The transaction was completed, and Li Mu returned to Xiao Liang Mountain on his sword, the journey smooth and without encountering any reckless cultivators trying to rob him.
Upon returning to Xiao Liang Mountain, Li Mu immediately took out half a giant boar Yao Beast's meat from his Storage Pouch and began to marinate it.
He cut it into small strips of about one jin each, washed them clean, boiled a pot of water, then put them in the pot to blanch, removing surface dirt and Impurities.
After blanching, the Yao Beast meat was cooled, then evenly scored with a few cuts. He then took a pottery jar, prepared the marinade, and placed the meat pieces one by one into it for marination.
After marinating for five or six days, it could be taken out to dry and made into cured meat, which would be easy to preserve.
Li Mu hadn't learned ice-element spells and hadn't built an ice cellar in advance. He decided that when he had time in the future, he would dig an underground vault, get a few ice-element Spirit Stones, set up an ice-sealing formation, and make a 'refrigerator' for use.
This much Yao Beast meat was enough for Li Mu to eat for about half a month, so making it into cured meat was the most suitable option.
"Woof woof!"
Li Mu was busy in front of the stove, and Crimson Wolf, smelling the meat, kept following him, circling him, whimpering and begging its master for a piece of meat.
"You greedy thing, here, chew on this!" Li Mu casually threw a large bone to Crimson Wolf.
Crimson Wolf immediately picked up the bone, trotted out of the courtyard, lay down by the Spiritual Plant field, and began to gnaw on it with grunts.
After marinating and storing most of the Yao Beast pork, Li Mu casually added some spiritual rice and cooked a pot of spiritual meat porridge, quickly settling his dinner.
After dinner.
Li Mu eagerly began to tally the gains from this stall. The ancient banyan wood core chopping board could probably be used to carve 8 Puppet core sources. Getting more than ten cubic meters of Second-Order spirit peach wood would allow him to make a batch of Battle Puppets with Peak Qi Refining Ninth Layer strength.
Of the more than nine hundred various First-Order Spirit Talismans, only over two hundred remained, meaning he had sold four to five hundred Spirit Talismans. His earnings were: 138 medium spirit stones, 1840 lower spirit stones, with negligible broken Spirit Stones.
He traded seven Second-Order High Grade Golden Sword Talismans, three Second-Order High Grade Golden Armor Talismans, and one hundred seventy First-Order High Grade Spirit Talismans with Duan Pinghai for about eleven thousand catties of red gold Ore, plus a large Storage Pouch.
"Hmm! There are quite a few Storage Pouches! I've now advanced to become a Seven-Pouch Elder!" Li Mu pulled out seven Storage Pouches from his person and placed them on the table. Three were spoils of war from the Lei brothers, and the other three were gains from Xu Lijin and his group.
Li Mu picked up the large Storage Pouch containing the raw Ore and walked towards the Artifact Refining Room. Next, he planned to refine these raw Ores to see how much third-order geng metal and Taiyi Fine Gold he could obtain.
Tomorrow, after selling the Wind Spirit Grass and dealing with the Emerald Spirit Fruit, he would use this batch of Artifact Refining Materials to practice, to see if he could refine a few more Third-Order metal-element spiritual swords.
Compared to selling First and Second-Order Spirit Talismans, the profit from selling Third-Order spiritual swords was much higher!
In the Artifact Refining Room, the Yan Yang Great Formation inside the Second-Order Yanyang Refining Furnace was activated, and the yellow Yan Yang Spiritual Fire blazed fiercely, emitting terrifying high temperatures.
Li Mu sat cross-legged on a stone platform a zhang away from the Artifact Refining Furnace, opened his Storage Pouch, and released his Divine Sense, controlling pieces of yellowish raw Ore to fly out of the Storage Pouch and into the Artifact Refining Furnace, where they floated above the yellow Spiritual Fire.
Inside the Artifact Refining Furnace, the high-temperature Yan Yang Spiritual Fire quickly melted the pieces of raw Ore into a large mass of golden-red metallic liquid.
Li Mu's Divine Sense entered it, diverting the molten metal floating in the Artifact Refining Furnace. He separated the golden liquid at the bottom from the red molten slag containing black Impurities. Then, he gathered some small, unmelted golden particles together…
Other Artifact Refiners, when purifying Artifact Refining Materials, especially Second-Order spiritual Ore, needed to go through multiple batches of smelting, refining, and purification, repeating the process several times.
However, for Li Mu, everything became very simple. The processing steps were almost identical to those for refining artifact blanks. Relying on his powerful Divine Sense, he directly performed Divine Refining operations, guiding other Impurities out of the Artifact Refining Furnace, making it efficient and convenient.
From the discharge port on the other side of the Yanyang Refining Furnace, red magma gushed out, continuously discharging various Impurities from the Artifact Refining Furnace. At the same time, from the other feed port, pieces of raw Ore flew out of the Storage Pouch on their own, entering the Artifact Refining Furnace continuously.
The Artifact Refining Furnace simultaneously took in raw Ore and discharged impurity magma, while Second-Order red gold, third-order geng metal, and Taiyi Fine Gold were retained within the Artifact Refining Furnace.
In less than half an hour, Li Mu had processed one-third of the raw Ore.
He obtained a large piece of steaming Second-Order red gold, estimated to be around three hundred jin, and two fist-sized pieces of third-order geng metal and Taiyi Fine Gold, each weighing about three to four jin.
His Divine Sense was greatly depleted, so Li Mu rested briefly, pausing the material refinement.
…
Time flew by, and a night passed.
Li Mu woke up, washed, and after breakfast, entered the Artifact Refining Room to finish yesterday's work, collecting pieces of igneous rock into his Storage Pouch to be dumped in the back mountain.
After dumping the igneous rock, the large Storage Pouch was empty. Li Mu then put the stacked Wind Spirit Grass from the Spiritual Plant field into the Storage Pouch.
The nine mu of Spiritual Plant field produced nearly fifty thousand jin of Wind Spirit Grass, which a single large Storage Pouch could not hold.
Fortunately, Li Mu was a 'Seven-Pouch Elder,' so he cleared out two Storage Pouches and loaded all the Wind Spirit Grass into them.
Li Mu called Crimson Wolf, picked him up, summoned his First-Order Mystic Iron Sword from his Storage Pouch, and flew towards Qing'an Town on his sword to sell the Wind Spirit Grass.
"Woof woof!"
Suddenly being carried into the sky by Li Mu, Crimson Wolf was terrified and hid his entire head in Li Mu's embrace.
"You useless fellow, we'll be there soon!" Li Mu grumpily patted Crimson Wolf's backside and accelerated his sword flight.
Xiao Liang Mountain was three to four li from Qing'an Town. Li Mu took two to three hundred breaths of time to descend slowly at the south gate of Qing'an Town on his sword.
"Stay close to me! Don't get lost!" Li Mu put Crimson Wolf on the ground and gestured.
"Woof!" Crimson Wolf intelligently responded. It was his first time leaving Xiao Liang Mountain, and the bustling town and unfamiliar environment made him feel both curious and uneasy. Crimson Wolf followed Li Mu closely.
After paying a broken Spirit Stone as an entry fee, Li Mu, with Crimson Wolf, walked directly towards the Zhang Family Spiritual Animal Farm.
"Oh! It's Crimson Wolf! Why are you free to come over today!" At the entrance of the Zhang Family Spiritual Animal Farm, Zhang Baiping recognized Crimson Wolf at a glance, and seeing Li Mu, he quickly greeted him.
In an unfamiliar place, it was rare to see an acquaintance, and Crimson Wolf excitedly wagged his tail at Zhang Baiping.
"The Wind Spirit Grass has matured, so I'm here to sell Spiritual Plant. Also, I plan to participate in the Outer Sect Disciple assessment, and I won't be able to take care of Crimson Wolf. Brother Zhang, would you mind taking care of him for a period of time?" Li Mu smiled slightly, explaining his purpose.
"So that's it, no problem!" Zhang Baiping suddenly understood and readily agreed.
"Thank you, Brother Zhang. All the Wind Spirit Grass is here. This batch is even better quality than the last, about fifty thousand jin." Li Mu thanked him gratefully, handing over three Storage Pouches.
"Oh! Let me see!" Zhang Baiping took the Storage Pouches and pulled out a handful of Wind Spirit Grass.
"Oh! It's actually High Grade Wind Spirit Grass, Third Uncle, quickly look." Zhang Baiping hurriedly handed a handful of Wind Spirit Grass to Zhang Shouquan at the counter, excitedly saying.
Zhang Shouquan put down his ledger, took the Wind Spirit Grass, and examined it carefully for a while. He then uncertainly broke a branch of the Wind Spirit Grass and chewed on it, as if he had discovered something amiss, his brows furrowing.
"Take out some more, let me see!" Zhang Shouquan looked at Zhang Baiping and gestured.
Zhang Baiping quickly handed the Storage Pouches to Zhang Shouquan.
Zhang Shouquan took the Storage Pouches and successively took out two more handfuls of Wind Spirit Grass, breaking them and chewing on them for a while.
"Pah! How did you grow this Wind Spirit Grass? Its appearance, spirituality, and form all reach the level of High Grade Spiritual Plant, but for some unknown reason, this batch of Wind Spirit Grass is missing a large portion of its essence, significantly reducing its value. At most, I can only give you one lower Spirit Stone per hundred jin." Zhang Shouquan spat out the Wind Spirit Grass in his mouth, looking at Li Mu with a strange expression, asking.
Li Mu was slightly stunned, immediately realizing the reason: it must be due to his talent - Plant Spirit Absorption.
"Third Uncle!" Zhang Baiping thought Zhang Shouquan was intentionally lowering the price and called out in dissatisfaction.
"Okay! Let's sell it at this price! Brother Zhang! Let's go weigh it!" Li Mu quickly spoke to stop him, gesturing.
Zhang Baiping looked at Li Mu suspiciously, nodded, and led him to weigh the Wind Spirit Grass.