Chapter 169: Chapter 168: A Season of Change, a Year’s End
"A business with no starting capital..."
As his thoughts churned, Chu Mu couldn’t help but shake his head and sigh.
This truly was a business that required no investment whatsoever.
Spirit Veins were born from the creations of heaven and earth.
Those with high Cultivation would occupy the Spirit Veins, monopolize their Spiritual Qi, and then use that Spiritual Qi as a foundation to build Marketplaces.
Other Cultivators who wanted to practice Cultivation had to gather around these Marketplaces, willingly subjecting themselves to be harvested and exploited from every angle.
Take the Sun Clan he knew of, for example. They occupied dozens of Spirit Veins and had built dozens of Marketplaces. In the end, into whose hands did all this wealth fall?
Obviously, it all went to that one Golden Core Powerhouse of the Sun Clan!
It was, without a doubt, a complete pyramid scheme.
Dozens of Spirit Veins, dozens of Marketplaces, an entire Clan, and the countless Cultivators involved in those dozens of Marketplaces all existed solely to support that one person at the very top of the Sun Clan’s pyramid... the Golden Core True Master.
As his thoughts swirled, Chu Mu led Xu Yuan on a tour of the pavilion. He didn’t bother to change the Spiritual Qi supply settings.
The supply of ten units of Spiritual Qi per day was more than enough for him at present, even with Xu Yuan included.
The pavilion had two floors. He left the first floor for Xu Yuan and went straight up to the second. Wangcai, however, upon entering the pavilion, seemed to get excited by the overly dense Spiritual Qi. It was still jumping and darting around, showing no signs of stopping.
After activating the Restriction on the second floor, the noise of Wangcai’s frantic movements was completely blocked out. Chu Mu took out the Storage Talisman from his robes, which was close to expiring. He examined it for a moment before extending his Divine Sense into it.
Inside was a space one meter in length, width, and height, containing his gains from this period.
There was a damaged Lower Grade Magical Artifact Pill Furnace, five bags of Spirit Grain, two bags of Spirit Stones, two bottles of Elixirs, one bottle of Spirit Oil, three bags of Spiritual Charcoal, several manuals on Cultivation Techniques and Magic, and some meat and vegetable-based foods prepared in the mortal world.
After sorting and inventorying everything, Chu Mu turned his attention to the two bags of Spirit Stones.
One bag contained the earnings from selling his knowledge. From the original seven hundred-plus Spirit Stones, he was now left with fewer than thirty-four Lower Grade Spirit Stones.
The other bag was the inheritance left by the previous owner of the Blood Killing Order.
Chu Mu had already counted it clearly. Eighty Lower Spirit stones, no more, no less. Adding the less than thirty-four Lower Grade Spirit Stones he had left, his current savings amounted to one hundred and thirteen Lower Grade Spirit Stones and six Broken Spirits.
One of the two bottles of Elixirs was also part of the inheritance.
One bottle he had purchased himself at the Fengming Mountain Black Market. It was called a Rejuvenating Pill, used to restore Magical Power during Alchemy.
Chu Mu had also identified the medicinal effect of the bottle of Elixirs from the inheritance. It was the Three-in-One Pill, a famous Support Cultivation Elixir in the Qi Cultivation Realm.
A bottle of ten pills was worth at least a hundred Spirit Stones in the Marketplace.
After a moment of contemplation, Chu Mu glanced at his Cultivation Progress for the Fiery Flame Technique on the Light Curtain Panel, which was already past the halfway mark. He then tossed a Three-in-One Pill into his mouth.
He sat cross-legged with his eyes slightly closed. The Medicinal Power surged within his stomach. With the dense Spiritual Qi in the air, his Alchemy yet to begin, and the newly bought Magic not yet practiced, Chu Mu had already started his Cultivation.
The limitations of a Pseudo Spirit Root’s talent were a well-established conclusion in the Cultivation Immortal Realm. Under normal Cultivation conditions, without sufficient Elixirs and Spiritual Qi support, even if one embarked on the Immortal Path from the womb, they would at most reach the Late Stage of Qi Cultivation in their entire lifetime.
Chu Mu had tested this conclusion himself, using his own Qi Cultivation as the benchmark.
With his Pseudo Spirit Root Talent, even to complete the mere Qi Cultivation First Layer required immense effort. According to the progress displayed on his Light Curtain Panel, if he focused solely on practicing the Fiery Flame Technique without sufficient resources, it would take him more than three years to reach Perfection.
If he also had to work to earn Spirit Stones, practice Magic, his Blade Technique, and Alchemy... that time would extend by at least another two years.
And this was just for the Qi Cultivation First Layer. If it were a Celestial Spirit Root, even without any resource support and in an environment with equally thin Spiritual Qi, reaching the Qi Cultivation First Layer would take a few months at most.
The gap created by Spirit Root Talent was, much like the Cultivation Immortal Realm itself, clear and cruel.
It took him nearly ten hours to barely refine a single Three-in-One Pill, worth over ten Spirit Stones.
In exchange, he gained fifty points of Cultivation Progress in his Fiery Flame Technique on the Light Curtain Panel.
Under normal circumstances, gaining these fifty points of Cultivation progress would have taken him at least a month and a half of Cultivation.
In other words, ten Three-in-One Pills, worth over a hundred Spirit Stones, were equivalent to nearly a year and a half of his dedicated, arduous Cultivation.
Chu Mu took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly, as if trying to expel the sudden wave of depression that had washed over him.
After a long silence, Chu Mu calmed his thoughts, his mind finding tranquility, and began to cultivate again.
A single Three-in-One Pill brought about a surge in his Cultivation, and this surge required time to be sorted out and stabilized.
Otherwise, there was a high probability that his Magical Power would become chaotic, even spiral out of control, and in the end... his Cultivation would be completely crippled!
But when Chu Mu immersed his Divine Sense into his Dantian to perceive the surging Magical Power, the scene he perceived was not what he had expected.
The Magical Power that had surged from refining the Three-in-One Pill’s medicinal power did indeed show signs of disorder, and his control over it felt slightly sluggish.
However, under the constant ripples emanating from the illusory long saber rooted in his Divine Soul, the chaotic Magical Power was being tempered. Bit by bit, these ripples purged its impurities. It gradually condensed, and the sense of disorder slowly dissipated.
’What exactly is it?’
The long-hidden doubt once again focused on the illusory long saber in his Divine Soul.
From the Jade Emperor Valley Marketplace to the Fengming Mountain Black Market, he had paid close attention to any news related to this, but even now, he had found nothing.
Regarding this illusory long saber, which had evolved from the Basic Blade Technique, he had no other knowledge apart from his own observations and understanding.
It possessed the ability to attack the Divine Soul, the function of tempering the Divine Soul and Magical Power, and could even erase damage to the Divine Soul...
The few functions he had observed were almost enough to call it a Supreme Treasure.
Moreover, as his Cultivation grew, these functions also seemed to grow along with it.
What could such a miraculous existence be?
Chu Mu pondered, but in the end, just as before, he had no choice but to bury this question deep in his heart and wait for the day it would be answered.
Cultivation knows no passage of time; ten Three-in-One Pills, a change of season, the end of a year.
He had entered his residence and stepped onto the second floor of the pavilion in late autumn. It was not until deep winter that Chu Mu finally walked out from the second floor.
In his vision, the Light Curtain Panel appeared once again.
[Name: Chu Mu.]
[Skills: Basic Blade Technique (Peak of Perfection) 2530/10000, Fireball Skill (Peak of Perfection) 86/10000]
[Body Refining Technique (1000/1000)]
[Second Layer of Fiery Flame Technique (210/1000)]
[Alchemy: Dragon and Snake Soup: Refined Skill (1300/2000), Grain Avoidance Pill: Beginner’s Practice (96/100)]
[Spiritual Radiance Value: 4036.6%]
A change of season, ten Three-in-One Pills, reaching the Qi Cultivation Second Layer, and accumulating over four thousand in Spiritual Radiance Value...
Feeling the fluctuations of Magical Power in his Dantian, Chu Mu’s eyes flickered, a sense of daze washing over him.
’How long have I been in the Cultivation Immortal Realm?’
He couldn’t quite remember himself.
But regardless, he had now stepped into the Qi Cultivation Second Layer and had even taken a solid step forward in its progress.
Before Chu Mu could even walk down the stairs, the panther-like puppy bounded over.
The pup’s habits hadn’t changed; it still loved to rub against everything.
"Come on, let me see."
Chu Mu lifted Wangcai with one hand. Its weight of several hundred pounds felt like nothing in his grasp.
As he lifted it, his Divine Sense completely enveloped Wangcai.
After about a quarter of an hour, Chu Mu put Wangcai down, processing the various conditions his Divine Sense had perceived.
Having spent three months in such dense Spiritual Qi, even with just passive absorption, Wangcai’s changes were clearly significant.
This change was fundamentally similar to what happens with humans.
It was like a dry sponge being placed in water; a person moving from a thin Spiritual Qi environment to a dense one would absorb it rapidly, but this would stagnate after reaching a point of equilibrium.
For humans, this stagnation was only passive. After achieving Divine Appearance, they could actively control Spiritual Qi, easily breaking through this plateau.
But as for Wangcai...
Chu Mu frowned. The existence of Demons was a fact in the Cultivation Immortal Realm.
He had looked into it before. The most crucial part of a Demon Beast’s cultivation was also Divine Appearance. However, Demons didn’t have Spirit Roots; they relied on cultivating the bloodlines passed down from ancient Great Demons. He wasn’t too clear on the specific details.
The current Wangcai, after years of being nurtured with medicinal liquids and now living in this dense Spiritual Qi environment, was standing right before the threshold of Divine Appearance.
If it crossed it, it might become a Demon Beast. If it couldn’t, its progress would likely stop here.
"Well, it all depends on what your master can pull off..."
Chu Mu muttered to himself, rubbing Wangcai’s head.
Raising Wangcai had just been a hobby in his spare time. Now that it had followed him into the Cultivation Immortal Realm, he couldn’t possibly use his already scarce resources on it.
Unless one day he had resources to spare, Wangcai’s fate would be up to itself.
"Brother Mu, I found a job!"
The door opened, and Xu Yuan’s excited voice came through.
"What is it?"
Chu Mu looked up.
"It’s at the Longevity Sect’s Spirit Talisman Pavilion, grinding talisman powder. It pays three Lower Spirit stones a month."
"And every three months, I can get a Tier One Lower Grade Talisman. I asked around; the cheapest Tier One Lower Grade Talismans in the Marketplace cost about three Spirit Stones, so it’s like earning four Lower Spirit stones a month..."
"Alright."
Chu Mu nodded. "Go give it a try first. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll figure something else out."
"Right, go pay the rent first."
Saying this, Chu Mu took out a Spirit Stone Bag and tossed it to Xu Yuan.
"Okay, I’ll go right now."
Reaching the door, Xu Yuan seemed to remember something and turned back to look at Chu Mu.
"Brother Mu, once I get my Monthly Stipend, let me pay the next rent."
"We’ll see."
Chu Mu waved his hand dismissively, his attention still on Wangcai.
"Okay."
The door closed, and Xu Yuan left in a hurry.
Chu Mu pondered for a long while before slowly getting up. His gaze lingered on the stats for the Grain Avoidance Pill on the Light Curtain Panel. After a moment’s thought, he pushed open the door and went out as well.
...
