Hunting Demonic Beasts

Walking on, they arrived at the Spirit Mountain.

The Cave Mansion was halfway up the mountain, marked with the number five.

Pushing open the Cave Mansion, they found an Alchemy Furnace, Earth Fire, a hot spring, and a Bed crafted from warm jade within. Overall, it was rather simple, with an area of only seventy square meters.

Stepping forward, he opened the Spirit Aperture, and streams of spiritual energy immediately leaked out.

Sensing the density of the spiritual energy, Lu Xuanji frowned slightly. "The spiritual energy here is only one-third that of Ziyang Mountain. It's far too thin."

"Elder Brother, there's nothing to be done about it. Wu Family Market only has a Grade-2 Mid-Grade Spirit Vein, while Ziyang Mountain has a Grade-3 Superior Spirit Vein." Ye Feixue said, "Elder Brother, I want to learn alchemy."

"This..." Lu Xuanji hesitated, but still said, "Xiao Xue, alchemy requires Wood and Fire Spirit Roots, with Fire as primary and Wood as secondary. But you have a Heavenly Spirit Root and a pure Fire attribute. You simply aren't suited to alchemy."

"The Lu Clan is gone. We can't just sit here and eat away at our savings. As long as I work hard, I can still become a top-tier Alchemist."

Ye Feixue spoke resolutely.

"Fine."

Lu Xuanji still agreed. "But remember this: whether alchemy or artifact refinement, they are merely external things, merely side professions. Cultivation is the main profession, and longevity is the foundation. Some Alchemists become obsessed with alchemy, obsessed with earning Spirit Stones, and neglect the improvement of their cultivation."

"How many Spirit Stones you have is not important. What matters is possessing powerful cultivation."

"The Lu Clan was destroyed, and we have fallen into becoming Rogue Cultivators. But we cannot remain Rogue Cultivators forever. We must constantly improve our cultivation, achieve Foundation Establishment as soon as possible, and when we become Foundation Establishment Cultivators, we can rebuild the Lu Clan."

"I understand."

Ye Feixue said firmly.

Lu Xuanji gave a few more instructions, and just like that, the two settled down in Wu Family Market.

They focused on cultivation in their daily lives. As his cultivation rose, he could now cultivate continuously for three hours each day. Only after three hours would his Meridians begin to ache slightly, forcing him to stop.

When he rested, he mainly tended two hundred mu of Spirit Fields.

White Yang Rice was planted in the Spirit Fields. To ensure the Spirit Rice grew properly, he had to control not only the amount of spiritual rain, but also the soil fertility, sunlight, and so on. He also had to fertilize regularly to improve the soil's fertility.

In different hands, White Yang Rice yielded vastly different harvests.

However, when Wu Family Market collected rent, it used a yield of two hundred jin per mu as the standard and took thirty percent—sixty jin per mu.

Whether the crops yielded more or less, the land rent remained sixty jin per mu.

Most cultivators planting White Yang Rice produced only one hundred and fifty jin per mu. Excellent Spirit Planters, however, could produce two hundred jin per mu. With his Earth-Wood-Fire Triple Spirit Root and keen perception of water and soil, Lu Xuanji achieved a yield of two hundred and thirty jin per mu.

But after obtaining the phone, he could rely on Fate Deduction to collect data on soil, air, sunlight, spiritual energy density, seed conditions, and more, derive reasonable figures, and farm scientifically.

His yield reached two hundred and fifty jin per mu.

Seeing the yield of his Spirit Rice, Lu Xuanji immediately abandoned the idea of becoming an Alchemist and chose to become a Spirit Planter instead.

An Alchemist might seem incomparably glamorous, but in the early stages, one faced the problem of burning through money. By the middle and later stages, one faced a shortage of spiritual herbs.

In many cultivation worlds, Alchemists were not actually scarce. What was scarce were Advanced Spirit Planters.

Advanced Spirit Planters were even harder to find than Alchemists or Array Masters.

Take the Lu Clan, for example. Because they had a Grade-2 High-Grade Spirit Planter skilled at tending Spirit Marrow Ganoderma, the clan could mature two Spirit Marrow Ganoderma every twenty years, giving its Alchemists sufficient materials to refine Foundation Establishment Pills.

When it came to Foundation Establishment Pills, the Lu Clan had basically achieved self-sufficiency, even selling surplus Foundation Establishment Pills in some years.

After familiarizing himself with the nearby soil, moisture, sunlight, spiritual energy, and other conditions, Lu Xuanji began improving the Spirit Fields and planting White Yang Rice. At the same time, Ye Feixue began attempting alchemy. The result was dozens of consecutive failures—not a single success. It was utterly miserable.

Fortunately, the medicinal ingredients were relatively cheap, and she lost only five or six Spirit Stones.

This left Ye Feixue deeply dejected.

Lu Xuanji was helpless and could only step forward to comfort her.

A Heavenly Spirit Root was a cultivation prodigy, Heaven's own darling on the path of cultivation. But in the Hundred Arts of Cultivation, it was complete trash.

In the Hundred Arts of Cultivation, many professions required Dual Spirit Roots or Triple Spirit Roots.

For example, an Alchemist required Fire-Wood Dual Attributes, with Fire as primary and Wood as secondary; an Artifact Refiner required Fire-Gold Dual Spirit Root, with Gold as primary and Fire as secondary; an Array Master required Gold-Earth Dual Attributes, with Earth as primary and Gold as secondary; a Spirit Planter required Earth-Wood Dual Attributes, with Wood as primary and Earth as secondary.

A Talismans Crafter required Water-Wood Dual Spirit Root, with Water as primary and Wood as secondary.

A Heavenly Spirit Root was unsuited to these side professions.

As time passed, a year went by.

Over that year, Lu Xuanji continuously refined his true qi, improving its quality.

He finally broke through the bottleneck and entered Qi Refining Layer 8.

At the same time, the Spirit Fields reached harvest season.

Whoosh, whoosh.

With his left hand, he controlled a flying sword that flashed back and forth, cutting down the rice. With his right hand, he manipulated spiritual energy into a palm that gathered the stalks together.

The harvesting speed was extremely fast. In only three days, he harvested all three hundred mu of rice.

Next, he used spells to remove the husks from the rice.

In the end, after calculating the White Yang Rice yield, he had seventy-three thousand jin of Spirit Rice. The highest yield was two hundred and sixty jin per mu, while the lowest was two hundred and thirty jin.

Around eighteen thousand jin of Spirit Rice had to be handed over to the Wu Family as land rent.

The remaining Spirit Rice belonged to him and could be sold to the Wu Family.

The purchase price was one Spirit Stone for one thousand jin of White Yang Rice.

After deducting the cost of seeds and fertilizer, Lu Xuanji's annual income was forty-five Spirit Stones.

This was already a high income.

"Elder Brother, let's go out and hunt demonic beasts." At that moment, Ye Feixue said, "I calculated it. Elder Brother earns forty-five Spirit Stones a year. After all our expenses, we can save at most thirty Spirit Stones. It would take five hundred years to accumulate fifteen thousand Spirit Stones."

"Five hundred years—we can't wait that long."

"You're right. We can only go out and hunt demonic beasts."

Lu Xuanji calculated silently.

Only those with Heavenly Spirit Roots could achieve Foundation Establishment with a hundred-percent chance even without Foundation Establishment Pills.

As for other Variant Spirit Roots, Dual Spirit Roots, Triple Spirit Roots, and the like, they all had a chance of failure without Foundation Establishment Pills.

After taking a Foundation Establishment Pill, one could preserve one's life even if Foundation Establishment failed. But without one, failure in Foundation Establishment meant perishing on the spot.

Without a Foundation Establishment Pill as a safeguard, there was no sense of security.

Upon reaching the Late Qi Refining Stage, Rogue Cultivators often went out to hunt demonic beasts, accumulating Spirit Stones to exchange for Foundation Establishment Pills. Hunting demonic beasts was highly dangerous. Not only did they have to face demonic beasts, they also had to guard against other human cultivators robbing and killing them. Thirty percent of cultivators were lost outside.

But where risks were great, profits were great as well. It was far faster than earning money through farming, alchemy, talisman crafting, and the like.

Ten years of hard work could not compare to one robbery.

PS: The update is here. Please support me—Seeking reward, Seeking Monthly Votes, Seeking recommendation tickets.