Where's Your Belt?

But now he was willingly running up the mountain.

There was no helping it. His constitution had improved dramatically in every respect, and his eyesight really was good. Even late at night, he could see everything around him clearly.

As soon as he reached the mountainside, Lin Xiao spotted Xiaoluan attending to an important matter of chicken life in the spirit field beside the grass shed.

Lin Xiao and Xiaoluan, who had a chicken butt sticking up while working hard beside the spirit field, stared at each other.

For a moment, the scene fell silent.

"Ahem." Lin Xiao raised a fist to his mouth and coughed twice.

As though startled by Lin Xiao's cough, two indescribable objects dropped from Xiaoluan's raised butt with a pair of plops.

Lin Xiao felt a little awkward, but he still remembered why he had come. He got straight to the point:

"Xiaoluan, do you need money?"

"Money?" Xiaoluan tilted a head, then remembered that money was what Auntie Sun had used to trade for Xiaoluan before. The chicken immediately shook that head like a rattle drum.

"No, no, no! Cluck, cluck, cluck! I don't want that unlucky stuff!"

Lin Xiao rubbed his nose.

"All right, then what do you want?"

Xiaoluan tilted a head again. Suddenly, something came to mind, and those two little beanlike eyes lit up!

"Cluck, I want bugs! They're tasty!"

Lin Xiao felt a headache coming on. Where was he supposed to find bugs in the middle of the night?

But he really wanted to finish the stipend task right now!

Suddenly, Lin Xiao remembered something!

He took a Spirit Stone out of his private vault and held it in front of Xiaoluan.

"Do you like this?"

Sensing the dense Spiritual Qi radiating from the Spirit Stone, Xiaoluan couldn't help taking a deep breath. Then the chicken's head immediately began bobbing so fast it seemed to leave afterimages.

"Yes, yes, yes! This! I like it!"

Lin Xiao promptly slipped the Spirit Stone into Xiaoluan's opening and closing beak, letting the chicken hold it.

"Then it's yours!"

Xiaoluan was delighted and spun in circles with the Spirit Stone in that beak.

"Cluck, cluck, cluck! I can absorb this stone for three months!"

Lin Xiao was astonished.

"You're saying this one Spirit Stone is enough for you to absorb for three months?"

Xiaoluan stopped spinning.

"That's right, cluck, cluck, cluck! I'm only at the Spirit Awakening First Layer. This stone will last me three months!"

Lin Xiao suddenly remembered how his idle cultivation function used up one Spirit Stone every day.

What was he supposed to do now that it suddenly didn't seem like such a good deal?

But on second thought, although the idle function cost a lot, its results really were excellent!

It had only been a few days, and he was already at the Fourth Layer of Qi Refinement!

If he had cultivated on his own, he definitely couldn't have matched that speed!

It also saved him a lot of time and freed him from the troubles of cultivation!

Thinking of it that way, Lin Xiao felt better about it again.

And now he finally knew that Spirit Stones were quite valuable.

Xiaoluan was at the Spirit Awakening First Layer, equivalent to a human at the Qi Refining First Layer, and a single Spirit Stone could actually last someone at that layer three months!

Lin Xiao opened his private vault and looked at the First-Tier Spirit Vein Fragment lying quietly inside. He couldn't help looking forward to gathering all the fragments.

Putting those thoughts aside, Lin Xiao looked down at Xiaoluan.

"Xiaoluan, this Spirit Stone is your stipend as a member of our sect. From now on, work hard fertilizing the field and guard our sect well. Once you've finished absorbing it, I'll give you another one!"

Hearing this, Xiaoluan immediately flapped those wings excitedly, flying and hopping around in circles.

Just then, Lin Xiao finally heard the system notification sound in his mind.

[Ding-task [Sect Member Stipends] completed. Task rewards have been issued. Host, please check and claim them.]

With the task complete, Lin Xiao happily said goodbye to Xiaoluan and went down the mountain.

He raced home and slipped into his room to check the rewards.

The Spirit Stones in his private vault had gone from eighty-four to 104. It seemed he had been rewarded with twenty Spirit Stones.

There were also two new items.

One was the "basic sect uniform recipe," and the other was [Spirit Plant Growth-Accelerating Bone Meal x50].

As far as Lin Xiao was concerned, both were good things!

Since the basic sect uniform had "basic" in its name, did that mean it was something like a Law Artifact?

And the other item, Spirit Plant Growth-Accelerating Bone Meal!

Just from the name, anyone could tell what it was for!

Accelerating the growth of Spirit Plants!

Lin Xiao suppressed the urge to run back up the mountain and opened the "basic sect uniform recipe" first.

The recipe listed only three ingredients.

[Spirit silkworm silk x10] + [Spirit Stones x5] + [one jin of cotton] = [basic sect uniforms x10]

(Note: When placing the required materials into the [Item Synthesizer], the style of the basic sect uniforms can be envisioned in the mind. Thirty seconds are allotted for envisioning.)

With this recipe, Lin Xiao no longer needed to figure out how to use the [Item Synthesizer] on his own. He could simply follow the recipe and obtain exactly what he wanted!

Lin Xiao really wanted to try it immediately.

But the moon was already high in the sky.

If he didn't go to sleep, his father could haul him up the next morning and wash his hair while holding him upside down.

So he had no choice but to suppress his desire to put the recipe into practice and roll into the Duke of Zhou's embrace for the time being.

But he hadn't expected his father to haul him up anyway, before daybreak the next morning.

"I'm asking you, where's your new belt?"

Still groggy from sleep, Lin Xiao glanced at the sky outside. Seeing that it was still almost completely dark, he mumbled in a daze:

"What belt...? Dad, let me sleep a little longer..."

Lin Dayou paid no attention to his plea for more sleep. Instead, he shook him hard twice, jolting him awake, and demanded gruffly:

"I'm asking you! Where's your belt? The new one I bought you last year!"

Lin Xiao finally came to his senses and realized what his father was talking about.

He swallowed and tried to calm his father.

"Dad, don't be angry, don't be angry. The belt's right here..."

"Where is it? There was nothing but a grass rope in that pile of clothes you changed out of the other day!"

With a trembling hand, Lin Xiao pulled the Storage Bag from inside his robes and handed it to Lin Dayou.

"The belt's right here..."

Seeing the shabby pouch Lin Xiao had used to carry money in town yesterday, Lin Dayou didn't know whether to be angry or not.

No wonder the color of the shabby pouch had looked familiar yesterday.

So the brat had made it out of his belt!

A belt was expensive! For a piece of cloth that big, even a poorer-quality one cost more than ten copper coins!

The little money the family had earned yesterday was mostly gone after buying oil and salt. If they wanted to get him a new belt, they would have to dip into the family savings.

Lin Dayou suddenly remembered the money the boy had earned himself yesterday.

He let go of Lin Xiao, dropping him back onto the bed, and gave a cold snort.

"The family doesn't have money to buy you a new belt anyway. Either keep tying your pants with that grass rope or buy one yourself!"

With that, he turned around, carried the basin full of clothes into the courtyard, and continued washing them.

Lin Xiao... Lin Xiao returned to bed, closed his eyes, and fell asleep again.