Chapter One Hundred and Eight – Two Paths
Wei Sheng Shixiong left Dong Fu early in the morning.
Zuo Mo resumed his furious life of making jingshi.
“It really exceeded my expectations. You actually managed to repay all of it in such a short amount of time.” Pu Yao said with slight regret.
Zuo Mo felt his entire body was light. The enormous debt had given him great pressure these past days. He asked about another problem, “Pu, has there been any new developments about storing ling power?”
Pu Yao shrugged, “Nope.”
The rate that Zuo Mo absorbed ling energy was multiple times after than before, but strangely, if the ling energy that was absorbed was not quickly used, they would gradually dissipate, and could not be stored inside. For any xiuzhe, the amount of ling power represented their cultivation. If they didn’t have ling power, basically, they could not cast more than seventy percent of all spells. The higher the spell, the more ling power it required.
He was very suspicious it was caused by the mo matrix that Pu Yao had carved into his body. He could clearly feel the difference of progression in his cultivation after the mo matrix was carved. He was extremely worried.
“Pu Yao, if I cannot store ling power, it’s hard for my cultivation to increase. If my cultivation cannot increase… …” He wanted Pu Yao to recognize that this was a serious problem.
Pu Yao was unconcerned, “What does that have to do with me? I delivered the product.”
“You renyao!” Zuo Mo instantly exploded due to Pu Yao’s terrible attitude and started swearing, “Lying to me about this mo matrix and yao seed. Now, you put out this disgusting demeanor of not caring! In the future, don’t think about getting one piece of jingshi from ye!”
“I can take it myself.” Pu Yao was not angry and giggled.
Zuo Mo smiled angrily, “From today, ye won’t take one jingshi, only items, jade scrolls! Go take it! Ye will see where you take it from!”
“Oh.” Pu Yao rubbed his chin as he talked to himself, “That is a problem.”
Zuo Mo smiled coldly as he looked at Pu Yao, wanting to chop this androgynous guy into meat dross! This dross! False profit! Greedy, dishonest, amoral, evil pervert!
Pu Yao innocently spread his hands, “I hadn’t thought this would happen either. Things like formations, they are too complex for us yaomo. However, there isn’t anything that cannot be solved in this world. I can help give you ideas. Hee hee, it can be free this time!”
Zuo Mo suppressed the impulse to tear apart this guy, asking, “Keep going.”
“Look, since the growth of your ling power is slow now, you can work from two different areas.” Pu Yao’s thin lips bent into a curve, “One is to work at the root. Your body is like a complete formation. If one attribute has changed, then it is definitely that a part of the formation has changed. You only need to find the cause of the change to be able to correct the formation and the cause will be resolved easily.”
“How can I find it?” Zuo Mo had to admit that what Pu Yao said was very reasonable.
“I can’t help you there. In any case, you have to work through seal formations. You xiuzhe are much better than us yaomo at formations.” Pu Yao said, shaking his head.
After all this, he just spoke useless words! The rage inside suddenly shot up!
“Rather than wasting your time complaining about things that have already happened, it would be better to start studying early.” Pu Yao snickered.
These words instantly extinguished Zuo Mo’s rage. Pu Yao was right. Since it was like this already, then complaining about something that had already happened was just wasting time. He raised his head, “And the other area?”
“Oh, that one’s much easier. Since your cultivation is growing slowly now, why don’t you increase your control over ling power?” Smugness flashed through Pu Yao’s eyes, “If you can precisely control every strand of ling power, the same amount of ling power, you can use it to cast more spells. Don’t envy other people for having more jingshi, you just have to use each jingshi on the edge of the blade.”
“Precise control?” Zuo Mo instantly understood. When he had been in lianqi, this had been a question that he would frequently ponder because he needed to cast [Little Art of Cloud and Rain] for many ling fields. Just like Pu Yao had said, he needed to use every single drop of ling power effectively. However, after he entered zhuji, his life had quickly become wealthy and he had gradually lost sight of this problem.
“Right! Like the processing and purification you have done these days. You need to be sparse in using ling power. Something that can be done with one strand of ling power, you should not use two. When you can precisely control every strand of ling power, you will find that you only need a tiny bit of ling power to cast a spell that you used to need lots of ling power to do.” Pu Yao added, “Most wealthy tycoons, when they started, they were like this too.”
The previous length of words, Zuo Mo had uncontrollably been enhancedenchanged. Pu Yao’s figure suddenly seemed much larger. But with the words he added after, he instantly shrunk back.
Puh! This scum!
As the victim, Zuo Mo was seething with righteous fury. His mind, however, kept on pondering what Pu Yao had said.
Li Ying Feng found that Zuo Mo Shidi’s situation these past days was not normal. The speed he worked clearly had slowed down, and after each job, he would sit there in a daze. He was like a completely different person than before. Was it that he had made enough jingshi? She couldn’t help but think. Shidi should take a rest. These few days, no one was clearer than her just how much jingshi Shidi had earned.
Even now, she almost couldn’t believe that this wooden and cold Shidi had such a terrifying ability to make jingshi. The jingshi he had made by himself was worth five months of the gross income for the store she was managing. This was an extremely shocking number. If Shidi was in ningmai, she wouldn’t find it so strange. But he was only zhuji. She had never heard of a zhuji disciple that could earn so much.
Maybe, Shidi was a genius too.
Very quickly, her thought seemed to have been proven. Shidi still took business, but he did not accept jingshi, only jade scrolls for payment. However, what she found strange was that Shidi seemed like any other jade scroll collector, accepting all kinds of jade scrolls, as long as he had never seen it before. After observing for a few days, she found that the jade scrolls that Shidi liked best were formations.
Shidi was really smart! She praised silently. Their sect was a sword xiu sect. The most they had were sword scriptures, and the rest were pitifully little. With Shidi’s intelligence, he was suited for studying formations. It would be of great benefit to his dan-making in the future. She had a feeling that Fourth Shigu may not be able to teach Zuo Mo Shidi anything in the future. At Zuo Mo Shidi’s age, Fourth Shigu wasn’t this strong!
Formations was necessary knowledge for all cultivators. It was the most basic of all basics. Dan-making, forging, jinzhi, all of them were connected to formations. This was something everyone knew, but even if they knew, if they didn’t have the conditions, they could not learn it. Wu Kong Sword Sect was not some rich sect. Where would they get the wealth to collect these jade scrolls?
She suddenly felt it a bit pitiful. If Shidi was in a large sect, he might be even stronger!
“Sky Fragrance liquid. This is the limit of what I can process it.” Zuo Mo tiredly handed a small jade bottle to the customer.
The customer hurriedly took it. Taking out the cork, a expression of joy made its way onto his face, and he praised, “Master Zuo’s spell is really amazing! Spectacular!” He carefully put the jade bottle away and then bid farewell before rushing away.
Zuo Mo did not stand, but took out the jade scroll that he had just received. He couldn’t help but feel slightly uplifted.
To process that sky fragrance liquid, he had really done everything he could to barely process it and received this jade scroll in payment. He did not know which sect had passed down this jade scroll. It seemed quite old. There were three formations inside, all of them extremely special.
Pu Yao came out. He was extremely dissatisfied with Zuo Mo’s recent actions,“ I told you two paths. You aren’t following the rules!”
“Really?” To have tripped Pu Yao up, Zuo Mo felt extremely good. He slowly put the jade scroll away and glanced at Pu Yao, saying, “Did we have an agreement? I am going according to what you pointed out! You told me to study formations, but you don’t have any formations jade scrolls. So I have to get them myself!”
Pu Yao paused. He finally remembered that they really didn’t have an agreement last time. He suddenly raised his head to smile, “Right, right, hee hee… …”
Looking at Pu Yao’s dark smile, a cold feeling rose in Zuo Mo’s heart.
Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid! To get one over this renyao, it’s worth it even if ge will suffer a bit! Zuo Mo hurriedly comforted himself.
After Pu Yao disappeared, Zuo Mo quickly sank back into his work.
In this period of time, his control of ling power had increased quickly. After Pu Yao pointed out the problem, he started to pay attention to his technique in this area, becoming even more “miserly” in using ling power to process materials. However, even though he progressed quickly, he was still unsatisfied. It was still hard to avoid wasting ling power in unnecessary places.
He quickly found the crux of the problem. To be able to perfectly use ling power, it was impossible to achieve it just by relying on the precision of using ling power. It also required having a deep understanding of the formations used. Only when the two were both present would the use of ling power be most efficient.
Because he only took jade scrolls in payment, Zuo Mo’s business received a bit of side-effects.
But the people who came to him were mostly zhuji xiuzhe of some skill. They usually would have one or two pretty good jade scrolls. Quickly, the customers knew that Zuo Mo preferred formation jade scrolls. They would try to pick one or two quality jade scrolls. Zuo Mo’s actions were not strange. The stronger the xiuzhe, especially xiuzhe in non-combat professions, when their skills grew, their need for jingshi would increasingly become smaller.
These kinds of skilled craftsmen, they usually would have many weird and strange demands. Demands like jade scrolls or rare materials were actually the most common.
Even though he took fewer jobs than before, but the number of jade scrolls that Zuo Mo possessed grew at an astonishing rate.
These jade scrolls came from all areas. The great majority were normal things, but there were a few of high quality. The jade scroll he had just received was one of those.
Suddenly, Li Ying Feng walked to Zuo Mo’s side with a weird expression and whispered a few words to him.
Translator Ramblings: What’s a little bit of side effects? It’s only just… … your cultivation stops growing… … when your main goal is to grow your cultivation. Pu has been really helpful these last chapters, that’s the power of jingshi.
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