Chapter 14
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Chapter 14: Spirit Stones, Oh Spirit Stones
Yue Qianchou chuckled and viciously tore off a piece of meat to chew in his mouth. Just as he swallowed, his face froze as if he was choking. He patted his chest while his other hand magically produced a wine jug, gulping down several mouthfuls before finally burping and exhaling with relief.
He cheerfully told the white fox about the golden bead, and she listened with wide-eyed amazement, truly not having expected the golden bead to have such a wonderful use.
He teased: “Sister Bai! Don’t you get tired of staying in this dark, sunless place? Why don’t you come to my territory? It’s much quieter there, and absolutely no one will disturb you.”
The white fox looked at Yue Qianchou noncommittally and said softly: “Brother Chou! Didn’t you say you wanted to make something of yourself in the cultivation world? I’ve observed that you haven’t seemed to cultivate at all these past few days.”
After speaking, she continued playing the qin and singing softly.
‘Losing oneself in play!’ Yue Qianchou thought about how he’d spent these days entirely on playing around. Feeling somewhat ashamed, he threw the half wild chicken leg in his hand far away. With a “splash!” it fell into the water pool and sank. The white fox playing the qin frowned slightly.
Deciding to act immediately, Yue Qianchou sat cross-legged as two spirit stones appeared in his hands. He closed his eyes and operated the Mysterious Heaven Technique, slowly absorbing spiritual energy and converting it into true qi to store in his body.
He threw the depleted stones into the water, and two more spirit stones appeared in his hands. When he again converted the spiritual energy inside into true qi, he discovered that true qi had filled his entire body—his dantian could hold no more.
Yue Qianchou was inwardly shocked. These spirit stones really were good things. He had only absorbed six mid-grade spirit stones, and the converted true qi was already enough to break through to Qi Refining Level 5. How many years would it take to absorb spiritual energy from the air to match six mid-grade spirit stones?
Without further hesitation, he memorized the fifth-level technique of the Mysterious Heaven Technique and began cultivating. Cultivating from the fifth to tenth levels of the Qi Refining stage was actually quite simple—not as difficult as levels one through four, which required opening the eight extraordinary meridians. As long as there was sufficient spiritual energy absorbed, there generally weren’t major problems.
Several days passed in succession. When Yue Qianchou refined the last trace of true qi in his body and poured it into his dantian, his whole body shook. He seemed to discover that every cell in his body had undergone a qualitative change.
He thought to himself: ‘Finally reached Level 5!’
Examining the changes in his dantian, he discovered that his previously true qi-filled dantian had become empty, with only a few wisps of true qi floating about. However, these seemingly substantial wisps of true qi were incomparable to the previous pale, mist-like true qi.
With a slight mental movement, he drew out a wisp from his dantian and directed it through his body. This single wisp, upon leaving the dantian opening, immediately transformed into countless streams of true qi, filling his entire body with explosive power.
He operated the matching attack techniques from the Mysterious Heaven Technique. Yue Qianchou’s eyes suddenly opened wide as he struck out with a palm toward the water pool.
A tremendous “bang!” echoed through the stone chamber as a splash of water exploded several meters high before cascading down. The music behind him abruptly stopped.
Yue Qianchou finished his technique and turned around. His beaming face froze—the white fox’s beautiful eyes were glaring at him, obviously annoyed that he had disturbed her music.
He quickly got up and bowed apologetically. She rolled her eyes at him, too lazy to argue, and continued playing and singing:
“Yesterday was like the eastward flowing water, leaving me far behind, impossible to retain…”
Yue Qianchou’s teeth ached from listening. He turned around to sit with his back to her, two spirit stones appearing in his hands as his eyes slowly closed.
“Hmm! The substantial true qi in my dantian is almost one-third full now. Uh…”
Yue Qianchou, who had been sitting cross-legged in front of the pavilion, suddenly jumped up and cried out:
“Damn! Where are my spirit stones? Who stole my spirit stones?”
The white fox was again unable to continue playing due to his startling behavior. Her vermillion lips parted slightly, about to scold him, when Yue Qianchou’s figure suddenly vanished.
She became slightly annoyed, her delicate fingers sweeping across the qin strings, producing a discordant note that echoed through the cavern…
“Spirit stones, spirit stones, where did my spirit stones go?”
A spotted deer was lying on the grass sleeping when suddenly a figure appeared out of nowhere, squawking strangely, frightening the deer into desperate flight.
Yue Qianchou had arrived in the world inside the golden bead again. This place was now filled with flowers and plants, and two colorful wild chickens—one male, one female—were courting, equally startled into flight by his appearance.
He couldn’t care about that. Finding the cloth bundle his master had given him, after rummaging through it, he seemed to think of something. Slapping his forehead, he sat on the ground and wailed:
“Ah! The spirit stones are used up so quickly—this is really deadly!”
You must know that spirit stones weren’t so easily obtained. The Azure Light Sect’s sphere of influence also had several spirit stone mines, and the spirit stones mined each month were all distributed uniformly by the sect.
The seniors living in seclusion in the back mountains could receive two high-grade spirit stones monthly. The sect leader could receive one high-grade spirit stone. Elders could receive fifty mid-grade spirit stones. Core Formation stage disciples could receive twenty-five mid-grade spirit stones. Foundation Establishment stage disciples received ten mid-grade plus two hundred fifty low-grade stones.
Then there were disciples at Qi Refining Level 4 and above, who could receive five hundred low-grade spirit stones monthly.
The spirit stones mined monthly by the Azure Light Sect weren’t few in the cultivation world, but with over a thousand people, if they wanted everyone to use them to their heart’s content, that was impossible. They could only distribute strictly by rank.
Because this involved everyone’s interests, even the sect leader didn’t dare show favoritism—otherwise, forget about continuing as sect leader, he might even be beaten to death.
Of course, only half of the spirit stones mined each month were distributed; the other half was the sect’s public property. This was naturally for buying and selling necessities, or if sect disciples made contributions, they could also be taken out as rewards.
By rights, Yue Qianchou had now reached Qi Refining Level 4 and above, so he could receive five hundred low-grade spirit stones monthly. But to conceal certain matters, he hadn’t reported it and hadn’t gone through the sect’s examination and registration! Without reporting, naturally there was no salary.
In fact, Hao Sansi’s fifty mid-grade spirit stones monthly weren’t enough either. The dozen or so stones Yue Qianchou used were squeezed out from his master’s own mouth.
“Sigh! Without spirit stones, how can cultivation continue? Even if I could get five hundred low-grade spirit stones monthly, that only equals five mid-grade ones.
Now one-third of the true qi in my dantian used ten mid-grade stones. To cultivate to Level 6 would need twenty mid-grade stones, equal to two thousand low-grade ones—I’d need four months’ worth of low-grade stones just to reach Level 6.
If I wanted to cultivate to Qi Refining Level 10, how many spirit stones would that take!”
Yue Qianchou felt somewhat deflated.
Using six mid-grade spirit stones had only just advanced him to Qi Refining Level 5, but advancing from Level 5 to 6 used nearly ten mid-grade spirit stones, and the true qi in his dantian wasn’t even one-third full.
The spiritual energy needed for each level advancement was clearly growing geometrically! If he cultivated to late-stage Tribulation Crossing, wouldn’t he need a mountain-sized pile of spirit stones?
Yue Qianchou was truly worried now. As his name suggested, removing the surname left just ‘Thousand Worries.’
If he had never used spirit stones, that would be one thing, but now that he had tasted their benefits, how could he return to foolishly absorbing spiritual energy from heaven and earth like before?
Wanting to increase cultivation that way—even if he had the patience, he didn’t have a long enough life to wait.
There was another matter he didn’t know: his dantian capacity was three times larger than ordinary people’s. That is to say, where ordinary people spent two days inflating their dantian, his was equivalent to six days. In fact, ordinary people only needed one-third of his spirit stone consumption to advance one level.
His master Hao Sansi, not understanding the situation, had given him spirit stones calculated for one month minus the time to reach Level 4—about half a month. In other words, the stones Hao Sansi gave him were, at most, prepared for his disciple to advance one level.
“There’s no choice but to wait for master to return and think of something.”
Yue Qianchou stood up dejectedly. In the distance, wild chickens were clucking—from the sound, they had probably laid eggs.
This was exactly what Yue Qianchou had intended when he caught them. He had specifically caught one male and one female, hoping they’d lay more eggs so he could hatch more chicks. That way, he could eat roasted chicken anytime.
But he wasn’t in the mood now, just lazily lifting his head for a glance before lowering it again.
“What?” His lowered head lifted again as he cried out in surprise.
Looking around, his territory had doubled in size from its original foundation—now it was probably nearly a thousand meters in radius.
Yue Qianchou closed his eyes to sense. Although it had grown larger, it was still under his control…
Hmm! There were nine eggs in the chicken nest now.
Before long, he understood the reason. This golden bead had become one with him. If he wasn’t mistaken, each time his cultivation advanced one level, this territory would double in size from its previous foundation.
Seeing something happy, his worries about lacking spirit stones diminished considerably. After wandering around his territory, he returned to the front of the pavilion.
The white fox had become accustomed to his sudden appearances and disappearances. She looked up at him, stopped the qin in her hands, and asked softly:
“The month is up. Are you going back?”
“Mm! I need to go back. I’ve already exceeded the time by several days. I imagine master has returned too.”
After speaking, he turned around dashingly and waved:
“Sister Bai, I’ll come visit you often.”
Behind him, ‘Mandarin Duck and Butterfly Dream’ responded.
Returning to the courtyard, he walked around in a circle. Strangely, he discovered that his master hadn’t returned—if he had, the ground certainly wouldn’t be this clean.
He pulled over a bamboo chair and wiped it with his hand. There wasn’t much dust.
He had to praise that the air quality now was more than a little better than in his previous life. In his past life, if a room went several days without cleaning, the dust would be thicker than what accumulated here in a month.
He turned and lay down, rocking back and forth.
“Eh! Why are so many people running toward the Azure Light Hall?”
Yue Qianchou awakened from his doze and slightly raised his body. With his current cultivation, hearing footsteps not far away wasn’t a problem.
After pausing, he closed his eyes, lay back down, and murmured:
“Whatever’s happening doesn’t concern me anyway.”
He had just lain down when he suddenly heard someone outside the courtyard calling:
“Is Uncle-Master Yue there?”
After calling twice, Yue Qianchou responded, wondering why someone was looking for him.
Walking outside the courtyard, an unfamiliar disciple bowed and said:
“Uncle-Master Yue, the sect leader calls for you to come quickly to Azure Light Hall.”
“The sect leader is calling me to Azure Light Hall? What’s the matter?”
Yue Qianchou asked strangely. This made sense—no one had ever looked for him before, let alone that sect leader who had brought him to the Azure Light Sect but hadn’t seen him once since.
That disciple’s expression was uneasy, as if he had something difficult to say. After a moment of silence, he finally stamped his foot and bowed respectfully:
“Elder Hao led a team to the ‘Rising Star Conference.’ On the way back, they inadvertently discovered a spiritual herb, but because the Great Luo Sect interfered, both sides got into a dispute. As a result, several elders were injured, and Elder Hao, due to his severe injuries…”
Hearing this, Yue Qianchou’s face changed dramatically. He had no heart to listen further and rushed toward Azure Light Hall like a wisp of smoke.
