Chapter 1: Getting Up Early to Pick Up Manure

As the sky just brightened, Xu Chen was woken up by the chirping of birds outside.

Yawning as he walked out of his dilapidated shack, he stood on the mountainside to survey the dark-green, undulating mountains and the mist-shrouded peaks and ravines before him. He rubbed his face a few times, picked the sleep from his eyes, and went to the nearby spring to wash his face and rinse his mouth. He then picked up a broken pottery bowl to gulp down a few mouthfuls of cold water. After tidying up briefly, he shouldered his basket and walked toward the back mountain while gnawing on dry rations.

After walking along the narrow, rugged mountain path for the time it takes to burn half a stick of incense, the path turned, and he saw a waterfall plummeting down from a height of several dozen zhang. As the mountain breeze swept past, water mist sprayed out, appearing like flying gold and splashing jade in the morning sunlight; the cool air was refreshing.

Below the cliff was a patch of medicine fields, not large in area, only two or three mu.

Many medicinal herbs were planted inside. Although they looked like they were growing well, there were actually few that were useful. Most were low-grade medicinal herbs like yellow rhizome and Mysterious Ginseng that had not yet matured. Some were in bloom, with red, yellow, blue, and white colors interweaving, which was quite pleasing to the eye. However, compared to the lush natural environment of ancient pines and vines climbing and entangling all around, it appeared sparse and rather shabby.

A gaunt, old Daoist with graying hair, wearing Daoist robes and a Daoist bun, was patrolling the medicine field. Hearing footsteps, he turned his head and saw Xu Chen entering while wiping his mouth.

The old Daoist nodded slightly.

Xu Chen hurriedly bowed: "Third Elder, why have you come?"

The old Daoist said: "The Song Kingdom Emperor's hundredth birthday is approaching. A few days ago, he sent the Third Prince to pay a visit. According to old custom, our Taiyuan Sect must bestow some pills. I have come to the medicine garden to see if there are any suitable mature medicinal herbs to refine a furnace of pills."

Xu Chen couldn't help but curl his lip and say: "That dog of an Emperor has such a big ego. We can't even refine a few furnaces of immortal pills for ourselves in a year; why bother benefiting them?"

The old Daoist didn't mind, shaking his head as he said: "Although there is a distinction between immortals and mortals, our Taiyuan Sect is within the territory of the Song Kingdom, and some worldly affairs may be unavoidable. Interaction is also reasonable. Besides, the Song Kingdom Emperor comes from the Yuqing Hall, so this face must be given regardless. It is only ordinary pills, after all; we cannot produce anything better. Why must you complain? We who cultivate the Dao should remember to keep our hearts calm and peaceful."

Although Xu Chen was unhappy in his heart, he still respectfully accepted the instruction and accompanied the old Daoist as he began to stroll through the medicine field. However, after searching for half an hour, they only found three or five medicinal herbs that were barely usable.

The old Daoist looked at the sparse, weak-rooted herbs in the bamboo basket, his expression quite unsightly.

Xu Chen had to bite the bullet and say: "Third Elder, this disciple has not been lazy. I look after them carefully every day. Today, I was just preparing to go out to find some manure for fertilizer."

The old Daoist nodded slightly and said: "The medicine garden is well-managed, and I have no intention of blaming you. It is just that the Great Elder has ordered that the pills to be bestowed this time must be at least second-grade. These medicinal herbs not only lack the age and potency, but they are also missing a few main ingredients. Never mind, you go on your way. I will also go out for a trip to see if I can find them."

After the old Daoist finished speaking, he flicked his large sleeves and rose into the air, turning into a streak of light toward a precipitous, strange peak in the distance.

Xu Chen smacked his lips with envy, then pulled out a half-foot-long small gray sword from his waist. He silently recited a magic spell and pointed his finger; the small sword suddenly shone brightly, and as it met the wind, it grew to three feet in size, hovering two feet off the ground. Xu Chen sat on it as if riding a horse, and then, man and sword wobbled crookedly toward the vast, green, mist-shrouded mountains, facing the rising morning sun.

"What a bitter life!"

Traveling by sword is supposed to be an immortal's method, but for Xu Chen, who was riding the sword and blowing in the wind, it was full of bitterness.

He was originally an orphan who survived by herding cattle and picking up manure for wealthy families. Unexpectedly, at the age of ten, he had a stroke of good luck and was discovered by the Second Elder of the Taiyuan Sect, who was out wandering, to have a Spirit Root—a seedling for cultivation. Thus, he was brought back to the mountain and taken as a disciple.

Xu Chen once thought his destiny was extraordinary and that he had finally moved the heavens, the earth, and all the gods and buddhas, and from then on, he could cultivate to become an immortal and roam the world freely.

But he never expected that after picking up manure in the mortal world, he would still have the fate of picking up manure in the Immortal Sect.

And the Spirit Root he thought was gifted was, in the cultivation world, merely the most trashy variety, barely capable of cultivation.

After the Second Elder brought him back to the sect and taught him some introductory magic spells, he dumped him on the mountain and went out wandering again. It was rare for him to return once a year. Although Xu Chen was very diligent and practiced hard every day, after several years, he had only just entered the Opening Origin Qi Refining stage, barely able to control a Magic Treasure to fly. As for magic spells, he only knew two or three of the most superficial and low-level types in the cultivation world. He absolutely belonged to the "five-trash" category of the cultivation world; getting into a fight was purely a death wish.

His current strength was fine for dealing with ordinary wild beasts, but if he encountered some more powerful Spirit Beasts or Demon Beasts, he could only turn himself into feces.

Fortunately, there was nothing terrifying near the Taiyuan Sect; the threatening Demon Beasts had basically been wiped out or driven away by the elders and several senior brothers and sisters with decent strength.

Furthermore, although his unreliable Master was not very dependable, he was still good to him. Knowing that he had stepped into the Kaiyuan Realm, he was very happy and bestowed upon him a first-grade Flying Sword he had used before; otherwise, Xu Chen might not even be able to leave the sect to this day.

The Taiyuan Sect lived deep in the vast mountains, with thousands of miles of wilderness around it. It was still more than three hundred miles away from the nearest city in the Great Song Kingdom, and there were no roads in the mountains. If one couldn't fly, one could only stay on the mountain for a lifetime.

Ever since he had this Flying Sword, Xu Chen finally began to truly experience the magic spells and supernatural powers of an Immortal. Although it wasn't the kind of cool flying through the sky and escaping the earth, he at least had the ability to go out.

There were only a dozen or so people in the entire Taiyuan Sect, and their strength was not strong. Apart from the Great Elder, whose cultivation had reached the Danyuan Late Stage, there were two other elders at the True Essence Late Stage.

The Third Elder who came just now was at the True Essence Late Stage and was skilled in alchemy, so he usually stayed on the mountain to guard it.

Xu Chen's Master was the Second Elder, who was already at the True Essence Great Perfection and spent his time wandering outside looking for opportunities to break through. However, it had been five years since Xu Chen joined the Taiyuan Sect, and his Master had yet to show any signs of breaking through. He returned to the mountain roughly once a year, staying for ten days or half a month before leaving again.

It had been over a year since he last returned.

Xu Chen even occasionally speculated maliciously whether his Master had secretly kicked the bucket.

But every time such a thought flashed through his mind, Xu Chen would feel guilty. He had been an orphan since he was young, and it wasn't until he met his Master and was brought to the sect that he began to truly feel some warmth and care.

As the saying goes, a child with a mother is like a treasure. Having his Master's care in the Taiyuan Sect had its benefits, at least to some extent; those senior brothers and sisters didn't dare to bully him for no reason.

Of course, because his Master was unreliable and left him on the mountain year-round without asking after him, the other senior brothers and sisters naturally handed the most bitter, tiring, and hopeless work to him: taking care of the medicine garden and diligently picking up manure to fertilize the fields.

The Taiyuan Sect was small, broken, and poor. Not only were there pitifully few cultivation techniques, but pills and Magic Treasures were even scarcer. Xu Chen had never seen a second-grade pill. In fact, he had only eaten a real first-grade pill once, and that was when he broke through to the Kaiyuan Realm and the sect bestowed it upon him according to the rules; it was called a Transformation Origin Pill.

Daily cultivation also required the assistance of pills. The most common one was the Small Yuan Pill, which was mainly used to assist in Refining Essence into Qi and accelerate the circulation of origin energy. It was considered a barely-graded pill. However, because they were poor, the dozen or so disciples of the Taiyuan Sect distributed them according to their strength and contributions. Since Xu Chen didn't go out to gain experience, he had no chance to find any Heavenly Material and Earthly Treasure to contribute to the sect, so he could barely be allocated one bottle a year, totaling no more than ten pills. To cultivate faster, pills were indispensable, so the group of destitute disciples could only find ways everywhere themselves. Almost everything that could be done, except for robbery, had been done. In the eyes of mortals, the so-called high-and-mighty Immortal Sect was actually just a group of wild people with green eyes all day long, not much better than some rogue cultivators.

However, Xu Chen was still very pure, because even if he wanted to do those things, he had no chance.

The biggest obstacle was that he couldn't beat ninety percent of them, so he could only cower in the sect.

And the job of picking up manure made him feel humble and helpless.

Riding the first-grade Flying Sword, swaying and flying through the vast mountain ridges for about two quarters of an hour, Xu Chen retracted the sword and landed on a mountain top a hundred miles away from the sect to begin meditating to recover his Qi.

Refining Essence into Qi is divided into three stages: Opening Origin Qi Refining, True Origin Foundation Establishment, and Dantian Origin Golden Core. Thus, the cultivation world also calls them the three realms of Kaiyuan Realm, Zhenyuan Realm, and Danyuan Realm. Each realm can be roughly divided into three small stages: early, middle, and late.

Xu Chen was currently between the early and middle stages of the Kaiyuan Realm. In fact, according to the origin energy he had stored, he could barely support the Flying Sword to fly continuously for half an hour, but he had an "insufficient origin energy anxiety syndrome" and always wanted to refill his energy when it was nearly half consumed.

If his origin energy dropped to about one-third, he would start to feel anxious and nervous, always feeling that his life was in danger.

Of course, this caution and anxiety made him meditate to recover his Qi at every opportunity, which indeed allowed him to have enough origin energy to escape danger several times after encountering Demon Beasts or Spirit Beasts.

Two quarters of an hour later, after three consecutive small cycles, Xu Chen felt full of origin energy again, so he stood up contentedly, looked around at the vast mountains and wilderness, and pondered where he should go to make a fortune today.

Calling it making a fortune was actually just scavenging.

But calling it scavenging was also a bit of an overstatement; to be precise, most of the time he was just picking up manure.

It is said that the Taiyuan Sect was once very powerful and glorious. In its heyday, there were thousands of cultivators, and the sect grounds spread over a thousand miles. Buildings, halls, temples, and medicine gardens were scattered across dozens of mountain peaks, truly resembling immortal palaces and an immortal's Daoist grounds.

It is a pity that later, for some reason, it suddenly suffered a catastrophe, and the entire sect collapsed in a few years. Thus, in these vast mountains, there were ruins left behind everywhere. For thousands of years, it had once become a treasure-hunting ground for other cultivators, but as time passed, the treasures became fewer and fewer, and gradually no one came anymore.

The current Taiyuan Sect actually had no direct relationship with the former Taiyuan Sect. Instead, three hundred years ago, a rogue cultivator found a somewhat authentic Taiyuan Sect cultivation technique in the ruins and achieved success in his cultivation, so he re-established the sect here and continued to use the name Taiyuan Sect.

Of course, all the current Taiyuan Sect disciples were still accustomed to treating the ancient, glorious Taiyuan Sect as part of their own history. After all, the cultivation techniques and the sect grounds were all passed down in one continuous line, so it could be considered an orthodox inheritance, and it wasn't just randomly claiming a connection.

Most of the disciples with low cultivation in the Taiyuan Sect spent most of their time scavenging for things in the ruins near the sect.

And Xu Chen was the youngest and lowest-cultivation disciple of the current Taiyuan Sect. Apart from digging through the ancestors' old rags every day, he was also responsible for taking care of the medicine garden, with his main function being to act as a manure collector, picking up manure to fertilize the fields.

To nourish the medicine fields, ordinary wild beast feces wouldn't do; it had to be Demon Beast or Spirit Beast feces.

Because only these advanced beasts knew how to eat plants or minerals rich in Spirit Qi, the Spirit Qi that could not be fully absorbed would remain in the feces.

Alchemy requires a large amount of Spirit Grass and Spirit Medicine, and wild ones are difficult to collect. To stably supply a sect with pills, one must plant them in large quantities.

Even in the civilian world, grain and vegetables must be fertilized to grow well, let alone Spirit Grass that relies on absorbing the Spirit Qi of heaven and earth to have medicinal effects. If the Spirit Qi is insufficient, it would be one thing if the medicinal herbs didn't grow well, but even if they barely grew, they would degenerate into ordinary grass with no medicinal effect at all.

It is said that large Immortal Sects use Spirit Stones directly as fertilizer when growing Spirit Medicine.

But Xu Chen has been cultivating for five years and hasn't saved a single Spirit Stone, let alone fertilized fields.

The Taiyuan Sect is also poor, with only the three Elders possessing some Spirit Stones, yet they are reluctant to use them in daily life; only at critical moments of cultivation do they set up a Gathering Spirit Array to assist in breaking through, while as for Xu Chen and the group of senior brothers and sisters, they are even more strapped for cash, and having one or two stones feels like being an upstart.

After thinking for a moment, Xu Chen released his Flying Sword, mounted it, and flew toward a canyon in the southwest.

One must be early when gathering dung; this is the experience he has summarized from two years of gathering dung.

Only by taking advantage of the time when Spirit Beasts leave their nests to forage in the early morning is it the best opportunity to snatch dung; otherwise, once these Spirit Beasts discover an intruder in their territory, if one cannot escape in time, it is highly likely one will be ravaged quite miserably.

Of course, gathering dung mostly depends on luck; after all, this stuff isn't there just because you want it, and he is not the only one snatching dung in the mountains, as there are many birds, beasts, snakes, rats, and insects that are all interested in these droppings rich in Spirit Qi; besides, dung beetles are much more adept at this than he is, as that is an ancestral skill that cannot be learned even if one wants to.

Therefore, when gathering dung, it is better to be early than late; if you leave the house late, you won't even be able to snatch a fresh pile of poop.