Xiao Bai's vision went black. His eyes slowly closed, and with that, he lost all five senses and consciousness.
When he woke, it was already the next morning.
He was soaking in a hot spring again.
Before him lay the Snow Curtain Sea of Clouds, while behind him stood the Flourishing Peach Grove.
The peach blossoms bloomed so wildly that petals fell without wind, dancing across the sky and obscuring the Sea of Clouds and Snow Curtain.
As far as Xiao Bai could see, misty waves stretched for a thousand miles, while rosy light soared ten thousand zhang high.
Everything was beautiful, yet the Demoness was nowhere to be seen.
The truth was, his body had been toyed with by the Demoness again!
It was a little humiliating, but also a little thrilling.
Strangely enough, his body did not hurt at all. There was only the tingling itch of fresh flesh growing back.
Xiao Bai tremblingly reached for his chin.
—Perfectly intact!
Thank heaven, he had not become the Slit-Mouth Man.
He looked down at his chest again.
There were no stitches and no scars, only tender new skin at the wound, as delicate as an Infant Body.
This showed the profundity of the Butcher's Sword Technique and the elder's miraculous healing hands.
He turned to look toward the edge of the pool.
His cotton clothes had been neatly folded atop a smooth stone by the poolside, covered in cherry-red peach petals.
They had clearly been washed, and still carried a faint soapberry scent.
What was with this overwhelming housewife feeling?
You were a villain, damn it!
Xiao Bai complained with his mouth, but warmth filled his heart.
He felt even more gratified—because beside his cotton clothes sat a green Medicine Pouch embroidered with peach blossoms.
It was bulging, stuffed full of pills!
Looks like this rich woman knew how to behave...
Xiao Bai excitedly opened the Medicine Pouch. It was filled with red pills shaped like date pits.
They carried a faint bloody smell within their clear, ethereal spiritual power.
Xiao Bai was no stranger to this kind of pill. In the Cultivation World, it was the second-hardest currency after spirit stones—
Blood Spirit Pills!
Blood Spirit Pills were mainly used to restore spiritual power and replenish blood, accelerating the healing of bodily injuries.
They were the most common type of restorative medicine.
Though they could not be called the finest Spirit Replenishing Elixir, they had the fewest side effects.
Even mortals and low-level cultivators could use them without worry. At critical moments, they could truly save a life.
Especially for Xiao Bai now, with Heart-Returning Powder inscribed upon the pill wall protecting his vital lifeline, if he were ambushed and left at death's door, he could quickly consume a large number of Blood Spirit Pills and rise from the dead.
Xiao Bai roughly counted them. There were over a hundred Blood Spirit Pills in the Medicine Pouch!
The market price of Blood Spirit Pills was very stable—roughly ten spirit stones each.
And these had been personally refined by the Pill Elder, so they would only be worth more.
In other words, this pouch of Blood Spirit Pills was worth over a thousand spirit stones!
One had to know that spirit stones were scarce in the Tian Yuan Era, and their purchasing power was astonishing.
When Xiao Bai had previously opened his mouth like a lion and demanded a million spirit stones as bride price from the elder, he had actually only been joking.
He had once produced and sold glass and soap in Chaoge City, and after two full years, he had earned only five hundred taels of gold.
Converted into spirit stones, that was merely a pitiful five.
Those five spirit stones had not only been used to bribe the steward of the Errand Disciple Quarters and secure his entry into the sect, but had also been exchanged for talisman paper, which he used to throw money around in the Errand Disciple Quarters and make friends far and wide.
A thousand spirit stones? Was that not outrageous?
Elder Yuhu, please ravage me a little more. I can still take it!
Xiao Bai tried using Blood Spirit Pills to increase his cultivation.
In the end, after swallowing more than a dozen Blood Spirit Pills, his advancement progress only rose from 69% to 70%...
This showed that the spiritual power contained in Blood Spirit Pills was inferior to spirit stones. They were better at restoring flesh and blood than restoring spiritual power, so using them purely for advancement was somewhat wasteful.
Thus, Xiao Bai placed the remaining hundred Blood Spirit Pills into the Item Bar within the Modifier, saving them for later.
At critical moments, they could replenish blood and save his life, or help make up small gaps in advancement progress.
Just then.
Gurgle...
Xiao Bai was getting hungry. His stomach had started a revolution.
Although what the elder had down there could help him cultivate, it was hard to fill his belly.
It seemed that if he wanted to eat his fill, he would have to do it himself.
No sooner said than done. Xiao Bai immediately flipped out of the bath and put on his cotton clothes.
There was only one word for cotton clothes hand-washed by the lady: fragrant.
Fragrant and soft.
Just like...
Xiao Bai strolled through the bamboo forest and Medicine Garden, then went to take a look at the Bamboo Hut. He did not see the elder anywhere.
The Modifier gave no notification.
That meant she was not up to anything bad.
Perhaps she was refining pills in the Pill Room, perhaps she had gone out on business. In any case, she was busy, so he would not care.
He was now the male master of Hundred Herbs Peak!
Wait, why did I add "male"...?
By the pool lake.
Xiao Bai stood still, staring at his reflection.
Other than being handsome, he did not seem to have any special charm.
A gust of wind swept over.
It wrinkled the lake water and stirred waves of flowers in the Medicine Garden.
It carried the fragrance filling the mountain into his heart and lungs, teasing every strand of his hair.
Looking into the distance, fine snow swayed softly and the sea of clouds stretched boundlessly.
Immortal cranes occasionally flew past, some speeding through the air atop swords, others soaring upon Flying Beasts.
It had to be said, the details in cultivation games were still a little lacking.
Wandering through the real Cultivation World was like living through a lucid dream.
The wives in games could only be looked at. The wives in the Cultivation World could also...
Dissect you.
Xiao Bai took out the Bamboo Cutting Knife and, with the swaggering gait of someone who recognized neither heaven nor earth, performed a set of the Butcher's Sword Technique on the spot.
The sword could actually lead the man, making his movement technique swift as the wind.
He wielded it with such fierce momentum that it was like traveling a thousand miles in a day, as though a lifetime had passed.
At first glance, the sword technique appeared plain and unremarkable, as if it had no special effects.
But on closer inspection, the blade's direction was precise down to the smallest fraction, madly striking every beat as though it were playing music and dancing.
He raised the blade with the wind, and the knife rang at the scent of fragrance.
He passed through the snow, yet the snow's shape remained unscattered.
With the knife in hand and his cultivation improved, Xiao Bai felt endless strength flooding his entire body, as though he could chop down every bamboo stalk on Snow Flame Mountain in a single day.
Even if he encountered a giant goose of the Cultivation World, he was confident he could fight it.
Gurgle...
That was not a goose's cry, but his stomach.
Xiao Bai nearly forgot that he was looking for food.
He hurried into the bamboo forest and lay in wait for half an hour before finally ambushing some game—
A cute white Spiritual Rabbit!
It was said that a female rabbit could breed dozens of baby rabbits in a year, so eating one should not matter.
Carrying the rabbit back to the lakeside, Xiao Bai sang, "Little white rabbit, white and white, with two ears standing upright. Cut the vein, then cut the artery. Lying still, so very cute."
That was how he sang, and that was how he did it.
In three strokes and five divisions, he painlessly bled the little white rabbit, skinned it, pulled its tendons, removed its organs, then made a fire and roasted it.
He also found some pepper fruits in the bamboo forest for seasoning.
After the time it took an incense stick to burn...
A meaty fragrance that pierced straight into the spiritual spleen erupted like a volcano.
When the mountain wind blew, that heaven-defying rabbit fragrance could be smelled for ten miles downwind.
And just like that, a delicious little rabbit was roasted.
Xiao Bai swallowed the rabbit ears in one bite, then devoured the rest like a whirlwind sweeping away clouds.
Fragrant as it was.
There was still not enough seasoning, and the flavor was too light.
Fortunately, the rabbit meat was rich in spiritual power. Though eating it could not raise his cultivation, it could nourish every inch of his flesh and skin.
After eating his fill, Xiao Bai began cleaning up the battlefield.
Then he suddenly noticed a chain-shaped blood mark remaining on the Rabbit Spine Bone.
A Spirit Contract!
—This was a Contracted Beast!
Xiao Bai was dumbfounded.
Had he eaten the elder's pet?
Then had he not eaten it for nothing?!
Sneaking food did not increase cultivation.
If she got angry, the elder might even ravage him to vent her frustration.
But perhaps it was the instinct that came after binding the Female Lead—
Xiao Bai felt that this Spirit Contract did not seem to have come from the elder.
The rabbit's owner might have been someone else...
That was even better!
He was now the husband of the Pill Elder. His status surpassed that of the instructors and core disciples.
So what if I ate your rabbit?
Thinking this, Xiao Bai relaxed and headed down the mountain straight for the Pill Pavilion halfway up the slope, intending to find Mu Yun and the Onmyoji for some skins and equipment.
Meanwhile.
The sound of a flute drifted through the sea of clouds.
Only the melody was leisurely.
The timbre, however, sounded like weeping and lamentation.
A figure withdrew his divine sense, revealing a tall and mighty form whose aura pierced the clouds.
He was a middle-aged Daoist holding a three-foot Jade Flute, clad in a Crimson Flame Cloak and draped in a Snow Wolf Fur Collar.
His features seemed carved from stone. Elegance carried a hint of grandeur, like ice and fire entwined, a mixture of a lone wolf and a bootlicker.
He was none other than the current sect master of the Snow Flame Sect—
Master Chun Xiao.
"I thought Junior Sister Yu Hu had deliberately made fools of both me and the Sect Overseer. Who would have thought she had a discerning eye for hidden treasure... A young man with such miserable innate bones was actually a sword dao prodigy."
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