Black Gold Ginseng

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Chapter 14: Black Gold Ginseng

Woohoo, lift-off! Chen Beiwu's expression brightened.

Hunting demonic beasts really did pay.

Just a few minutes of fighting had earned him Bullet Ape blood-heart's essence blood-worth two low-grade spirit stones, equivalent to a month's earnings from his mother's embroidery work at home.

Unfortunately, he could not explain where the ape blood had come from, so he could not exchange it for spirit stones through the Immortal Alliance. He could only use it himself.

But that was enough. Exotic beast essence blood was expensive precisely because it could deepen a cultivator's comprehension of the Ten Thousand Beasts Art and increase the purity of their magical power.

If he could gather essence blood from a thousand different exotic beasts, Chen Beiwu was confident he could advance his Ten Thousand Beasts Art from minor accomplishment to major accomplishment and condense its core spiritual technique: the Thousand Beast Mark.

If he could gather essence blood from ten thousand different spirit beasts, he was confident he could bring the Ten Thousand Beasts Art to perfection and condense the third-tier treasured technique: the Myriad Beast Mark.

That was a technique on par with the abilities of a Golden Core True Person!

Unfortunately, demonic beasts were hard to find. For now, Chen Beiwu could, at most, bully low-tier exotic beasts with insufficient cultivation.

Before the sun set, he cleared the remains and rubbish from the cave, then attached a Spirit-Concealing Talisman and a Warning Talisman to the rock wall at its entrance, setting up a small alert formation centered on the cave.

Before long, his exceedingly crude cultivation abode was complete.

To prevent interruptions while cultivating, he moved several rocks to block the entrance, leaving only a finger-sized opening for ventilation.

With that done, Chen Beiwu sat cross-legged on the cold stone and began his first cultivation session in this other world.

Perhaps because he was in a primeval forest, the abundant wood spiritual energy around him immediately transformed into a continuous stream of emerald motes that flowed into his dantian, becoming docile magical power.

A night quietly passed.

Chen Beiwu opened his eyes and smiled in satisfaction.

A second-tier spiritual vein truly was extraordinary. One night of meditation here equaled two nights in a first-tier mid-grade cultivation room. Even the somewhat sluggish magical power deep within his dantian now moved as readily as his own arm.

Compared with before, his cultivation speed had more than doubled.

At this rate, he was confident he could break through to the eighth level of Qi Refining during his third year of high school, then reach the ninth level in his fourth or fifth year.

Factoring in the spiritual-root enhancement from contracting a companion beast in the future, his Qi Refining efficiency could soar even further.

"Phew."

Chen Beiwu stood, stretched, and exhaled a breath of stale air.

He had no classes that morning, so he could explore the area around his cultivation abode.

An hour later.

"Squeak, squeak, squeak!"

As the Water Needle struck, a potbellied Green Rock Rat collapsed with a shriek, revealing a hole behind him where a large quantity of flowers and herbs had been stashed.

Chen Beiwu tossed aside the useless pinecones and weeds covering the hole, revealing a pitch-black spiritual plant that resembled an old tree root.

The leaves at the top of the old root had curled slightly from improper storage and were dark brown. It was unmistakably a first-tier spiritual plant: black gold ginseng.

What a criminal waste of a heavenly treasure! He quickly reached in and carefully removed the ginseng.

Rodent exotic beasts had always possessed keen senses of smell, so it was hardly surprising that one could find such a spiritual plant in the mountains.

The Immortal Alliance's compulsory education had taught the four cultivation arts for years. Chen Beiwu knew quite a few pill formulas, including the one for the Qi-Boosting Pill.

Black gold ginseng was the main ingredient for refining the first-tier Qi-Boosting Pill. It fetched a high price on the market-at least ten spirit stones.

If he could refine the black gold ginseng into pills, its value would soar, potentially fetching fifty low-grade spirit stones.

But Chen Beiwu was not a ranked alchemist, after all, and was not proficient in water-method pill refining. Recklessly attempting it would only waste the medicinal ingredient. He would be better off eating it raw.

For late Qi Refining cultivators, eating black gold ginseng raw offered considerable benefits, saving them half a month of arduous cultivation.

What a pity. Chen Beiwu sighed.

He had once wanted to become an alchemist, too.

Among the hundred cultivation arts, pill refining, artifact crafting, formations, and talismans were the four mainstream disciplines. Alchemists even stood faintly at the head of the four, with their trade enjoying the greatest demand and earning the most money.

But pill refining burned through far too much money. Generally, only cultivators from cultivation lineages could afford to learn it, apart from those with extraordinary talent.

Most alchemy apprentices had to work unpaid for their teachers for several years when starting out, while spending large quantities of spirit stones on firing up furnaces to gain experience.

On the Immortal Alliance's internet, some alchemy apprentices had even turned it into a running joke, saying they were "paying to work." They exhausted themselves for years, wrecked their bodies, and earned nothing but experience.

Precisely because the investment required for pill refining far exceeded what an ordinary household could bear, Chen Beiwu had abandoned the idea of becoming an alchemist.

Xu Lingling had become Shouhe No. 2 Middle School's only first-tier mid-grade alchemist during her second year of high school not merely through her own talent, but more importantly through the sheltering shade of her lineage.

Artifact crafting was slightly better than pill refining, requiring less investment while enjoying considerable demand.

Even if a beginner had bad luck and failed to craft an exotic artifact, they could return it to the furnace for reforging and salvage some of the materials. But far too many cultivators practiced this trade on the market.

Competition had driven exotic artifact prices ruthlessly low.

Talisman crafting suited those with average talent and resources, but it demanded substantial time and energy, potentially even delaying their cultivation.

Beginners had an extremely low success rate when crafting low-tier talismans. Even if they got lucky and succeeded, the production cost far exceeded the selling price. Like the Dao of Alchemy, it required spending spirit stones to buy experience; the losses were simply smaller.

As for formations, they were difficult to learn and harder still to master, placing the greatest emphasis on talent.

Formation masters earned little at first, because cultivators had very little need for low-tier formations.

But once a formation master reached a higher tier, it was another matter entirely.

The formation world had a saying: "No business for ten years; one deal feeds you for ten." It described the money-drawing power of high-tier formation masters.

Yet formations were far too difficult to master. To put it bluntly, if a cultivation faction was willing to pile on enough resources, it could eventually produce a high-tier alchemist, artifact crafter, or talisman master.

Formations were different. If someone could not learn a formation pattern, they simply could not learn it. Even backed into a corner, a cultivator could not inscribe those obscure, incomprehensible patterns.

It was no exaggeration to say that someone without sufficient talent for formations would spend their entire life circling within the first tier. At most, some fortunate opportunity might let them become a second-tier formation master, but they could never reach the third tier.

Chen Beiwu's talent for formations could just about be considered good. The formation patterns ordinary people found obscure and incomprehensible did not seem complicated to him. All he lacked was an opportunity to set up formations.

With enough formation diagrams and resources, he might become a second-tier formation master someday.

Reining in his wandering thoughts, Chen Beiwu carefully put away the ginseng.

He had been lucky that day. Had he arrived a day later, the ginseng might have acquired several ragged bite marks, losing most of its medicinal potency.

Pushing aside the shrubs obstructing his view, Chen Beiwu continued exploring, carefully mapping the terrain around his cultivation abode.

Huh!

Chen Beiwu suddenly stopped and listened intently to an unusual sound coming from the bushes ahead.

"H-help... help!"

Hearing that feeble cry for help, Chen Beiwu furrowed his brows slightly and looked toward the scattered footprints a short distance away.

(End of chapter)