Benevolence and Authority

The jolting ride chasing the Gold-Eating Rat on the way there had almost given Zhou Yang a psychological complex. Therefore, on the return trip, at his repeated insistence, the elder Zhou Quan could only slow down and accompany him back leisurely. It took them nearly two days to return to the Qingping Mountain Oasis.

By this time, the Qingping Mountain Oasis was in chaos. The Gold-Eating Rat had gone on a rampage, killing twenty to thirty miners. Zhou Yang, the cultivator stationed there, was nowhere to be found. Zhou Bao, a temporary replacement without any formal appointment from the family, couldn't control the situation or appease the terrified surviving miners.

Being honest and dull-witted, he could only stay on Qingping Mountain, watching the miners vandalize the camp, venting their fear and anger, completely helpless.

When Zhou Yang and the elder Zhou Quan returned and saw the situation, they were both amused and exasperated, left speechless.

There was no choice but for Zhou Yang to personally step in and clean up the mess.

While Zhou Yang was dealing with the aftermath, the elder Zhou Quan, furious, had already stormed into Qingping Mountain and slapped Zhou Bao, who had approached him with a face full of joy.

"You're such a disappointment! You're a cultivator at Qi Refining Layer Four, yet you're helpless against a mere group of mortals, hiding in a formation and watching helplessly. What good are the artifacts in your hands? Are the spells you practice just tricks to amuse children?"

The elder looked at his grandson, who was full of grievances, with an expression of disappointment, spitting directly onto Zhou Bao's face. He was absolutely enraged.

Yet, Zhou Bao, that honest and dull-witted fellow, was also stubborn. Hearing the elder's scolding, he still looked wronged and argued, "Grandpa, you've misunderstood me. The family has rules strictly prohibiting cultivators from harming family mortals. I can't just kill them because they don't listen to me, can I?"

Upon hearing his words, the elder's anger flared up like wildfire. He couldn't help but slap his grandson's other cheek again, cursing in anger and exasperation, "Kill, kill, kill! With your timid nature, would you dare to kill anyone? Open your eyes and see how Little Nine is solving the problem! Besides your age, in what way are you comparable to him?"

I've never been as good as Ninth Brother!

Zhou Bao thought to himself, feeling incredibly wronged, but he didn't dare to retort. He obediently cast the Heavenly Eye Technique, looking towards the miner camp outside the mountain to see how Zhou Yang would deal with the miners.

Zhou Yang's method of dealing with the miners was simple. He directly summoned the Crimson Flame Sword, transforming it into a sword light that drove the miners to an open area. Then, he threw the corpse of the Gold-Eating Rat in front of them.

"See? This is the man-eating demonic beast. Now it's dead!"

"I know you're scared, afraid of being eaten by demonic beasts, but fear is not an excuse for you to wantonly destroy family property!"

"Now, I'm giving you a chance. Clean up the camp immediately and wait obediently for the family's follow-up arrangements. Otherwise, I will report your actions over the past two days truthfully to the family and suggest that the family strip you of your surnames and expel you and all your wives, children, and elders from the family!"

A First-Rank Spell, Clear Sound Art, which had a mind-clearing effect, allowed Zhou Yang's cold voice to clearly reach every miner's ears, penetrating deep into their minds.

Under the effect of the Clear Sound Art, the miners' minds were clearer than ever before. The family rules they had recited since childhood quickly surfaced in their cleared minds. Then, they all broke out in a cold sweat, looking at the young Immortal Master standing beside the demonic beast's corpse with terror and fear.

Although the Zhou Family's rules strictly prohibited family cultivators from killing family mortals, they even more so disallowed family mortals from damaging the family's spiritual item resources. Once a mortal violated this rule, they would face death at best, or at worst, be stripped of their surname and exiled with their entire family.

If their surnames were stripped, they would no longer be members of the Zhou Family and would not receive protection from Zhou Family cultivators. A Zhou Family cultivator killing them would not be considered a violation of family rules.

And if their entire family was exiled, in the vast sea of sand, without sufficient food and water, their entire family would perish within three days!

"Spare us, Immortal Master, spare us!"

"We were wrong, we know we were wrong, Immortal Master, please show mercy and spare us this once, we'll never dare to do it again!"

"I'm innocent, Immortal Master! I've been in the barracks for the past two days and didn't participate in the destruction of the camp at all. Immortal Master, your Heavenly Eye is sharp, I'm truly innocent!"

In an instant, the miners, having understood the consequences, all felt their knees go weak and knelt down in unison, kowtowing desperately and begging for mercy. The frenzy of desperate individuals they had displayed earlier was completely gone.

On Qingping Mountain, Zhou Bao stared at this scene with wide eyes, completely stunned.

Seeing this, the elder Zhou Quan took the opportunity to educate his grandson, saying, "Do you see now? Do you understand how foolish your earlier words were? To deal with a mere group of mortals, you resort to hitting and killing. What's the difference between that and bandits? Do you think the family teaches you those other spells for no reason, but makes you learn those First-Rank Spells that seem to have no benefit for combat cultivation from a young age?"

Zhou Bao was speechless. Although he was stubborn, he wasn't truly a simpleton. The facts were right before him, leaving him no room to deny or argue.

"Learn well. You're not young anymore. You need to use your brain more when doing things. If you encounter difficult decisions in the future, remember to consult Little Nine more and listen to his opinions before making a decision!"

After all, he was his own grandson. The elder couldn't bear to hit or scold him further, so he could only sigh and focus on persuasion, hoping to bring about some change.

At this time, Zhou Yang waited until the miners had kowtowed until their heads were bleeding before agreeing to forgive their mistake this time. Then, he waved them away, telling them to clean up the messy oasis camp, while he collected the Gold-Eating Rat's corpse from the ground and returned to Qingping Mountain.

"Well done, combining authority and kindness. First, you threatened them with clan rules to break their spirit, then you appeased them with benevolence. Little Nine, you understand this principle at such a young age. When the family is handed over to you in the future, I believe you will do better than us old folks!"

In front of his own grandson, the elder Zhou Quan did not hesitate to openly praise Zhou Yang as the next Clan Leader. Zhou Bao, upon hearing this, felt no jealousy whatsoever.

The position of Clan Leader in the family naturally goes to the capable. Although Zhou Bao was a bit simple, he had self-awareness. Among the 15 members of the Zhou Family's "Yuan" generation, Zhou Bao's talent was at best in the bottom few, if not the absolute bottom. It was impossible for him to become the Clan Leader.

"Third Grandfather, although these mortal miners have been temporarily appeased, I don't think there's any hope of them returning to the mines to dig in the short term. Therefore, I need you to report this situation to the Old Clan Leader after you return to the family and ask the family to recruit a new batch of miners to replace them."

Zhou Yang glanced at Zhou Bao, who stood silently beside him with flushed cheeks, and wisely asked nothing, directly stating his request to the elder Zhou Quan.

"Don't worry about that. I will definitely help you sort this out when I get back."

The elder nodded slightly, easily agreeing to Zhou Yang's request.

After resting for another day at Qingping Mountain in this manner, the elder Zhou Quan and Zhou Bao, the grandfather and grandson, rode their Sand Steeds back to the family under Zhou Yang's farewell gaze.

After sending off the elder Zhou Quan and his grandson, Zhou Yang finally had the leisure to deal with the spoils of his trip.

He first skinned and dismembered the corpse of the Gold-Eating Rat, processing and preserving the rat skin, teeth, claws, bones, and eyes, all of which could be used for artifact forging. The rat meat was then paired with Golden Pearl Rice to make spiritual meals to improve their diet.

Next, he set up a Crimson Copper cauldron he had refined himself, threw the rat droppings, each the size of a grape, into the cauldron, added spring water, and stoked the fire, slowly simmering it.

After simmering thousands of rat droppings this way, Zhou Yang obtained dozens of catties of metal particles.

These dozens of catties of metal particles were not the special spiritual gold Zhou Yang desired; further extraction was still needed, and this next stage of extraction tested the skills of an artifact forger.

To extract the special spiritual gold from these metal particles, Zhou Yang switched to a First-Rank High-Grade Artifact cauldron used for artifact forging. He took out dozens of palm-sized, fiery red charcoal pieces and placed them under the cauldron, igniting them with a spell.

This type of fiery red charcoal was made from a type of Spirit Wood called Blazing Sun Wood. Ten palm-sized charcoal pieces were worth one low-grade spirit stone, making them extremely precious.

Blazing Sun Wood is a Second-tier Spirit Wood that grows only near active volcanoes and geothermal magma. The flames produced when ignited are white, comparable to the True Fire mastered by Foundation Establishment Cultivators.

Usually, alchemists or artifact forgers at the Qi Refining Stage, when refining materials that require high temperatures, would burn charcoal made from Blazing Sun Wood to increase the flame temperature if they didn't have access to earth fire.

The Blazing Sun Wood Zhou Yang had was obtained the last time he asked his cousin Zhou Qi to bring back a First-Rank Artifact he had refined. After returning to the family, the Old Clan Leader Zhou Minghan specially took it from the family's treasury and had the elder Zhou Quan bring it to him so that he could quickly reach the Second-Rank Artifact Forger level.

As dozens of Blazing Sun Wood pieces were ignited together, intensely hot white incandescent flames rose from beneath the cauldron. The temperature of these incandescent flames was extremely high. Even Zhou Yang, a cultivator with mana, felt sweat pouring down his back and dripping profusely from standing near the furnace for too long.

At this point, however, Zhou Yang didn't have the time for trivial matters like wiping sweat. He released his divine sense into the cauldron, clearly seeing the metal particles slowly melting. His job was to continuously perform artifact forging hand seals to remove impurities from the molten metal, leaving only the special spirit gold he needed.

This task severely tested an artifact forger's eyesight and timing, and it was also extremely draining on one's divine sense and mana. With Zhou Yang's Qi Refining Layer Six cultivation, he felt dizzy and weak after less than half an hour, forcing him to extinguish the furnace and pause the extraction.

After spending several days and undergoing multiple extractions in this manner, Zhou Yang finally extracted the special spirit gold from all the metal particles, obtaining a palm-sized piece of dark golden spirit gold.

This palm-sized piece of dark golden spirit gold had a weight similar to fine iron, but its hardness was even higher than second-tier spirit gold, profound iron. If judged by rank, it was at least a third-tier spiritual item.

This was the first time Zhou Yang had obtained a spiritual item of this caliber, and he had done so with his own hands. For a moment, he couldn't put it down, holding it and examining it from side to side, his face full of joy.

First update of the day, a new week, a new month. Requesting recommendation votes and investment in the new book's group. Sincerely asking!