A short while later.
Inside the inner market of the Medicine King Valley.
Liu Qingchen led Chen Jinshu through several narrow alleys paved with damp, green stone slabs. The air here was even thicker with the scent of bitter herbs and earth, and the walls of the close-set buildings were darkened by age. He finally came to a stop in front of a modest storefront hung with an old, weathered wooden plaque that read "Spirit Residence Guide" in peeling gold paint.
The interior was dimly lit, the only light filtering through the dust motes dancing in the meager sunbeams from the street. A mid Foundation Establishment cultivator wearing a glossy, though slightly threadbare, silk robe lounged crookedly in a creaking reclining chair, half asleep. A few sparse, rat-like whiskers clung to his chin, twitching with every shallow breath he took. His fingers, stained with ink and grease, absentmindedly rolled a greasy spirit stone abacus, the beads clicking with a dry, rhythmic sound in the silence.
"Lao Zhou!"
Liu Qingchen deliberately raised his voice with an exaggerated familiarity that echoed off the cramped walls. The sudden shout startled the broker so badly that he nearly rolled off the chair, his arms flailing as he struggled to find his footing.
"Ow! Elder Liu! What a rare visit, truly rare!"
Lao Zhou instantly plastered on a fawning, yellowed grin, his eyes squinting as he adjusted his robe. His tiny mung bean eyes swept over Liu Qingchen and then shifted to Chen Jinshu, lingering an extra beat on the seemingly ordinary storage pouch at her waist. He quickly rubbed his hands together and stepped forward, his posture stooped and welcoming.
"It has been quite a while since you last honored my little shop with your presence. Are you looking to buy or rent today? And this fairy here, just look at her bearing, clearly she is a distinguished guest from a prestigious lineage!"
His mouth spilled empty flattery like water, but his gaze was sharp as a hook, trying to weigh the value and status of the cold and aloof female cultivator standing before him.
Xiao Yin perched on her shoulder let out an impatient clang and turned its small head away, its feathers ruffling as it was clearly disgusted by the greasy, mercantile aura clinging to the man.
"Manager Zhou," Chen Jinshu said calmly, cutting straight through his chatter. "I'm looking for a quiet cave dwelling to stay in for a time. The spiritual energy needs to be passable, but seclusion is the priority. I'm looking for a short-term rent, only a few months."
"No problem at all!" Lao Zhou's smile grew even wider, his teeth glinting in the dim light. He swiftly pulled out a dull gray jade slip from his oily sleeve and injected a strand of his spiritual sense into it. A shimmering miniature projection of the market immediately floated in the center of the dark room, the glowing lines depicting the valley's layout.
He expertly pointed at several glowing spots while talking up a storm, his voice rising in pitch. "Fairy, take a look at this place. Green Vine Pavilion. It's a prime location for any seeker of the Dao.
It's right next to a branch of the inner market spirit vein, and it even has a third-tier spirit spring in the private courtyard.
Every morning, the spiritual energy there condenses into a thick mist. One breath is worth half a day of bitter cultivation. The original price is three thousand low-grade spirit stones per month, but since Elder Liu personally recommended you, I will give you a discount. Two thousand eight hundred. It's absolutely worth it."
The projection showed a delicate courtyard with a flowing spirit spring and a hazy, celestial-looking spiritual mist. It was undeniably tempting and looked like the perfect place for a Zhēnrén to reside.
Her expression didn't change at all as she watched the flickering light. She only asked lightly, "Anything else?"
Seeing that she was unmoved by the luxury, Lao Zhou's eyes flickered with a new calculation. His finger slid across the projection to another, slightly more remote spot on the mountain. "Then how about the Listening Pines Residence? It's backed by the outer spirit wood forest of the valley. The wood spiritual energy there is especially rich and vibrant, perfect for a refined Daoyou like yourself. The monthly rent is two thousand two hundred."
The projection shifted, revealing an image of surging green pine waves and a sturdy-looking cabin.
She remained silent, her gaze fixed on the glowing map.
Her fingers brushed lightly against the inner layer of her storage pouch through the fabric of her robes. The amount of spirit stones she had left was clear in her mind. The gains from the alliance meeting had been substantial, but after buying several rare spirit plants and setting aside materials for her future alchemy, her funds were already tight. A rent of several thousand spirit stones per month was simply too much for her current budget.
The practiced smile on Lao Zhou's face started to crack as the silence stretched. He glanced sideways at the elder, who looked perfectly at ease while he leaned against a shelf.
Liu Qingchen gave a light, dry cough and spoke at the right moment, his tone carrying a lofty kind of consideration. "Manager Zhou, this Daoyou is straightforward in her dealings. She just arrived and only wants a quiet place to cultivate without distractions. There's no need to mention anything flashy or expensive. Do you have something more affordable for her?"
Lao Zhou's eyes spun again like the beads on his abacus. His finger jabbed hard at a dim, neglected corner of the projection, an area with barely any light at all. The image abruptly zoomed in, revealing a solitary stone house standing at the edge of a jagged mountain hollow. Behind it stretched a vast, dreary expanse of gray, barren land.
"Yes, yes! Take a look at this. Boulder Residence!"
His voice shot up, brimming with exaggerated excitement, like he had struck gold for her.
"Look at this terrain, it's solid and stable. Backed by a high cliff, facing the wind to gather qi, it forms its own natural pattern. And most importantly, it's quiet. Truly quiet. Hardly anyone ever comes by that way. As for the rent…"
He deliberately dragged out the last words, watching her expression for any sign of interest. "Only eight hundred low-grade spirit stones per month. At this price, you won't find anything like it in the entire Medicine King Market, even if you searched with a lantern in the dark. If it wasn't for Elder Liu's good graces and your own status, I wouldn't even dare to offer this price!"
She fell silent for a moment, her eyes tracing the lonely silhouette of the house. Eight hundred spirit stones was indeed cheap, cheap enough to live there for years without worrying. But as she looked at the gray, lifeless backdrop around the stone house, especially the wasteland behind it that faintly exuded a sense of deathly stillness even in the projection, doubt crept into her heart.
"Why is this place so cheap?" Her gaze sharpened as she looked straight at the broker.
"Ah!" Lao Zhou slapped his thigh, his face full of fake regret. "Fairy, you don't know the history. This used to be a corner where the valley dumped discarded medicinal residue from the great furnaces. But it's been cleaned up long ago, I assure you.
There's just a bit of residual ground qi that hasn't dispersed yet. It barely affects cultivation if you have a strong foundation. You're a Core Formation Zhēnrén, aren't you? A little turbid qi like that will be refined with a few breaths of your spiritual power. The key is that it's cheap and it's quiet."
So it was an abandoned medicinal waste site.
She understood the situation at once. That so-called residual ground qi was probably far from negligible and likely quite toxic.
Still, in a place like the Medicine King Valley Market, where every inch of land was expensive and the local disciples were exclusionary, eight hundred spirit stones was the best dwelling she could afford while maintaining her reserves.
More importantly, this forsaken land that other cultivators avoided like the plague was actually a treasure ground to her specific needs. The crimson lotus mark on her forehead could purge toxins and absorb the trace ground qi mixed within the air, turning a liability into an asset.
She stayed silent for a while, her face showing a clear struggle for the benefit of the observers. After a long moment, her fingertip lightly tapped the dim projection on the table.
"This one. I will rent it for three months."
"Decisive!" Lao Zhou was overjoyed, his small eyes practically disappearing into his face as he was afraid she might change her mind. He quickly pulled out a heavily scratched bronze token and a spiritual energy contract from a drawer.
"Fairy, please check it. Just imprint a strand of your spiritual sense. The rent is two thousand four hundred spirit stones, with a deposit of one thousand for the jade keys. That comes to a total of three thousand four hundred low-grade spirit stones."
In the next instant, heavy spirit stones flowed out of her storage pouch and landed in Manager Zhou's hands with a satisfying clink.
Liu Qingchen stroked his beard and smiled as if he had accomplished a great act of kindness for a fellow cultivator. Yet deep in his eyes flashed a trace of the innate condescension common to the Medicine King Valley cultivators.
An outsider Zhēnrén could only settle in the forgotten corners they deigned to give away.
…
A short while later.
The heavy stone door of the Boulder Residence closed behind her with a thud, cutting off the noisy world of the market outside.
In the next instant, a dull, oppressive stench mixed with the bitterness of aged medicinal residue surged toward her from every corner of the room. This was nothing like the lightly dismissed "trace ground qi" the broker had mentioned. It was so thick and heavy that it almost felt tangible against her skin.
Xiao Yin was already restless on her shoulder. Its blue-red tail feathers flared as it let out sharp, protesting clangs of annoyance. It rubbed its small head hard against her neck, instinctively repelled by the filth and spiritual pollution of this place.
She gently stroked its smooth feathers and sent a strand of pure wood spiritual energy into its small body, soothing her spirit pet's agitation.
"Bear with it for now," she murmured, her voice echoing in the sparse room.
The stone chamber itself was spacious enough for her needs. The walls were rough and unpolished, containing only a simple stone couch and a low stone table. Thick dust from years of neglect piled up in the corners.
The single window in the room faced the vast wasteland behind the house.
That so-called wasteland was a stretch of scorched, cracked earth where nothing grew, littered with indistinct pill impurities and blackened slag from ancient refinements.
The stagnant, toxic miasma hanging in the air outside the window was a slow-acting poison for wood-type spirit beasts and cultivators practicing wood-attribute techniques, constantly eroding their vitality and disrupting the natural flow of spiritual energy.
After taking in the entire layout and the severity of the toxins, she felt that it wasn't worse than she had expected.
"It's acceptable."
She walked over to the stone couch and sat down, crossing her legs and closing her eyes as her spiritual sense sank deep into her sea of consciousness. Before long, as the pervasive toxic miasma began to seep into her body through her pores, the lotus mark on her forehead quietly bloomed with a soft light.
The poison was steadily forced out of her meridians and refined, eventually transforming into pure spiritual energy that flowed smoothly into her dantian.
"The alchemy gathering is about to start. I need to get the Hundred Herbs Token as soon as possible."
She then opened the Xuanpin Alchemy Scripture with her spiritual sense, the golden characters glowing in her mind.
Very quickly, she found a promising pill formula within the ancient text.
[Purple Palace Spirit Nurturing Pill]
[Tier: Third-tier high-grade, Nascent Soul realm]
[Effect: Nourishes the Golden Core and tempers the spiritual sense. It has remarkable effects for breaking through difficult bottlenecks and stabilizing foundations in the mid-Nascent Soul stage, and it can also slowly repair damaged spiritual sense.]
[Main ingredients: three-hundred-year Spirit Condensing Flower stamens, five-hundred-year Purple Veined He Shou Wu tuber extract, a Jade Marrow Ganoderma with an intact body, three Earthfire Lotus Hearts, and three drops of Rootless Spirit Dew…]
[Auxiliary ingredients: Star Pattern Sand and Azure Void Stone powder.]
"Purple Palace Spirit Nurturing Pill. This one is not bad."
Her expression soon turned troubled as she read the requirements. Even among third-tier pills, this specific formula was notoriously difficult to master. The requirements for spiritual sense control and the fine, microscopic manipulation of spiritual energy were nearly harsh.
Its main effects of nourishing the Golden Core and tempering the spiritual sense made it a prized treasure for cultivators seeking to solidify their Dao foundation and break through their limits.
If she succeeded in the refinement, the pill's quality would be more than enough to exchange for that crucial Hundred Herbs Token.
The problem was the environment. Impure spiritual energy and invasive toxic miasma were both major taboos for alchemy.