Chapter 14: The Rise of the Rogue Merchant

  Smoke drifts, and Xiao Dou has such a small but mighty demeanor, leading more than 200 young fellow disciples to cultivate, gather, and live their lives...

  After several months, near New Year's Day, Xiaodou, who usually keeps a low profile and studies hard, led everyone to the stream to catch fish!

  He touched the icy cold mountain spring and said in a commanding tone:

  "Girls, listen up! Don't go into the water, just pick fish from the shore. Boys with non-yang attributes help out on the shore. Those with pure yang abilities who aren't afraid of the cold come with me to drive the fish into the net!"

  That confident tone undoubtedly moved many people's hearts at the time, and they followed Big Brother Master to catch fish with joy.

  Dozens of boys jumped into the water, playing and frolicking for a while before starting work, following Xiaodou in parallel swimming, driving fish to the lower net, then people on both sides of the shore lifted the fishing net at once!

  Chilly winter, a faint ray of sunshine, shines on the fish jumping up, splashing silver light ripples, looking at the big fish swimming around, everyone showed happy smiles!

  More than 200 people stood on the shore with excitement, rushing quickly to catch fish and putting them into prepared bamboo baskets.

  They worked hard all day, filling twenty-five baskets with brook trout and five with precious brook char, then mixed in some ordinary mountain herbs and a piece of their latest hundred-year-old ginseng, and put them together on the trading market at Wandering Peak.

  As the New Year is approaching, this trading market is exceptionally hot. Those people who are usually busy with their cultivation have come out of their homes to buy good things for their families and apprentices, delicious food, and New Year's gifts. As a result, these small items have been sold in large quantities, even selling for as much as one spiritual stone per item, and there are still many buyers!

  She instructed a few apprentices, clever and capable younger brothers and sisters to learn well and shout loudly. After the business was done, Xiao Dou strolled around this small market of cultivators for a while.

  Found many business opportunities, such as selling couplets, painting door gods, these are things that every cultivator can do, but a small number of people cannot, and they cannot show their faces!

  Then there's the wine, this stuff is selling like hotcakes in Ling Stone, and it's in short supply. I remembered that my predecessor wrote in his notes: The monkeys on the back mountain can brew wine, called Monkey Wine. Master always lets them steal it, Xiao Dou's heart was filled with excitement!

  Also found that making clothes, making delicious rice cakes and so on, they can all earn spirit stones. Seriously remembered in the heart, at this time, more than 200 fellow disciples together held 76 thumb-sized, five-colored low-grade spirit stones, surrounded him with cheers...

  He was already ill with a cold, and now in the winter he had to dive into the water to catch fish. His whole body ached as he thought about how helpless he felt. This group of little rascals were making a big fuss, the boys wanting delicious food, the girls wanting new clothes!

  No one mentioned the elixir, it's really been ruined by them. Forget it, just treat it as coaxing a child. Moreover, my own clothes are almost worn out and torn in the butt. I spent 46 spirit stones to buy New Year's goods, food, cloth...

  Since this is what everyone has worked hard to earn together, keeping it would also be a trouble. Shuixian had also said: This is easy to lead to gossip and not good.

  In front of everyone, he bought a lot of immortal grass seeds and more than ten bottles of low-grade spiritual medicine that was beneficial for breaking through the bottleneck. He divided all the things equally among everyone, spending all his spirit stones.

  But at this time, Xiao Dou's heart was feeling strange and not quite right. It's no wonder, he still hadn't obtained a single piece of spiritual stone, and was as poor as could be. He didn't even have enough money to buy a pen to write couplets, let alone those mysterious magical instruments!

  Watching his junior brothers and sisters already having the ability to control their magical instruments, able to do some unbelievable things, this senior brother's heart was even more unpalatable. But after receiving new clothes made by his junior sister, he happily followed everyone in celebrating a prosperous New Year.

  It was several months when the spring warmed up and flowers bloomed, Xiao Dou entered the territory of a group of monkeys in the mountains with an imposing manner. As he stood on a tree branch, looking at the attacking monkeys with disdain, he suddenly flew up and after a few ups and downs, he left the "squeaking" monkey group behind him.

  Dashing into a hollow giant tree, the two large wine jars behind him, which were even bigger than himself, directly snatched away all the monkey wine that the little monkeys had painstakingly brewed, and flew away...

  "This is already the fourth time!" Xiaodou buried two jars of wine in the backyard and sighed silently:

  "Sneaky and ruthless, although it's just a group of little monkeys, but my heart still feels bad, sigh... I'm really not the material for great things. Never mind, this year I must get a low-level magic weapon, otherwise what's the difference between me and those outer sect disciples who are ordinary people? Then do some business that I'm good at, at most... Ha~ when winter comes, the little monkeys will be starving, why not store some fruits in the cellar during summer and give them to eat next winter? This is also a way for me to repay them, I'm really a great kind person ~ GaGa ~"

  Since he discovered his business acumen, apart from practicing martial arts, he has been thinking about it. Instead of exhausting himself to death and wasting his youth on practicing skills, why not just engage in buying and selling, become a merchant and make a fortune? As long as one is careful, there's no danger, and the elixirs needed for cultivation are readily available, aren't they?

  Maybe someday I'll be able to get a powerful magical artifact like Yun Xiaoqiao's, wow~ so cool! Wiping away happy tears, keep working hard!

  During this time, he also inquired about everyone's cultivation status. Under the collective wisdom of his companions, he combined the 45 forms of Gongfa and some secret recipes that were not convenient to reveal, and finally created six sets of Gongfa suitable for everyone.

  With the help of Mo Tian Ya's little magic, everyone was growing rapidly, some people even conjured up thunder with their small hands, fired out fireballs, and condensed ice cones...

  All sorts of things, mixed and abnormal, the five elements are all there, even small beans can talk and count, reassigning the ranking of fellow disciples, anyway, it's not a big deal, just settle it over a meal or casual chat.

  Xiao Dou, who had already been surpassed by some of his junior brothers and sisters, was slowly pondering some small magic tricks due to his slight disappointment with the Innate Divine Art. It's no wonder that a young child with an undecided heart would feel disappointed.

  This innate divine skill is the foundation of Taoist sect, the basic method of one energy transforming into three purities. Its power is enormous and its wonder is extraordinary. Even if you practice it in the first heaven, you will need decades of Taoist cultivation to achieve it. The fourth layer may even require hundreds of years!

  He was dizzy for this year and number, that is, looking at his own pure skill, far surpassing many younger brothers and sisters, and with Shui Xian's words, he did not give up, still persistently practiced.

  However, his Sacred Fighting Technique has made significant progress and can also help strengthen his Innate Divine Ability. He can practice however he wants and still make progress, which is quite interesting. Now that his divine power is unmatched, he can defeat all his junior brothers with just a flick of his wrist, leaving him feeling complacent in his bed~

  But looking at the small sprouts of Lingcao, he was too lazy to take a look, what's the use, and still had to take care of them, annoying!

  It's another year's opportunity, and Xiao Dou seizes the chance to tell his fellow disciples about the business opportunities he has sensed, and for a time everyone is extremely busy!

  They collectively caught a fish, sold it out and used the money as the door fee. Four capable departments were sent to purchase goods, while they led everyone to start a business, selling wine on one side and New Year's paintings on the other.

  Little guy ~ Not a bit big, Shuixian taught is one aspect, for the sake of making money, actually practiced a good handwriting, good painting, even faster than selling Langjiu!

  Then, a few days before the Chinese New Year, he sold fifteen jars of Monkey King wine and a large pile of New Year's paintings. It wasn't that he wanted to keep one jar for himself to drink, but rather because he read in a book that if you store the red, plump part of the wine for several years, it would become even more valuable, almost rivaling the finest wines. Among the sixteen jars, he had saved nearly half a jar, and with a happy smile, he buried this future wealth-bringing wine underground.

  However, these junior brothers and sisters also collectively went crazy, and they heavily slapped the senior brother with a big bamboo stick - each girl had one piece of the sect's low-ranking disciple white clothes, but because there were too few spirit stones, not to mention that the male junior brothers didn't want them collectively, even several girls didn't get a full set.

  Looking at the unhappy faces of the younger brothers and sisters who didn't get any, Xiaodou gritted his teeth and promised to match them next year. Only then did everyone smile foolishly, fantasizing about their own handsome appearance in cool clothes, which was really awesome!

  Actually, Xiaodou thought in her heart that buying these clothes was really not very useful!

  Yes, at most it's just being looked down upon by a few people, so that others won't think they're lowly outer sect disciples. And the clothes have a small defensive shield function, what can it defend against?

  "Hmph! At most, it's just for rainy days, can prevent oneself from getting drenched. What's the use? Sigh... Not as practical as having some medicinal dan."

  In the end, he was left with sixteen low-grade spirit stones. The idea of exchanging them for treasures had vanished into thin air. He exchanged ten low-grade spirit stones for a middle-grade spirit stone the size of his palm and carefully collected it.

  He spent the winter, from time to time, picking out four baskets of fruit from the cellar and flying to the back mountain to feed the little monkeys. These little monkeys saw their arch-nemesis and were so angry they could die! But these animals that had not yet opened their spiritual wisdom were easy to coax, given some food and they wouldn't chase him to hit him anymore, even when spring arrived and Xiaodou went to fetch wine again, they didn't hit him.

  In the blink of an eye, it has been six years since he arrived in this valley. Xiaodou has grown into a mature and steady young man with a heroic bearing. The spiritual mountain's precious land has nurtured his clear eyebrows and bright eyes, often with a gentle smile on his elegant face.

  In these years, he asked himself if he had done enough to be worthy of being called a senior brother. Except for the second year when he bought clothes for the girls and the third year when he bought everyone clothing symbolizing the inner disciples of Mount Jiuhua.

  In the fourth and fifth years, each person was given a low-level flying sword artifact. Although they still couldn't control the flying swords to attack people or stand on them to fly, in the cultivation world, especially among the Daoist Xuanmen Orthodox School and the Confucian Ancient Sect, flying swords were the trademark of every cultivator, an essential item. Without one, you'd be met with disdain! Even the disciples responsible for internal security checks within the sect would stop and interrogate them at random.

  In the sixth year, because many people needed to use dan medicine to rush through the pass and practice their qi in the early stages, he bought a small pile of low-grade spiritual dan pills and distributed them to everyone.

  But he himself, on the surface, all items are the same as everyone else, without any difference. Of course, others don't know that his ring helps in cultivating Xuan Gong, and in his bag, there are three pieces of mid-grade spirit stones and eight pieces of low-grade spirit stones privately stored, and also four jars of precious monkey wine that he has not sold yet!