Chapter 22: The Taoist's Sluggishness and the Monk's Heart

  "These are all mundane objects, how can they enter the eyes of a Taoist priest? I think it's better to throw these mundane objects here and let me take care of them for you, so as to reduce your burden. What do you think, fellow Taoist?" The big monk saw Wang Guang stretch out his hand, and his bald head shook repeatedly. He was reluctant to pay more crystal stones to Wang Guang again.

  "You bald donkey, stop messing around. You take these treasures and start building the secret room according to the blueprint, I'll use crystal stones to buy some materials. If you don't give me crystal stones, do you want me to go rob or steal?" Wang Guang coldly snorted and threw more than a dozen treasures from his treasure bag onto the ground. "Robbing those low-level fellow disciples doesn't yield much, but we can't defeat the high-level ones. Do you think this secret room is still worth building?"

  "I only have this little crystal left, I'll give it all to you, don't ask me for more. Otherwise, you will force me to pawn my treasure to collect crystals for you, which would greatly damage the face of a poor monk like me, and that's not good." The great monk saw that Wang Guang was serious, so he didn't dare to delay any longer, and directly took out his hundred-treasure pouch from his waist and turned it upside down.

  A bunch of miscellaneous items fell out of the treasure bag with a clatter. There were damaged flying sword artifacts, incomplete Taoist scriptures, but most numerous were thumb-sized rhombus-shaped crystals, totaling over a thousand.

  Upon seeing the other party toss out such a pile of scrap metal, Wang Guang let out a disdainful cold snort. Although he had only recently entered the world of Qi training and hadn't seen many good things, he couldn't help but look down on these broken items. "Sort through this scrap metal and sell it off, or else restore them to their original materials to build a secret chamber; leaving them here is truly useless."

  "Haha! You don't understand, in ancient times there was a great master who was notorious for robbing and plundering. One time, he accidentally killed a newly-minted Qi-refining practitioner and obtained a incomplete Daoist scripture from the victim's body. He became famous in the Qi-refining world at that time precisely because of this incomplete scripture. I'm just following in his footsteps, who knows, maybe I'll have good luck too."

  The big monk shook his head and started talking: "I don't dare to hope for dominating the Qi-refining world, but being a top existence in one state is already enough. At that time, if this poor monk wants to build as many temples as he wants, he can; if he wants to discuss Buddhist scriptures with as many nuns as he wants, he can find them. You say, how can such good things be exchanged for scrap metal?"

  Wang Guang didn't bother to respond to the monk, but instead squatted down and flipped through several incomplete Taoist scriptures with his hands. "This one is a cultivation method of One Qi Yin Lei, this method in One Qi Sect is a street vendor's goods, you can get the full version for free, and this one is still incomplete." This Taoist scripture records the refining method of the Wronged Soul Banner, in that scripture pavilion, relying on my identity, I can copy it at any time. Wang Guang pointed to more than ten incomplete Taoist scriptures on the ground one by one.

  "You think you're so clever, but how could such good fortune fall on your head? If I had precious Daoist scriptures, I'd memorize them and burn the originals. Even if I couldn't remember them, hiding them in a secret place would be safer than carrying them on me. If someone were to capture you for those precious scriptures, they might spare your life since they can't see what's inside, giving you a chance to escape." Wang Guang stacked the incomplete Daoist scriptures together and pressed down with both hands, using his Golden Claw divine ability to turn them into flying ash. "How is it that you don't even know this little trick? I really don't know how you managed to survive in the Jianghu all those years."

  This remark made the big monk speechless and unable to utter a single word of refutation.

  Finally, it was Wang Guang who put away the crystal stones and prepared a few magical treasures to start building the secret room, which ended the monk's embarrassing silence.

  "I'll dig a simple tunnel ahead, and you can expand it with your demonic beasts and treasures behind me. This way, you won't have to look at those annoying blueprints either. And you won't have an excuse to slack off." With that, Wang Guang directly sprayed some spiritual energy onto the few low-grade treasures in his hand for a simple refinement, then began digging the secret chamber according to the markings on the blueprint.

  That great monk saw Wang Guang's behavior and really couldn't be lazy or avoid it. He only saw the monk's hand turning the urn, and he actually put more than 100 black bears into it. After that, the urn turned again, releasing dozens of golden lights, which fell to the ground and burst open, revealing one by one a giant pangolin over a zhang long.

  This demonic beast, the pangolin, looked no different from an ordinary pangolin, only its body was slightly larger. They shook their heads and began to expand the simple tunnels dug by Wang Guang under the command of the great monk, and their ability to dig into the ground became even stronger after becoming a demon.

  More than ten days passed in a flash. Wang Guang and the fat-headed, big-eared monk didn't go to fight the monster anymore, but instead focused on building this underground secret room.

  A three-hundred-and-sixty-acre underground secret room, even if two people have a special treasure and a demon beast to assist them, in more than ten days, they have only excavated dozens of acres of secret rooms, this speed is neither fast nor slow.

  "Wanli Tianzun! Monk, tomorrow is the day when the Wanling fruit ripens. Why don't we go and find some Wanling fruits to bring back, then use them to trade for some refined iron ore to build this underground chamber? It'll save us from spending our crystal stones to buy it." Just as he finished speaking, Wang Guang, who was sitting cross-legged on a giant stone, suddenly opened his mouth and inhaled, sucking the ball of green smoke floating above the stone into his belly.

  The big monk sitting opposite Wang Guang shook his head repeatedly: "It's better for you to go alone, I think this secret room doesn't need to be built! The other day, I was ignorant and deceived by you. Now, I'm not willing to expand the secret room anymore. With these seven or eight rooms, it's enough for us to use, why do we need to continue expanding?"

  The great monk shook his head and refuted while pinching his fingers, manipulating the demon-trampling pestle that rotated around the giant stone between the two to help temper them with the power emitted by the giant stone.

  Those seven or eight demon-subduing pestles shone even more golden and dazzling than they had over ten days ago, and upon closer inspection, one could see golden light flowing from the pestles. These past ten-odd days had allowed Dharma to use the aura emitted by Wan Zai Qing's body to boost the power of his treasure by a huge margin.

  "Hey! Monk, stop pretending in front of me. Even if we don't continue building the secret room, we must first set up a forbidden array to protect this already built room. Otherwise, it's like a doghouse - anyone who discovers it can come and go as they please. To say something unpleasant, we're hiding here without anything to defend against intruders, just like a prostitute being toyed with at will." As he spoke, Wang Guang suddenly stood up and pointed to the massive Wan Zai Qing placed in the pit on the ground, then pointed to the surrounding space of about one mu (about 0.165 acres) and said: "Without an array to protect it, if a powerful being detects it, they'll surely barge in and occupy this secret room, taking the Wan Zai Qing. At that time, won't you just surrender without putting up any resistance?"

  "I'm not even proficient in the Array Prohibition, so how can I help you? If I don't help you, you'll say I'm lazy and shirking my duties. In that case, why bother with those prohibition arrays?" The Great Monk sneered and stood up, his seven or eight Demon-subduing Hammers swirling around him in a flurry of motion. Occasionally colliding, they would explode into rays of golden light scattering everywhere, forming a thin layer of golden aura enveloping the monk's head from behind, making him appear somewhat like an enlightened high priest from afar.

  It was just yesterday that the two of them dug out a huge secret room again, and finally decided to give up continuing to dig because they were too tired.

  It never occurred to him that today Wang Guang would worry about this underground chamber, nearly a hundred feet below the surface, being discovered by others, so he had the idea of perfecting the secret room, which led to the dispute.

  "Monk, I've thought about it carefully for a night. The formation and restrictions must be set up. Here's what I think: I'll take care of setting up the formation and restrictions, and you can't just sit here practicing your internal energy. You go dig out the next secret room according to my markings. This way, neither of us will have to worry about the other slacking off." Wang Guang pulled down his waist and swung his dusting cloth a few times.

  "If we were to snatch the Wanling fruit, it would be easy for people to track us down. This might expose the secret chamber, which wouldn't be good." The Great Monk furrowed his brow and then pinched his fingers to retrieve seven or eight demon-suppressing clubs from his waist's Hundred Treasures Pouch. He turned around and began pacing in this secret chamber with only one solitary stone pillar.

  "Monk, I don't know what you're worried about either. Where's the courage you had when you were robbing and killing people a few days ago? You dared to kill and rob back then, but now you're afraid of others robbing you? If we encounter someone stronger than us, it doesn't matter if we give them some spiritual fruit. Moreover, I have thousands of thunderfire pellets here, and even if throwing them out in one go can't hurt anyone, we can still use them to escape." Wang Guang patted the gourd at his waist loudly: "Bring back the courage from when you were mixed up in the bloody depths! Have you become like this after just a few days of peace?"

  "Maitreya Buddha! Next time we seize the Wanling fruit, this time we will stay here for another 30 to 50 days." The monk said this and turned around to sit next to the Wan Chai Qingyuan, starting to meditate and slowly inhale the spiritual energy emitted by the giant stone.

  As the monk inhaled and exhaled spiritual energy, a faint golden light enveloped his body. As the golden light grew stronger, the monk's body began to tremble slightly, and threads of golden light seemed to slither into his body like venomous snakes.

  For several days, Wang Guang had been meditating and practicing his internal energy, absorbing the essence of heaven and earth, and excavating the secret chamber. This time, when he looked carefully, he suddenly discovered that the current appearance of this great monk was exactly what it would look like when he was about to break through the law gate. And this discovery made Daoren's heart involuntarily thud with worry.

  "Now I'm evenly matched with this monk in terms of magical power, and although I've been practicing meditation and transporting magical energy these past few days, it's still slower than before. Unexpectedly, this great monk has taken advantage of the special properties of Wan Zai Kong Qing to intensify his cultivation, if he succeeds in upgrading his magical abilities, who knows what kind of Taoist techniques he'll be able to cultivate? At that time, I'll really be at a disadvantage compared to him, which is not good."