Return to County Town

During this period of living in seclusion within the deep mountains and forests, he practiced alone.

For the first month, Ye Qin could only consume one stalk of small Dew Grass per day before his meridians would swell with such agonizing pain that he could barely endure it. Yet, he gritted his teeth and pushed through. His cultivation speed during that first month was ten times faster than before.

As his mastery of the technique deepened and the small ball of light gradually grew brighter, the capacity of his meridians began to increase.

By the second month, he was barely able to consume two stalks a day, twenty times his previous rate.

In the third month, he was able to forcibly consume three stalks of small Dew Grass daily.

With an increase of one stalk each month, his progress in cultivation was extremely rapid.

By the beginning of the fifth month, the first layer of the Sitting and Forgetting Selflessness, which would have originally taken ten years to complete, was perfected. The thumb-sized ball of light had grown a full fold brighter; once as faint as wisps of smoke and constantly at risk of dissipating, it was now much denser and no longer alarmingly thin.

Ye Qin also felt as if his five senses had suddenly been awakened, and the outside world had become extraordinarily vivid.

For the first time, he was astonished to find that everything before his eyes had become so bright, and every movement within a range of several zhang—whether seen or unseen—was almost entirely under his control. This sense of control was something he had never experienced before.

With a slight twitch of his ears, he could hear a cricket lurking in the grass over ten paces away, emitting a faint chirping sound, as well as the buzzing of insects flapping their wings within several zhang. His eyes felt as if they had been washed by a clear spring; bright and limpid, the textures of leaves on old trees and every single strand of a spiderweb were clearly visible. His nose could detect the faint scent of flowers from dozens of paces away and the rich, damp smell of the forest.

Ye Qin's heart stirred slightly, and he abruptly turned his head to look several zhang to his left. A spotted silver-ringed venomous snake was lying perfectly still, having stared at him with malicious eyes for quite some time before slithering into the grass and stone crevices, intending to escape.

Silver-ringed snakes could be used as medicine. As if possessed, Ye Qin habitually picked up a pebble and flicked his finger. With a "pop," the skull of the silver-ringed snake several zhang away was shattered by the small stone, and it went limp on the ground.

After flicking the stone, Ye Qin paused, staring in surprise at his own incredibly nimble hands.

There seemed to be an unprecedented sense of power within his body. He tested his limbs, performing basic attacks like punches, palm strikes, kicks, and leg sweeps, and found them surprisingly fast, fierce, agile, and precise. Testing his own speed, he could throw dozens of fist shadows in the blink of an eye.

He could even instantly slice a water droplet falling from a treetop into ten smaller droplets with his fist shadows. Although his attack power might not be particularly strong, his reactions were surprisingly fast. Even without having learned any martial arts, he now possessed a certain degree of self-preservation. Jumping down from the high branches of a tree several zhang tall, his body felt light and nimble, landing without a sound; the lightness effect was no worse than ordinary light-body techniques.

He was certain that even with a woodcutter's axe, he could now trade blows with the martial arts experts he had seen in the past.

Ye Qin was pleasantly surprised, feeling for the first time that this Sitting-in-Forgetfulness Sutra was not as useless as he had imagined, but rather possessed some special, miraculous effect on the body. He wondered what effects would follow if he completed all three layers of the Sitting-in-Forgetfulness Sutra: Sitting and Forgetting Selflessness.

Over these past four or five months, in addition to his cultivation, Ye Qin had also gathered some common herbs in the surrounding mountains to fulfill his herb-gathering quotas for the Herb Gathering Hall.

Subsequently, Ye Qin began practicing the second layer of Sitting and Forgetting Selflessness. The amount of Dew Grass required for the second layer was double that of the first. In other words, he had to increase his intake of Dew Grass by another fold to potentially complete the second layer.

However, he discovered with great helplessness that the Cyan Rock he possessed was nearly exhausted.

Over the past four or five months, his consumption of Dew Grass had been immense, requiring a large piece of Cyan Rock every day to cultivate the grass. As the days passed, the large pile of Cyan Rock stored within his Purple Mansion was quickly depleted, leaving only a small pile of Cyan Rock and one very pure piece of Cyan Rock Marrow.

Without the supply of spirit stones, the Dew Grass could naturally no longer be cultivated, and his cultivation progress would come to a halt.

Ye Qin had no choice but to search the deep mountains and forests for spirit stones similar to Cyan Rock. However, things like Dew Grass and Cyan Rock were extremely rare and precious herbs and stones; how could they be so easily found?

The piece of Cyan Rock on the mountainside of Gray Eagle Peak had long since been completely excavated by him.

Ye Qin spent over half a month in the mountains and forests searching blindly, but he found nothing that could be moved into his Purple Mansion. Instead, he exhausted himself. After all, he needed to use his divine sense to constantly attempt to move various plants and stones into his Purple Mansion to see if he could find anything similar to the small Dew Grass and Cyan Rock; this use of divine sense was extremely taxing and could damage his vitality.

After more than half a month, Ye Qin was deeply discouraged and abandoned the idea of finding rare spiritual objects among common plants and stones. It seemed that this small Dew Grass and Cyan Rock were things that could be sought but not found. Within the thousand-li radius of Zhuqi County, there were countless deep mountains and gullies; where was he to find such rare items?

Thinking that he had been out for nearly half a year and his large herb basket was already filled with numerous common herbs, Ye Qin decided to return to Zhuqi County first to submit his herb-gathering tasks, and then spend the second half of the year searching the dangerous peaks in various regions for Cyan Rock.

Ye Qin's pace was very fast, and ten days later, he appeared in Zhuqi County, five or six hundred li away, carrying his large herb basket.

Upon returning to Zhuqi County this time, Ye Qin was surprised to find that there were many martial artists in strange attire in the county. Post stations, taverns, and inns were filled with groups of heroes and heroines, many of whom wore the unique emblems of various gangs on their clothing. In the three or four years he had been in Zhuqi County, he had never seen so many martial artists from outside gangs appear in the city.

What was going on?

Ye Qin felt a faint sense of unease and quickened his pace toward the Herb Gathering Hall. Fortunately, everything inside and outside the Herb Gathering Hall was fine, and the apprentices were as busy as usual, which put him slightly at ease.

Ye Qin first went to the herb appraisal department in the inner hall and turned in all the herbs he had gathered, receiving a reward of ninety Silver Leaf. Averaging it out, it came to eighteen Silver Leaf per month, more than three times the minimum requirement.

Afterward, Ye Qin went to pay his respects to his master, Herbalist Wang; this was something he did every time he returned to the Herb Gathering Hall.

The Herb Gathering Hall had a strict hierarchy, and as a disciple, he needed to regularly inform his master of his whereabouts and receive his master's instructions and guidance.

Upon learning of Ye Qin's herb-gathering volume for the past six months, Herbalist Wang was very pleased. This performance already placed him in the upper-middle tier among the twenty or thirty herb-gathering apprentices in the same batch as Ye Qin. If he maintained this standard and put in more effort, as long as he didn't die, there would be no problem for him to be promoted to a Herb Gathering Artisan in five or six years.

Ye Qin chatted with Herbalist Wang for a while and asked his master why there were so many martial artists in Zhuqi County.

From Herbalist Wang, Ye Qin finally learned that a major event had occurred in Zhuqi County. It turned out that the Medicine King Gang, the owner of the Herb Gathering Hall, intended to hold an extremely grand medicine and herb trading conference in Zhuqi County in the second half of this year, inviting all the major gangs within Ping Province to attend.