
Du Yan helped him sort them one by one, and the calculated selling prices were much better than what Xia Yunzhao could obtain in the underground market. He could simply return later and collect the money.
After leaving Du Yan with a huge pile of work, Xia Yunzhao visited Qingmu Pavilion, the inn where the Wei siblings were staying, Xu Ziyu, and the Mountain Guardian Village below the mountain.
Farewells mattered. Even knowing he would eventually return, he still needed to say goodbye to important people because life was unpredictable.
After finishing everything outside, the two returned to the valley and packed the entire place.
They would not take the puppets, leaving them behind to care for the spirit herbs. The defensive formation diagram needed to be properly set up too, and they were wealthy now, so even using nothing but spirit pearls to power it was possible, allowing the formation to reach maximum defensive strength. The Spirit-Gathering Formation, meanwhile, was moved into the carriage…
While living there, nothing had seemed particularly complicated. Only when preparing to leave did they discover how many things at home required attention, and by the time everything was settled, another entire day had passed.
At last, departure day arrived.
Xia Yunzhao released the Green Bamboo Carriage and connected his divine sense with it, making the carriage instantly enlarge. “Let’s go.”
The two climbed aboard.
Before the carriage could move, a gray figure suddenly leaped inside. The mother civet!
Something small was dangling from her mouth, her kitten.
Xia Yunzhao lit up. “You want to come with us?!”
The mother civet gave both humans an arrogant look, licked the kitten’s head twice, then turned and left without hesitation. Her retreating back looked exactly like a modern parent happily dropping a child at kindergarten.
Xia Yunzhao: “…”
Xia Yunzhao reached out dramatically after her. “Wait! Come back! I never said I wanted the kitten!”
How was he supposed to raise this little thing?! Did it still need milk?!