Further away from everyone, Qian Duoduo quietly blamed Liu Boli: "What are you doing?"
"Silence."
Liu Boli, in turn, ordered Qian Duoduo, "Listen to my commands."
Qian Duoduo’s heart thumped, but he maintained a blank expression, moving his steps as Liu Boli instructed.
One hundred steps to the east was roughly the furthest distance allowed for outdoor activity.
Beyond that were thick iron chains, separating the Jail from the outside world.
The patterns carved on the iron chains subtly aligned with the patterns on the ground, emitting flashes of electric light.
Even a slight touch would blast a person into powder.
Outside the iron chains was a medicinal garden, filled with herbs Qian Duoduo didn't recognize.
Despite being twenty to thirty steps away, the rich herbal fragrance already wafted into his nose.
Planting medicinal herbs in these well-arranged and Spiritual Qi-rich plots was indeed a good method; they grew well and were safe from theft.
In a daze, Qian Duoduo felt the branches and leaves in the medicinal garden swaying, but when he looked closely, he saw nothing, only feeling that the herbs had thinned out considerably.
"South, sixty steps."
Liu Boli's sound waves caused his waistband to vibrate slightly.
To the south was a patch of waist-high bushes.
From beyond the bushes came clucking sounds.
"Could it be chickens? Do chickens in the Immortal Cultivation World also cluck?"
Qian Duoduo wished he could rush past the boundary to see what was there.
He strained his ears, listening again and again, but heard no more of that enticing chicken sound.
"Alright."
Liu Boli said, then fell silent.
Qian Duoduo's heart was itching; he wanted to know if they had succeeded and how much food they had gotten.
Two hours felt so long.
A hundred-zhang radius felt so vast.
"Last quarter of an hour."
An aged voice echoed above the Jail, and the prisoners began to return to their cells.
Qian Duoduo suppressed the excitement in his heart and followed the others back to the Jail.
"Bang."
As soon as the cell door closed, Qian Duoduo urgently whispered, "Old Liu, Old Liu, come out quickly!"
As soon as Liu Boli appeared, Qian Duoduo looked at his hands, which were empty.
Qian Duoduo swallowed, urging, "Hurry and take it out."
Liu Boli waved his finger, and an arm-thick, white, block-shaped plant appeared in his hand.
"A big radish?" Qian Duoduo asked cheerfully.
This silent, aerial retrieval skill completely convinced him.
Liu Boli blew his beard, "A three-hundred-year-old Ling Shen."
"Who cares how many hundreds of years old it is, let me gobble it down."
Qian Duoduo rubbed his belly, patting it gently.
"If you gobble it all down, you'll explode and be finished. You're at Ningqi Level 1; eating these rootlets is enough."
"You're lying."
Qian Duoduo didn't believe these rootlets could be more effective than chicken drumsticks.
However, since the Ling Shen was in Old Liu's hands, he had to listen to him.
Qian Duoduo took a long rootlet and bit into it.
The rootlet was crisp, sweet, and melted in his mouth, transforming into a vast warm current that flowed into his Dantian.
After entering the Dantian, a ball of Qi rose within it, rushing directly towards the Spiritual Veins throughout his body.
Qian Duoduo immediately felt as if he had entered a furnace, his whole body warm and cozy, like hiding in auspicious multicolored clouds and secretly drinking a pot of immortal wine, so comfortable it made him dizzy.
"Aren't you going to Cultivate quickly?" Liu Boli urged.
"Old Liu is really annoying, even though he's right, can't he let me be a good immortal-like slacker for a while?" Qian Duoduo thought to himself.
He deliberately made lazy pig-like grunts, pretending to be drunk, and rolled twice on the ground.
Slowly, he struck the posture for the first level of the Golden Light Technique, guiding the Spiritual Qi along the lines on the diagram with his breathing.
Wherever this Spiritual Qi reached, it was completely different from before.
If it was an ant before, now it was a long snake, and a giant snake that was constantly growing.
With his iron head as a drill, along the Spiritual Veins, it quickly rushed through Acupoints, opening them up one by one.
"Ah..."
In a mix of surprise and joy, Qian Duoduo let out an unmanly moan.
When it reached the last few Acupoints that had remained blocked, the warm and cool Spiritual Qi did not slow down at all.
Boom!
The Spiritual Qi broke through the last barrier and returned to the Dantian again. Qian Duoduo's whole body shook, and he felt like he was treading on auspicious clouds, floating up, his body so light, his senses so keen.
"According to the silk scroll, this is the reaction when the Golden Light Technique reaches the first level, which also means I am now a Ningqi Level 1 Cultivator."
Suddenly, this first breath of Spiritual Qi, born from the Dantian and returning to the Dantian, rushed out of its existing path and headed towards the area above his navel.
The Spiritual Qi was out of control?
Qian Duoduo's abdomen felt as if someone had sliced it with a sharp knife, a searing, intense pain.
"Ah..."
This time, it was Qian Duoduo's cry of pain.
Liu Boli also noticed something was wrong. Just as his finger was about to move, the out-of-control Spiritual Qi had already rushed into the Golden Toad, and the pain stopped with it.
Inside Qian Duoduo's abdomen, the Ling Shen continuously generated Spiritual Qi, forming a complete loop once again.
"What just happened?"
Qian Duoduo wiped the sweat from his head.
"Initial Spiritual Qi—" Liu Boli pondered.
"The first breath of Spiritual Qi that appears when a Cultivator embarks on the path of Immortal Cultivation is the Initial Spiritual Qi. Why did the Golden Toad suddenly devour your Initial Spiritual Qi? Do you see anything different?"
"What's different? Right now, the Spiritual Qi is still increasing, and the flow is getting thicker and thicker."
Suddenly, Qian Duoduo felt he saw a new area.
That area was at his waist, inside the Golden Toad.
Qian Duoduo looked closely—
It was indeed inside the Golden Toad, within a ten-zhang square space, where Jin Buhuan, that little prodigy, lay motionless in a corner.
Around him were a pile of fresh medicinal herbs, a dead Spirit Chicken, nine Spirit Chicken drumsticks, and a bundle of his own discarded old clothes.
This miraculous discovery made Qian Duoduo urgently exclaim, "Old Liu, Old Liu, go back into the Golden Toad and take a look."
He also wondered if this might be an illusion.
In a blink of an eye, Liu Boli appeared within the space.
"I see you, Old Liu..."
Qian Duoduo opened his eyes wide, realizing this wasn't seen with his physical eyes, but rather through internal vision between his eyebrows.
Liu Boli lifted his left foot, "Can you see me? Am I raising my left hand or my right hand?"
"You're raising your left hoof."
Liu Boli stood on his head in the air and asked Qian Duoduo again, "Naughty Disciple, what am I doing?"
"Evil Teacher, you'd better plant yourself in the ground."
Qian Duoduo said with a smile.
Evil Teacher and Naughty Disciple had become their playful nicknames.
Liu Boli picked up the Ling Shen with his left hand and the Spirit Chicken with his right hand, "Do you want to eat what's in my left hand, or what's in my right hand?"
"Of course, what's in your right hand. Can I eat two drumsticks at once?"
Qian Duoduo stared at Liu Boli's right hand.
The Spirit Chicken was much larger than the village chickens, no wonder the drumsticks were so thick.
Its claws and beak actually gleamed with golden light, like sharpened daggers.
Liu Boli appeared before Qian Duoduo, looking at Qian Duoduo the way Qian Duoduo looked at the Spirit Chicken.
There was surprise mixed with admiration, and admiration contained expectation.
In the thousands of years he had hidden inside the Golden Toad, no one had ever gained the Golden Toad's recognition, and no one had ever been able to see inside the Golden Toad.
"You're not a little prodigy, you're a little monster..." Liu Boli murmured.
"Am I strange? Where am I strange? You're the old monster."
Although he thought this, Qian Duoduo didn't say it out loud.
Liu Boli secretly rejoiced that he had intervened to help Qian Duoduo win the second prison fight.
If Qian Duoduo had lost and died, this sole person who could control the Golden Toad would have disappeared right under his nose.
Even he, a Fifth-Rank Refiner, couldn't fathom the mystery of this Golden Toad.
Other storage artifacts could only hold inanimate objects, only the Golden Toad could contain his soul body.
At this moment, the Spiritual Qi in Qian Duoduo's body was still like a spring tide, gathering into a rushing small river, washing over his Spiritual Veins wave after wave.
His stomach was no longer hungry, but his eyes were still greedy.
"When do we eat chicken?" Qian Duoduo blinked, asking Liu Boli.
Qian Duoduo's rosy face and steaming hair made Liu Boli disbelieve that he was still hungry: "Now?"
Qian Duoduo braced himself and confirmed, "Mm."
For a disciple to want to eat a whole chicken, wasn't that a simple matter?
In a great mood, Liu Boli didn't waste words. He returned to the Golden Toad, waved his finger, de-feathered and gutted the Spirit Chicken, chopped off its head and claws. He spread his palm, and a ball of flame appeared on it. The Spirit Chicken was placed over it and began to roast.
"Such a large Spirit Chicken, and he's roasting it whole! So extravagant, so luxurious! But I really like it!"
Under Qian Duoduo's joyful gaze, the chicken skin slowly turned golden, and a layer of chicken oil rendered out.
Even though it was inside the Golden Toad, Qian Duoduo's nose seemed to catch the scent, ten times, a hundred times richer than that single drumstick.
"Done." Liu Boli emerged with the roasted Spirit Chicken, which smelled even better than Qian Duoduo had imagined, and handed it to him.
Holding the roasted Spirit Chicken, Qian Duoduo's hands actually trembled a little, unable to believe such happiness could befall him.
"Eat!"
Opening his mouth wide, Qian Duoduo took a bite out of the drumstick, tearing off a large mouthful of meat.
However, he sadly discovered that this fragrant piece of chicken meat couldn't be swallowed.