The morning sun rose as mist dispersed through the forest and birds chirped among the trees.
A green carriage slowly approached. The bamboo horse pulling it walked at an even pace, its hooves going clop-clop. Grass shifted along the roadside as slaughter beasts sensed the approaching aura and fled.
The cloth curtain lifted, revealing a lively, beautiful face.
Xia Yunzhao drew a deep breath, filling his nose with the fresh fragrance of vegetation. “The spiritual energy in this forest is so rich. I’ve already spotted loads of spirit medicines!”
The next moment, a gray cat head popped up beneath his chin. “Mew!”
Xia Yunzhao burst out laughing, grabbed Xianchan’s head, and vigorously rubbed it. “Do you even understand what I said? Why are you meowing along?”
Xianchan sounded aggrieved. “Mew-uu…”
It had been five days since they left Beiliang City. At the Green Bamboo Carriage’s speed, they had already traveled more than five thousand li and completed well over half the journey.
Inside the carriage, Shang Shuangze took food from the Hundred-Compartment Pouch and laid it out on the table one dish at a time. Some of it was still steaming.
Whenever conditions allowed, Xia Yunzhao always ate three meals a day without missing a single one. Shang Shuangze had long since become accustomed to it.
After the whole family finished breakfast, Shang Shuangze suddenly raised his head and looked toward the horizon.
Xia Yunzhao instinctively followed his gaze. The empty horizon suddenly filled with the image of a gigantic white luan bird. Its wings spread like falling moonlight, and its clear cry rang like jade striking gold as it flew toward them.
Shang Shuangze jumped down from the carriage, and Xia Yunzhao followed, still wondering what kind of luan bird this was.
Only when it drew closer did Xia Yunzhao realize that the enormous white luan was merely an illusion. Its true body was only the size of a fist, a little snow-white ball of a bird whose wing feathers and tail feathers were edged in silver, with a tiny, vivid red beak.
When the little bird saw them, it immediately dismissed the illusion and chirped again. Its real voice was tender and childish.
It circled once above their heads, then swooped down and hovered in front of Shang Shuangze.
Shang Shuangze held out a hand. A letter and a box dropped from beneath the root of one wing.
The little snowball beat its wings vigorously and carried its round body to a nearby tree to rest.
Xia Yunzhao asked, “What’s this?”
Shang Shuangze said, “A message from my sect.”
Xia Yunzhao’s heart tightened slightly. Had something happened to Shang Shuangze’s sect?
Shang Shuangze remained calm. He opened the letter, scanned it quickly, and said, “They like you very much.”
Xia Yunzhao did not react for a moment. “…Huh?”
Shang Shuangze explained, “The last time I sent a message, I mentioned that I’d met a friend who was helping me search for medicine. They like you very much.”
“I see.” Xia Yunzhao relaxed. So this was simply a regular correspondence.
“This is a gift from them.” Shang Shuangze opened the treasure box. Inside was a silver men’s hair crown. The brilliant treasure-light and pressure radiating from it made its rank obvious: it was a Level-Three magical artifact.
Xia Yunzhao was startled. “For me? Isn’t this too valuable?”
Shang Shuangze’s expression was gentle. “It is called the Snow-Crane Spirit-Guarding Crown. It is a Level-Three protective magical treasure capable of withstanding a full-strength attack from a Golden Core cultivator. It suits you better than a Level-Two magical artifact.”
“Then I won’t stand on ceremony!” Xia Yunzhao turned the crown over fondly in his hands. Shang Shuangze’s entire sect apparently shared the same aesthetic taste. Not only was the magical artifact powerful, it was beautiful. Silver threads had been woven into overlapping crane feathers, an ice-blue spirit jade set in the center, with two delicate silver chains hanging from either side.
A Level-Three magical artifact could already recognize an owner through blood. Xia Yunzhao cut his finger and dripped a single drop onto the crown. Sure enough, he immediately sensed a connection form between himself and the artifact.
With a thought, the Snow-Crane Spirit-Guarding Crown flew onto his head by itself and adjusted to the proper size.
Xia Yunzhao instantly felt his mind clear. “This crown even clears the mind and calms the spirit. Your elders really put thought into this. I love it!”
Shang Shuangze wrote a reply and raised his hand to call the little bird over.
The snowy ball hopped down from the tree and landed on Shang Shuangze’s shoulder, flapping a tiny wing against his ear.
Shang Shuangze said gently, “It’s all right. I’ll recover after some time.”
Xia Yunzhao leaned closer. “That’s right. Don’t worry! We’re on our way to find medicine for Shang Shuangze right now!”
He thought for a moment, then added, “I’d like to send your elders a gift too. Is that all right?”
Shang Shuangze replied, “Of course. Snowshadow has a storage pouch beneath its wing, though there isn’t much room.”
Xia Yunzhao considered what he could send. Shang Shuangze’s elders were probably highly cultivated and would have no use for ordinary things… In the end, he packed ten Delicious Fasting Pills and handed them over. Even if they did not need the pills, at least they could enjoy the flavor!
Snowshadow folded a wing over them and drew the pills into its storage pouch.
Shang Shuangze placed the reply inside as well.
Snowshadow then vigorously flapped its little wings and flew away.
Watching its round little backside disappear into the distance, Xia Yunzhao inexplicably felt a little sad. “Isn’t making it deliver letters exhausting? It must have to fly for ages.”
Shang Shuangze said, “There’s no other way. Nobody else can come down.” He considered how to explain. “There is a barrier around the sect. The higher one’s cultivation, the harder it is to descend the mountain.”
Xia Yunzhao nodded, though he did not really understand why such a rule existed. Perhaps people with higher cultivation were supposed to stay on the mountain and research how to ascend?
＊
After seeing off the little white bird, their journey returned to its previous calm.
Another three days passed. The farther north they traveled, the colder the weather became.
The hidden injuries inside Xia Yunzhao’s body had now completely healed. Spiritual power flowed smoothly and freely through him without the slightest obstruction.
This was where the benefits of a strong foundation became obvious. When ordinary cultivators first advanced to early Foundation Establishment and their spiritual energy had only just transformed into spiritual power, their circulation inevitably felt somewhat sluggish. Xia Yunzhao had no such problem. Day after day of tempering had left his meridians and acupoints broader than most people’s, allowing his spiritual power to flow effortlessly.
He began continuing the tempering of his skin.
During early Foundation Establishment, a cultivator tempered the skin, bones, and flesh. The middle stage focused on the internal organs, while the late stage tempered the meridians.
The Dao body was the Dao foundation. During Foundation Establishment, cultivators had to temper their bodies until they became extraordinarily powerful, eventually strong enough to contend even with magical artifacts.
Many cultivators stalled at Foundation Establishment not because they lacked talent but because every stage of tempering required corresponding pills. Pills were too expensive. A Foundation Establishment tempering pill cost at least a thousand spirit pearls and sometimes four or five thousand, while a single tempering session required at least four or five pills. Ordinary cultivators simply could not afford that.
Naturally, Xia Yunzhao had no such problem. His Hundred-Compartment Pouch lacked many things, but pills were not among them. Forget four or five pills at a time. He could use forty or fifty if he wanted. That was only one furnace!
His problem lay elsewhere…
Shang Shuangze was wiping dust from Xiao Qing when he noticed Xia Yunzhao’s lips part in what looked like a long sigh. He raised his eyes. “Why are you sighing?”
Xia Yunzhao looked miserable. “I knew cultivation ate spirit pearls. I just didn’t know Foundation Establishment would eat this many! It hasn’t even been seven days, and I’ve already spent almost five hundred thousand!”
Shang Shuangze found his little miserly expression adorable and could not help laughing. “Didn’t you have three million before? Even after spending five hundred thousand, you still have two and a half million.”
“But we still have the return journey. We need to keep emergency funds.” Xia Yunzhao thought for a moment. “No. I can’t get addicted to cultivating. Maybe I’ll refine pills instead… No, forget it. I’ll sort beans.”
Pill refining also consumed spiritual power, especially because Xia Yunzhao was nothing like ordinary people. Others refined one furnace at a time. He now refined twenty at once, making one person comparable to an entire pill-refining factory. Naturally, his consumption of spiritual energy was on a completely different scale.
Before, he could rely on the Spirit-Gathering Formation’s spiritual energy while refining, but after reaching Foundation Establishment and gaining the ability to project divine sense, his control over pill recipes had improved again, allowing him to refine more than twenty furnaces at once.
Level-Two pills also required far more spiritual power than Level-One pills, so the Spirit-Gathering Formation alone was no longer enough. Now he either had to replenish himself with Qi-Replenishing Pills or continue relying on the Spirit-Transmutation Art.
He took out the bag of spirit pearls the Ji family head had given him, then brought out the jade box Danxia Hall had gifted him. With a clatter, he poured the pearls into the box and began carefully sorting through them.
The bag contained an equal number of Reverse-Spirit Jade Beads mixed among the spirit pearls. They had to be picked out one by one.
After sorting only two, Xia Yunzhao discovered the task was anything but simple. Whenever he wrapped a Reverse-Spirit Jade Bead in spiritual power and tried to move it, the spiritual energy inside the bead flowed backward and upward, piercing into his spiritual power. There was only a tiny amount of spiritual energy inside, so the stab was shallow. The beads ended up behaving like burrs, sticking to his spiritual energy.
Every few beads, Xia Yunzhao had to vibrate his meridians and shake off the Reverse-Spirit Jade Beads that had “stuck” to his spiritual power.
Still, the things genuinely trained spiritual-power control. After sorting only a few hundred, Xia Yunzhao already felt his control becoming more precise. He could draw his spiritual power into a thread as fine as a strand of hair and gently flick out one Reverse-Spirit Jade Bead, avoiding the problem of being mobbed by “burrs.”
Unfortunately, whenever someone was trying to do serious work, there was always a gray cat paw nearby causing trouble.
“Xianchan, don’t touch that! Aiya… Fine, fine, I’ll give you a handful to play with. Don’t touch the pile I’ve already sorted. Xiao Qing! Come manage it!”
Xiao Qing rolled over and pretended to be fast asleep. How could a bronze me possibly control a ball of fur overflowing with energy?
Forget Xiao Qing. The moment Mingyun heard anyone suggest playing with Xianchan, it quietly hid behind Shang Shuangze. The kitten was less than a year old and apparently incapable of tiring itself out. It caused chaos from morning until night.
Xia Yunzhao had no choice but to press one hand down on Xianchan’s furry little head. Just as he was about to continue sorting, the carriage suddenly jolted, instantly mixing the two carefully separated piles of beads back together.
Xia Yunzhao: “…”
A rough shout came from outside. “Get out! Leave your valuables and we’ll spare your life!”
Xia Yunzhao: “…”
The next second, the place where he had been sitting was empty. Xianchan had been pushing upward against his hand, and with the resistance suddenly gone, its tiny body toppled sideways into the jade box. It began meowing pitifully.
There were seven burly men outside, every one of them thick with the smell of blood, with no telling how many people they had killed. Their leader was at mid Foundation Establishment. Two of the remaining six were early Foundation Establishment, while the other four were at Great Completion of Qi Refining.
The two early Foundation Establishment cultivators looked especially ridiculous. One was grotesquely fat, while the other was so thin he looked like a bamboo pole brought to life.
The obese cultivator looked Xia Yunzhao up and down, then gave a sinister laugh. “This pretty little thing definitely has money. Hand it all over and your grandpas will spare your life!”
Xia Yunzhao instantly became furious. “Wanting my life is one thing, but you want my money too?!”
Nobody saw how he crossed the distance. A single Flowing Cloud Leg strike sent the fat man flying. Xia Yunzhao raised the Spirit-Severing Dagger to block the thin man’s attack, twisted his wrist, and slit the throat of one Qi Refining cultivator.
The next instant, a small red banner appeared in his hand. He shook it twice, and the banner expanded in the wind until it stood half a man’s height. Xia Yunzhao gripped the pole in both hands and swept it violently. “Anyone who tries to steal my money dies! Dies!”
Whoosh! Scarlet earthfire erupted. A roaring fire dragon charged straight at the bandits. With one enormous gulp, it swallowed a Qi Refining cultivator and burned him to ash in an instant.
If one had to ask which of all his spells Xia Yunzhao knew best, the answer was unquestionably the Earthfire Art. He used it for artifact refining, pill refining, and fighting. After reaching Foundation Establishment, its power had increased tremendously.
The mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator’s eyelid twitched. “Useless trash! You fight among Fire Rats every day and you’re still afraid of fire? Kill him!”
The thin man hardened his expression and raised a spiked hammer. “I’ll chop you alive!”
Yet although he charged straight toward Xia Yunzhao, he watched the man vanish before his eyes. As he hesitated in confusion, half a head emerged from the ground behind him.
Xia Yunzhao sliced through the man’s Achilles tendon and grinned. “Fire isn’t the only thing I know. I can use earth too!”
Seeing his brother suffer, the fat cultivator hurried forward to help, only for Xia Yunzhao to sink into the ground and disappear again. The man shouted, “He knows the Earthwalking Art! Watch the ground!”
Everyone immediately began scanning around, but how exactly were they supposed to see traces of the Earthwalking Art beneath the earth?
Suddenly, the thin man shouted, “Careful!”
The fat cultivator whipped around and saw a head emerge from the ground. Before he could attack, Xia Yunzhao pointed at him. The fat man instinctively looked behind himself and saw a faint flame burning beneath the thin man’s feet. In the next instant it surged upward and enveloped him. The thin cultivator screamed and rolled across the ground until gradually there was no sound left.
“Skinny!” The fat man’s eyes nearly split with rage. “I’ll kill you!”
But Xia Yunzhao had vanished again. The fat man raised his enormous hammer and smashed it into the ground with all his strength. The earth vibrated violently. “Boss! Why aren’t you doing anything yet?!”
“Your boss is already dead,” said a clear, pleasant voice.
The fat man instinctively turned around and saw his leader pinned against a tree trunk by a white spirit sword through the throat. The man’s face still held its furious expression, but the light in his eyes was already fading. Evidently, he had died before even realizing what happened.
The spirit sword withdrew and the leader’s corpse fell. The fat man instinctively turned to flee, but the sword did not pursue him. It curved through the air and flew back toward the carriage.
The fat man froze… and then that pleasant voice appeared beside his ear. “You know, why are you so distracted in the middle of a fight?”
“Wha…?” The fat man looked down. A treasure-lit dagger had pierced from his back through his chest, while red flames flickered beneath his feet.
The white spirit sword flew into a pale, powerful hand that closed around its hilt. Shang Shuangze stepped down from the carriage carrying a cloak.
Xia Yunzhao pulled out the dagger and the fat man’s body collapsed. He shook off the blood with disgust and muttered, “I really should’ve burned him. Blood is such a pain to clean. Now I’ll have to waste a Cleaning Talisman.”
Shang Shuangze walked through the scattered corpses and draped the cloak around him. “If you burn them, their money disappears too.”
“Aiya!” That immediately woke Xia Yunzhao up. He rushed to rummage through the corpses for money pouches. The storage pouches belonging to the three Foundation Establishment cultivators were still intact, but he had burned two of the four Qi Refining cultivators completely.
His face immediately fell, though he comforted himself. “Forget it, forget it. Qi Refining cultivators probably don’t have much good stuff anyway…”
Counting loot was far more entertaining than sorting beans. Xia Yunzhao dragged Shang Shuangze back into the carriage, lifted Xianchan out of the jade box, let the kitten entertain itself, and opened all five storage pouches to inspect them one by one.
They were bandits, so the five storage pouches contained all kinds of things. There were more than a hundred thousand spirit pearls alone.
Xia Yunzhao immediately transferred every pearl into his own pouch.
Then he examined the remaining materials: one hundred and three Coldsmoke Grass plants, eighty-seven Icefrost Flowers, sixty pieces of Nethercold Iron, and sixty Dragonbone Crystals. There were also thirty Cold-Dispelling Pills, sixteen Xuanshuang Pills, ten Bloodstanching Pills, ten Snow-Spirit Pills, and the complete corpse of an Icefield Giant Rhinoceros.
In addition, there were five cold-iron tokens, one in each storage pouch. Every token bore the image of a hideous, vicious crow.
Xia Yunzhao made a puzzled sound. “It looks like they just came back from the icefield. Look, all the resources in their storage pouches are things unique to the icefield.”
Shang Shuangze had naturally noticed as well and nodded. “Indeed.”
Xia Yunzhao thought about it. Those men had also mentioned Fire Rats… He took out the map. “The nearest city is Xiangqu. Let’s go ask around there.”
The carriage leisurely turned out of the forest and headed toward the main road.
As they approached Xiangqu, the road gradually improved and farmland became more common on both sides.
Xiangqu lay close to the icefield, so its climate was different from Qingxi City’s and the crops grown there were different as well. The people working in the fields looked more weather-beaten than those around Qingxi City.
Xia Yunzhao looked out through the carriage window. “The harvest here doesn’t seem as good as back home.”
Shang Shuangze said, “The weather is colder, after all.” After traveling with Xia Yunzhao for so long, he had learned that mortal farmers depended on their harvests to survive. Sometimes those harvests were determined by natural disasters, and sometimes by human ones.
Xiangqu was a small city. There were not even guards at the gate, and people could enter and leave freely.
…Forget guards. There were barely even any people entering the city.
Once inside, the two put away the carriage. They had hardly seen anyone along the road when they heard an argument nearby. They turned and immediately understood why the rest of the city seemed deserted. Everyone had gathered here to watch the commotion.
Xia Yunzhao stood on tiptoe but still could not see clearly, so he tapped the shoulder of an uncle in front of him. “What’s happening?”
The uncle chuckled. “The cultivator lords are fighting.”
Xia Yunzhao was baffled. “If cultivators are fighting, why aren’t you running? You’re standing around watching? Aren’t you afraid of getting hurt?”
The uncle continued chuckling. “No need. These two families have been fighting for years. They were fighting every day back when my grandfather was still a kid, and they’ve never hurt anyone.”
An auntie beside him laughed too. “Exactly. The cultivator lords in our city are different from those elsewhere. In my opinion, their attacks are less dangerous than my old cow.”
Xia Yunzhao: “…”
He finally squeezed through the crowd and saw the two opposing sides. The shops stood directly across from each other. One had a plaque reading Tailor Shop, while the other bore the sign Yanhuo Studio. Each side had four people, two men and two women, all chirping and shouting over one another without any order whatsoever.
Xia Yunzhao heard one side yell, “Your family’s tailors! Every one of you is a tailor! Your clothes are ugly, uncomfortable, and nobody buys them!”
The other side immediately retorted, “Your family’s cooks! Every one of you is a cook! Your food looks awful and tastes awful! You don’t get a single customer for months!”
If Xia Yunzhao could not sense spiritual-energy fluctuations from all eight of them, he would have assumed he was watching mortals quarrel. Besides, one family made clothes and the other cooked food. Their trades did not even overlap. What exactly were they fighting about?
Wait. Hold on. Yanhuo Studio?
That name sounded strangely familiar…
“Yanhuo Studio…” Right! He had once drawn gossip about Yanhuo Studio!
He pulled out the yellowed slip of paper. [Shh… I’ll tell you a secret, but don’t tell anyone else! Before entering the Dao, Lu Shi, master of Yanhuo Studio, suffered terribly from hemorrhoids. Every night he groaned and sighed in bed until his wife frequently kicked him into the study…]
Xiao Xia’s eyes instantly lit up. Which one of them is Lu Shi, master of Yanhuo Studio?
The two sides went from shouting to fighting again, though the battle remained long-range. One side threw fabric scraps and bamboo baskets, while the other began hurling pots, bowls, ladles, and basins.
Judging purely by material, the cookware faction had the obvious advantage. The four people from the tailor shop fled with their heads covered, rushed inside, and slammed the doors shut.
Yanhuo Studio’s side proudly declared victory, then began gathering up its own pots and pans.
One female cultivator swept her gaze across the crowd, spotted Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze, and warmly called out, “Huh? New Fellow Daoists? Want to come eat at our place? Great ingredients, low prices, and excellent food!”
Xia Yunzhao grabbed Shang Shuangze and walked over with a smile. “Then we’ll trouble you.”
The woman immediately led them inside. After looking more carefully, she realized their cultivation. “So you’re both seniors. Please, come in! We also have rooms if you need somewhere to stay.”
“That works. We were just worrying about where to spend the night.” Xia Yunzhao discreetly looked around. “What dishes do you have?”
The woman cheerfully rattled them off. “Today we have Snow-Mushroom Chicken Soup, Charcoal-Roasted Red-Tailed Lamb, Mixed Stir-Fried Vegetables, and Ice-Lake Silverfish Ice. My senior sister and the others caught the ingredients on the snowfield yesterday. Everything’s very fresh!”
Xia Yunzhao’s appetite immediately surged. The prices were not expensive either, so he waved magnanimously. “One of everything!”
The woman’s voice became even louder as she shouted toward the kitchen, “Coming right up! One of everything!”
Xia Yunzhao immediately heard the rapid thok-thok of chopping from the kitchen and could not help worrying. They had washed all those pots and dishes after picking them up from the street, right?
Perhaps because they were the only customers in the shop, the food arrived quickly. The fragrance alone was enough to make anyone hungry.
The sizzling charcoal-roasted lamb smelled the most tempting. Xia Yunzhao immediately picked up a piece, placed it into his mouth, and then stopped.
They ate roasted meat all the time. They traveled through forests every day and had tried all kinds of slaughter beasts.
Xia Yunzhao could sense that the Red-Tailed Sheep itself was not high level, around Level One at most. Yet the roasted meat contained extraordinarily abundant spiritual power, nearly enough to reach Level Two.
Across from him, Shang Shuangze ladled a bowl of chicken soup and placed it in front of him. “Try this.”
Xia Yunzhao lowered his head and took a sip. Fresh, delicious flavor exploded across his tongue, followed immediately by rich spiritual power… The spiritual-power level of this Snow-Mushroom Chicken Soup had actually reached Level Two!
The two looked at each other.
Xia Yunzhao lowered his voice. “Spirit cuisine… culinary cultivators?”
Shang Shuangze smiled. “When I was young, my master once told me that there are three thousand Great Daos and every road can lead to ascension. But over countless ages, some Daos lose all practitioners and gradually disappear. I never expected to encounter culinary cultivators here.”
Xia Yunzhao sighed. He really had underestimated the heroes of the world. He had drawn several spirit-cuisine recipes already and had never once tried them because he assumed they were not particularly useful.
Yet a single bowl of Snow-Mushroom Chicken Soup replenished as much spiritual energy as one Qi-Replenishing Pill. It might not be as convenient as taking a pill, but it tasted far better.
In that case, the tailor shop across the road probably cultivated through the Dao of garments. Perhaps it really was the shop they had been searching for, the one capable of processing Fire-Rat pelts.
The two finished every dish on the table.
When the female cultivator saw the empty bowls, she looked even happier than when she received their spirit pearls. “Would the two seniors like to stay at our humble shop? Guests who eat here receive a discount on lodging!”
Xia Yunzhao smiled. “We will.” He paid for the room, then took out the cold-iron token engraved with the crow. “Fellow Daoist, I have something I’d like to ask. Do you recognize this token?”
The moment the token appeared, the woman speaking with them, the male cultivator sweeping the floor, and the man and woman in the kitchen all fell silent.
After a long pause, the woman finally steadied her voice. “Senior, may I ask where you obtained that token?”
Xia Yunzhao told the truth. “Someone tried to rob us on the road. We killed them instead and found these on their bodies.”
The woman breathed a sigh of relief, then sighed again. “Senior, that is a token of Cold Crow Stronghold. Cold Crow Stronghold lies directly on the route from Xiangqu to Xuanshuang City and specializes in robbing passing cultivators. They have several hundred members, including more than thirty Foundation Establishment cultivators.”
Xia Yunzhao was listening seriously when he noticed the woman’s sympathetic expression. “There’s something else. The master of Cold Crow Stronghold holds grudges fiercely. He has planted an evil art on every member of the stronghold. Anyone who kills one of them becomes marked by a ‘Cold Crow Feather,’ and he will pursue that killer to the ends of the earth.”
Xia Yunzhao: “…”