Chapter 68

Chapter 68: The Strongest Support

More and more disciples poured out of the cultivation rooms. Everyone ran into the same problem. Not long after, Elder Deng of the Outer Sect arrived on a sword. With a wave of his hand, he told the disciples to stay calm, then went to check the situation.

When the disciples saw an elder had come, they quieted down. As long as someone was handling it, it was fine.

Two quarters of an hour later, the elder still had not returned. Just as everyone began whispering again, Elder Deng appeared in front of them with a dark face and said, “All disciples, leave first. A small problem has occurred in the cultivation hall. It will not be open to the public today. The contribution points and spirit stones you used for the cultivation rooms today will be returned. As for when the cultivation hall will reopen, disciples will notify you.”

“Yes, Elder!”

The disciples respectfully saluted and left in small groups, all quietly guessing what had gone wrong.

Yun Xi also returned to her courtyard with a face full of question marks. When she saw the closed-door cultivation sign hanging on Wei Yun Ying’s door, she went back to her own room.

After activating the isolation array, her expression finally changed. She opened her third-rank array disc as well, then entered the space.

Holding that emerald-green immortal spirit grass, Yun Xi asked, “Little immortal grass, what exactly did you do in the cultivation hall?”

The immortal spirit grass trembled its leaves in response, but it did not say what it had done.

Yun Xi rubbed her much thinner cheeks and said, “Little immortal grass… did you absorb the spirit vein buried under the cultivation hall?”

She asked cautiously, hoping she would get no response again. But this time, the immortal spirit grass reacted. A childish voice sounded in her mind: “Yeah! That low-grade spirit vein wasn’t even enough to fill the gaps between my teeth. After I filtered the impurities, it can only maintain your cultivation for one year!”

Yun Xi’s hand jerked, and she almost flung the immortal spirit grass away. She forced herself to steady her grip, then twitched at the corners of her mouth and said, “Little immortal grass… the cultivation hall is closed now. Will they trace it back… to me?”

“They won’t. I’m an immortal herb. I’m not on the same level as the spiritual plants here. They won’t find anything.”

Only then did Yun Xi breathe out in relief. Still, she used a negotiating tone and said, “Little immortal grass, let’s make an agreement. If you do something like this again, can you discuss it with me in advance?”

“Fine. Since you’re my master, I’ll reluctantly agree.”

The little immortal grass was still very smug about it.

Yun Xi wiped at sweat that was not there and, after soothing the little immortal spirit grass, prepared to leave the space.

The little immortal grass immediately transmitted to her, “Once you return somewhere safe, you can bring me out. I can provide you with pure spiritual energy for cultivation.”

Yun Xi shook her head. “Not for now. I don’t plan to go to the cultivation hall during this period. I don’t want to raise suspicion.”

The immortal spirit grass shook its leaves and could only stay in the space. It knew it could not follow its little master out openly right now. If a big shot discovered it, not only would its little master suffer, it would be squeezed dry too. This was fine as it was.

After Yun Xi left the space, she adjusted her mood, removed the third-rank array disc, and started drawing talismans. Over the next year, she lived very quietly. Aside from cultivating, she did missions.

But after experiencing that spiritual energy outage in the cultivation hall, she went there less often.

Because Yun Xi was cautious, she did not become a suspect. After all, a low-grade spirit vein being drained dry was hard not to make the sect suspicious.

So all the Outer Sect disciples who had stayed in the Outer Sect cultivation hall that day were investigated. It lasted an entire year, because they feared an evil cultivator had infiltrated the Outer Sect and damaged the sect’s cultivation resources.

Yun Xi kept cultivating steadily. During that year, the place she went in and out of the most was the alchemy hall. She had already started trying to make pills.

The alchemy hall rented out alchemy rooms. Inside were an earthfire line and an alchemy furnace, meant specifically for beginners and disciples without fire spiritual roots.

To the outside, Yun Xi showed that she had a fire spiritual root, but because she was only at the Qi Refining Stage, she did not have extra spirit stones to buy an alchemy furnace. Renting the sect’s alchemy room was the most cost-effective option. And the alchemy hall accepted pills made inside as rent payment, so Yun Xi kept a rhythm of renting an alchemy room once every month.

Mainly because alchemy required spiritual herbs, and gathering enough herbs cost spirit stones. Even if she had a lot of spirit stones, she could not spend too wildly, or it would easily attract others’ greed. This frequency was just right.

Most importantly, Wei Zong Hao had begun learning how to plant spiritual herbs. Some commonly used herbs, especially those without year requirements, were supplied by him for Yun Xi.

Yun Xi only needed to pay Wei Zong Hao in pills after she refined them. Since they were siblings, Yun Xi always took the herbs first and settled with Zong Hao after the pills were done.

With her current cultivation, Yun Xi could only refine first-rank pills. When she tried second-rank pills, her spiritual energy could not keep up. She did not force it. She focused on first-rank pills instead. As long as she could find the herbs needed, the pill went onto Yun Xi’s refining list.

Ever since she had achieved “bigu pill freedom,” things became much easier. At Wei Zong Hao’s suggestion, she even improved the bland taste of bigu pills. That gained her a batch of loyal customers. After all, if you spent the same spirit stones and could buy better-tasting bigu pills, why not?

The Wei Family sisters were all willing to trade with Yun Xi for bigu pills. This did not include Wei Yun Qing.

During that year, Wei Yun Qing’s cultivation did not increase at all. She used the time to stabilize her realm. But because she caught Senior Brother Ye’s eye on the pill peak, she used the convenience of planting spiritual herbs to privately sell low-tier herbs and save up some spirit stones, doing much better than before.

Still, Wei Yun Qing’s relationship with her Wei Family brothers and sisters stayed lukewarm. She chose to thrive alone, and everyone else was fine with that too. Even though they all cultivated in the Outer Sect, chances to meet were really not that many.

During that year, Zong Hao’s cultivation also broke through to the eighth level of Qi Refining, breaking Wei Yun Qing’s position as the highest-cultivation member of the Wei Family. Yun Xi also adjusted her cultivation to the seventh level of Qi Refining.

Zong Yu and Zong Jin also broke through to the sixth level of Qi Refining one after another. Aside from Wei Yun Ying, whose progress was slow, everyone improved.

On this day, Yun Xi refined two more furnaces of Nourishing Spirit Pills in the alchemy room. Each furnace produced a full batch of ten. She picked out the supreme-grade Nourishing Spirit Pills and set them aside separately. Those were for her own use.

Then she separated the remaining Nourishing Spirit Pills into medium-grade and low-grade piles, drew water to wash the alchemy furnace, and extinguished the earthfire. Only then did she bring out the immortal spirit grass and start cultivating.

In truth, over this year she had already come infinitely close to the tenth level of Qi Refining. But she kept herself from breaking through, constantly guiding spiritual energy to polish her meridians, not even sparing the thinnest ones. Luckily her spiritual sense was strong, or it would have been easy for something to go wrong.

After polishing every meridian throughout her body once, she guided spiritual energy into her internal organs and started a new round of body tempering.

But because the organs were extremely fragile, she tempered them very carefully and even more slowly. You could say the spiritual energy from that low-grade spirit vein the immortal spirit grass absorbed was all used by her to polish her body.