The Market at the Foot of the Mountain

The Advanced Study Hall disciples soon adapted to life among the students in the year above them.

Li Mo planned to get some proper rest and resume cultivating once his injuries had healed. So he went to the hall's main lobby, glanced over the daily rotation duties and temporary commissioned tasks for second-year disciples, then set off.

After learning more about the nature of the second-year disciples' daily duties and temporary commissioned tasks, he strolled toward the Lingmu Sect market at the foot of the mountain.

Compared with the rotation duties assigned to first-year disciples, the nature of the second-year duties had changed somewhat.

First, both the Spirit Stone pay and sect contribution rewards had increased.

Second, the duties tended to involve management. For instance, the disciple in charge of the Advanced Study Hall's kitchen had been performing a daily rotation duty assigned to an upper-year student.

Lastly, daily rotation duties were no longer mandatory. However, disciples who didn't take one had to pay the sect a fine of two Spirit Stones each month.

All told, it was no small sum.

As for the temporary commissioned tasks, they came in all varieties.

Most required disciples to leave the sect for a time and run errands all over Muzhou. Some were even somewhat dangerous. The rewards were proportional to the time involved, the experience gained, and the danger of the task. They usually paid five or six Spirit Stones, though some could earn seven or eight, depending on the specifics.

About an hour and a half later,

Li Mo arrived at the market at the foot of Qingming Mountain.

Several wanted posters hung before the market's entrance, and a few disciples from the Law Enforcement Hall patrolled the area to keep order.

Unfortunately, he knew no spells for traveling long distances, had no magic tools with that function, and owned no spirit beast mount. Otherwise, he could have cut his travel time considerably.

This market belonged to the Lingmu Sect and was open to outsiders. It was also one of the two largest trading centers in Muzhou. Rogue Cultivators and cultivators from other sects flocked here every day, so there was no need to worry about safety or being targeted by ill-intentioned evil cultivators.

"It's quite lively."

As Li Mo walked along the market street, he couldn't help marveling.

The market wasn't very large, but it drew a truly impressive crowd. It had practically become a miniature Anle City.

Stalls lined both sides of the road, selling everything from snacks to materials for cultivators. The sight left Li Mo amazed.

He saw it with his own eyes.

A vendor selling candied hawthorns was chatting merrily with a stallholder selling talismans, talisman paper, and spirit ink. Truly, you earn your copper coins and I'll earn my Spirit Stones; there was no divide between mortals and cultivators.

Tales of cultivators were often exaggerated by these low-level vendors before reaching mortals in remote regions, where they gradually evolved into myths and legends.

Li Mo stopped in front of a stall displaying nothing but a few metal pieces, each about the size of a fingernail.

He looked at the little granules with curiosity.

"Fellow Daoist, are you looking to buy Iron Essence or Copper Essence?"

Li Mo understood at once.

From the Spirit Reflection Sword Manual, he already knew that Iron Essence and Copper Essence were basic materials used to forge magic tools, generally suitable for crafting low-grade and mid-grade magic tools.

The Silver Essence that Nine Rivers Thunder Dragon Zhou Tai had gone to such lengths to refine was a higher-grade basic material.

"How much do they cost?"

Li Mo had no intention of buying any; he just wanted to learn the going rates.

"Heh, they're all market price. One qian of Iron Essence costs ten Spirit Stones; one qian of Copper Essence costs twenty. No tricks, no shoddy goods."

Extracting Iron Essence and Copper Essence from vast quantities of pig iron and bronze took a great deal of time and effort. Ordinary flames weren't hot enough during the refining process, so Spirit Stones had to be added to produce what was called Spirit Fire. Naturally, these refining materials didn't come cheap.

Li Mo nodded and said nothing more before heading to the next stall.

Just like that,

after nearly an hour of browsing, Li Mo had gained a rough idea of the prices of various basic materials used by cultivators.

He had made especially thorough inquiries into the prices of various spirit herbs.

The main factor determining a spirit herb's price was its age. Prices also varied according to its species and medicinal properties.

Generally speaking,

once a spirit herb reached a hundred years old, its price would shoot up.

Spirit herbs younger than a hundred years old, on the other hand, usually sold for less than a tenth of the price. In the eyes of cultivators, they were practically seedlings, useful only as auxiliary ingredients for Qi Refining Stage cultivators making spirit pills.

By contrast,

when a spirit herb reached a thousand years old, it was worth far more than herbs aged seven or eight hundred years, yet still remained a treasure one could hardly buy at any price.

As for the Hundred Year Red Essence Fungus he had, strictly speaking, it was around a hundred and eighty years old.

However, Crimson Essence Fungus wasn't especially valuable overall.

After comparing prices, Li Mo estimated it would fetch around two hundred Spirit Stones. But he still hadn't decided what to do with it and planned to think it over for a while longer.

Then he stopped at an inconspicuous stall.

The stallholder was a cultivator who looked to be in his thirties. He wore a crane-feather cloak and held a book in one hand, silently reciting its contents, so absorbed that he seemed unable to tear himself away. On the stall before him lay more than a dozen oddities.

Li Mo opened his Spirit Eye and examined them carefully.

There were more than a dozen magic tool fragments, three red spirit fruits, a large piece of battered wood, two incomplete jade slips, and some dried mushrooms of unknown origin—a real jumble.

But the three red fruits and that unremarkable piece of rotten wood caught Li Mo's attention.

He examined the red fruits with his Spirit Eye and saw wisps of spiritual energy flowing within them. They were likely ingredients needed for some kind of pill.

As for the rotten wood, after inspecting it closely, he confirmed that it was Thunderstruck Wood!

Thunderstruck Wood was lumber left behind when a tree was struck by heavenly lightning.

The reason he was so interested was that, after studying the many lightning-warding methods recorded in the Mystic Box, he had concluded that, given his current cultivation, the only method he might be able to use was the Thunderstruck Wood hiding method.

According to the book,

after a tree lived for a hundred years, there was gradually a chance it would give birth to a trace of spirit flavor. Heaven had a virtue of cherishing life, and heavenly lightning generally wouldn't strike the same thing twice. Therefore, a parasol-shaped tool made from Spirit-flavored Lightning-Struck Wood could greatly weaken the might of a tribulation.

But this method of deceiving heaven could only be used once.

Even if one found Spirit-flavored Lightning-Struck Wood again, it would be useless after that.

The key now was how to tell whether this piece of Thunderstruck Wood had developed spirit flavor while it was still part of the tree.

Li Mo continuously gathered the spiritual energy in his Dantian into his eyes, exerting his Spirit Eye to its fullest as he tried to observe every detail of the Thunderstruck Wood.

According to the Lingmu Sect's main cultivation method, the Eye of True Spirit, a Spirit Eye's strength depended not only on one's cultivation realm, but even more on continuously observing things imbued with spiritual power. Only through long accumulation could one see through all things.

Suddenly,

Li Mo noticed a strange trace of spiritual power moving through the Thunderstruck Wood. His heart leapt with joy. This piece of Thunderstruck Wood had indeed developed spirit flavor!

"Boss, how much for these three wild fruits and this piece of rotten wood?"

The stallholder put down his book and glanced at Li Mo.

"Those three spirit fruits are Nine Flavors Red, used with other spirit fruits to brew spirit wine. They're twelve Spirit Stones apiece. This Spirit-flavored Lightning-Struck Wood can be made into the core of a high-grade warding magic tool; just add Gold Essence. Five hundred Spirit Stones."

So much for finding a bargain.

Feeling a little awkward, he nodded and left.

There was one other thing Li Mo hadn't forgotten: finding a lead on the Ephemeral Demon Core needed to refine the Creation Pill.

According to the Elixir Recipe, the Ephemeral Demon Core had three distinctive traits.

First, it developed in creatures at the Qi Refining Stage. Second, it had the ability to ward off lightning. Lastly, it contained mysterious Dao patterns.

Ordinary mountain spirits and river monsters, by contrast, didn't develop demon cores until after reaching Foundation Establishment, and then only gradually, depending on their innate gifts.

Naturally, ordinary stalls along the street didn't sell demon cores.

Li Mo entered a pill shop. There were plenty of customers inside, and its display cabinets held all sorts of pills. The Plague-Avoiding Pill, Blood Replenishing Pill, Sleeping Pill, and Qi Gathering Pill, all familiar to Li Mo, were available here.

After briefly checking the prices, he went to the materials section.

He passed over spirit herb seeds, young spirit herbs, and common hundred-year-old spirit herbs, then spotted more than a dozen demon cores.

But after examining them closely, he was disappointed.

They were all ordinary demon cores, none of them possessing the traits of an Ephemeral Demon Core.

So he tried another pill shop, but still couldn't find the so-called Ephemeral Demon Core. By the time the afternoon's Shen hour arrived, he had confirmed that it wasn't something available on the ordinary market. Only then did he leave the Lingmu Sect market and return to the sect.

The next day,

Ma Ling came to find Li Mo early in the morning. She said she was heading to Shangfeng Prefecture on a letter-delivery task. It would cost one Spirit Stone to take a Flying Ship to the Prefecture City, then she would have to rent a horse from the local Heaven's Mandate Bureau for the rest of the journey. She expected to be back in seven or eight days at the earliest, or a little over ten at the latest.

Li Mo asked how much the task paid. She would earn seven Spirit Stones.

But two Spirit Stones would go toward the round-trip Flying Ship fare, and since she hadn't taken a daily rotation duty, she would also have to pay the monthly fine. It made her reluctant to spend the money, so she planned to take on two similar tasks that month and look for opportunities along the way.

"Be careful on the road!"

"Don't worry."

After Ma Ling left, Niu Li and Yang Guang knew Li Mo would be resting for a while to recover from his injuries, so neither of them came to disturb him. Li Mo went to the Alchemy Hall instead.

The Alchemy Hall didn't have many inner disciples, only sixty or seventy.

And only thirty or so of them could be called alchemists, most of whom had already reached Foundation Establishment.

According to the rules,

each year, the Alchemy Hall selected at least one especially talented and determined disciple from the Advanced Study Hall to join them. But some of those chosen later joined other halls, while others traveled far and wide. The Alchemy Hall usually had only sixty or seventy resident disciples, about half of whom were responsible for tending the sect's spirit fields each day.

Li Mo had come for what concerned him most at the moment.

He wanted to find an Elixir Recipe for the Qi Gathering Pill.

The Qi Gathering Pill was the most commonly used auxiliary cultivation pill among Qi Refining Stage disciples. Taking one could greatly increase their cultivation speed. However, aside from a very small number of people, ordinary disciples wouldn't waste them like that. Even if they obtained a Qi Gathering Pill, they would save it for a critical breakthrough.

"Aunt Chen."

"Mm."

After learning why Li Mo had come, Chen Rong gave him some pointers.

"The third, thirteenth, and twenty-third of every month are when the alchemists exchange their insights. The Qi Gathering Pill is a basic recipe for Qi Refining Stage cultivators, so it's easy to obtain. You can also come here in your spare time to tend the public spirit fields. That'll spare you the fine for not taking a daily rotation duty, and you'll earn Spirit Stones and sect contributions, as well as a chance to take part in the sect's public pill refining later on..."

Chen Rong slowly explained the Alchemy Hall's rules, and Li Mo nodded again and again.