Chapter 60: Arriving at Yunyang City Quickly
Although there were no independent caves or residences at the foot of the mountain, at least there was a single room, so they didn't have to squeeze together with others. But it was different for servants. Dozens of servants could live in a large courtyard with three rooms.
I don’t know if it was because Ruan Xing was too young or because she had hinted that she would leave, but although the disciple assigned her to work in the spiritual fields, he did not arrange any specific work for her. Because in broad daylight, all the other servants had already gone to work in the spiritual fields, and only Ruan Xing stayed in the room with a small bag on her back.
This was just what she wanted.
Rubbing her small bag, she took out two small medicine bottles, one of which was the Luoqi Pill. Ruan Xing held the Luoqi Pill in her hand and began the process of simulating a breakthrough.
She had experienced breaking through the innate realm several times in her memory. When she stepped into the innate realm, she was already half a step away from being ordinary. The true energy in her body began to transform into spiritual energy, and this process of transformation would also nourish her roots, bones and meridians, allowing her mortal bones to transform into spiritual bones. This process usually took ten days to a month.
Moreover, because it is true Qi that is converted into spiritual Qi, although the quality is improved and the quantity is reduced, it has skipped the step of drawing Qi into the body and circulating it around the body compared to those practitioners without a foundation. Therefore, after the transformation is completed, the starting point is the fourth level of Qi training. Depending on the influence of other factors, it can also reach a higher level. It is no surprise that Ruan Xing reaches the sixth level of Qi training almost every time he converts.
The simulation this time was the same. After breaking through the innate realm through the Luoqi Pill, Ruan Xing leisurely farmed in the spiritual fields at the foot of the mountain while converting spiritual energy. Half a month later, he reached the sixth level of Qi training. After picking half a pound of spiritual rice as his wages for half a month, Ruan Xing left Liuyang Study and went to the nearest town at the foot of the mountain, Yunyang City.
After using the gold he had to rent a house, Ruan Xing bought materials for drawing talismans and drew some second- and third-grade talismans, which he hung in Wanbao Tower for sale. He then used the spirit stones he had obtained to buy spiritual herbs for the medicine cauldron, and refined them into Qi Gathering Pills for his own practice.
The goal of this simulation was very clear, which was to improve her cultivation. Therefore, Ruan Xing did not spend much time drawing talismans and refining pills. She would stop when she had enough Qi Gathering Pills. She devoted herself to practicing every day to improve her cultivation. Until she was 23 years old, Yunyang City was invaded and destroyed by evil cultivators. She finally cultivated to the eighth level of Qi training.
The simulation ends.
Ruan Xing took a deep breath, and finally focused her attention on the realm of cultivation that she had never paid attention to before, and silently made a choice.
The next moment, her little face was wrinkled by the sudden pain. She bit her lips tightly but still couldn't help but let out a cry of pain.
The transformation of her spirit bones, which was originally planned to be spread over half a month, could now be completed in an instant, which was something she had not expected. She endured the pain and unbearable itchiness as if every bone in her body was broken and then growing again. After about a quarter of an hour, these feelings slowly dissipated.
Ruan Xing's clothes were already soaked with cold sweat.
Her messy hair stuck to her forehead. She wiped her face casually, feeling the spiritual energy filling her body, and her whole body was shaking with excitement.
She stretched out her hand, guiding a trace of spiritual energy to dance at her fingertips, and murmured, "Is this the feeling of cultivating immortals? It's really good."
After her excitement had cooled down a little, Ruan Xing started to work on another thing. The small medicine bottle that she had just taken out contained the piece of flesh and blood of Taoist Sun.
Although it is sealed, more than ten days have passed and it still shows signs of stinking, but fortunately it can still be used.
Recalling Taoist Sun's birth date from his memory, Ruan Xing took out a piece of yellow paper and wrote on it. Then he chanted a spell, folded the yellow paper into a thin strip and stuffed it into the medicine bottle. In a short while, an unpleasant smell of burning came out of the medicine bottle.
This is success.
Ruan Xing was delighted and felt relieved.
She stuffed the lid back into the bottle, ready to destroy it after getting down the mountain.
The spell she had just used was the same one that the Red-Headed Taoist had used to kill her before. It ignored distance and only required the flesh and blood and birth date of the person himself or his closest relatives. The only drawback was that the caster could not have a lower level of cultivation than the one being cursed, otherwise the effect would be poor.
Ruan Xing is now at the eighth level of Qi training, but Taoist Sun's cultivation has been abolished. She just cast the spell successfully without any signs of backlash, which means that Taoist Sun has already passed away.
Killing the enemy is the safest way of self-defense.
The simulator has also entered the upgrade phase and will take twelve hours before it can be used again. I don’t know what new features it will have this time, but Ruan Xing is most concerned about the cost of each simulation.
Please, don't go too far with inflation!
The next step is to set off for Yunyang City.
She had been there so many times that she could recognize the road to Yunyang City with her eyes closed.
Carrying her small bag, Ruan Xing walked out of the control area of Liuyang Study. Fearing that there might be a barrier on the mountain, she walked for a long time before she summoned Jianlai in her mind to send him the coordinates for him to come over. Because of the connection between their minds, she and Jianlai could sense each other's positions, but Jianlai needed to pass through many mountain passes, and even if his escape technique was very fast, it would still take some time.
When Ruan Xing's short legs reached the city gate, Jian Lai arrived. Although he was hidden in the air, Ruan Xing could feel that the young man was near her, ready to take orders at any time.
To enter the city, one had to pay an entrance fee of one low-grade spirit stone. Ruan Xing didn't have any spirit stones on her, so she paid ten taels of gold. Fortunately, Jian Lai didn't have to pay. I don't know whether the barrier of Yunyang City didn't treat him as a living person, or whether it didn't detect that she was carrying a puppet.
She was already very familiar with Yunyang City. She didn't need to practice by herself, so she didn't need to rent a cave with a spirit gathering array. She found a mortal broker and spent an ingot of gold to rent a relatively large courtyard. Then she went to Wanbao Tower and sold the bottle of Luoqi Pill that she had used countless times.
The selling price of Luoqi Dan is eighty low-grade spirit stones per bottle, but the purchase price is much lower. Ruan Xing only sold it for sixty low-grade spirit stones, but her main purpose was to save trouble and not waste time. Otherwise, if she set up a stall in the cultivator's market for two days, she could probably sell it for more than seventy low-grade spirit stones.
When she read novels before, she was very curious about what spiritual stones looked like. Since they were naturally grown and mined minerals, they must be different in size, and how were their qualities classified?
Now that she was holding the spirit stone in her hand, she realized that spirit stones were as big as grapes on a vine. They were round, smooth oval beads. Generally, the sizes did not vary too much. The quality was distinguished by the concentration of spiritual energy contained in the spirit stone.
Between 20% and 40% are low-grade spirit stones;
Between 40% and 60% are middle-grade spirit stones;
Those with a spiritual energy concentration between 60% and 80% are high-quality spiritual stones. So it can be inferred that those with a spiritual energy concentration above 80% are top-quality spiritual stones.
Although less than 20% contains spiritual energy, it has too many impurities and cannot be used for human cultivation. However, it can be used as raw material for refining equipment and construction.
So is it possible to use part of a 38% concentration low-grade spirit stone in cultivation, turn it into a 20% concentration low-grade spirit stone and then spend it?
The answer is no. It was originally a natural grape-shaped bead, but after using up some of its spiritual energy, a spot on the spiritual stone would become dim, and it would become a flawed and shapeless stone, which would be visible to others.
Of course, if someone insists on using things like shapeshifting or sleight of hand to make counterfeit spirit stone currency, then that would be completely missing the point, because low-grade spirit stones are not worth the effort, and you can't fool the cultivators who can afford high-grade spirit stones.
Instead of spending time figuring out counterfeit money, you might as well go find a secret place and pick some spiritual herbs to sell.
After selling the Luoqi Pills, Ruan Xing was not in a hurry to leave. Instead, she picked up some things that could be used in the Qi training period on the first floor of Wanbao Tower. Although the things in Wanbao Tower were slightly more expensive than those in the market, they were guaranteed. She didn't want to spend time competing with those smart people in the market. Those stories of picking up bargains at low prices only happened to the children of destiny. With her luck, she decided to forget about it.
A small medicine cauldron for alchemy, a cluster of ordinary quality earth fire, some spiritual herbs used to refine Qi Gathering Pills, Hemostatic Pills, and Soul Restoring Pills, a piece of yellow paper, a talisman pen, two bottles of cinnabar, and Ruan Xing used up all the sixty low-grade spirit stones.
She took these things back to the temporary courtyard she rented and began to make pills and draw talismans.
She chose some first- and second-grade elixirs and talismans that sold well, so that she could sell them as soon as possible after refining to earn her first pot of gold. With her success rate, there was almost no loss. Once this batch of things was sold, not only could she make back her investment with sixty low-grade spirit stones, but she could also make some extra money to prepare for emergencies.
No matter what time it is, you will always feel uncertain when you have no money.
As for why she, a fourth-rank talisman master, did not make higher-priced fourth-grade talismans, one reason was that high-priced things were difficult to sell as there were fewer people in demand, and the raw materials needed were more refined. She currently could not afford the spiritual wood needed to make fourth-grade talismans. Another reason was that there were very few fourth-rank talisman masters in Yunyang City. In the simulation when she became a fourth-rank talisman master, the shopkeeper of the market town looked at her with all his might, fearing that she would run away. Presumably, if she wanted to leave Yunyang City at that time, even if the shopkeeper of the market town was willing to let her go, there would be other people who would not let her go. After all, such a cash cow with low cultivation was rare.
This is not a simulation, she is in reality, and in order to avoid accidents, she can only keep a low profile.
She first made a furnace of Qi Gathering Pills. There was no alchemy room specially for cultivators in the courtyard where mortals lived, but she had considered this when she rented a house and specifically chose a courtyard with a large space so that she could refine the pills on the open space in the courtyard. There was a barrier protecting the city, and there would be no unexpected phenomena such as strong winds that would affect the pill making.
Ruan Xing activated the earth fire and placed the medicine cauldron on the stove. She put the herbs in one by one according to the order of the recipe and carefully controlled the heat. After all, she had practiced the Qi Gathering Pill hundreds of times in simulation, and was quite skilled in the process of extracting the medicine liquid. The medicinal properties were retained to the greatest extent. When it came to the pill-making part, Ruan Xing used her spiritual power to carefully control the medicine cauldron, and simmered the medicine liquid over high heat to condense it into the shape of a pill.
After putting away the underground fire and letting the medicine cauldron gently fall to the ground, Ruan Xing counted them. There were twenty-three pills. Not bad. Under normal circumstances, one portion of material could produce seventeen to twenty or more pills. It mainly depended on whether there was any waste during the extraction process. As long as the temperature was controlled well, it would not be a problem to produce more than twenty pills each time.
One batch of materials requires about three low-grade spirit stones, and a bottle of Qi Gathering Pill with six pills sells for two low-grade spirit stones. Of course, the price charged by Wanbao Tower will be slightly lower, but her twenty-three pills can be rounded up to fill four bottles, with a net profit of five low-grade spirit stones.
It took her less than a quarter of an hour to refine one furnace.
This makes much more money than working in a factory as a screwdriver.
The spiritual power of the eighth level of Qi training was enough to support her non-stop alchemy. Ruan Xing refined all the other purchased medicinal materials in one go, and packed them into small medicine bottles according to different categories. She looked at the table full of her achievements with satisfaction.
There are seven bottles of Qi Gathering Pills, and twenty bottles of Hemostatic Pills and Soul Restoring Pills. The latter is more expensive, so if nothing unexpected happens, she decided that these would be her main source of income for the time being.
Her spiritual power had been almost depleted, so Ruan Xing had to go back to bed to meditate and rest. Her cultivation was low now, and she was still a mortal. She had to wait until she reached the Golden Core stage to reshape her body before she could completely give up eating and sleeping.
Ruan Xing spent her first day in the world of immortal cultivation so fulfilling. From the morning when she boarded the Black Hawk to the evening when she was in Yunyang City, she was very busy. However, she felt that she felt more at ease now that she had cultivated herself.
Ruan Xing was afraid of laughing out loud even in her dreams.
Now that you have cultivated your Qi, wouldn’t it be just around the corner for you to overcome the tribulation and ascend to heaven?
After meditating for an hour, Ruan Xing lay on the bed and closed his eyes. As for making talismans, he would talk about it tomorrow.
A good night's sleep.
Ruan Xing got up refreshed. He first checked the update countdown of the simulator, which was still two and a half hours away. Then he went out for breakfast and went to Wanbao Tower with a bunch of small medicine bottles. He went directly to the counter for purchasing pills. The waiter inside checked the grade and completeness of the pills, and then gave spirit stones at a purchase price slightly lower than the market price. Ruan Xing took the spirit stones and counted them. There were 127 low-grade spirit stones.
This is similar to her own estimate. It seems that alchemy is a very profitable industry, but in fact it is mainly because Ruan Xing has a relatively high success rate in making pills that he can make such profits. Ordinary alchemists are not like Ruan Xing who can make pills in almost every furnace. It is common for them to produce a furnace of useless pills by mistake.
As for Ruan Xing, there is no special reason, he is just skilled!
The experience gained from so many simulations is not in vain. The improvement in success rate depends on one percent of effort and ninety-nine percent of simulators.
She put away the spirit stones and went to the first floor for a stroll. This time she wanted to buy herself a storage bag. After all, it was quite troublesome to run around with a small bag every day. She wanted to buy one yesterday, but the price of the storage bag was prohibitive. The most basic storage bag with only two cubic meters of space cost fifty low-grade spirit stones. If she bought it, she would have no start-up capital for alchemy.
Although it hurt a bit, Ruan Xing still spent fifty low-grade spirit stones to buy the most basic storage bag, which was in the style of a small purse. It did not require a drop of blood to recognize the owner. After imprinting her spiritual mark on it, it was like putting a lock on it. There was no need to worry about losing it, because as long as she was alive, only someone two major realms higher than her could forcibly erase the mark and destroy the door lock. However, a Jindan-stage cultivator should not look down on her junk.
As for her death...the mark will of course disappear on its own.
After unlocking the door and putting the small bag he was carrying and the remaining spirit stones inside, Ruan Xing planned to go to the place where skills, spells, and magical instruments were sold.
(End of this chapter)
