After polishing off a bowl of spirit rice and finishing the venison, Li Lingyu's mood finally softened a little.
Seeing her expression turn gentle again, Ji An gave a small cough and said:
"Senior Sister, tomorrow I'll be taking the sect's flying ark to Azure Cloud Immortal City. Do you need me to buy anything for you?"
It was trading time again. He planned to deliver the talismans he had accumulated over the past two months.
Thanks to the consistently high quality, even though his talismans weren't the most popular types, sales across the shops had steadily increased, and sometimes they even sold out.
When dealing with the Treasure Talisman Pavilion now, transactions were strictly cash-and-goods; they no longer required him to put down his own spirit stones as collateral.
"Nothing worth buying."
Li Lingyu shook her head. At present, she was preparing for Foundation Establishment and lacked only heavenly treasures that could strengthen her divine sense.
But even if such things appeared, she couldn't afford them; her spirit stones were already spent on her Foundation Pill, and she still owed her senior brothers and sisters a debt.
"I do have a question, though," Ji An continued. "What kinds of spiritual items can quickly replenish a late-stage Qi Refinement cultivator's mana? I'd like to buy some."
He was preparing for the Foundation Establishment stage. The mana barrier was the easiest hurdle for other promising disciples, but for him, it was the hardest.
"What do you need those for? They're overpriced and impractical. You don't even go out hunting beasts."
Li Lingyu frowned in puzzlement. A spirit farmer staying safely in the sect, why would he waste money on items that restore mana instantly?
"I actually did go to Moyai Mountain for a beast hunt once. Even ran into rogue cultivators who tried to rob me."
"…So you've got a bit of trauma then? Fine, I'll tell you a few.
The Hundred-Year Stalactite Spirit Liquid and Clear Void Water are both suitable for Qi Refinement disciples. The prices aren't bad either.
You can try looking in one of the big pill shops in Azure Cloud City. But finding them depends on luck; they're not always available.
There are substitutes too, but they're less effective and not much cheaper. Whether they're worth it is for you to decide."
"Thank you, Senior Sister."
"You're welcome."
Li Lingyu waved it off, lips curling faintly upward.
"Since Master taught us the method of tempering divine sense, I've been practicing day and night. I've made progress, but now I've hit a bottleneck.
I plan to polish it for a few more months before attempting Foundation Establishment. I'd better cherish these last days here at Verdant Cliff. If you don't understand something, make sure to ask me while you still can."
So what if you've comprehended Dao Intent, brat? Your Senior Sister is about to break through to Foundation Establishment. There are still things I can do that you can't.
...
The next afternoon, Ji An arrived at Azure Cloud Immortal City. He first made a round through the pill and spirit herb markets.
Two hours later, he walked out smiling, then turned toward the talisman district, where he was already well-known. One by one, he visited his partner's shops and sold off his talismans.
By the end of the circuit, his storage pouch held a tidy sum of spirit stones, along with two new talisman brushes and enough ink for two months' work.
By the time he left the talisman market, night had already fallen, and lanterns lit up across the city. Ji An rented a room at a guesthouse.
Unless one rented a cave-dwelling or a guesthouse room, cultivating inside the city after nightfall was forbidden. Anyone caught would be fined spirit stones.
The reason was simple: the quality and size of a spirit vein determined how many cultivators it could support. To prevent overuse and depletion, the city strictly limited both its residents and cultivation at night.
It was the same principle as the sect restricting the number of disciples allowed at each spiritual vein node, though the sect's rules were far stricter.
The sect invested heavily in nurturing its spirit veins, sacrificing some immediate profits for long-term growth. But this shared city, occupied by many factions, had no such ambition. Its goal was simply to keep the spirit veins from degrading any further.
After entering his room, Ji An formed a hand seal and activated the protective restriction array.
He released the spirit-seeking rat from its cloth pouch. The little beast shook out its fur and stretched its body, relieved after being cramped inside for so long. Staying still in that bag was always torture for such a lively creature.
Ji An then began unpacking his storage pouch, carefully laying out and tallying the day's harvest.
There were three small jade bottles, each an inch tall and about two fingers wide. One bottle was pure white as snow, the other two a faint emerald-green.
The white jade bottle contained just under half a vial of Clear Void Water, no more than a finger's depth.
He tested a single drop and quickly estimated that, if he were to consume it all, it would restore his mana from complete depletion three full times, with some left over.
The effect was almost instantaneous, taking effect within a single breath.
Powerful and with a price tag to match. Eighty spirit stones gone.
The two green bottles held Hundred-Flower Spirit Liquid, a man-made concoction produced in Falling Maple Valley, distilled from the essences of myriad herbs.
Compared to the Clear Void Water, its effect was much weaker. Ji An calculated that once he reached late-stage Qi Refinement, a full bottle would barely restore his depleted mana.
Its activation was slower as well, taking two to three breaths to fully take effect.
Fearing that a single vial of Clear Void Water might not be enough, he had purchased two bottles of the spirit liquid as backup, another thirty spirit stones spent.
Fortunately, the bottles were sealed with restrictive wards; they could be preserved for twenty or thirty years without issue. Buying in advance gave him peace of mind.
...
With a clatter, Ji An poured his spirit stones onto the table, the pile glowing with a soft, gentle radiance under the lamplight.
The spirit-seeking rat, which had been playing on the floor, suddenly leapt onto the table. Its little nose twitched rapidly like a puppy's, sniffing around as though searching for something.
In moments, it had clawed out two particular spirit stones, squeaking insistently.
Ji An frowned, lifted a beast-controlling talisman, and communicated with the rat.
His expression darkened.
The stones carried traces of some kind of powder too faint to detect with the naked eye or human senses. He hadn't noticed anything at all.
Someone's marked me… Which shop could it have been?
Ji An's eyes narrowed. These spirit stones had all come from talisman shops.
He hadn't disguised his route or made an effort to be secretive. Anyone paying attention could easily track his movements.
If it really was one of the shopkeepers, they could even estimate his trading volume over a thousand mid-grade talismans every two months, worth four to five hundred spirit stones. Enough to tempt someone into scheming.
Another thought struck him: the stones had been inside his storage pouch. For the scent to remain traceable, the hidden enemy must have a method of tracking him through the pouch itself.
So even a storage pouch isn't entirely safe…
Once more, he asked the spirit-seeking rat through spiritual communication:
"Can you remember this scent?"
"Chii! Chii!"
The rat stood upright, its round little eyes gleaming with pride.
"Then commit it to memory."
Ji An tossed a spirit beast pill as a reward, a cold glint flashing in his gaze. This debt will be settled sooner or later.
Luckily, he rarely left the sect or the city alone. Even if someone had marked him, opportunities to strike would be slim.
He would bide his time, slowly narrowing down the culprit, and when he reached Foundation Establishment, he would stage his own counter-trap.
"The days ahead are still long…" he murmured.
With that, he set aside the spirit stones into a separate pouch, swallowed a Jade Ganoderma Pill, and began cultivating the Clear Source Sutra.
The pill's spiritual energy flowed into his meridians, each circuit refining into mana and pouring into his dantian.
There, the stone tortoise floated silently, faint ripples of spiritual light glimmering across its ancient shell.
-support me in Patreon for more chapter, 125+ chapters in there
patreon.com/LordoftheReader