Chapter 12: Miscellaneous Matters of Cultivation

  "Master, Master! The Sun Mansion was really haunted last night. This morning I heard people saying that everyone around the Sun Mansion heard and saw things yesterday evening. Some even said they saw a celestial being descend from heaven and use heavenly thunder to strike down the evil spirit, scattering its soul! At noon, my mother still wanted me to go to the temple to burn incense, haha, she doesn't know that the great Bodhisattva lives in our house! Li Xiang was excited beyond measure, although he knew what Master said was true. Who knows, maybe after a few years, he would become a celestial being like the ones in the stories."

  Although the Sun Mansion strictly forbids servants from talking about this matter, last night's commotion was so big that it has spread throughout Nanping City by now. As for this matter, the master of the Sun Mansion also doesn't have a good solution and can only hope that the god-like expert from last night won't mind these trivial matters.

  "Of course there are ghosts, you still don't believe it, come here and I'll show you what a ghost looks like? It's also good for you to have a psychological preparation when you encounter one in the future." Yu Feng took out the jade stone that captured ghosts from yesterday and then pointed his hand at Li Xiang's forehead.

  "Focus your mind and spirit, open the mystic heavenly eye, appear!"

  Li Xiang only felt a cool breeze on his forehead, and then his eyes seemed to become clearer, and he could even see through the jade stone to the appearance of the evil spirit inside, and he let out a "hiss" as his heart was filled with cold air.

  "Master, is this the evil spirit from yesterday? Didn't you beat it until its soul flew away?" Li Xiang asked.

  "Nonsense! Those people have been spreading rumors, this ghost was captured by me back then and I've kept it for its usefulness. This evil spirit has harmed many people, after being suppressed for years, it's trying to harm people again as soon as it's out. It's not worth pitying! But keeping it in my hands means it won't have any chance to come out and do evil in the world again. By the way, did you hang those wooden talismans well? Don't forget that one!" Yu Feng immediately scolded with a smile.

  "Uh, it was already hung up early this morning, I told my parents that it was a gift from the noble person you met, Master. They both smiled and said that you're really good to me!" Li Xiang stroked the jade stone, thinking that he would take a closer look, but at this time, Yu Feng's technique had already been withdrawn, no matter how hard he looked, it was useless.

  "Don't take these things lightly, although they may not be a big problem in peaceful times, but as the saying goes: 'A country on the verge of chaos must have evil spirits.' Now, many places are struggling to survive, opium has been poisoning the people for a long time, and no one in the imperial court is paying attention. This is the easiest time for evil Daoist masters to emerge and cause trouble, they take advantage of the country's chaos to collect living souls, refine evil artifacts, and create countless vengeful spirits." Yu Feng said to Li Xiang.

  "Hmm, Master, I'll definitely be careful in dealing with these things. But what if I really encounter a ghost?" Li Xiang replied.

  "This is a matter of encountering what kind of evil spirit, if it's just an ordinary little ghost, then there's no need to be afraid of it. Humans have the three yang fires, also known as yang energy, while ghosts only have yin energy gathered together. If a ghost wants to roam the world, it needs to balance yin and yang, hence the common saying that ghosts absorb human yang energy. However, ghosts don't dare to absorb too much yang energy, or else they will also be destroyed. Therefore, ghosts are also afraid of people with strong yang energy.

  As for cultivators like myself, we can bring out the three yang fires from our bodies and instantly scatter the ghost's spirit. As for ordinary people, as long as you're not afraid of ghosts in your heart and act with integrity, then you'll be majestic without being angry, and your body will have a surge of yang energy, making it so that ghosts don't dare to approach you easily." Yu Feng explained.

  "So Master, you're saying that as long as I'm not afraid of ghosts, they'll be afraid of me."

  "Haha, that's roughly what I meant, but it only applies to ordinary little ghosts. People are ignorant and how many of them aren't afraid of ghosts? If you encounter an evil ghost, you can only use my hundred-year-old peach wood charm to save your life." Yu Feng said with a chuckle.

  "You can buy some more jade in the jade shop, the original jade is enough, no need for those high-quality jade stones. I'll help you refine some more jade symbols, although this hundred-year-old peach wood symbol is not inferior to the jade symbol, but the peach wood symbol fears fire, while the jade stone is impervious to water and fire."

  "Uh, okay, I'll go buy it this afternoon, Master, do you need anything else, like that black dog blood or cinnabar, and those yellow papers?" Li Xiang asked.

  "No need to be so particular, those black dog blood and the like are also useful for little ghosts, and they contain more yang energy and spiritual energy, but they can't last too long. Ordinary cinnabar is useless, only top-grade cinnabar can be used to make talismans, but top-grade cinnabar is hard to come by. Never mind, just help me buy some good quality raw iron and refined copper, we can get a hundred or two hundred pounds of it. Later, I'll give you a few jade talismans, you take them to the Sun Manor and say they're from a young man in green clothes who gave them to you this morning. Tell them that the jade talismans can drive away evil spirits and ghosts, and won't sink in water. Remember: only give him one, but let him know you have more, I'm sure he'll pay a high price for the extras. Hehe. Oh right, if the Sun Manor gives us a lot of silver, we can buy some more raw jade, and later I'll help your family members refine some things." Yu Feng thought to himself that as long as he had what he wanted, nothing else mattered, and began to think about selling a few jade talismans to make some money. The Sun Manor was undoubtedly the best buyer. In cultivation, wealth is the most important thing, without it, you can't cultivate anything.

  "Uh, okay, but Master, I don't lack money at home either, I can just buy these things for you, no need to let the Sun family get involved, right?" Li Xiang saw that Yu Feng was unwilling to use his own family's money and felt somewhat dissatisfied.

  "Silly kid, you think Master doesn't know your family is wealthy? The money from the Flower Sun Manor isn't better? Last night I even saved dozens of their lives!" Yu Feng patted Li Xiang's head with a smile.

  Three days later, Li Xiang had already instructed his men to purchase all the items, and they had bought several times more than needed. There were over 500 catties of refined copper and iron each, and nearly 100 catties of raw jade. It took three days because there wasn't that much stock available in Nanping at once, so they had to wait for three days for the goods to arrive.

  "I told you, Xiang Er, I asked you to buy more, but you didn't have to buy so much, are you trying to spend all the silver at home? With so many copper and iron, others will think you're going to make weapons for a rebellion." Yu Feng was frightened by this sight.

  "Haha, Master, didn't spend much money, you know the Sun family bought the jade talismans you refined for a whole 100 taels, these copper and iron are worthless, looking at so many only spent less than 40 taels, it's just that these jades are worth some money, but my family also only spent tens of taels, the rest were paid by the Sun family. I had the servants secretly buy them separately, no one knows, those servants won't leak it out, I gave them benefits too." Li Xiang said with a smile.

  "Alright, alright, I've bought them, so be it. When the time comes, I'll use these things to practice my skills first. You can stay here for now, and after you leave, just seal off the courtyard so no one can come in. Just say that I have something to attend to and won't be back for a while. It seems like I'm going to have to put in some hard work these days."

  Seeing Li Xiang like that made Yu Feng feel a little frustrated, but thinking about it, he had to refine many things himself, and even if he came back ten times, it wouldn't be enough, the problem was his own cultivation wasn't enough. Although he could use his formation to gather spiritual energy and combine it with his three yang true fire to refine iron essence, copper essence, jade essence and other refining materials, but the time spent was not worth mentioning, his divine sense might still be able to hold on, however, lacking in magical power was an insurmountable problem. It seemed that he could only purify these materials first for now.

  "Uh-huh, alright Master, I won't let anyone else into this courtyard." Li Xiang replied.

  That day he first laid out a hidden escape array in the courtyard, then laid out nine gathering spirit arrays, and the nine arrays were connected to form a medium-sized gathering spirit array. This array method was actually deduced by him in the mountains of Fuzhou for more than half a month, otherwise it would not have been possible to lay it out at this time.

  Because he took into account his own insufficient spiritual power and had no elixir that could supplement his true yuan, he could only use the Gathering Spirit Formation to solve it.

  Using the spiritual energy from this fifty-mile radius to replenish the true yuan in his body, Yu Feng spent nearly eighty days intermittently refining these materials into iron essence, copper essence, and jade essence. Every day was either spent using the Triple Yang True Fire to refine the materials or meditating to rest, it could be said that his life was extremely austere.

  Hard work pays off, although these days are exhausting, but because of the good foundation laid before, and also entering the Tao through martial arts, it has allowed him to reach the mid-term realm of Qi entry in just over a year, and his spiritual awareness is already no less than that of a late-stage Qi entry figure.

  By the mid-term of Qi Refining, he was able to set up the Nanming Fire Array to truly refine his equipment. The Nanming Fire Array can absorb the Heavenly Spirit Energy to generate the Nanming Fire, and the Nanming Fire is one of the few rare fires in the world that can be used for refining equipment. Another kind of Sanwei True Fire can only be used by cultivators who have reached the realm of Qi Refining and Spiritual Transformation. This was not something that Yu Feng could hope to achieve at present.

  Yu Feng first used the Southern Ming Li Huo to refine the iron essence into the Iron Essence Mother, and then used his divine thought to refine it into an ancient, dark black ring. At the moment of its formation, he instantly set up a mustard seed-sized Na Virtual Array and a Vajra Array, and his face was again pale.

  "This Nascent Soul Stage's Void-Array Formation is indeed worthy of being deployed only after the Qi Refining stage, I didn't expect it to consume so much spiritual energy." Yu Feng let out a sigh of relief at this moment, fortunately his own spiritual energy was strong enough, or else he wouldn't have been able to hold on. After recovering his spiritual energy, he carefully poured true essence into the ring, and this time, thanks to the support of the fifty-mile radius of spiritual energy, it didn't happen like last time when he almost got sucked dry while refining the equipment, and successfully activated the formation in one go.

  He put on the dark ring, and with a movement of his mind, a piece of copper essence disappeared from the ground. Then, all the remaining jade essence, iron essence, mother of iron essence, and copper essence blocks vanished one by one. Yu Feng could clearly feel the space inside the ring, where everything that had just disappeared was now stored.

  "This Daoist's Qian Kun Ring is indeed incredibly amazing, it can actually carry things like this, compared to usually having to carry a load every day, much more convenient, I wonder what the legendary Sleeve Qian Kun is like."

  Yu Feng muttered to himself, then he put the peach wood symbol, jade symbol, array, and the wine gourd into the Qian Kun ring. Although the space inside the ring was only about half a meter in diameter, these things didn't take up much space.

  After putting everything into the Qian Kun ring, he began to consider the use of the remaining materials. There weren't many things left, it was just a question of what to refine them into. Because refining slightly better magical instruments required too much material, while refining something worse would be a waste of materials.