"Hundred Treasures Glazed Scripture"

"What? Alchemist Su?"

"What did he go to your Spirit Field for?" Cai Lao Jiu asked in confusion.

Qin Ming could only patiently tell him about Alchemist Su coming to demand Crimson Spirit Dew.

"You actually grew Beast Fang Rice?!"

Cai Lao Jiu was dumbstruck, his worldview overturned once again.

He had been here for over a decade and had also tried cultivating Beast Fang Rice.

Yet without exception, every attempt had failed.

Cai Lao Jiu had even once suspected that the Spirit Vein here was unsuitable for Beast Fang Rice to grow.

He tried his best to convince himself that Qin Ming was surely just fooling with him.

But when he arrived behind the mountain and saw the half-grown Beast Fang Spirit Rice in Qin Ming's spirit field—

For a long while, he was speechless.

That was right.

He was sour.

This time, he truly envied Qin Ming!

"Qin Ming, you brat, that's not brotherly of you! And here I even gave you wine."

"You grew Beast Fang Rice and didn't tell me?"

After saying that, he did not forget to go over and warmly greet Alchemist Su.

Then he leaned close to Qin Ming's ear and secretly asked, "Where did you get Beast Fang Rice Spirit Seeds?"

Qin Ming looked at him, slightly taken aback. "Bought them from Manager Liao."

"I went all in. You could say I wagered my entire fortune and life on it."

"You really stepped in dog shit, kid. You actually managed to grow them."

"I really don't know what to say about you."

Qin Ming smiled awkwardly. "Fine. Once the Beast Fang Rice matures, I'll treat you to a meal and drinks at Juxuan Pavilion."

"You said it!" Only then did Cai Lao Jiu let the matter drop.

Two days later.

The turmoil caused by the demon beast attack had passed, and the Spirit Feather Sect had added some protective measures around the Spirit Fields.

However, the area was simply too vast, so they could only set up a few rudimentary warning formations.

After this incident, Qin Ming's desire to improve his strength grew even stronger.

Without a Trump Card, there was no sense of security.

At any moment, he could die and his Dao vanish.

Qingyang Market.

Qin Ming once again arrived at the Ruan Family Estate.

Knock, knock, knock!

He knocked on the red-lacquered gates.

Before long.

A middle-aged cultivator opened the gates. He was at the Fifth Layer of the Qi Refining Stage. His face was somewhat haggard, his hair bound beneath a wooden crown, and more than half of it had already turned white.

"Daoist, you are... looking for whom? What business do you have?"

Qin Ming gave a cupped fist salute and went straight to the point. "You must be Daoist Ruan? My surname is Qin. Manager Liao referred me here. I heard that you have a Body Refining Art for sale, so I came to pay you a visit."

Daoist Ruan paused, then welcomed Qin Ming into the Ruan Family Estate.

The moment they entered the courtyard.

It was a bleak and desolate sight. Other than Daoist Ruan before him, there was not another soul to be seen.

"Since Manager Liao referred you, I presume he told you already?"

"Unless you have pills or spiritual materials that can strengthen qi and blood, I can only disappoint you." Daoist Ruan sized up the young cultivator before him. He looked utterly ordinary, with nothing remarkable about him.

"Of course."

"Could Daoist Ruan introduce this cultivation art to me? That way, I can weigh my options." Qin Ming asked.

"Alas, speaking of it, you'll have to laugh at me." Daoist Ruan let out a long sigh.

He pointed at the estate, his voice filled with the weariness of time.

Then he spoke bluntly. "My great family fortune has fallen to such a state today, all because of this cultivation art."

He then took a Beast Hide page from his Storage Bag and showed it to Qin Ming before continuing, "This cultivation art is called the 'Hundred Treasures Glazed Scripture.' It has been passed down through my ancestors to my generation."

"Generations of ancestors treated it as a treasure. As for its exact origins, they have long been lost."

"However, cultivating this art has a rather harsh prerequisite: one must supplement it with heavenly treasures and spiritual materials that strengthen qi and blood. Only then can one cultivate it."

As Daoist Ruan continued his explanation, Qin Ming gradually formed his own judgment of the cultivation art.

This "Hundred Treasures Glazed Scripture" was completely different from the Body Refining Arts Qin Ming had seen before.

Its path of body refinement neither tempered the flesh nor opened acupoints, much less followed the usual route of honing sinews and bones.

Instead—

It replaced blood!

"Hundred Treasures," as the name implied, referred specifically to those heaven-and-earth spiritual materials that could strengthen qi and blood—and they had to be graded materials.

The higher the grade, the better.

As for blood replacement, it involved circulating qi and blood until it had been strengthened to a certain degree, then entering the marrow-refining stage, replacing one's old blood and transforming it into new blood.

By continuously strengthening qi and blood, once it was compressed to its limit, it could even become like mercury slurry.

Surpassing the limits of the human body and breaking through toward another level.

"Glazed" referred to the transformation of one's qi and blood after blood replacement, making the flesh crystal-clear like glazed glass.

After cultivating the "Hundred Treasures Glazed Scripture" to the Fifth Layer, one's qi and blood would undergo multiple transformations, allowing one to condense a "Glazed Armor" outside the body with one's powerful qi and blood.

All evils would retreat, a hundred poisons would fail to invade, and it would be indestructible. It even possessed a certain effect of warding off spells.

"An effect against spells?" Qin Ming was secretly shocked.

If this cultivation art was cultivated to profound realms, one could achieve a flawless body, with treasure light suffusing the entire form, and physical strength reaching an utterly tyrannical extreme.

The ultimate achievement was the Immaculate Glazed Body!

However, that was only what the cultivation art recorded. No one had ever reached such a realm.

"Precisely because of this, the spiritual materials required to cultivate this art demand an absolutely terrifying investment," Daoist Ruan said unhurriedly.

"Calling it a bottomless pit would not be an exaggeration."

"If you do not have enough spiritual materials to supply your cultivation over the long term, then I advise you to give up."

"With such a vast expenditure of financial and material resources, you could buy more than one Top-Grade cultivation art."

"And after paying such a price, there is no guarantee of success, which makes it rather tasteless."

"Besides, this cultivation art is only an incomplete volume. The 'Hundred Treasures Glazed Scripture' has twelve layers in total, but the Beast Hide page in my possession only contains the first nine layers, corresponding to body cultivators of the Qi Refining Stage."

After hearing him out, Qin Ming fell into thought.

He did not lack spiritual materials. He only needed Accelerated Growth.

The spiritual materials that others seemingly had to pay a tremendous price to obtain instead became his advantage.

In short.

As long as he had enough spiritual materials that strengthened qi and blood, the body-refining speed of this "Hundred Treasures Glazed Scripture" should not be slow.

"May I ask, Daoist Ruan, what layer have you cultivated to now?"

Asked this, Daoist Ruan replied with some emotion, "Alas, I exhausted my family fortune over these years, spending several thousand Spirit Stones and traveling everywhere to gather spiritual materials that strengthen qi and blood. Yet I have only cultivated to the Third Layer."

"Then has anyone in your family cultivated this art to the Fifth Layer?"

"No. At present, I am the one who has cultivated it the furthest."

"..."

Qin Ming immediately understood why he was selling it so cheaply.

After giving it careful thought.

Qin Ming decisively said, "One hundred Spirit Stones, plus ten jin of Beast Fang Rice. How about it for this cultivation art?"

"What? You actually have Beast Fang Rice?"

At those words, Daoist Ruan's previously dejected appearance vanished.

His whole body immediately perked up, and his eyes suddenly lit up.