Chapter 16: Family Conscription

Spring goes and autumn comes; in the blink of an eye, Song Qingming has been at Mount Lingyuan for two years.

Relying on the special effect of the remnant map, Song Qingming's talisman-making ability has improved rapidly. Nowadays, his talisman-making success rate has reached fifty or sixty percent. Relying on selling spirit talismans, he has already saved up over a hundred spirit stones and has long since repaid the spirit stones borrowed by Uncle Thirteen and the others.

With spirit stones, Song Qingming naturally had to start upgrading his equipment and arming himself. Not only did he exchange for some mid-grade talismans in the family's Gold Collection Pavilion, but he also scavenged a mid-grade defensive magic tool at Caolu Mountain. Now he was no longer the embarrassed poor boy from two years ago.

Gao Yuyao did not often come to Caolu Mountain; sometimes she would only come once every few months. Fortunately, the several elixir transactions between them were very smooth.

Relying on the elixirs exchanged from Gao Yuyao, Song Qingming's cultivation had now also improved to the peak of the fourth layer of Qi Refining. It wouldn't be long before he was confident of breaking through to the fifth layer of Qi Refining.

Over the past two years, a major event had also occurred in Qinghe County. The head of the Qian family, Qian Guangyao, succeeded in Foundation Establishment half a year ago and became the sixth Foundation Establishment cultivator in Qinghe County. The Qian family also rose to the clouds overnight and was promoted to a Foundation Establishment family.

After a cultivator reaches Foundation Establishment, their lifespan will also be greatly improved. A Qi Refining cultivator's lifespan is normally only two sixty-year cycles. After breaking through to the Foundation Establishment stage, the lifespan will increase to about two hundred and fifty years. After Qian Guangyao's Foundation Establishment, the Qian family at least had two hundred years of glorious days.

Qinghe County originally only had three Foundation Establishment families. Now that Qian Guangyao had succeeded in Foundation Establishment, the Qian family also successfully grew into the fourth Foundation Establishment family in Qinghe County and obtained the opportunity to directly offer tribute to the Xiaoyao Sect.

Other dozens of Qi Refining families, large and small, like the Song family, were ostensibly vassal families of these four Foundation Establishment families, and they still needed to hand over a large amount of spirit rice every year in exchange for the protection of these Foundation Establishment families. The Song family where Song Qingming was located was a vassal Qi Refining family under the Foundation Establishment family, the Huang family.

Among these four Foundation Establishment families, the Huang family has the strongest strength, with a total of three Foundation Establishment cultivators. The patriarch, Huang Shengxin, has a cultivation base of the seventh layer of Foundation Establishment and is the only late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator in the entire Qinghe County. The Huang family is also an old-brand Foundation Establishment family in Qinghe County. The Foundation Establishment cultivators in the family have not been broken for nearly a thousand years, and they can be considered the undisputed overlord of Qinghe County.

The Gao family was originally about the same strength as the Huang family, but more than twenty years ago, the Gao family's former patriarch with late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivation was invited by someone to go out to visit an ancient cultivator's cave dwelling and accidentally fell outside, causing the Gao family's strength to be greatly damaged. Now there is only one mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator left in the family.

The situation of the Lu family and the newly established Qian family is about the same; both are Foundation Establishment families that have been promoted in the last few decades. In terms of family heritage, they are quite different from the Huang and Gao families.

The four Foundation Establishment families have a total of six Foundation Establishment cultivators, plus one Foundation Establishment cultivator dispatched by the Xiaoyao Sect to station and manage Qinghe Market. There are a total of seven Foundation Establishment cultivators residing in Qinghe County.

Hearing that Qian Guangyao had succeeded in Foundation Establishment, Song Qingming also felt a palpitation in his heart. Becoming a Foundation Establishment cultivator not only has the ability to fly to the sky and escape the earth, but can also enjoy double the lifespan. This is something many cultivators dream of, and naturally, it includes him now.

The Song family has also added a cultivator in the past two years, ranked eleventh in the 'Qing' generation, Song Qingwen, with five-spirit-root aptitude, coming from a small village under Mujiao Town.

Adding two cultivators in two years, the Song family can be considered to have happy events one after another. The Fourth Elder, who manages the family's miscellaneous affairs, even specifically issued some supplies, allowing these two villages to celebrate extensively.

For this reason, the Mount Lingyuan ore vein also stopped work for two days. Hundreds of miners and villagers living here took turns surrounding Little Yu's parents to celebrate.

Now Song Qingyu's family is just like Song Qingming's family back then; one person attains the Dao, and the chickens and dogs ascend to heaven. Little Yu's father had already become a miner leader at the mine last year, responsible for managing dozens of miners, and no longer needed to go down to the mine himself. The whole family had long since lived in a large mansion bestowed by the family.

One morning, Song Qingming, who was in closed-door cultivation, suddenly received a message from the family's Second Elder, asking him to return to Mount Funiu today.

Song Qingming did not dare to neglect, and after greeting Uncle Nine, Song Changxin, he returned to Mount Funiu alone.

Not long after going up the mountain, he happened to meet Uncle Thirteen, Song Zhangxiong, who was also heading to the family's discussion hall.

"Qingming, why are you back? Are you also going to the discussion hall?" Seeing Song Qingming, Song Zhangxiong asked with some surprise.

"It was the Second Elder who summoned me back to the mountain. I don't know what for yet," Song Qingming answered truthfully.

"Brother Six summoned you back? Could it be that you are also in this mission?" Song Zhangxiong showed a strange look.

"Mission? Nephew doesn't know. The Second Elder didn't say in the letter. Does Uncle Thirteen know what mission it is?"

"Oh, the patriarch accepted an employment mission from the Liu family yesterday. Maybe you also need to participate. Brother Six might also have other arrangements for you. You'll know when you get to the discussion hall."

Seeing Song Qingming full of doubts, Song Zhangxiong did not say any more, but only urged him to go to the discussion hall together.

On the top of Mount Funiu, in the Song family's discussion hall, more than a dozen Song family cultivators, including Song Qingming, were listed in the middle, discussing the employment mission from the Liu family this time. Besides Song Qingming, there was another person of the 'Qing' generation among them, Third Brother Song Qingze.

When he came to Mount Funiu half a year ago, Third Brother was only at the fifth layer of Qi Refining. Unexpectedly, he had broken through to the sixth layer of Qi Refining in half a year of not seeing him. He is truly worthy of being the person with the most cultivation talent in the next generation of the Song family.

Song Qingze, like the clan head, practiced the family's unique Foundation Establishment cultivation method, the "Red Flame Art." Foundation Establishment methods are far more powerful in their divine abilities than the common Qi Refining methods they practice. Song Qingze's current combat abilities are already in no way inferior to the elders of the "Chang" generation present, so his appearance here did not surprise Song Qingming.

It was just that Song Qingze was a bit surprised to see Song Qingming here, and greeted Song Qingming with some doubts.

Patriarch Song Gushan, who was standing in front of the crowd, saw that everyone had arrived, waved his hand to calm the discussion of the crowd, looked at the people in the hall, and loudly stated the purpose of summoning everyone this time.

It turned out that another Qi Refining immortal family in Qinghe County, the Liu family of Mount Jingyuan, had issued an employment mission in Qinghe Market a few days ago, secretly inviting several nearby Qi Refining families to go to the Fuyun Mountain Range together to hunt a second-tier low-quality monster beast.

The Liu family, like the Song family, are vassal families under the Foundation Establishment Huang family. They can be considered a relatively old-brand immortal cultivation family in Qinghe County and have been passed down for nearly four hundred years. There are more than forty cultivators in the family, and their strength is much stronger than that of an immortal cultivation family like the Song family that has only been passed down for two hundred years. It is precisely because of this that they have the confidence to target a second-tier monster beast.

The classification of monster beasts is the same as the realm of human cultivators. A second-tier low-quality monster beast is already equivalent to a human Foundation Establishment early-stage cultivator, but monster beasts are obviously slower to open their spiritual wisdom compared to humans.

First-tier monster beasts basically rely on instinct to fight. Second-tier monster beasts are equivalent to the spiritual wisdom of a ten-year-old human child. When fighting against human cultivators, they are often easily suppressed by various techniques, traps, and formations. Qi Refining cultivators can also rely on a large number of people to activate second-tier formations to defeat second-tier monster beasts of the Foundation Establishment stage across tiers.

Conversely, when it comes to third-tier monster beasts of the Core Formation stage, their spiritual wisdom is wide open, and they can speak human language. Their spiritual wisdom is basically no different from ordinary people, so they will not be easily besieged by low-tier human cultivators using formations. Relying on the monster beast's own powerful body, they have more advantages in fighting human cultivators of the same level.

Hiring cultivators from other nearby Qi Refining families to hunt monster beasts together, this kind of employment mission is relatively rare, but it is not a strange thing. For the employer, compared to rogue cultivators who drift everywhere, family cultivators with homes and businesses are definitely more trustworthy.

Many Qi Refining immortal families and forces in Qinghe County have issued such missions. It is just because the Liu family offered a high price for this mission, so the patriarch and several elders discussed it and decided to accept this employment mission.

Originally, such a high-difficulty mission also had high risks. Song Qingming's cultivation was not high, and the family should not have let him participate. It was only because the Liu family required the families participating in this mission to dispatch at least three formation masters, and the Song family only had those few formation masters in total, so they summoned Song Qingming, who was at the fourth layer of Qi Refining, to make up the number.

In the discussion hall, after a discussion among the crowd, the final candidates for this mission were quickly decided. The patriarch stayed behind at Mount Funiu, and the Great Elder and Second Elder led the team to participate in this mission.

Besides Great Elder Song Gubai and Second Elder Song Changfeng, there were four 'Chang' generation cultivators including Uncle Thirteen, Song Zhangxiong, as well as Song Qingze and Song Qingming of the 'Qing' generation. This time, half of the Song family's elite were dispatched, which can be considered the largest action of the Song family in the last ten years.

Half a day later, the Song family's group of eight, under the leadership of Great Elder Song Gushan, quietly left Mount Funiu and headed toward Qinghe Market in the west.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 17 =====