Chapter One Hundred and Three – Inspiration
Zuo Mo had felt before that he had a very good understanding of the world over that last two years. At least, he knew the area of Dong Fu very well. But when a decorative belt carved with [Martial Bearing] sold for such a price, he suddenly felt that there were still many things he did not understand.
He quickly recovered from the blow that jingshi had dealt him.
Refocusing, Zuo Mo found that there were many more people on the street than before. Strangely and exotically dressed people passed him by, and were clearly not locals.
“Bro, there’s so many people. Is something big happening in Dong Fu recently?” Zuo Mo found a shopkeeper that was waving a bell outside.
This shopkeeper discreetly swept across the talismans on Zuo Mo’s body and pushed out a smile, respectfully answering, “Elder may not know. These people have all come for the Dong Fu Sword Test Conference. This sword conference has really shook Sky Moon Jie. For the last half year, almost all of the young experts have gathered in Dong Fu,” He then made a little flattery, and earnestly said, “This one sees that Elder is young but is powerful. If you go to try, you certainly come out on top.”
Zuo Mo finally understood. So it was the sword test conference. He had heard that Dong Fu was planning on holding a sword test conference but hadn’t thought that it would be an event of such magnitude. He was very surprised.
Having understood the situation, Zuo Mo didn’t have much interest left. Something like a sword test conference, it didn’t have too much to do with him. A place where all the experts will gather, since he was only a zhuji there was nothing for him to do there. If Wei Sheng Shixiong was attending, he would go watch. Other than that, he didn’t have any interest.
It was more practical to earn jingshi, and cultivate. He hummed a little tune, sitting on the paper crane and swaying as he flew back to Wu Kong Mountain.
Walking into the Little West Wind Yard, he was struck dumb.
A snow-white big bird was standing on his rooftop, posturing. The proudness of the aura, it was like a princess high up, dressing up in front of a mirror.
These days, when did birds become show-offs?
He seemed to feel that this white bird was somewhat familiar, but no matter how hard he thought, he didn’t remember who in the sect would have such an extraordinary looking big bird. This big bird was entirely snow white without one feather discolored. The beak was a pure clean sky blue. It looked extremely anthropomorphic, and intelligent. This mount, it definitely would be expensive.
Who lost their mount? Zuo Mo couldn’t help but wonder.
The snowy bird that had been posturing saw Zuo Mo standing at the door out of the corner of its eyes, and its body froze.
Zuo Mo caught this little movement. He first paused, and then unhesitatingly swore, “Silly Bird, get down!”
So this was his grey-beaked goose. But, why did it change to look like this? Zuo Mo wondered inside. Was this the effect of the stone milk?
The snowy bird bashfully came down from the roof, running on front of Zuo Mo and rubbed fawningly against him.
The hairs on Zuo Mo’s body stood up, “Stay away from me, female bird!”
The snowy bird seemed to hurtfully lower its head.
“Ah, so the feathers changed. Oh, your body got slightly larger,” Zuo Mo made two circles around the snowy bird. Seeing Zuo Mo examining her, the snowy bird instantly puffed up its chest, exuding a proud demeanor.
Seeing the snowy bird act like this, Zuo Mo was infuriated. He slapped the snowy bird’s head, angrily saying, “You almost ruined ge’s ling fields, did you know that? Ah! I’m telling you, if you dare to damage the ling fields one bit, ge will pluck your feathers and cook you!”
Hearing Zuo Mo say “pluck”, the snowy bird was aghast, its pair of wings securely blocking its chest as it stumbled back a few steps.
Seeing the anthropomorphic move of the snowy bird, Zuo Mo grinned. He really didn’t have to argue with a silly bird.
“Just go somewhere else.”
Zuo Mo threw down these words and then went into his rooms.
His life had finally returned to normal. After clearing his debts, the remaining jingshi had been silently taken away by Pu Yao. Zuo Mo could not do anything. Pu Yao was just too skilled. He didn’t need Zuo Mo’s agreement, and it didn’t matter where Zuo Mo hid it, he could always find it easily, and then unceremoniously take all of it.
When Zuo Mo found out, the jingshi had disappeared for a few days. With fury, Zuo Mo ran over to talk with Pu Yao. Each time, he was defeated by Pu Yao’s indifference.
To go from wealthy to penniless in the blink of an eye, Zuo Mo wanted to spit blood.
However, what comforted him was that, perhaps it was the effect of the jingshi, the sea of flames inside his consciousness had recovered greatly.
Without jingshi, he couldn’t do anything. Zuo Mo could only live.
The growth of the Fiery Red flower in the ling garden was very good. They would be ready for harvest soon. In comparison, the ling grasses that he had planted in the ling gardens matured first. This made him very excited. All of these ling grasses had been planted in preparation for him to make new dan. He hadn’t planned on selling those.
Twenty mu of ling grasses, it was enough for his own use. After harvesting all the ling grasses and processing them, he gained such a large amount of ling grasses that he had to set aside a room specifically to store it.
He did not need to go to the dan-room to make dan anymore. With the Stalagmite fire, he could make dan anywhere. This was also why every person who did dan-making or forging dreamed of having a fire of their own. Adding on the Streaming Fire core management formation on the jade pendant, the biggest barrier to making lingdan for him was his cultivation. The highest dan medicine that a zhuji xiuzhe could make was second grade. If he wanted to make third-grade lingdan, he must have a cultivation of ningmai.
Without jingshi, Zuo Mo had great motivation. He decided to not leave his rooms, furiously making dan every day.
Bone tempering dan, evil removing dan, and spirit increasing dan. Under his furious efforts, the number quickly increased. The effect of these low level lingdan was not outstanding in anyway, but Zuo Mo planned on using quantity to overcome quality. Without heed to anything else, he just used up all his materials.
Two hundred bone tempering dan, two hundred evil removing dan, and two hundred spirit increasing dan. Zuo Mo used three gourds to store these dan-medicine separately.
What amazed Zuo Mo was that he had accidentally made ten second-grade bone tempering dan, eight second-grade evil removing dan, and ten second-grade spirit increasing dan. First-grade was worthless, but second-grade could sell for a pretty good price. However, Zuo Mo didn’t plan on selling even one of them. The jingshi he would get would all be taken away by Pu Yao.
Consuming a bone tempering dan, Zuo Mo started to channel the gravestone version of [Vajra Profound Sutra]. As expected, a burst of medicinal energy entered his body. Each time that he used an evil removing dan first before cultivating, some black stains would appear on his body. The effect of consuming spirit increasing dan was the most evident. Eating it and then practicing [Embryonic Breathing Spiritual Cultivation], he could clearly feel the medicinal energy entering his mind.
Seeing that this method was effective, and having so much of the lingdan, Zuo Mo furiously shoved lingdan in his mouth each time before he cultivated.
After more than ten days, there was significant progress with [Vajra Profound Sutra]. Golden patterns appeared on his chest. If he channeled ling energy, the Water Drop sword could not wound him. The progress of his spirit was even more apparent, without him detecting it, he had reached fourth breath. In the void of his sea of consciousness, four stars lined up in a row.
This was all from eating dan. He had ate several dozen of the first-grade ling dan but no dan had much of an effect. So he could only eat the second-grade lingdan. After eating the second grade lingdan, he experienced the gigantic gap between grades. The effect of the second-grade lingdan was more than ten times the first-grade lingdan!
There was about one hundred pieces of each type of ling dan. They wouldn’t sell for much jingshi if he sold it. It was both obscure and low level, there was no market.
He decided to feed the rest of the lingdan to the silly bird and the Black Gold worm.
The Black Gold worm ate lingdan like thin crisps, crunch, crunch crunch. The lingdan would visibly shrink. Silly Bird ate lingdan more like it was eating beans, ga-bang ga-bang. Seeing them enjoy eating so much, Zuo Mo would become hungry as well, and ate them as snacks, chewing on them once in awhile.
After Silly Bird transformed, Zuo Mo had pulled it to be assessed. Right now, it was a third-grade blue-beaked snowy bird. The value of it had increased exponentially. Right there, someone had asked Zuo Mo whether he would sell it, and was willing to pay two hundred pieces of third-grade jingshi. Zuo Mo was extremely tempted. Seeing the situation, Silly Bird hurriedly ran in front of him and pretended to be pitiful. It even used that pair of wings to pretend to wipe tears. Zuo Mo didn’t know to laugh or cry. The people in the surroundings were amazed, and thought this bird was extremely intelligent. The price instantly flew to five hundred pieces of third-grade jingshi.
Zuo Mo still refused. He looked at the smug face of Silly Bird and thought to himself. Oh, it wasn’t that ge didn’t bear to part with the bird, but if he had jingshi, it would only fall into Pu Yao’s hands.
All of his attention was on cultivation. At the beginning, he had used the “whirlpool ling sucking method” to make the yin fire beads and found it very useful. The amount of ling energy taken in was much more efficient than any other scripture. However, the impurities in the ling energy taken in this way was extremely high. If he could think of a way to get rid of the impurities in the ling energy, then his cultivation would increase extremely quickly.
He suddenly thought about the process of using the Stalagmite fire to make dan. The Stalagmite fire could burn away the unnecessary impurities and provide what he needed.
Maybe, he could use the Stalagmite fire to get rid of the impurities in the ling energy.
The more he thought, the more plausible he found the idea.
Without anything else to do, he started to experiment with this strange idea. Zuo Mo was never afraid of trying out new things. Like the Golden Crow pill, like the whirlpool ling suction method, like merging sword essences. No one told him what was possible so he had to try for himself.
In any case, his cultivation was low. Even if he was injured, it wouldn’t be too major, he frequently comforted himself with this.
There were too many problems involved. Like how to use the Stalagmite fire to purify, no jade scroll had ever mentioned that it was possible to use fire seeds to burn ling energy. This process also had to be carried out inside his body. After ling energy was taken into the body, it would pass through the channels. In other words, the setting to forge the ling energy had to be in his channels. Zuo Mo was very doubtful and felt that this was extremely unlikely that his fragile channels could contain something as terrifying as the Stalagmite fire.
Then that led to another problem he had to overcome, he needed to strengthen his channels, making sure the Stalagmite fire would not damage his channels.
A stream of complex questions gave Zuo Mo a headache. He felt that he had no place to start.
For some reason, he suddenly thought of Chang Heng who had beaten him so terribly. The dejection that had come into his heart was replaced by motivation.
He gritted his teeth, saying to himself, “Ge holds grudges!”
Translator Ramblings: Silly Bird has evolved! Zuo Mo tries self-improvement and gets stuck.