Chapter 21

Chun Chou had already run quite a distance while leading his little donkey when he suddenly realized—

He could actually be riding it.

He turned his head. The donkey’s large, clear eyes were staring back at him, looking both innocent and faintly speechless.

As if it were looking at a fool.

Chun Chou: “……”

He wasn’t stupid. Truly. He swore.

Very quickly, Chun Chou swung himself onto the donkey’s back. The little donkey happily carried him toward the City Lord’s Manor.

Ever since it had awakened its spiritual intelligence, the donkey was clearly smarter than it had been in the mortal realm. It even seemed to know exactly where its master intended to go.

But when they reached the mouth of a certain alley, the donkey’s nose twitched. Without warning, it tugged its master along and darted into the narrow lane instead.

Chun Chou, who had just been feeling proud of how clever his donkey was: “……If there aren’t at least three demon beast cores in there, you’re getting beaten.”

The donkey brayed innocently.

The pair soon reached the depths of the alley—and were met with an extremely gruesome sight.

Two cultivators lay dead.

One man’s longsword had pierced straight through the other’s chest. The other’s broadsword had cleaved into his opponent’s neck. Fresh blood still dripped steadily to the ground. Scattered nearby were more than a dozen demon beast cores.

This had clearly just happened.

Chun Chou paused, not approaching immediately. He glanced down at himself—he was wearing the low-grade defensive robe issued by the City Lord’s Manor. He quickly pasted two defensive talismans onto his body and held two fireball talismans in his hand before cautiously stepping forward to check the two men’s condition.

Both were indeed dead.

Without hesitation, Chun Chou began looting.

From the pouches hanging at their waists, from inside their sleeves, from hidden compartments in their boots—he collected more than twenty storage pouches in total. He gathered the demon beast cores scattered on the ground and even took their weapons—the longsword and the broadsword.

The storage pouches he had just picked up were stuffed into his wide sleeves; the rest he placed into his own pouch at his waist.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, he threw the two fireball talismans onto the corpses.

Flames erupted instantly.

Destroying the bodies.

Chun Chou scrambled onto the little donkey’s back. Without needing to be urged, the donkey immediately broke into a run.

Once they were out of the alley, however, it slowed back to a normal walking pace so as not to attract unnecessary attention.

Chun Chou cast a Cleansing Spell on both himself and the donkey, making sure there wasn’t the slightest trace of blood scent left on either of them. Only then did he grin.

“Not bad at all. Today you get two extra carrots.”

The donkey happily brayed twice in excitement.

It was Chun Chou’s second day at work. He hadn’t arrived early—but he wasn’t late either. Right on time.

Steward Bai saw him and chuckled. “Young Master Chun Chou truly seems suited to working at the City Lord’s Manor.”

Chun Chou: “……”

Actually, he had simply come into a bit of unexpected wealth, which had delayed him.

He smiled awkwardly and dismounted.

Steward Bai walked with him for a short distance and lowered his voice. “No one strictly checks attendance for you spirit plant cultivators. Arriving a little late once in a while is no great matter.”

Chun Chou nodded, but inwardly thought: better not. He was an outsider, after all. If someone caught hold of a small fault, it would be troublesome. The seasoned veterans here probably knew how to be “flexible,” but he would rather keep his head down.

After walking a short way, they parted.

The Hundred Herb Garden was far, and most of his “colleagues” rode flying paper cranes. Chun Chou therefore stored the little donkey in his spirit beast pouch and took out a paper crane of his own, heading first toward the spirit medicine fields.

Entry and exit were restricted by identity jade tokens that activated the protective barriers. That, at least, was reassuring.

Upon arriving, Chun Chou released the donkey. As a spirit beast, it possessed intelligence and would only wander within the boundaries he permitted. He patted its head and sternly forbade it from eating even a single stalk of Marrow-Cleansing Grass.

The donkey obediently agreed.

Especially since Chun Chou set out a basin full of food for it—corn cakes, bean cakes, apples, carrots, and reed grass. With its favorite treats available, it had no need to covet the Marrow-Cleansing Grass.

Even though its big eyes occasionally drifted longingly toward the neatly planted spirit field.

Chun Chou noticed and grew thoughtful.

He and Ling Wuji had both come from the mortal realm, where spiritual energy was turbid and thin. Though they had tried to eat foods containing spiritual energy there, only after arriving in the cultivation world did they realize how impure that energy had been in comparison.

Marrow-Cleansing Pills weren’t only necessary for the donkey.

He and Ling Wuji needed them too.

Chun Chou knew his spiritual roots were poor. If he lacked talent, he would make up for it elsewhere—with diligence, with resources, with pills.

He happened to have four pots of Profound-rank Marrow-Cleansing Grass. Even if the supplementary ingredients were only Yellow-rank, the resulting pills would still far surpass those made from ordinary Yellow-rank herbs.

And perhaps—just perhaps—he could also find the other ingredients and raise them to Profound-rank as well.

With that thought, Chun Chou set aside last night’s worries. It wasn’t that he didn’t care about Xie Youyou and the others. It was simply that he knew his limits. No matter how anxious he became, he could not change their situation.

Better to calm himself and raise his cultivation.

As for Youyou and the rest—right now, he only hoped they were alive.

As long as they were alive, there was hope.

After ensuring the donkey wouldn’t touch the Manor’s Marrow-Cleansing Grass—and that the recording stone wouldn’t capture the donkey in frame—Chun Chou activated the Recording Stone and cast Rain-Summoning, Growth, and Metal-Strengthening spells over the three mu of Marrow-Cleansing Grass before him.

He was currently at the seventh level of Qi Refining. The three spirit planter spells had only been cultivated to the first layer so far. When his rank increased, perhaps the area he could affect at once would grow larger.

From the books he had read, most Qi Refining spirit planters could only cultivate these spells to the second layer—affecting five mu at a time. Only a rare few with exceptional talent could reach the third layer, covering ten mu in one cast.

Chun Chou didn’t demand the third layer at Qi Refining. But the second layer—he absolutely intended to reach.

Unfortunately, these spells consumed immense spiritual energy. The larger the field, the greater the drain.

After casting all three spells over the three mu, his spiritual power was nearly exhausted.

He shut off the Recording Stone with his spiritual sense, sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion he had prepared, and began cultivating.

Half an hour later, his spiritual energy was fully restored. He continued cultivating for another hour, sensing the rich wood spiritual energy in the area. Only then did he open his eyes.

It was already noon.

Rather than continue cultivating, he stored the Recording Stone, practiced a round of basic body-tempering exercises, ran a lap around the entire spirit medicine garden, and finally sat down at the stone table outside the wooden hut.

“Resting,” in Chun Chou’s case, meant taking out the twenty-odd storage pouches he had picked up earlier and inspecting them for usable items. Even if empty, the pouches themselves could be sold.

He hadn’t expected such good luck today.

Most of these pouches had belonged to cultivators forced out during the beast tide when they lacked spirit stones to sustain their defensive formations. Twenty of them contained not a single spirit stone.

But while there were no stones, there were other things—pills, talismans, magic tools, jade slips.

The pills were mostly common low-grade ones: Spirit Condensation Pills, Poison-Repelling Pills, Antidotes, Spring-Recovery Pills—over forty bottles in total. In three pouches, he even found Spirit Beast Pills. Ten bottles, ten pills each—enough to feed the donkey for quite some time.

As for talismans, most were ordinary field-use varieties, inferior to Ling Wuji’s work. Chun Chou set those aside for sale. However, a few Profound-rank talismans usable at higher Qi Refining levels were kept in his personal pouch.

The magic tools were unremarkable—except for one pair of delicate golden bells, no larger than thumbs.

They were high-quality Yellow-rank artifacts, usable even at Foundation Establishment. Not offensive or defensive by nature. Normally silent, but when infused with spiritual energy, they emitted sound waves that restricted the movements of everyone who heard them—except the owner.

Chun Chou found them delightful.

He planned to string them with red thread and hang them from his waist pouch as “decoration.”

The remaining four or five pouches did contain spirit stones—over seven hundred low-grade stones in total.

Not bad at all.

Most of the other contents were similar to what he had already seen. The pills could be kept. Profound-rank talismans kept. The little bells kept.

Everything else—including the demon beast cores—could be sold.

Cultivation was what mattered most.

Once converted to spirit stones, he and Ling Wuji could use them to set up formations for cultivation. With enough stones, advancing one or even two levels wasn’t impossible.

Sometimes, if aptitude was lacking, you simply had to compensate with resources.

After sorting everything, only a pile of jade slips remained on the table.

The sun had just reached its zenith. Not particularly hungry, Chun Chou began examining the slips.

Sure enough, he found one containing alchemy formulas. It detailed the materials and methods for both Yellow- and Profound-rank Marrow-Cleansing Pills—as well as Foundation Establishment Pills.

Chun Chou studied the listed ingredients thoughtfully.

Until now, he had always grown whichever spirit herbs offered the best market return.

But now?

He could begin preparing the herbs needed for Marrow-Cleansing and Foundation Establishment Pills.

And with his fire spiritual root strengthening—

Perhaps he could even try alchemy himself.

Even producing simple pills would already be a good start.

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