Treading red leaves in the deep mountains, deer cries echoed by the ear.
Strange as it was, though it was still the scorching height of summer, Huayin Mountain was exceptionally cool!
Amid those secluded mountains ringing with birdsong stood a slope where maple leaves drifted red and withered all year round. Thus, it was also known as:
Yellow Maple Slope.
At first light, Huang Buyu, having pondered through the night, set out.
The sunlight blazed, and all beasts fled from it.
This was precisely the best time for him to travel far. As for the even more terrifying hunters—humans?
Fortunately, he had a trick of Illusionary Arts in hand, enough to avoid them.
The mountains were distant, and the roads perilous.
Huang Buyu walked and stopped, raced for half a day, and only then reached Yellow Maple Slope.
The fallen leaves lay thick, soft as a carpet.
Huang Buyu had long since shed his cumbersome broad robe and cloak. His slender brownish-yellow body was completely bare as he darted through them, hidden beyond compare.
He circled back and forth for half the day before finally finding, beneath a large tree, the shrub from which the fruit had been picked.
At this time, only two or three unripe fruits remained on that shrub.
Several ripe red fruits were still concealed deep within the shrub, protected by thorns.
Unfortunately, though it could avoid beasts, it could not guard against birds. They had already pecked the fruits full of pits and holes, leaving them rotten and dripping juice.
Huang Buyu took the fruit pit the immortal had bitten from his fur, compared it carefully, and, after confirming it was this fruit tree, immediately perked up.
He paced around it again and again, yet could see nothing unusual about the fruit tree.
Raising his head to look at the sky, he saw the great tree towering overhead, its shade spread like a canopy.
"Beneath a great tree, not even a blade of grass grows! Though this fruit tree is shorter, it flourishes luxuriantly and even bears red fruit. There is clearly a secret here!"
Huang Buyu's interest was piqued.
"Since the source is not sunlight, then it is highly likely underground."
As a yellow weasel who had become a spirit, digging holes was his innate talent. Huang Buyu moved at once, burrowing beneath the thick maple leaves and digging toward the fruit tree's roots.
Yet after digging to the roots, he found not the slightest anomaly.
Certain that this fruit tree was anything but ordinary, Huang Buyu did not lose heart and continued digging downward. Whenever he turned up earthworms or insects, he casually stuffed them into his mouth, treating them as a taste of wild game.
"Eh!"
Suddenly, Huang Buyu gave a soft cry of surprise, and his movements grew ever swifter.
Before long, he burrowed out from the thick maple leaves with a Nabo fragment clamped in his mouth, its center raised like a straw hat!
"Immortal Mo truly deserves to be an existence who crossed the netherworld. He merely tasted a fruit, yet discovered such a fortuitous opportunity!"
Huang Buyu seized the Nabo fragment with his claws and inspected its dense, intricate runes. His heart shook with shock, while a flash of greed passed through his eyes.
Through the resonance of their auras, he could sense that this Nabo was a legendary Spiritual Artifact.
The spiritual energy winding around it could not deceive anyone. Within it, a faintly fierce metallic aura circulated. Merely sensing it with his mind gave him the feeling that his soul would shatter to pulp and his flesh rot away.
If it could be activated, its power would certainly be formidable!
"By rights, a Nabo comes in a pair. Why is there only one fragment here? If I offer this treasure to Immortal Mo and the immortal suspects that I have pocketed the rest, how will I explain myself?"
Huang Buyu's heart stirred. He carefully hid the Nabo fragment, then burrowed back into the hole to search again.
Yet no matter how he searched, he could not find the remaining half of the Nabo.
He tried expanding the search area and combed every likely spot on Yellow Maple Slope, but found nothing.
"This is truly strange. Could it be Immortal Mo's test?"
"But this test is far too crude, isn't it?"
"Let me think. How could such a spiritual treasure possibly appear in this wilderness? Perhaps immortals once fought here and lost it by accident. As for the other half, it was either destroyed in that battle or fell elsewhere. If that is truly the case, then with my abilities, I fear it will not be easy to find."
Huang Buyu muttered to himself. Seeing that the sky was growing dark, he decided not to linger. He picked up the Nabo fragment and headed home.
He thought that he would find time to return and search again.
As for mobilizing his disciples and descendants to search?
After giving it some thought, he abandoned the idea!
There were not many spirits and monsters on Huayin Mountain, but neither were there few.
Mobilizing his disciples and descendants would cause too great a commotion and easily draw the attention of those with ulterior motives.
If someone began watching him, losing the Nabo would be a minor matter; losing his immortal opportunity would be the true disaster.
He would rather do it himself than let this secret leak.
After returning to his residence, he carefully hid the Nabo fragment away, then fled toward Qingshui County.
He planned to investigate Chong Shizi's background, handle the matter flawlessly, and only then report to Immortal Mo.
When flowers bloom on two branches, each tells its own tale.
Now, after Mo Chuan met Huang Buyu, he returned and buried himself in cultivation.
Having witnessed the splendor of Daoist magic and gained the chance to embark upon the immortal Dao Path, he naturally refused to remain one of the faceless masses.
For several days in a row, he immersed himself in Three Scenery Daoist Magic. Yet as he practiced, he began to feel that something was off.
Three Scenery Daoist Magic used the Three Lights of Sun, Moon, and Stars to refine the soul, nourish the spirit, and forge the body.
Its ultimate purpose was to extract qi, also known as primal qi.
It was likewise called Mana.
Though it was said that there were three thousand Daoist arts, no matter which Dao one cultivated or what fortune one seized, the end result was always the refining of qi.
Just as people ate the five grains, taking from them only their most fundamental nourishment.
The power of incense offerings intercepted by the Sacrificial Dao Furnace was likewise ultimately transformed into primal qi.
It was precisely because of this that Mo Chuan discovered in surprise that the cultivation speed of Three Scenery Daoist Magic was far inferior to the Sacrificial Dao Furnace's conversion of incense offerings.
"Is it because it gathers the strength of many people?"
Mo Chuan pondered in secret:
"No! If the Dao of incense offerings were so overbearing, how could the Daoists and Buddhists possibly let it go? Yet from what I have observed, although Daoists and Buddhists also compete for incense offerings, what they vie for more is Attendants freed from labor."
"In that case, the root of it should lie with my Sacrificial Dao Furnace!"
With a thought from Mo Chuan, the Sacrificial Dao Furnace silently appeared before him. Several incense sticks stood in it, and within the curling green smoke, he could faintly see the unceasing incense offerings of Fu Luan Temple, Tianbao Temple, and Yunji Temple.
After carefully sensing it for a time, Mo Chuan finally discovered the key.
Since the Sacrificial Dao Furnace could intercept ownerless incense offerings, it naturally also washed away the stray thoughts within them, leaving behind only a thread of pure essence.
As little accumulated into much, this was what gave it its current cultivation speed, far surpassing Three Scenery Daoist Magic.
"I was wholeheartedly searching for cultivation methods, never realizing that the best one was right beside me. This can practically be called an external automatic cultivation organ."
"Still, cultivation methods have their own benefits. Take this Three Scenery Daoist Magic, for instance. Before converting primal qi, it further tempers the soul and body. That is a benefit the Sacrificial Dao Furnace does not possess."
"By that measure, I can rely on the Sacrificial Dao Furnace, but I absolutely cannot abandon cultivation because of it."
Having understood the whole matter, Mo Chuan let out a long breath.
His determination to painstakingly cultivate Three Scenery Daoist Magic quietly faded somewhat as well.
As the instructor had said: when doing things, one must learn to seize the principal contradiction while attending to the secondary contradictions.
The Sacrificial Dao Furnace could convert primal qi. To leave such a great killing weapon unused and instead huff and puff through bitter cultivation of Three Scenery Daoist Magic was somewhat a failure to distinguish the primary from the secondary.
Refining the soul, nourishing the spirit, and forging the body could not be neglected, but the more primal qi, the better.
"Eh, come to think of it, why have no new incense offerings appeared these past few days?"
At that thought, Mo Chuan immediately hesitated.
Judging from the range in which the Sacrificial Dao Furnace could intercept them, there should be no shortage of ownerless incense offerings.
"If the mountain will not come to me, then I shall go to the mountain. It is time to turn passivity into initiative and carefully probe the mysteries of the Sacrificial Dao Furnace."
With a thought, Mo Chuan's figure vanished from the sitting room.
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