Chapter 42: Steady Cultivation

Half a month later, Li Ji’an entrusted Steward Qi to help with preparations and earnestly sought his advice regarding the scattered cultivator Qiuxiao’s foundation establishment. After all, this was the first time in six generations that someone was establishing a foundation, and experience was lacking.

Once everything was thoroughly prepared, Li Ji’an followed the instructions and visited each household in the core talent district, bringing some recently refined early second-grade pills as gifts.

“Comrade Gou, I have long admired your reputation. This humble alchemist comes to pay respects,” he said as he first visited the residence of the puppet master Gou Kuai across the street. Standing about ten feet outside the door, he used his spiritual power to announce himself.

Soon, the main gate of the Gou residence opened, and a wooden puppet appeared behind the door. As its wooden mouth moved, a slightly low voice came forth: “Alchemist Li, a pleasure. I am currently indisposed. To what do I owe this visit?”

Li Ji’an nodded respectfully. “Apologies for disturbing you, Comrade Gou. At the end of the month, I would like to sincerely invite you and other comrades to a small celebration at my residence. May I ask if you are available?”

With that, he handed over an invitation and a small porcelain bottle containing a pill to the puppet.

“Alchemist Li, you are too courteous. I shall certainly attend,” the puppet responded, accepting the invitation and the bottle with a bow.

“Then I shall await your good news. Farewell.”

As the gate closed behind him, a trace of envy flickered in Li Ji’an’s eyes.

Half a year ago, when he had just moved here, Steward Qi had asked if he needed to hire maids to manage the residence. After all, the mansion was large, complete with pavilions and waterside pavilions, and the gardens were filled with many plants and trees, requiring considerable effort to maintain.

But to avoid exposing any secrets, Li Ji’an had declined.

Now, seeing the puppet guardian at Gou Kuai’s residence, he felt a strong yearning.

He even entertained the idea of having a puppet bodyguard after rejuvenation.

However, puppetry was exceedingly rare. In over a decade in the Immortal City, he had never encountered a puppet inheritance for sale.

Now, he could only pin his hopes on this puppet master Gou.

Following the same procedure, Li Ji’an visited all eight residences in the core talent district and received positive responses from all.

Among them was the first house’s alchemist Zou, who, perhaps because Li Ji’an had addressed him kindly last time, was very enthusiastic and even promised that if Li Ji’an’s future transactions failed, he could seek his help.

Besides these neighbors, Li Ji’an also sent word to Xiao Changfeng to inform him of the event, though he received no reply.

Since Xiao Changfeng had been assigned elsewhere by the sect two years ago after establishing his foundation, this was not surprising.

Finally, Li Ji’an tasked Steward Qi to send an invitation to the Liu family’s residence within the Immortal City, fulfilling his promise to Liu Jiuchan from the foundation establishment.

As for the Jiuding Commercial Association, since all guilds stationed in Immortal City had agreements with the Biyun Sect forbidding interference in local affairs or the cultivation community, it was inappropriate for them to participate.

On the day of the event at month’s end, to Li Ji’an’s surprise, many uninvited guests arrived besides those invited.

Among the dozen or so attendees, five were foundation scattered cultivators, and the rest came from some foundation families within Cangyun Prefecture, with the clear intention of negotiating pill trades.

All guests brought gifts. Li Ji’an’s most valued guest, puppet master Gou, did not disappoint, presenting a basic, simple puppet along with a matching puppet-control manual.

Such a basic puppet lacked combat ability and could only perform menial tasks, yet its cost was not low—materials alone demanded dozens of spirit stones, plus an energy source of spirit stones.

However, its utility was inferior even to the common folk in the gathering district, thus it had no market.

This scarcity of puppeteers was exactly why the craft could not sustain itself financially.

Among all guests, Liu Jiuchan held the highest status—a young foundation elder of the five great families, renowned not only for his striking appearance and charisma but also for his extensive connections with disciples carrying true sect teachings.

His gift was the most substantial: a vial of superior-grade spiritual beast bloodline essence.

This was an important auxiliary medicine for refining several types of early second-grade pills.

He also expressed clear intentions, noting that as their clan’s former tribute alchemist’s lifespan neared its end, they hoped not only to trade foundation-stage daily cultivation pills but also to cooperate with the clan’s beast pill alchemists to develop special beast pills.

This piqued Li Ji’an’s interest somewhat.

However, Liu Jiuchan clearly looked down on Li Ji’an’s humble celebration. After delivering his gift and exchanging a few words, he was the first to leave.

Only after his departure did the rest of the gathering relax and converse more freely.

In the end, they exchanged communication talismans and concluded the event successfully.

With this, Li Ji’an was thoroughly settled.

Thanks to his ability to refine foundation pills, a skill possessed only by senior second-grade alchemists, and the Fire Spirit—a pill fire nearly equivalent to mid-second-grade level—his success rate and quality in producing early second-grade pills far exceeded ordinary second-grade alchemists.

Refining six times monthly, he earned about five hundred spirit stones’ worth of profit, enough to cover his cultivation and living expenses.

This left him ample time and energy to study talismans.

A year passed in the blink of an eye.

“Puff~” On this day, just as he was wrapping up the last batch, a wisp of blue smoke rose relentlessly.

Over the past year, he had grasped the inheritance of second-grade talisman crafting thoroughly.

He was confident in the brushwork, sketching, soul fusion, and even sensing the spiritual mechanisms of heaven and earth.

Yet, the one thing he lacked was the profound and enduring spiritual power required to draw second-grade talismans.

Early second-grade simple talismans were manageable, but once it involved offensive or defensive talismans of greater difficulty, his spiritual power faltered, resulting in low success rates.

An early second-grade talisman material cost over a hundred spirit stones each, and since he began practicing three months prior, he had been losing money almost every month.

This time, he lost another one.

“I still have to rely on the Nourishing Magic Pill!” Li Ji’an meditated for several hours before reluctantly swallowing an early second-grade pill that nourished spiritual power.

This pill could extend the spiritual power in the dantian by thirty percent, effectively boosting endurance.

With a flash of lightning, this time the talisman succeeded.

It was an early second-grade lightning talisman of superior grade, capable of unleashing an attack comparable to a foundation beginner’s full-powered lightning strike, with strong restraining power against metal-type spiritual energy.

This was the third successful offensive talisman he had drawn in the past year.

Besides this, he had a Moon Blade talisman and a Golden Spike talisman.

With these three, when facing foundation beginners like Zheng Tianxiang, he could strike unexpectedly with all three talismans at once, potentially killing with a single blow.

Tucking away his new trump cards, Li Ji’an glanced at the Fire Spirit beside him.

Over the past year, whenever he took out the jade talisman of inheritance for study, the little Fire Spirit would be drawn to it, often perching on it and absorbing its aura.

Li Ji’an concluded that the spiritual power aura of the ancient predecessor Shen embedded in the talisman must benefit it.

“All right, you’ve absorbed all the spiritual power aura. Back to your stone,” Li Ji’an said, waving his hand to put away the inheritance talisman and flicking the Fire Spirit onto the stone it had come from beneath Fire Mountain years ago.

According to the Fire Spirit, it had been nurtured from this stone.

However, since returning years ago, Li Ji’an had scoured all available records but found no deeper descriptions of fire-elemental sacred spirits, nor had he heard of stones capable of birthing fire-elemental sacred spirits.

Over the years, he had studied this black-and-red stone—about the size of a basin—many times but gained nothing.

It was only half a year ago, when he realized his current dantian spiritual power could no longer sustain the Fire Spirit, that he took it out for the Fire Spirit to rest upon, which helped it recover.

“Uncle Li, Sister Hua is here again,” Xiao Qiao’s voice came from outside.

Hearing this, Li Ji’an’s eyelids twitched slightly before he finally rose and left the secret chamber.

Entering the main hall, his eyes immediately caught sight of the robust figure towering like an iron mountain.

It was none other than the neighboring artificer, Hua Hongling.

When Li Ji’an first met Hua Hongling a year ago during his foundation establishment, he was somewhat surprised.

She was two years younger than him but had established her foundation ten years ago, thanks to her extraordinary talent in artificing from a young age.

Strictly speaking, she wasn’t a scattered cultivator, as she had been taken in by her master since childhood.

Her master was also a late second-grade artificer, quite renowned in Tianyuan Prefecture.

With considerable wealth, he provided Hua Hongling with excellent cultivation conditions.

For some reason, she was sent here and had become a highly sought-after artificer within Immortal City.

However, she was infamous for her bad temper. Once, a dissatisfied client who was unhappy with a custom-made magical tool was chased by her wielding a hammer across half the Immortal City until a Biyun Sect false alchemist elder intervened.

When Li Ji’an had just moved in, Steward Qi had warned him about this.

Yet, only a year had passed.

“Brother Li, am I disturbing you?” she called out, running up as soon as she saw him, causing the ground to tremble.

Li Ji’an hurriedly stopped her. “Not at all, not at all. What brings you here, Comrade Hua?”

“Isn’t it about that matter again?” Hua Hongling blushed slightly.

Li Ji’an took a deep breath. “Comrade Hua, I’ve said before that our relationship should be sincere and open. Let’s keep things as usual and not make it complicated.”

“To be honest, I really have no clue about the pill you seek. I’m afraid I’ll disappoint you.”

Originally, Hua Hongling had a somewhat bad attitude towards Li Ji’an. When he first wanted to purchase a defensive magical tool, she was quite irritable.

It wasn’t until half a year ago, when a female cultivator brought her own medicinal materials and asked Li Ji’an to help refine a batch of Bone-Easy Pills that Hua Hongling’s attitude changed drastically.

Since then, she had been persistently asking Li Ji’an to help her concoct a pill that could shrink the body somewhat, promising in return to craft him a top-grade magical tool.