Chapter Ninety-Six: News from the Nether Realm, Breaking Through to Spirit Nourishment

Wave-Treading Tower.

The building rose eight stories high, shaped like a pagoda.

Red lanterns hung thickly from the eaves, blazing brilliantly in the dimness.

On entering the first floor, Lu Qian found the place bustling with comings and goings, most of them cultivators.

The hall was packed with all manner of display cases, each sealed beneath a transparent crystal cover.

Small groups stood before the cases, haggling with white-robed attendant boys at their sides.

"The first floor mostly deals in wholesale goods. If you buy in bulk, there are usually discounts," the old Daoist explained.

Within the cases lay the merchandise.

Before Lu Qian, for instance, sat a translucent blue rhinoceros horn.

"Heart-Tethering Rhinoceros Horn": when lit, it can nourish the soul and is also suitable for raising ghostly creatures. Price: eighty arcane coins.

Beside it stood a larger case containing a white horse nine feet tall.

It had whiskers like a dragon-fish, no mane, a smooth body, and white skin marked with rippling patterns like water.

"Wave-Stepping Beast": carries a trace of River Lord white-horse bloodline; it can stride atop the waves and travel two thousand li a day. Price: eight hundred arcane coins.

Master Tao Zhu led him to a boy attendant and explained the whole matter.

The boy then took the two of them to the second floor.

The second floor was much smaller than the first.

There were fewer people as well, by a wide margin.

The treasures here were far more precious: a three-inch lingzhi dwarf, a mermaid from the deep, and a long-life dragonfish that could greatly advance one's cultivation if consumed.

Food, clothing, and daily necessities were all represented.

Without proof of assets worth at least three thousand arcane coins, one was not permitted to enter.

"Steward Cui, someone has come seeking employment!" the boy called through the doorway.

No sooner had the words fallen than a gust of chill wind swept by, and a middle-aged man in a blue robe stepped out.

He had a high nose, deep-set eyes, and green hair.

Most striking of all was his tall, aquiline nose.

This man was Steward Cui of the Wave-Treading Tower, a body-tempering cultivator whose blood had been refined throughout his entire frame. His name was Cui Shan, and his nickname was Ghost Partridge.

"Greetings, Steward Cui. Do you happen to remember this old Daoist? I am the proprietor of the Rare Goods Brokerage," Tao Zhu said with a bow, all ingratiation and smiles.

"I don't know him." Cui Shan did not even glance at the old man. He walked straight up to Lu Qian, sized him up, and smiled. "So you are the alchemy cultivator seeking employment. How are your skills?"

"I can refine some human-grade pills," Lu Qian said.

Pills, too, were divided into ranks.

Pills were known as wondrous treasures that gathered together yin and yang, heaven and earth, and the three powers of man.

Ordinary pills differed only in their medicinal potency and were called human-grade pills.

If one's alchemical skill reached perfection, the golden elixir would give birth to spirituality and open its own apertures. At that stage, the golden elixir was called a spirit path.

With each odd-numbered aperture, the grade of the pill advanced by one tier.

A three-aperture golden elixir was an earth-grade golden elixir, a seven-aperture golden elixir was a heavenly immortal pill, and a nine-aperture golden elixir was the stuff of legend.

"Show me your hand?" Steward Cui handed over a prescription.

"Gladly," Lu Qian said with a smile, taking the prescription.

He went into a room at the back of the tower, where before him stood a massive, three-legged, two-handled alchemy furnace.

Lu Qian sat down before the furnace, closed his eyes tightly, then suddenly opened them wide.

With a roar, pure white nether fire erupted forth.

The temperature in the room shot up by several dozen degrees, yet those present felt no heat at all.

Watching Lu Qian skillfully handle the various medicinal ingredients and purify the lead powder and yellow cinnabar, Cui Shan gave a slight nod.

Once the herbs had been refined, the purified liquids rose into the air.

Following a precise sequence, they merged into a round, gleaming golden elixir.

"Excellent skill!" Cui Shan's eyes lit up, and he could not help praising him.

The Spirit-Resonance Pill was highly effective for Soul-Nourishing cultivators in refining the soul, though the pill itself was not of especially high grade.

But for Lu Qian to casually produce a pill with such offhand ease was truly rare.

Cui Shan stepped forward with a yellow sheet in his hand, covered in dense writing and talismanic script. "Fellow Daoist, the terms of our Wave-Treading Tower are an eight-year term of service, and at least ten human-grade pills every month."

"Ten?"

Ten pills were not much. With the help of the paper figures, he could probably finish them in five days or so.

"Is that a bit much? It should still be manageable. At most twenty days to complete," Cui Shan said with a smile.

In truth, he did not know that Lu Qian possessed the spirit-attaching art.

For an ordinary alchemy cultivator, setting aside ten or twenty days each month was already a rather strenuous demand.

"Besides that, are there no other tasks?" Lu Qian asked.

"No. If you have no objections, sign the bloodcurse oath," Cui Shan said.

Lu Qian stepped forward, confirmed the contents of the contract, then pricked his finger and let a drop of blood fall onto it.

Buzz.

A glow of spell-light flared, and a crimson radiance sank into Lu Qian's head.

Within his sea of consciousness, a scarlet talisman abruptly appeared.

The bloodcurse oath was a type of spell; if the one bound by it broke the terms of the contract, backlash would follow.

"You will be given three months to rest. Deliver the goods in three months," Steward Cui said, handing over a jade bottle filled with dark green pills.

"Very well."

Lu Qian left.

As he passed a wall, the notices posted there caught his attention.

It was a wanted poster.

The face painted on it bore no relation to his own, but the name written beneath was his.

Perhaps the likeness had drifted after being passed from hand to hand over a great distance.

Still, the basic characteristics of his arts were all there: the Yin-Gu True Water, the Seven Slaughters Dark Talisman Sword, the paper figures, and so on.

"The Temple of Nether Communion is offering a bounty for the wanted criminal Lu Qian. This man murdered his master and defied his superiors. Five thousand arcane coins for any useful lead, ten thousand for his head, twenty thousand if taken alive."

The crowd below was buzzing with discussion.

"Another ruthless one has shown up on Ten-Thousand-Forms Island. Qi Refining to kill Soul-Nourishing, and cripple a half-step Dao foundation. Fierce!"

"In the end he's only in the Qi Refining stage. If I catch him, I'll strike it rich."

Hearing this, Lu Qian tugged the hood over his head lower. It seemed he would have to use the abilities of the Temple of Nether Communion less in the future.

For now, the priority was to reach Soul-Nourishing.

After returning, he would first pay Master Tao Zhu one hundred arcane coins as a brokerage fee.

Then, under his arrangements, he would rent a cave abode for fifty arcane coins a month.

The advantage of renting was safety: there were guards, and no information would leak out.

Inside the quiet chamber, Lu Qian sat cross-legged and poured out a dark green pill.

Wisps of blue smoke curled upward, faintly shaping themselves into a distorted human face.

This was a golden elixir refined from a cultivator's soul.

Taking it would protect the spirit and aid in leaving the body.

Thinking of this, Lu Qian called up the information in his mind.

Lunar True Water Guiding Art, mastery level: 2101 out of 8000.

Just over five thousand marks remained. This was an excellent cave abode, allowing six marks to be raised each day.

That still meant more than nine hundred days, roughly over two years.

With elixirs and medicinal pills added in, the time could be shortened to two years.

"Two years... enough."

Having decided, he immediately swallowed the pill.

Lu Qian closed his eyes tightly. True water swirled around his body as an unending stream of lunar power transformed into Dark Yin True Water.

The days that followed were simple enough.

Qi refinement, medicine, pills.

The paper figures were responsible for alchemy and delivered the goods on time.

Whenever there was not enough money to renew the lease, he would sell another batch of elixirs and pills.

He labored bitterly by day and cultivated diligently by night.

There was no room for carelessness, not the slightest slackening.

A year and a half later, a vast surge of presence swept in all directions.

The Daoists living nearby all turned to look.

"Someone has broken through to Soul-Nourishing!"

"What a powerful aura! His foundation must be very deep."

"How enviable. I wonder when I will reach Soul-Nourishing."