"Oh! Your cultivation base... you've broken through to the 3rd layer!" Zhong Xiu noticed inadvertently.
"Just broke through not long ago."
"Brother Chuan, you're such a genius! How long has it even been!"
"Haha! I think I'm pretty exceptional myself!"
"So vain!"
"Thank you. Without the Jade Slip you lent me, I'd be a nobody right now."
"It was just a small favor, and I didn't even have time to look at it anyway. Look at me—my cultivation base has only improved a tiny bit."
Zhong Xiu's cultivation had advanced within the mid stage, but she was still at the 2nd layer. She felt she had already worked extremely hard.
"A task like the one you took—never accept anything like that again. It's a complete trap!" Zhou Chuan said with displeasure.
"Nothing to be done about it, bad luck!"
"As for me, I just accepted a sect task: raising rabbits."
"Raising rabbits?"
"Mmm, I can bring the rabbits back to my dwelling to raise them, so it won't affect my cultivation."
"There are tasks like that? I'm so envious! Having a higher cultivation base really lets you pick better tasks."
"You've noticed it too. Having a low cultivation base puts you at a real disadvantage when taking sect tasks."
"So?"
"Once you finish this task and raise your cultivation base, come back to take the next one. Don't crowd together with everyone else to pick tasks, or you'll never get an ideal one. That's what I've decided to do: cultivate like crazy, and only take on my first task after my cultivation has improved." Zhou Chuan rambled on.
"That really is a good method. I'll listen to you from now on."
"Also, we can discuss our cultivation together."
"Your cultivation base is higher than mine now, so you should be the one guiding me."
Zhou Chuan returned the Jade Slip Zhong Xiu had left with him. This favor was greater than the gift of a single meal, so he genuinely wanted to help Zhong Xiu with her cultivation. However, saying that out loud directly wouldn't be quite right.
The two chatted for a long time. Zhong Xiu brought out good treats to host him, and Zhou Chuan didn't have to leave until dark.
Once he had gone, Zhou Chuan immersed himself in a bittersweet aftertaste, unable to say whether he truly liked Zhong Xiu or not. Considering his age, he wasn't young anymore—twenty-six. If he hadn't fled an arranged marriage back then, he would have children running around by now.
Three days later, Zhou Chuan came to the Affairs Pavilion once again.
"Managing Elder, I am here to collect the Spirit Cunning Rabbit," he stated his business directly.
Peng Yuyan recognized him, slowly retrieved a jade cage, and placed it gently on the desk.
Zhou Chuan opened the lid and peered inside. There was a plump rabbit inside, its entire body glowing red.
"It's it! A red rabbit!" Zhou Chuan exclaimed in surprise.
"Hm? Don't tell me you've never raised a spirit rabbit before?" Peng Yuyan frowned, terrified of handing the spirit rabbit over to someone inexperienced. The person who had posted the task was an inner sect prodigy, and nothing could be allowed to go wrong.
"I've raised them, but the ones I raised before weren't this big. I know its blood is extremely precious—it's prime material for alchemy."
Zhou Chuan had never seen a Spirit Cunning Rabbit before, but seeing it now, he realized that the red rabbits he had eaten several times were actually spirit rabbits.
Hearing Zhou Chuan say this, Peng Yuyan carefully handed over the rabbit.
Then, Zhou Chuan took the jade cage and left. He had a premonition that this task would go smoothly because he and the rabbits were fated.
Time to test it out immediately! He flew straight back to Heiwu Mountain and went to the foot of the mountain to catch rabbits. With his current cultivation base, catching rabbits was effortless. As expected, he caught a few and placed them alongside the one in the cage, comparing them carefully.
"Damn it! No mistake, they look exactly the same!!"
After careful verification, the rabbits were indeed Spirit Cunning Rabbits, not red-brown mice, meaning there was no toxicity. Remembering that rabbit blood was also a fine material for alchemy, Zhou Chuan quickly made a connection to a business venture with zero capital outlay.
"Oh dear! What a terrible waste! I've eaten away an entire Gold Mountain!"
"No, this won't do. I can't sell the rabbits inside the immortal sect, or news about the Spirit Cunning Rabbits here will spread quickly, and we'll all be wiped out in one sweep."
The Baili Pavilion purchased all sorts of materials, but every transaction required registration, leaving a paper trail. He immediately thought of taking them outside to sell.
"Down the mountain! That's the decision. But before I sell them, I need to thoroughly understand the Spirit Cunning Rabbit—what purpose its blood actually serves and what its value is."
That day, he caught twenty Spirit Cunning Rabbits and brought them back to his dwelling. Knowing they were treasures, he naturally wasn't going to let them go. Zhou Chuan already knew how to activate the restrictions of his dwelling; with the restrictions up, no one could enter, nor could divine sense probe inside.
Inside his dwelling, he cleared out a room to use as a breeding chamber, raised a batch of spirit rabbits, and observed their habits.
"One Hundred Beast Spirits" recorded common spirit beasts, and it contained a detailed introduction to the Spirit Cunning Rabbit. Upon inquiry, he found out they only cost twenty low-grade Spiritual Stones.
Having sworn he would never borrow money from Zhang Yuan again, Zhou Chuan promptly forgot his promise, shamelessly asked for another loan, and even pretended he hadn't been to the Baili Pavilion.
After buying "One Hundred Beast Spirits", he read through it carefully and finally gained a preliminary understanding of spirit beasts.
"So the blood of the Spirit Cunning Rabbit has the effect of helping break through bottlenecks. No wonder I succeeded in Qi Condensation so quickly—half the credit goes to this, not just comprehension."
Whether it was tier-two spiritual pills or tier-three spiritual pills, the blood of the Spirit Cunning Rabbit was a common and essential ingredient.
"According to the records, although the Spirit Cunning Rabbits have a strong reproductive capacity, they are extremely difficult to raise. Their living environment requirements are high, they are picky eaters, and they are emotional. Seeing companions die, they have a strong urge to rush to their deaths. That's strange—why are there so many Spirit Cunning Rabbits on Heiwu Mountain? It feels like they're easier to raise than fish; I can't even finish eating them all."
Zhou Chuan had his doubts. Suddenly, Heiwu Mountain gave him the impression of being a very bizarre mountain.
Heiwu Mountain was a newly developed mountain of the Water Talisman Sect. Its location was merely at the tail end of a spiritual vein branch, barely adequate for cultivation. Therefore, after the immortal sect developed it, they didn't pay much attention to it. Due to the meager spiritual Qi, they wouldn't station too many disciples here either.
"There are treasures in this place!" Zhou Chuan guessed.
Once he confirmed that the Spirit Cunning Rabbits were valuable, Zhou Chuan planned a trip down the mountain. According to the immortal sect's rules, new disciples were allowed to leave the mountain, but there was a limit on frequency: outer disciples could go out at most three times a year, and each time could not exceed five days. Tasks assigned by the sect were an exception.
Going down the mountain, once you left the Mountain-Guarding Array, flying cranes could no longer be used, and you had to rely on flight talismans. Zhou Chuan had used a flight talisman once before. Now that he was at the 3rd layer of Qi Condensation, Zhou Chuan wasn't worried, especially since he was quite familiar with the cultivation technique "Wind and Rain Undeterred".
Going down the mountain was no easy feat, and opportunities were scarce; Zhou Chuan wished he could catch a hundred Spirit Cunning Rabbits to sell. But the problem was he couldn't carry them.
Once confirmed as spirit beasts, the rabbits had to be packed into beast bags. A beast bag had a smaller space than a storage bag, but its price was more than twice as high.
Zhang Yuan was a shrewd fellow who usually pretended to be poor but was actually quite wealthy. He didn't have any spirit beasts himself, but he did own a beast bag.
Zhou Chuan borrowed the beast bag from him at a daily rental rate of five low-grade Spiritual Stones. An ordinary beast bag could hold a hundred spirit rabbits, Zhou Chuan estimated. He hadn't counted how many spirit rabbits there were on Heiwu Mountain in total, but he figured there must be around three hundred.
As for completing the sect task? Did he need to worry about that? He could just catch a few later and hand them in.
Flight talismans traveled so fast that the wind felt like cutting blades, forcing Zhou Chuan to employ the "Wind and Rain Undeterred" technique. He had learned this technique quite late, but he picked it up very quickly. A flight talisman could only fly a hundred baili at a time, and the distance from the immortal sect to the Qi State capital required him to use it five times.
Flying and stopping, after three hours, Zhou Chuan arrived at Yanyang City, the capital of the Qi State. A year ago, he had been here; arriving again now, his state of mind was completely different.
The primary use of Spirit Cunning Rabbits was in alchemy and medicine-making, so selling them to a medicine shop was naturally the best choice.
"Excuse me, which one is the capital's second-largest medicine shop?" Zhou Chuan asked.
"The second-largest?"
"The second-largest. The third-largest is fine too."
Normally, when people asked for directions, they asked for the largest medicine shop, but Zhou Chuan didn't do that. The Qi State was a cultivation nation subordinate to the Water Talisman Sect, and the capital's largest medicine pavilion had both direct and indirect ties to the sect. Selling a significant quantity of Spirit Cunning Rabbits there carried a high probability of attracting attention. In the unlikely event that someone followed the trail and traced it back to him, the spirit rabbits on Heiwu Mountain might be confiscated by the immortal sect or snatched away by other powerful elders.
"Ah! I'm truly suited for the pugilistic world! How many people in this world are as cautious as I am!"
Perhaps because he had been bullied and humiliated so often in the past, Zhou Chuan had developed a fondness for self-praise to soothe his wounded soul.
The Spirit Medicine Pavilion was the guide given to Zhou Chuan by the local passerby. Even the locals didn't know which one was Yanyang City's second-largest medicine shop, so they just told him the one they knew. The capital's largest medicine shop was universally known simply as the First Medicine Shop.
Finding the Spirit Medicine Pavilion, Zhou Chuan considered whether he should just turn around and leave.
"Damn it, this isn't a medicine shop, it's a clinic!"
The medicine pavilion was very small, but a long line was waiting outside the entrance, mostly the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, waiting to be diagnosed and treated.