Chapter 644

Hua Daier carefully peeked at Qian Chen and probed, "Senior?"

"Oh, so you know to call me Senior now!"

Qian Chen's gaze was gentle as he casually tossed the scroll of scriptures to her, smiling slightly: "It's a pity that the spirit-speech just now was not my own cultivation, but rather borrowed from the magic power of the cultivator who copied this scripture! When you get down to it, this art of spirit-speech is quite marvelous; it requires no magic power to activate, nor will it alert those four jade towers. As long as one's Dao attainment is sufficient, one can cast it..."

"It's just a pity that what this incantation records is not some powerful spirit-speech..."

Hua Daier remained cautious, whispering, "Were you really just scaring him? I felt that spirit-speech was terrifying, as if it had sealed off all his vitality!"

"That spirit-speech is called 'Fate-Commanding,' and it can only be used for fortune-telling. Have you ever heard of such a powerful spirit-speech by that name in the Heaven-Curse Sect?" Qian Chen retorted with a question.

After his explanation, Hua Daier scratched her head, feeling as if she had been convinced!

But just as Qian Chen turned his head, her eyes darted around, revealing a streak of cleverness...

At this moment, Liang Yu, accompanied by several juniors, had also found them. Before he could even blame Hua Daier for running off, he saw her throw herself into the arms of another female cultivator, shaking her arm and acting spoiled, successfully brushing the matter aside. Not to mention those few juniors, even Liang Yu could do nothing about this youngest niece of his, so he had no choice but to let her wander for a while.

Hua Daier took out her little purse, quietly came to Qian Chen's side, and whispered, "Uncle Li, I'll provide the capital. With your keen eye, you can surely calculate where there are still treasures. When the time comes, I'll buy them, and we can split them fifty-fifty. How about that?"

Qian Chen turned his head and glanced at her. Good heavens, she was even trying to fleece him!

"You trust me that much?" He asked, a look of curiosity appearing on his face.

"I trust you..."

Hua Daier said decisively, "Even if you said those few jade coins were from the Celestial Xia Divine Dynasty, I would believe you!"

She turned her little purse upside down and said pitifully, "But look, this is all the family wealth I've saved up!"

"Except for the two magic treasures bestowed by the clan and my family that I can't touch, most of my monthly allowance is for cultivation needs and can't be spent. My pocket money is just this little..."

Qian Chen glanced at it. It was indeed a scattered collection of a few hairpins and jewelry, over fifty Mountain-Clearing talismans, and a few cultivation materials. It looked truly pathetic.

He couldn't help but click his tongue and say, "Tsk tsk, they all say cultivation resources overseas are abundant. How is it that your family wealth is even more pathetic than that of a family child from the Central Lands?"

Hua Daier couldn't help but swallow, whispering, "I haven't reached the age where I can go out on my own yet. Usually, when I go out with Uncle Yu and the others, I'm watched very closely, so of course I don't have any private wealth!"

"Even during holidays, the rewards from visiting elders that I can't use at my current realm are all temporarily collected. I only sensed true qi last month; what kind of family wealth could I have?"

Qian Chen nodded upon hearing this and said, "Alright then, today we'll use your money to bet on my eye for treasures!"

Hua Daier led the way, and the two walked down the street where stalls were set up to sell goods. Before they had gone a few steps, Hua Daier grabbed Qian Chen's sleeve and pulled him toward a stall.

That stall was filled with bottles and jars, and a faint, mixed scent of moldy rot and medicinal herbs permeated the area; it was a stall selling elixirs.

Qian Chen swept a glance over the stall and said to Hua Daier, "One must be most cautious with things that go into the mouth. You dare to buy elixirs here?"

Elixirs are the primary merit of cultivation, but because there are too many villains in this world—for instance, the Demon Sect has many demon lords who love to tamper with elixirs, hiding demon spirits or gu-insects inside—the methods are countless!

Therefore, most cultivators in the Central Lands learn a hand of alchemy themselves to provide for their daily cultivation.

The overseas cultivation world has the most thorough commercialization of resources, but for such critical items as elixirs, most people still purchase them from shops or trade alliances with established reputations, or order them at elixir assemblies, or place orders directly with alchemists.

Yet the elixirs sold at this stall were of the kind with unknown origins.

They were either stolen goods from murder and robbery, or elixirs found in the caves of predecessors while exploring ruins. One never knew if they were treasure pills, poison pills, if the medicinal power had expired, or if they were bait set out by demonic alchemists. Regardless, they were just piled up messily on the stall for people to pick through.

Logically speaking, except for rogue cultivators who had nothing but a cheap life and were forced to gamble, basically no one would come here to buy elixirs.

Hua Daier lowered her voice and quietly transmitted to Qian Chen, "This place is a proper black shop. The goods are all stolen items searched out from all over overseas. Even the alchemist they patronize isn't sure about them, so they just put them here to get rid of them."

"Our Hua family is also a major supplier of spirit herbs, so we are clear about these channels."

"The more it's a place like this, the more likely there are good things that slipped through the net. Master Dan Fuzi once picked up an ancient pill here. After re-refining it, it turned out to be a rare kind that is of great use even to Soul Transformation ancestors. If we could pick up one like that, we'd be rich!"

"You need to 'pick up' a spirit pill that is only useful to Soul Transformation?"

Qian Chen was speechless. He had originally intended to take her to pick through items unearthed from ruins, to test her luck, fortune, sensitivity to spiritual energy, and comprehension, so he could pick a good item as a greeting gift!

Why couldn't you move your feet the moment you saw trash?

Qian Chen felt he needed to carefully consider whether he should still bring this kind of girl who was addicted to picking up trash to the Supreme Louguan.

Let's try it anyway! After all, in a place like overseas, it is truly rare to find someone who could achieve Foundation Establishment First Rank using ancient Central Lands methods and didn't take shortcuts in the sensing stage! Moreover, the Supreme Dao excels in alchemy, and the first stall she brought him to was one selling spirit pills, which could be considered a thread of fate.

Hua Daier pulled Qian Chen to a squat. The cultivator running the stall was perhaps truly sent by a 'proper' black market, so he didn't introduce his goods, just gestured for them to pick at will.

There were many styles of bottles and jars on the stall. A few bottles looked like they were unearthed in the same batch; the jade bottles were still stained with a lingering, musty smell of earth, had patina, and the yin qi was quite heavy. Qian Chen's spiritual sense swept over them and he knew they were unearthed from a tomb!

"Burial spirit pills... this stuff has a lot of lore behind it!"

"Yin pills for ghost cultivators to take, blood pills that need yin qi stimulation to transform, and even spirit pills that are semi-finished products that need to be buried as grave goods according to certain traditional rituals after a cultivator dies."

"Such burial pills originate from a custom during the Celestial Han era. The Celestial Han viewed death as life. Those who had not achieved cultivation and died when their lifespan was exhausted sought yin spirit immortality in their own tombs, thus creating many kinds of burial spirit pills. The precious ones, such as when an Emperor—who was close to the Nascent Soul level—was buried, would have semi-finished immortality pills refined by alchemists patronized by the palace buried with them!"

"These immortality pills, nourished by the feng shui and earth qi of the tomb and the sacrifices buried with them, might absorb spiritual energy and undergo a true life-and-death transformation, much like corpse-dissolution, transforming into true 'immortality pills'!"

"As for the ordinary ones, they are just spirit pills that are beneficial to ghost cultivation and hope to live on in the yin world. They are of no use to the living!"

Burial spirit pills are mostly semi-finished products that need to rely on feng shui burial grounds, and even the nourishment when the cultivator's physical body and spiritual energy return to heaven and earth, to undergo a life-and-death transformation to become a pill.

Burying a pill once is like one cycle or one turn of Qian Chen's Nine-Turn Pill Method; the medicinal properties will undergo incredible changes, becoming very precious.

For such spirit pills, even burying a hundred bottles might not result in a single one.

Legend has it that there are burial spirit pills that, after being excavated, because they are not suitable for the living to take, undergo a second or third burial and transformation, which can already be called rare treasures.

Such pills are usually yin pills, which are difficult for ordinary cultivators to take, but in the hands of an alchemist, they can be re-refined to turn their yang.

Hua Daier was currently holding a bottle of such burial spirit pills, carefully observing it in her hand with her spiritual sense. But the elixir had been in the soil for at least several hundred years, and had long since lost its medicinal scent and fire qi, and the stall didn't allow opening the jade bottles, so she could only judge based on the texture of the jade bottle, the traces of patina, and even the subtle differences in the yin qi hidden within.

Under such difficulty, even a veteran alchemist would easily make a mistake!

A flash of hesitation crossed Hua Daier's brow. She whispered, "Uncle Li, the material of this jade bottle..."

"Yin-Transforming Jade. This is specifically used for burial and nourishing yin pills! Whether the elixir inside can transform depends entirely on a gamble. If one transforms, you naturally earn back a thousand or ten thousand times the cost! But if it doesn't, inside is just a bottle of rotten soil," Qian Chen said indifferently.

Hua Daier hesitated repeatedly, but still put down the jade bottle and picked up a bronze bottle, shaking it. There was the sound of some heavy pills colliding inside. The cultivator at the stall raised a hand to stop her, signaling that she couldn't shake it anymore!

"Mineral pills..."

This time, without waiting for her to ask, Qian Chen reminded her: "Mineral pills refined using metal and stone as materials. Metal properties are immortal. Such metal and stone pills can mostly remain intact, unlike plant spirit pills that easily rot. But you must judge clearly what kind of mineral pill is inside."

"If it's a prepared magic treasure embryo, or some kind of divine ability mineral pill, or even a cultivation mineral pill that accumulates and nourishes pure spiritual energy after being refined and sealed into a spirit vein, it's a huge profit. But if it's just the kind of inferior mineral pill with the heaviest pill poison, then it's a total loss. Although you won't lose much, who told you to be poor? Once you lose, you won't have another chance!"

Hua Daier turned her head and looked at him pitifully, whispering, "Uncle Li, isn't this supposed to depend on your eye for treasures?"

"No, it depends on your eye for treasures! Yin-Transforming Jade becomes cold when it meets water, becomes stone when it meets earth, becomes moist when it meets metal, becomes emerald when it meets wood, and burns brighter and more brilliantly when it meets fire. Whether the yin pill contained in Yin-Transforming Jade has transformed will naturally have an impact on the jade bottle containing the elixir."

"So..." Hua Daier suddenly realized: "The ones where the jade texture is severely petrified, the yin pills inside have mostly turned into rotten soil!"

As she spoke, she picked out a few jade bottles where the Yin-Transforming Jade had almost stiffened into stone, and continued to frown and worry as she looked at the remaining few bottles with relatively intact jade textures.

"Actually, that's not necessarily true. If what's inside is Flying Snow Pill Stone or Nine-Yin Breathing Soil, those earth-attribute yin pills, then it's different!"

Qian Chen watched Hua Daier become conflicted again and continued: "However, the probability of that is very small, and such petrified Yin-Transforming Jade is also different from normally petrified ones. Its yin qi will definitely have a feeling of being hidden deep in the nine earths, contained and not revealed, more thick and solid, with the yin quality not apparent!"

Seeing that Hua Daier was still at a loss, Qian Chen continued: "Although the style of this jade bottle is simple, the seal and materials used to seal the bottle are typical techniques of the Celestial Han era. This is a burial spirit pill unearthed from a Celestial Han tomb."

"There is indeed one bottle inside that seems to have signs of gestating a yin pill. Judging by the earth patina, this was a water pit, but this yin pill is quite rare; it is a Yin-Phosphorus Emerald Fire Pill."

"Yin-Phosphorus Emerald Fire can transform a ghost body, so a flavor of Yin-Phosphorus Stone was added to the pill embryo—Eight-Jewel Sand—that these yin pills were buried with!"

"Eight-Jewel Sand is based on eight kinds of metal and stone, supplemented by eight kinds of spirit herbs to refine, only then can it be refined into a pill embryo. Those eight kinds of spirit herbs are stimulated by yin qi to transform, turning into medicinal qi. Stimulated by any one of the eight stones, it will transform into a kind of yin pill. Yin-Phosphorus Stone senses yin qi and will burn on its own, igniting the medicinal qi transformed by the spirit herbs, and it can burn into a Yin-Phosphorus fire seed, gradually nourished by earth qi, and will condense into a Yin-Phosphorus Emerald Fire Pill! Ghost cultivators can refine their ghost bodies after taking it, and the living can refine it into a kind of yin fire divine ability."

"Others include Cold Spring Jade, which can condense yin into a spring, condensing medicinal qi into Profound Yin True Water, which is also a yin object of great benefit to ghost cultivators!"

"But the most marvelous of the Eight-Jewel Sand is a flavor of Clear Void Sand, which is formed by the settling of the clear qi of the nine heavens. If stimulated by earth qi to point out the medicinal properties, mixing the clear and the turbid, after ten thousand years, it can nourish a wisp of Innate Primordial Qi!"

"If someone who doesn't know the goods opens it and sees it empty, they might think the elixir has been placed for too long and has dissolved! But they wouldn't expect that the true spirit medicine has already been let go by them as a wisp of primordial qi!"

"However, Clear Void Sand is relatively precious. Most of those who refine Eight-Jewel Pills only put in a little symbolically, so they can't nourish Primordial Qi!"

"I've said so much, I've already revealed the origins of this pill completely, but how to pick it out is your own business!"

Hua Daier pondered for a moment, gathered a selected jade bottle in her palm, covered the light, and distinguished it with her spiritual sense. Her spiritual sense could see twelve kinds of yin qi in the subtle places. Following the various characteristics Qian Chen had just described, she only looked at three bottles before picking one out and buying it from the stall owner.

Qian Chen smiled and said, "Wait a moment before opening it. First, look at these few bottles of spirit pills and see which one you would buy?"

Qian Chen picked five bottles of spirit pills from the stall and threw them to her. Among them were the bronze bottle containing the metal and stone spirit pills, and a small porcelain jar that seemed to contain some heavy things that wouldn't shake, possibly some medicinal paste.

In addition, there was a jade bottle and a jade box. The jade bottle had a warm and moist texture, much better than the Yin-Transforming Jade that Hua Daier had picked before, but the price was also much higher. A wisp of faint medicinal qi lingered on it, clearly not an ancient pill that had been buried for a long time.

The jade box, however, had some age to it! It was sealed with a seal that glowed with green light. Hua Daier probed it once, and the seal had already loosened somewhat; it should be quite old!

The last bottle of spirit pills was sealed in a piece of amber, and there was only one.

That amber was condensed from spiritual energy, and the material itself revealed a rich spiritual energy. In her spiritual sense, the spiritual energy also revealed a vigorous vitality; it should have been sealed in spirit wood for nourishment all along.

Qian Chen picked them out from the stall, which made the cultivator behind the stall look stern, secretly thinking his eye for treasures was vicious.

These elixirs all had extraordinary origins; being able to pick them out was truly not easy!

Based on Hua Daier's understanding of Qian Chen over these few short days, among these five spirit pills, there should only be one that was truly valuable, and the other four were all decoys. This was not only a hint, but also a subtle test.

Although Hua Daier didn't know what this mysterious 'Uncle Li' was testing, she subconsciously became serious.

After all, this was her own money being lost!