“Finally, I’ve collected and cashed in all the resources from our last trip out!”
Back in his territory, Qi Ping was in a great mood. Although he’d acquired this batch of goods seven or eight years ago, he’d only just now managed to reclaim them—only now were they truly in his grasp.
Now, at last, they were genuinely his.
“Next up, I need to use these resources to rapidly boost my strength!”
With abundant resources and everything in place, Qi Ping’s next step was to leverage this haul to quickly push his cultivation to the late Foundation Establishment stage, and fully nurture his animal companions. After that, he could use his Treant Avatar to head to the Qingyuan Sect, acquire cultivation knowledge and formation techniques, and seek an opportunity to break through to the Golden Core stage.
At the same time, he also needed to find a way to spend those five million-plus spirit stones, acquiring some high-value resources in return.
“First things first—I need to plant the spiritual herbs and seeds I just bought, especially the Rippling Wonderwood and the Nether Moon Soulwood. I’ll contract them as soon as possible, imprint suitable spells, and get them growing quickly to speed up the growth of the Dreamcloud Immortal Tiger and the other animal companions.”
Cultivating spiritual herbs and woods wasn’t just about the companions’ growth—it was also key to Qi Ping’s own Druid experience gains.
Qi Ping felt that as he progressed further, leveling up his Druid class and earning experience was getting harder and harder. However, it seemed that as his cultivation improved and his grasp over law essences and spiritual energy deepened, the difficulty of gaining Druid experience would ease up a little.
So, the faster he advanced in cultivation from here on out, the quicker he’d accumulate Druid experience as well.
“Next, while cultivating the spirit woods and herbs, I need to push my Druid level to eight as soon as possible. Then I can contract the Illuminating Azure Serpent, obtain its innate talent—Illuminating Azure Mirror—and use that ability, along with its extraordinary comprehension, to thoroughly understand the cultivation techniques I’ve seized. After that, I can begin creating a cultivation method that is entirely my own.”
“Once I break through to late Foundation Establishment, deepen my understanding of the fusion of water and fire, and gain a firmer grasp of both the Law of Water and the Law of Fire, I should be able to combine more water-attribute and fire-attribute formations into a grand array. If I can perfectly fuse six formations together, I might even have a chance to contend with an ordinary Golden Core cultivator using this formation.”
Once he reached that point, Qi Ping could set foot in the Qingyuan Sect without any reservations. No matter what happened, he’d have the confidence to handle it.
But reaching that stage wasn’t easy. Just attaining a high level of mastery over the water-fire fusion required a deep comprehension of both the Law of Fire and the Law of Water, and then integrating that insight with formation principles.
With his current level of comprehension, Qi Ping wasn’t confident he could pull that off in a short time. So he’d need to acquire the Illuminating Azure Serpent’s enlightenment talent first, stack it with the Three-Colored Deer’s “Trinity Spirit” talent, and only then would he feel assured of achieving this goal swiftly.
This objective was the most important one for Qi Ping—it was the foundation of his pursuit of immortality and the long-term security of his territory.
Beyond that, he had two secondary goals to accomplish along the way.
The first was to brew medicinal solutions to evolve his bees to the late second-order stage.
Once the swarm reached late second-order, the title “Bee Daoist” would truly live up to its name, and the swarm formation would finally qualify as a top-tier Foundation Establishment combat force.
But for the bees to achieve a true leap forward, they’d still have to wait until they fully devoured the bloodline of the Magus Insect King. At that point, their bloodline would even surpass that of all his current animal companions!
And when that happened, combined with their overwhelming numbers, the swarm would possess incomparably formidable battle power!
The second goal was to have his Treant Avatar take the Little Stone Spirit outside to devour all the ores and weapons they’d acquired.
Based on preliminary estimates, after consuming this batch of resources, Qi Ping was certain the Little Stone Spirit would reach peak second-order combat power—and maybe even touch upon third-order strength.
Qi Ping was really looking forward to seeing how the Little Stone Spirit would transform.
After all, the little Immortal Tiger’s divination on this matter had been extremely auspicious!
With that thought, Qi Ping immediately dug out the little coal-ball Stone Spirit, who had been sleeping soundly next to the spirit vein.
“Ding-ding… (Boss! I was sleeping so well! Why’d you wake me up?)”
The Little Stone Spirit rubbed its eyes and looked at Qi Ping in confusion.
Suddenly, it noticed that there were many new companion ores and high-quality Dark Iron around it.
“Ding-ding? (Huh? Why are there so many rocks here? They look way tastier than before!)”
Without hesitation, it directly manipulated several pieces of Dark Iron and companion ores straight into its mouth.
Then, a crisp crunching sound echoed from the Little Stone Spirit’s mouth—and in that instant, its eyes flew wide open!
“Ding-ding! (Whoa! This is so delicious, Boss!)” the Little Stone Spirit exclaimed!
Then, using its Gold-Stone Body’s ability to manipulate metals and stones, it scooped up a big pile of ores and happily scurried over to Qi Ping, beaming with excitement:
“Ding-ding! (Boss, come eat with me! It’s so good!)”
It had promised to share this with Qi Ping—and it had never forgotten!
Faced with the Little Stone Spirit’s enthusiasm and hopeful gaze, Qi Ping really didn’t want to let it down. But still, he firmly shook his head and refused.
Little Stone Spirit, your boss doesn’t eat rocks!
“Little Stone Spirit, I’m human—I don’t eat stones,” Qi Ping said as gently as he could.
“Ding-ding… (Oh… okay…)” The Little Stone Spirit looked a little dejected, its head drooping slowly.
But then it suddenly noticed the Three-Colored Deer and the Little Spirit Fox nearby, staring at it with wide, stunned eyes—and perked up again.
However, before the Little Stone Spirit could even speak, the Three-Colored Deer and Little Spirit Fox frantically shook their heads.
They didn’t eat rocks either!
Whether they were tasty or not, they didn’t know—but their teeth would definitely shatter!
Their resolute refusal made the Little Stone Spirit’s newly brightened eyes dim once more. It seemed no one liked the things it wanted to share…
Seeing the Little Stone Spirit looking like it was about to cry, Qi Ping quickly stepped forward, patted its head, and comforted it:
“Every race has its own food, you know. And it’s not that they’re rejecting you—we all know you love eating ores, and we’ve prepared a whole bunch for you. I’ll take you there in a bit…”
“Ding-ding? (Really?)”
The Little Stone Spirit’s dim eyes slowly began to shine again.
“Of course! You eat these for now, and I’ll take you over soon!” Qi Ping nodded firmly.
“Ding-ding! (Okay!)”
With that reassurance, the Little Stone Spirit happily nodded and, carefree once more, began chowing down with gusto.
Its expression and eyes radiated pure contentment and overflowing joy.
Before long, a huge pile of ores had all vanished into the Little Stone Spirit’s fist-sized body.
And oddly enough, no matter how many ores it stuffed in, its size didn’t change one bit.
But when Qi Ping’s Treant Avatar showed up nearby, a big question mark seemed to pop up over the Little Stone Spirit’s head.
Huh? Why does the boss have two of him now?
