Chapter Sixteen Three Years
Great Song, Lingzhou, Yunfushan.
Yunfeng Mountain is the most famous mountain range in central Lingzhou, and the Lianjiang River flows through the middle of the mountain range. The Lianjiang Sword Sect, one of the four major immortal sects of the Song Dynasty, is located within Yunfeng Mountain. Similar to Lieyang Sect, the Lianjiang Sword Sect also has a vast territory of several hundred miles in the deep mountains. Other areas are open to other families and scattered cultivators. In Lingzhou, there are also several immortal markets because of the protection and intervention of the Lianjiang Sword Sect, which makes them relatively prosperous.
Yunfeng Mountain's Huixiang Peak has a market town like this. This market town is one of the larger ones in Lingzhou, second only to the Li River Market Town that opened next to the Li River Sword Sect's headquarters, and its scale is much larger than the Nanhua Market Town that Yuan Fugong had been to before, it can be considered a small town. There are many people without spiritual roots serving here, so this place has more of an ordinary city flavor.
Many of the mortals in this service are from families of disciples of the Li River Sword Sect. Each major sect has many families attached to it. The most outstanding disciples in a family have the opportunity to join the sect and cultivate immortality. Those with slightly poorer aptitude cultivate within their family, and if they can enter the Qi Refining stage, they will have some status within their clan and be in charge of various matters. Some of them bring some secular masters from their clan to open shops in various immortal markets, trading in the materials needed for immortality cultivation, selling goods produced by their clan. Therefore, there are usually a few cultivators in each shop, and many mortals serve as miscellaneous workers, so there are also taverns, tea houses, and places that sell all sorts of mortal utensils in the market. Moreover, a special area has been set aside for mortals to live in, allowing the immortal markets to have a strong secular atmosphere.
Yuan Futong, dressed in white, strolled into the misty barrier outside Hui Xiang Peak's city. His face no longer held the greenness and naivety of three years ago. Yuan Futong now had a lot more confidence. Three years of experience had matured him greatly.
Three years ago, Yuan Futong encountered a robbery and murder case in Nanhuafang City. At that time, he was only at the second level of Qi training, but thanks to his knowledge from past life readings and incredible luck, he narrowly escaped the pursuit of the three robbers. Witnessing the corpses of two of the robbers, Yuan Futong deeply understood the principle of "might makes right" in the cultivation world. The weak being preyed upon by the strong was a normal phenomenon. As someone with low cultivation level, Yuan Futong did not dare to hang out in places where cultivators often appeared, but instead chose to conduct his initial training in the mortal world. At the same time, he wanted to gain a deeper understanding of this world and correct the mindset he had developed over several decades in his past life.
Thus, Yuan Futong entered the mortal world as a congenital martial artist. Starting from being a wandering knight-errant, he began his journey in the mortal world. As written in martial arts novels, riding horses and galloping through Jianghu, with ambitions higher than the sky. Assisting those in danger and eliminating evil to bring peace to the good. This was originally one of Yuan Futong's wishes, but only when he actually did it did he realize how deeply his past life experiences had affected him. The first time Yuan Futong chased after a flower thief, he was moved by the other party's kneeling and begging for mercy, and didn't kill him, thinking that he could let him reform. As a result, he was shot with several arrows from a repeating crossbow while the flower thief took advantage of his momentary distraction while bowing. The power of the crossbow bolts was great, and even with Yuan Futong's current level of cultivation, he couldn't completely dodge them. Although a fireball technique finished off the flower thief, Yuan Futong himself was tormented by the poison on the crossbow bolts.
Since he took the initiative to kill the first person, Yuan Futong was uncomfortable for a long time. Many years of peaceful life made him feel guilty about killing people, even though the government's control over wandering knights in this world was not strong, and the one he killed was also a flower thief who deserved punishment, but it still made Yuan Futong vomit for a while.
As he came back to his senses, the crossbow bolt made him slowly accept reality. If he hadn't already entered the ranks of cultivators, with a layer of true energy automatically protecting his body, then today he would have died at the hands of this flower thief. The poison applied to the crossbow bolt was unsolvable for a mortal master, and it acted extremely quickly. Even the spiritual energy within him was affected, and only after taking the antidote pill made by the old turtle hermit did he fully recover. If he were still that young man from the mountain village who only knew how to hunt, then today he would have been the one to die.
Overcame the initial discomfort of killing. Yuan Futong began his imagined life as a wandering knight-errant. At first, it was indeed very enjoyable, and Yuan Futong slowly adapted to helping the weak and killing the wicked. However, when he truly cleaned up a notorious large mountain stronghold in the north of Chuzhou, he discovered that this kind of wandering knight-errant life would have to end. After experiencing a bitter battle to defeat the already powerful three-layered master of the stronghold, Yuan Futong did not slaughter all the henchmen in the stronghold. While organizing the stronghold's secret chamber, an account book made Yuan Futong realize he had stirred up a hornet's nest this time.
This Lin Qianshan, the leader of the stronghold, is a member of the Lin family from Chuzhou, the same family that Yuan Futong's mother came from. This stronghold is an affiliate of the Lin family and usually just collects tolls from passing merchants. They only target small-time merchants or merchant caravans from rival families. The stronghold has to hand over part of its spoils in gold and silver, but most of it can be kept for themselves. However, any spiritual energy fluctuations, high-grade medicinal herbs, or unknown rare items must be handed over to the Lin family's main household. Every half year, someone from the main household comes to collect these things from the mountain stronghold. They also bring Lin Qianshan cultivation elixirs as rewards. Lin Qianshan was selected from among the scattered branch families and became an executive of the Outer Affairs Hall of the Lin family's main household, but his position is not very high. Compared to Yuan Xing's position in the Yuan family, it is much lower, but he has entered the Pre-Heaven realm and been assigned tasks, and is also a registered disciple. Now that he has killed him, the Lin family will definitely come after him for revenge, especially since he has cut off one of their sources of wealth. And earlier, he didn't wipe out all the Lulos, so his information will definitely be known to the Lin family, and it's likely that he won't be able to stay in Chuzhou anymore.
After collecting the treasures in the secret room, Yuan Futong used his divine sense to carefully check again. Unexpectedly, he found something at the lower corner of the secret room, forcibly broke through the remaining mechanism, and found a Qiankun bag from inside, which seemed to be Lin Qianshan's private collection. After cleaning up, he set fire to the mountain stronghold and burned it down. Yuan Futong began to flee towards Zhongzhou. Fortunately, he escaped to the border of Zhongzhou before the powerful pursuers from the Lin family arrived.
This battle with Lin Qianshan was a great help to Yuan Futong. With the nourishment of Huo Yu and the accumulation of previous years, Yuan Futong's cultivation speed was quite good. Two months after leaving Nanhuafang City, Yuan Futong completed the accumulation of spiritual energy and the transformation of all the acupoints in his body, entering the third layer of Qi Refining. However, he had not broken through the bottleneck to enter the fourth layer. Yuan Futong did not mind either, relying on his three-layer cultivation to roam freely in the secular Jianghu. Yuan Futong's cultivation had become somewhat slack due to this carefree Jianghu life.
Along with Lin Qianshan, although relying on the large number of talismans in his hand to defeat Lin Qianshan, the intensity of the battle was also something that Yuan Futong, a secular martial artist who had been bullying others for a long time, had never experienced. Through the experience gained from this battle and with the help of elixirs, Yuan Futong rushed to the fourth layer of Qi Refining. After entering the fourth layer of Qi Refining, Yuan Futong first sacrificed the Flowing Fire Sword left behind by Yuan Xing, and began to use flying swords to hurry along the road, escaping for his life.
Yuan Futong was thrilled to fly the law enforcement aircraft into the clouds for the first time. Although he couldn't soar high and experience the thrill of entering the blue sky, the low-altitude flight still gave him a sense of joy from the bottom of his heart. This kind of joy was something that could not be experienced in the mundane world of Jianghu. A brand new world had opened up to him. This flight had tested Yuan Futong's determination to cultivate immortality and made him decide to give up his carefree life in Jianghu.
Yuan Futong, who had ended his wandering life, stayed in a small town called Fengyicheng in Zhongzhou. He bought a house and hired a few locals to open a medical clinic. While learning, he also practiced cultivation. Yuan Futong did not go to the mountains with dense spiritual energy to cultivate because he was afraid of encountering immortal cultivators. With a large amount of money on him and no ability to protect himself, he feared something unexpected might happen. Anyway, he had enough spirit stones and elixirs in his possession, so his cultivation progress would not be delayed, although it was a bit wasteful; for someone like him who lacked the ability to protect himself, safety came first.
Yuan Futong spent over a year studying Dan medicine. He had access to the internal elixir scriptures of Huichun Valley, along with the high-end formulas in "Liu Yun Dan Fang". After more than two years of study and experimentation, Yuan Futong successfully refined the lowest-level Qi-nourishing dan and the body-improving Huang Long dan using the existing elixirs.
The Nourishing Qi Pill is no longer of much use to me, but the Yellow Dragon Pill still has some benefits for improving my body. After all, my spiritual root is a three-series miscellaneous spiritual root, which isn't very excellent. Although my fire-series spiritual root stands out and I have the help of the Fire Jade, my cultivation speed isn't any faster than that of people with dual spiritual roots. But compared to those with heavenly spiritual roots or heterodox spiritual roots, it's still far inferior. The Yellow Dragon Pill can slightly improve my body and enhance my ability to absorb spiritual energy, so it's still useful for me.
Refining the elixir first requires solving the problem of fire. If ordinary fire is used, that is, using charcoal or wood to make a fire, only the most basic and unrefined elixirs can be refined. The earliest notes in Yuan Futong's hand recorded the medicine being refined in this way. Even if high-grade spiritual medicine is added, it will not be of much use to the cultivator.
To refine a pill that is useful to cultivators, the minimum requirement is to use spiritual fire. As the name suggests, it refers to the flame emitted by burning spiritual energy. Although one can use spiritual energy to cast a fireball technique at the first level of Qi Refining, refining pills is a long-term process. It's not something that can be accomplished with just a wave of the hand, so it requires being able to emit spiritual fire for an extended period before starting to refine pills. Therefore, only when one reaches the fourth level of Qi Refining, where the entire body's spiritual energy forms magical powers through the spiritual root, and the quality has been further improved, can fire-attribute cultivators begin to attempt refining pills. Other attribute cultivators must wait until their cultivation is higher, convert their magical powers into spiritual fire, and then start refining pills. Yuan Fugong also gained this ability only when he reached the fourth level of Qi Refining. When he first started refining pills, Yuan Fugong couldn't persist and his magical powers were depleted, but Huo Yu continued to output spiritual energy within his body, persisting in completing the pill-refining process. In the high-intensity cycle of using magical powers, recovering, and then consuming more magical powers while refining pills, Yuan Fugong's cultivation grew at an astonishing rate. From being unable to complete a single refinement without Huo Yu's help, to being able to independently complete one refinement, to being able to refine even more time-consuming pills, Yuan Fugong's magical powers rapidly grew as he wasted large quantities of medicinal materials. After successfully refining the Huang Long Dan, Yuan Fugong broke through the bottleneck at the sixth level of Qi Refining and reached the seventh level.
The Seven Layers of Qi Cultivation is an important threshold for cultivating immortality. The most crucial factor in breaking through the bottleneck is the divine consciousness. If the first three layers of Qi cultivation are accumulating spiritual energy and improving the body, then breaking through the fourth layer is cultivating the spiritual root and refining magical powers. After accumulation, when the magical powers reach a certain level, the divine consciousness must also keep up to control the magical powers. The Seven Layers of Qi Cultivation is a strengthening of the divine consciousness, and by reaching the seventh layer, the application of the divine consciousness becomes even more subtle, and the control over magical powers becomes even more agile. The magical powers and divine consciousness advance together, preparing for the initial condensation of the spiritual soul in the ninth layer of Qi cultivation.
Yuan Futong was able to quickly break through the seven layers, on the one hand, it was the credit of the two years of alchemy. Alchemy is not only a physical activity, but also a technical activity. Consuming spiritual power to form spiritual fire is a physical activity, while controlling the fire, adjusting the medicinal materials, and merging the medicinal properties is a technical activity. This requires precise operation of the divine consciousness. Therefore, Yuan Futong used two years of time to successfully refine two kinds of elixirs.
Through the manipulation of his divine consciousness, Yuan Futong's growth speed was quite fast, so breaking through the seventh layer was relatively easy. On the other hand, it was also due to the effect of Huoyu. Since that soul-snatching event, Huoyu had entered Yuan Futong's sea of consciousness, silently nourishing his soul and divine consciousness. His recovery speed was much faster than others, which allowed him to support such extreme elixir-refining exercises. Now, Huoyu's developed functions already included providing spiritual energy, nourishing the body, soul, and divine consciousness, and eliminating invading souls in the sea of consciousness. However, Yuan Futong could feel that Huoyu's functions were not limited to these, as with his growing cultivation, Huoyu's auxiliary functions became stronger. According to the auxiliary effect of Huoyu during the first layer of Qi-refining, Yuan Futong estimated it would take six or seven years to break through to the seventh layer. But now, after only three years, he had broken through the seventh layer with Huoyu's increasingly strong help. Although his own efforts were also a result, Huoyu's help was more important. If he made further progress, Huoyu's functions would become even greater, and his cultivation speed would be even faster. Thinking of this, Yuan Futong had even more confidence in achieving immortality.
After entering the seventh layer of Qi Refining, Yuan Futong's control over his spiritual consciousness had taken a big step forward, and his magical powers had also increased greatly. The difficulty of refining pills had decreased significantly for him. He had experimented with several low-grade pills and successfully refined them all. This showed that Yuan Futong had basically mastered the basic pill-refining techniques, but the high-quality spirit medicines required for further advancement were no longer something he could afford at present. The past two years of cultivation and pill-refining had almost emptied his family's wealth. There was not much spiritual stone left, and although there were many good spirit medicines, Yuan Futong did not dare to waste them, thinking that he should wait until his cultivation level improved before refining them, which would increase the chances of success. Fortunately, Yuan Futong could now refine several types of pills commonly used by Qi Refining cultivators, such as Huang Long Dan, Chong Qi Dan, Yi Qi Dan, Jie Du Dan, and Yang Shen Dan. These were all common pills that could be sold in a shop on the market, allowing him to earn spiritual stones. With his own cultivation level and the several high-quality magical tools he possessed, he was now able to protect himself sufficiently. It was time for him to return to the world of cultivators once again.
After some thought, if he wanted to open a Dan medicine shop, the location was crucial. His own single formula came from Liuyun Sect, and if he went to Liuyun Sect's place to open a shop, he might not encounter any trouble, but being discovered would be difficult to explain. Lieyang Sect was also too risky due to the Yuan family connection. Returning to Huichun Valley, the Dan medicine itself was the best in the Great Song Xianxia world, and only Lijiang Sword Sect had no grudges with him, with relatively few alchemists, so there should be a market near their sect's territory. With his mind made up, Yuan Futong flew towards Lingzhou Yunfu Mountain, the territory of Lijiang Sword Sect.
