Chapter 161

Jiang Yan's own cultivation was just as tranquil.

Every day, he led everyone through their morning and evening lessons; the remaining time was spent tutoring Klee and continuously cultivating his divine sense with the help of Primogems.

In the evenings, he would take time to provide extra guidance to Ganyu and Klee.

Other matters concerning Shushan were all handed over to Zhongli and the others.

After completing the morning lessons as usual today, Jiang Yan let everyone return to tidy up and prepare for the exploration of the Nine Nether Secret Realm at noon.

But while he said "tidy up," strictly speaking, it was difficult for anyone to find anything to actually tidy.

Lishui had blown up his furnace while refining pills yesterday, breaking it, so he went to find Liuyun to fix it.

After much pleading and finally getting Liuyun to help, Lishui wanted to give it his all, thinking of the upcoming exploration of the Nine Nether Secret Realm.

He wanted to make some pills at the very last minute.

But unfortunately, it still ended with the furnace exploding.

This time, after blowing it up four or five times, the furnace that had only been repaired for an afternoon cracked again.

Lishui shamelessly ran to Wind-Returning Peak to ask Liuyun to help repair it once more.

But the moment he stepped onto Wind-Returning Peak, Liuyun blasted him in the face with Yin Five-Thunder.

This time, no matter what grand promises Lishui made about giving her pills once he succeeded, Liuyun wouldn't listen.

She spent the whole way greeting Lishui's intelligence with elegant vocabulary, while the Yin Five-Thunder chased him from Wind-Returning Peak to a place thousands of kilometers outside of Shushan.

In the end, Lishui could only hide in his own cave dwelling, aggrieved, and cultivate for the night.

The pill refining plan had gone down the drain.

Liuyun and Pingzi wanted to try and make some Dharma artifacts on the last night before exploring the Nine Nether Secret Realm.

But in the end, they all failed.

Regarding this, Liuyun stated that it was entirely Lishui's fault.

However, considering that up until now, only one low-grade Dharma artifact furnace had been made on Wind-Returning Peak,

Lishui felt that even without his interference, they wouldn't have been able to make anything anyway.

On the contrary, Ningguang had honestly stayed at Little Bamboo Peak drawing talismans all night, accumulating quite a bit of stock.

As for the others, they just seized the final time to cultivate diligently and adjust their states.

Jiang Yan told everyone to go back and prepare, but Keqing and the others only went back to their own cave dwellings to take a look.

Upon calculating, they realized they had nothing to pack; some didn't even have a single Dharma artifact.

Simply put, they could only arrive at Dragon Head Peak early to wait.

Near noon, Ningguang also arrived riding her flying sword. With this, everyone in Shushan except for Jiang Yan, Ganyu, and Klee had arrived.

After landing, Ningguang looked at the group who seemed to have arrived early and cultivated for a long time, and asked, somewhat puzzled:

"The Sect Master told everyone to prepare; why did you all come so early?"

Hearing this, Keqing opened her eyes and gave Ningguang a faint look.

"Look at me from head to toe; besides a Green Frost Sword, is there anything else I need to pack?"

The others also looked at Ningguang silently.

Ningguang felt a bit awkward. After pondering for a moment, she moved her divine sense, and the pouch at her waist sent out many jade bottles filled with pills.

All kinds of pills quickly piled up into a small hill, at least several dozen bottles.

The expressions of Keqing and the others instantly turned somewhat bitter.

They were already poor enough, and this Ningguang...

Was she showing off her wealth?

A moment later, Ningguang's pouch finally finished spitting out all the jade bottles.

Seeing everyone with envy written all over their faces, Ningguang chuckled and said quite magnanimously:

"These pills were just exchanged from the Merit Hall. There are Qi-Replenishing Pills to restore True Qi, True Qi Pills for cultivation, and Spring-Returning Powder for healing injuries."

"Everyone, take some. We don't know how long we'll be in the Nine Nether Secret Realm, and it's very dangerous, so we must be well-prepared."

Suddenly, Keqing felt ashamed for judging a noble heart with a petty mind.

After condemning herself internally, she took a rough look at the quantity of these pills.

Although she didn't have contribution points and couldn't afford these pills, she often checked their prices.

But at this look, Keqing gasped.

"These... these things must be worth thirty thousand contribution points!"

"It's too precious; we can't accept it!"

Hearing this, Lisa, who was on the side, was also startled.

She looked at Ningguang with some surprise, her eyes full of envy.

Thirty thousand contribution points—that was thirty thousand low-grade spirit stones.

She had exchanged all the Primogems she had for spirit stones, and even counting them all up, it was only a little over two hundred; she couldn't bear to use them at all.

And Ningguang was just taking out thirty thousand low-grade spirit stones to give away?

How did this richest person in Liyue still look like the richest person after coming to Shushan?

"No need to decline."

Ningguang laughed dumbfoundedly, shook her head, and said:

"Everyone knows the dangers of the Nine Nether Secret Realm. Without pills, we could say we'd be unable to move an inch."

"We don't know how long we'll be gone this time or how many dangers we'll encounter. Being well-prepared is a necessity."

"We are all fellow disciples; helping each other is what we should do."

Hearing this, the group found it hard to refuse Ningguang's kindness, especially Keqing.

Everyone had learned a lot about the situation in the Nine Nether Secret Realm over the past few days.

That place was not Teyvat; there weren't even many beings at the early stage of Refining Essence into Qi.

In Teyvat, with a cultivation level at the early stage of Refining Essence into Qi, you can basically walk sideways as long as you don't encounter powerful top-tier demon god attendants or demon gods.

And beings like Archons were rare, and they might not necessarily fight them.

The key was that the strong in Teyvat didn't cultivate immortality.

Keqing and the others had an overwhelming advantage.

But what about the Nine Nether Secret Realm?

That was a proper world of cultivation demons and monsters.

Cultivation at the early stage of Refining Essence into Qi—not to mention being cannon fodder, it probably wouldn't be much better.

Moreover, those fierce beasts were properly cultivating immortality.

Otherwise, how could fierce beasts contend with cultivators?

To get treasures in the Nine Nether Secret Realm, one inevitably had to fight powerful fierce beasts.

Jiang Yan had also said that treasures in the cultivation world were basically guarded by fierce beasts.

When fighting, who could guarantee they wouldn't get hurt?

If you were injured and couldn't recover quickly, in that dangerous world, you would be a burden—a slow suicide.

Alice looked at the pills in front of her, and inevitably felt a bit tempted.

Since they were going to the Nine Nether Secret Realm, they naturally had to find as many treasures as possible before returning.

She also needed cultivation resources.

Of course, it wasn't for Klee.

Klee, that little one, didn't need her to worry about cultivation resources at all.

As the Sect Master's true disciple, Klee had the greatest privileges in all of Shushan, second only to the Sect Master.

Her Dharma artifacts were shocking even to Alice, and she didn't even know how many pills Jiang Yan had brought for her.

A few days ago, Alice even saw Klee eating True Qi Pills like candy.

With Klee's talent, plus Jiang Yan's all-out cultivation of her,

Alice felt that if she didn't work hard, Klee would surpass her in a few decades.

As a mother, Alice was happy to accept that her daughter was stronger than her.

But...

It couldn't be that fast, could it?

Wouldn't that make her, the mother, look useless?

Shushan had always emphasized self-reliance.