By the time Li Yingling returned to the dilapidated temple from the deep mountain forest, covered in dirt, it was already noon.
Her pink flowing fairy dress was caked with mud, and several muddy streaks marked her face.
The wooden stick in her hand had been replaced by a wild rabbit.
Her original target had indeed been a pheasant, but the pheasants all perched in trees. How was she supposed to catch one easily?
She had no choice but to catch a poor little bunny, though she felt a pang of guilt.
Bunnies were certainly adorable, but wasn't her tummy even more pitiful?
She pushed open the temple door.
Li Yingling looked inside and saw her bargain-bin master boiling water.
Chu Xingchen looked at the dirt-covered Li Yingling and asked with a sigh:
"I sent you out to hunt in the wild. Why do you look like the wild hunted you?"
Li Yingling nearly choked with anger at his words and wanted to protest loudly.
But then she remembered how incredibly powerful that Water Heart Sutra was.
Perhaps the master before her really was an expert?
Perhaps he was simply putting her through her paces?
She could only protest weakly, "They're not that easy to catch."
Chu Xingchen walked over, took the rabbit from Li Yingling, and lifted it by its ears to inspect it.
"Too skinny. Catch a plumper one next time. Plump ones taste better roasted."
"Oh..."
Glancing at Li Yingling's aggrieved expression, Chu Xingchen said confidently:
"Don't look like that. Once your master shows you what he can do, you'll have plenty of motivation to go hunting next time."
Li Yingling looked puzzled. Then she saw Chu Xingchen pull out a dagger.
With practiced ease, he demonstrated how to prepare an adorable rabbit.
Then he summoned a ball of water with a five-element spell and rinsed it clean.
If there was one benefit to wandering all across the Black Tortoise Kingdom...
It was that he had every spice and seasoning he could want, all stored in his spatial ring.
Since nothing flowed inside the ring, it also kept things remarkably fresh.
He took out garlic, scallions, and spices, starting with an explosively spicy rabbit head for her!
He braised the left half of the body and cooked the right half with garlic!
Soon, three plates of rabbit dishes were set on the table.
They looked, smelled, and tasted wonderful!
Chu Xingchen pushed the plate of rabbit head toward Li Yingling:
"This was your first hunt, so you get the best part: the rabbit head."
As she watched the adorable bunny turn into a delicious-smelling bunny...
Her traitorous tears flowed from her mouth.
But Li Yingling still instinctively balked at the rabbit head.
After all, as a young, compassionate girl, eating bunny meat was already her limit.
How could she eat its head too?
That resistance swiftly crumbled once she tasted the rabbit meat.
The spicy, numbing, savory flavor made it impossible to stop.
It felt as though she had only taken a few bites before all the regular rabbit meat in front of her was gone.
Then Li Yingling became firmly convinced that her master was right!
This rabbit was too skinny. There wasn't enough meat.
Then Li Yingling turned her gaze toward her final boundary: that spicy rabbit head.
Naturally, her conflicted gaze did not escape Chu Xingchen's notice.
Chu Xingchen struck right at her weak spot, saying casually, "Are you really not eating it? If you won't, I will."
"I'll eat it!"
Li Yingling felt ashamed of her utter lack of principles.
Eating bunny meat was one thing, but how could she gnaw on its head too?
Damn it, this was all Master's fault!
So delicious!
After tasting Chu Xingchen's cooking, Li Yingling became far more enthusiastic and proactive about hunting.
Meanwhile, the sense of progress her cultivation brought kept her awake at night, and she cultivated quite diligently.
Chu Xingchen wanted to urge her on as her master, but hardly had the chance.
Everything seemed to be going rather well. So far, this disciple was fairly easy to look after.
But for Li Yingling, who came from a powerful clan, the living conditions in the dilapidated temple were truly unbearable.
She thoroughly tidied up the temple, swept the cobwebs off the ceiling, and patched the holes in the drafty door.
She even removed the last two wooden planks from the temple's altar and used them to partition off her plank bed.
Naturally, Chu Xingchen had no objections. After all, he could understand the concerns of a young unmarried woman.
It was just that any new disciples he recruited might have to sleep on a pile of straw.
Half a month later.
Under the cover of night.
Li Yingling sat beside the fire, eating a roasted chicken drumstick with a blissful expression, though she still sounded dispirited as she spoke:
"Master, I've been stuck at the ninth layer of Qi Refining for ages."
Chu Xingchen sprinkled seasoning over the roasting chicken. "Keep cultivating, and you'll get there."
Li Yingling cleared her throat. "Master, in the storybooks I've read, when people get stuck at a cultivation bottleneck, don't they use miraculous pills or spirit plants to help them break through?"
"Since we're the number one sect in the Black Tortoise Kingdom, and you're its number one cultivator, surely you have plenty of good pills and things, right?"
Chu Xingchen looked up at Li Yingling, who wore an expression brimming with anticipation.
In short, what she meant was: Cough up the pills, old man.
What a joke. Where would I get pills?
If I hadn't taken you as my disciple, I'd still be in the Foundation Establishment Realm.
What miraculous pills do you expect a Foundation Establishment master to get for you?
Still, it wasn't as though there was no solution.
Chu Xingchen glanced out into the night. The Black Tortoise Kingdom lay in a remote region, unlike the Central Continent, where Golden Core cultivators were everywhere.
In this remote corner, someone with Golden Core cultivation could already be called an ancestor.
No matter what, he now had a flawless golden core. Things he hadn't dared do before weren't necessarily beyond him now.
Having made up his mind, Chu Xingchen said:
"Hurry up and eat. Once you're done, I'll take you to our sect's Medicine Field and get you some spirit plants to eat."
Li Yingling's eyes lit up, and she exclaimed excitedly, "Our sect has a Medicine Field too? I've explored this whole stretch of wilderness and never seen it. Where is it?"
Chu Xingchen said irritably, "This lousy place doesn't even have a spirit vein. Do you think spirit plants are giant radishes you can just bury in any old hole?"
At that moment, Li Yingling couldn't care less about giant radishes. So her sect really did have more than a dilapidated temple!
It had spirit fields too! Thinking about it that way, her sect wasn't actually all that poor!
Her spirits soared.
It looked as though she had a real chance of breaking through to Foundation Establishment!
Li Yingling felt that even the roasted drumstick in her hand tasted better. Throwing aside the decorum of a distinguished family, she swiftly gnawed off every scrap of meat.
"Master! I'm full. Let's hurry!"
Chu Xingchen couldn't help feeling speechless. This girl wasn't even trying to hide her desire to squeeze pills out of her master.
Still, setting off early would make the timing work out better.
So Chu Xingchen sighed and said, "Let's go."
On that dark, windy night, the master and disciple left the dilapidated temple and headed southeast.
An hour later.
As she climbed the rugged mountain path, Li Yingling couldn't help asking:
"Master, aren't these spirit fields a little too remote?"
"Spirit veins are like that. We're almost there."
Another half hour later.
Li Yingling finally saw the spirit fields Chu Xingchen had mentioned.
Well, what do you know?
These spirit plants really were different. Beneath the moonlight, they occasionally shimmered with a pure radiance that echoed the moon's glow.
The Medicine Field was also very well protected.
A pale yellow barrier guarded the relatively small stretch of spirit fields.
Li Yingling turned her excited gaze toward Chu Xingchen, but once she saw what her master was doing, she felt rather less excited.
Chu Xingchen was carefully using his own Spiritual Power to quietly dissolve a large hole in the barrier.
After checking their surroundings, he handed her a cloth sack.
"I'll keep watch. You go in and take them! Grab whatever catches your eye! These are our own spirit fields, so don't hold back!"
At his words, Li Yingling felt dizzy, hardly able to believe what she was hearing.
Master! Aren't you setting your disciple up?!!
Before you continue