Chapter 6

After leaving Mujiao Town, he performed a light-body technique and galloped eastward all the way. Now that he is in the mid-stage of Qi Refining, he is much faster when using the light-body technique to travel than in the early stage of Qi Refining. In less than half an hour, he arrived at the foot of Lingsource Mountain.

Lingsource Mountain is only a hundred feet high, which is not as conspicuous as Mount Funiu, which is six hundred feet high. Song Qingming came to a place on the mountain covered by dense fog, handed a token to the array in the fog, and not long after, a burst of magic power fluctuation came from the array, followed by the fog in the array gradually dissipating, and a figure greeted him.

"Second Sister, the Fourth Elder arranged for me to come here to replace you in guarding."

"Little Seven, I didn't expect it to really be you who came. Uncle Nine said yesterday that you were coming, but I didn't believe it."

Standing in front was a woman in white, with her hair tied up in a bun. She was Song Qingwan, the second-ranked of the "Qing" generation of the Song family, and also had a fourth-level Qi Refining cultivation base.

There are nine people in the "Qing" generation of the Song family now. Except for Old Three Song Qingze, who has outstanding cultivation, the other eight have similar talents, all of whom are four or five spiritual root cultivators, so the cultivation realm of the "Qing" generation cultivators is not much different until now.

Cultivators with the same spiritual root aptitude generally do not have much difference in early cultivation. Only those geniuses with outstanding spiritual roots can quickly widen the gap with cultivators with ordinary aptitude like them in cultivation.

Third Brother Song Qingze is the one with the highest cultivation talent among the cultivators of Song Qingming's generation. Such a three-spiritual-root cultivator is also called a true spiritual root cultivator.

This type of cultivator not only has a faster cultivation speed but also breaks through the bottleneck of the Qi-Refining stage more easily, and will be easier to cultivate to the late stage of Qi Refining than four or five spiritual root cultivators like Song Qingming.

In the world of immortal cultivation, out of ten ordinary cultivators, only one or two such true spiritual root cultivators can be produced. As long as these cultivators do not fall in the middle, they can basically successfully cultivate to the late stage of Qi Refining. This type of cultivator is also the backbone mainly cultivated by major sects and families. If they can have resources, they will have hope for Foundation Establishment.

Among the more than twenty cultivators in the entire Song family, the best spiritual root aptitude is the three-spiritual-root cultivator.

As for the dual-attribute spiritual root with better aptitude, also known as the earth spiritual root cultivator, this type of cultivator has no bottleneck before Foundation Establishment, and the cultivation speed is faster. Basically, they are the Foundation Establishment seeds in major sects and immortal cultivation families.

There is also a type of different spiritual root cultivator in the world of immortal cultivation, which is mutated from the spiritual root attributes in the dual-attribute spiritual root cultivator's body. The cultivation speed is similar to that of the dual-spiritual-root cultivator, but the former is more powerful in fighting than the latter, and it is also rarer.

And the top-level heaven spiritual root cultivator in the world of immortal cultivation can be said to be one in ten thousand. In the nearly thousand-year history of Qinghe County, it has never appeared. It is said that this type of heaven spiritual root cultivator has no cultivation bottleneck before Core Formation.

Once this type of cultivator appears, they are often the objects of competition by those top forces in the world of immortal cultivation. After all, as long as you have a heaven spiritual root cultivator, you have a potential powerhouse who can reach at least the Core Formation stage.

Although Song Qingwan's cultivation base is not high, she has learned the most difficult alchemy technique to inherit among the hundred arts of immortal cultivation and is already a low-grade alchemist. This is also the place where she makes Song Qingming and others the most envious.

Various cultivators in the world of immortal cultivation will learn a few immortal cultivation skills to earn spirit stones and resources, such as alchemy, talisman making, artifact refining, array formation, spirit planting, beast controlling, puppet making, etc. These are also called the hundred arts of immortal cultivation, among which the most noble is the alchemist.

Alchemists are not only noble but also very rare. The reason for this is that compared to other skills, the cost of cultivating alchemists in the early stage is too high. Every alchemist is basically piled up with a pile of spirit herbs and immortal medicines.

Song Qingming can now be considered a low-level array master. When he chose to become an array master, it was also because although array masters are more time-consuming to learn.

Compared to other skills, it saves the most spirit stone investment. Array masters are also relatively useful in hunting demon beasts. It is also because of this that even though his cultivation base is not high, Thirteenth Uncle and the others like to take him with them every time they go down the mountain to hunt demon beasts, so he can help set up arrays to hunt demons.

"I didn't expect you, Little Seven, to be so diligent in cultivation and catch up with me so quickly. When Second Sister was your age, I hadn't cultivated to the fourth level of Qi Refining yet."

"Second Sister is joking. If you hadn't spent too much time inheriting the family's alchemy Dao, I'm afraid you wouldn't be far from Third Brother. Fourth Elder also said yesterday that you should be going back to closed-door cultivation to break through your cultivation base this time. We brothers will have to rely on you, the alchemist, to take care of us in the future."

"Where is it as fast as he said? I'm still far from breaking through. Let's not talk about this first. I'll take you to see Uncle Nine first."

The two passed through the fog and walked forward for a while, arriving at a village. Song Qingming saw some family mortals living and working here, most of whom were the families of those miners mining ore.

These people have the protection of family cultivators and basically have no big worries. Most of them have happy smiles on their faces, and they all stopped to salute when they saw Song Qingming and the other two passing by.

After passing through the village, a small crescent-shaped lake appeared in front, and there was a relatively tall two-story small building on one side of the lake. Song Qingwan led Song Qingming into the small building one after another.

In the middle of the room, there was a square eight-immortal table, and a middle-aged man was sitting behind the table with his head down reading a book. It was Uncle Nine, Song Changxin.

"Uncle Nine, Qingming is here."

"Nephew pays respects to Uncle Nine."

Song Changxin put down the book in his hand, raised his head and waved his hand, saying, "Since Qingming has arrived here, Qingwan, you go back and pack up, and go back early, so as not to let the clan leader and the others worry."

After Song Qingwan heard this, she responded, nodded to Song Qingming beside her, and walked out.

"Patrol the mine twice every day. If there is nothing to do, you can cultivate in the mountain. You are not allowed to go down the mountain privately without my permission."

"Nephew understands."

Uncle Nine, Song Changxin, usually doesn't like to talk much. Although he is only a four-spiritual-root aptitude like Song Qingming, he is a famous bitter cultivator in the clan. At only sixty-something years old, he is already at the seventh level of Qi Refining, and he is also one of the only four late-stage Qi-Refining cultivators in the family. If there are no accidents, he will definitely be able to cultivate to the peak of Qi Refining.

Half a day later, after simply handing over with Second Sister Song Qingwan, Song Qingming did not choose to live in the residence moved out by Second Sister, but cleaned up another older courtyard nearby and lived there, starting his daily life of patrolling and cultivation.

Before he knew it, half a year had passed. Now Song Qingming has fully understood the locations of Lingsource Mountain and has also become familiar with the family mortals here.

Usually, besides daily patrolling the ore vein, supervising the mining progress, occasionally dealing with some small disputes between mortals here, and dealing with and driving away low-level demon beasts that mistakenly entered the mountain array.

It is somewhat busy but also carefree.

After half a year, Song Qingming felt that his Uncle Nine was quite at ease with him. Once he taught him how to handle daily affairs, he often closed the door for ten days or half a month without coming out of the small building. The size of the affairs of Lingsource Mountain was basically left to Song Qingming to handle. Only when there were two high-level demon beast disturbances, Song Qingming alone was somewhat difficult to deal with, so he had to ask Song Changxin to help deal with it.

Ten years ago, when Song Qingming first arrived at Mount Funiu, Song Changxin happened to be traveling abroad. Song Qingming didn't have much contact with this Uncle Nine in the past, only knowing that he had cultivated alone for many years in Ziyun Mountain near the dangerous Fuyun Mountain Range, and his cultivation and knowledge were far beyond most of his peers in the family.

After Song Qingming arrived at Lingsource Mountain, he took the initiative to ask him for advice when he encountered some problems in cultivation at the beginning. At first, Song Qingming was still a bit cautious, but he didn't expect this Uncle Nine to be a person with a cold face and a warm heart, and he was very keen on discussing the path of cultivation.

In the past half year, he has patiently pointed out many of his doubts in cultivation for Song Qingming, and even passed on his knowledge and experience in hunting demons and fighting in Ziyun Mountain in the past to Song Qingming without reservation.

It must be said that Song Changxin has some unique insights in cultivation, which also made Song Qingming benefit a lot during this period, and many of his previous doubts in cultivation are now much clearer.

This day, Song Qingming had just returned from patrolling the mine early in the morning and saw from afar a martial artist who usually guarded the array running toward him in a hurry.

It looks like there are demon beasts coming to harass again.

Qinghe County has been occupied by human cultivators for thousands of years. After countless cleanups by generations of cultivators, although there are no second-level demon beasts in the territory, there are still many first-level demon beasts, and many deep mountains that are rarely visited are still the territory of demon beasts.

Lingsource Mountain is not as quiet as Mount Funiu and Mujiao Town. Because of its location near the Cloud Mist Mountain where demon beasts are entrenched, although there are no high-level demon beasts around, there are still many low- and mid-level demon beasts.

Every half a month or so, demon beasts will mistakenly enter and harass here. This is why the family originally had few cultivators, but still must have two cultivators stationed here.

After receiving the news reported by the person, Song Qingming hurriedly performed a spell and rushed toward the entrance of the village.

Not long after, he arrived at the array control place at the entrance of the village. Several martial artists guarding the array were nervously looking at a huge figure in the array, and they breathed a sigh of relief until they saw Song Qingming arrive.

Song Qingming took a look at the huge figure in the array and said, "You guys just guard the array disk here. This is a mid-level demon beast, you can't hurt him."

These martial artists are some people among the family mortals who have cultivated secular martial arts. This type of person is also called a postnatal martial artist. They hold some weapons mixed with mysterious iron, which can also cause some damage to early-stage Qi-Refining demon beasts.

Lingsource Mountain has more than a dozen such martial artists. They are more than enough to deal with ordinary wild beasts, and they can have the power to fight when facing early-stage Qi-Refining demon beasts by joining forces.

But facing this mid-level demon beast, it seems not enough. Pig-type demon beasts are naturally thick-skinned and hard as iron. After advancing to the mid-level, some demon beasts will instinctively awaken some spells. These martial artists basically can't help at all when facing mid-level demon beasts, and if they are not careful, they will lose their lives in vain.

(End of chapter)