Chapter 71: I, Ao Yi... Not Long Left

As expected, the spirit beast cub I gave to my junior sister, she played with it for a few days, then...

Threw it into the back mountain ling shou enclosure.

Fortunately, Li Changshou had prepared in advance for this "pink bamboo rat" that could devour most low-quality treasures. He built a small water cage for it and added two layers of simple array formations to limit its movement area.

Ling'e visited the ling shou enclosure three times a month, and most of these ling shou could absorb heaven and earth yuan qi, so they wouldn't actually starve to death.

The earth spirit pearl gifted by Youqin Xuanya was placed by Li Changshou in a prominent spot in the dan room, not carried on his person.

This treasure was quite valuable;

In the future, if he could obtain the other four elements of similar quality, he could create the array disk for the "Five Elements Wheel Killing Array."

For now, however, it had little use.

Li Changshou still couldn't figure out why Youqin Xuanya...

Oh, well;

One could only say she lived up to her poisonous reputation.

The next time the poisonous one came to Xiaoqiong Peak, he would just rest in the dan room and have Ling'e keep her company, chat with her, and share tea.

After this minor episode, Li Changshou settled into the dan room, focusing intently on refining pills.

Amassing wealth was the top priority.

During his previous visit to Linhai Town, he had wandered around and conducted a simple survey.

The pills he was refining now were several mainstream types in high demand among independent cultivators—specifically, healing, recovery, cultivation-enhancing, and bottleneck-breaking pills at the xian dan level.

These low-tier xian dan could be used by cultivators in the Return to Void realm and upward, even meeting the daily needs of high-end loose immortals.

The strategy was to go for high volume and steady profits to ensure earnings.

With Li Changshou's years of summarized refining techniques and methods, his success rate was indeed quite high.

Most cultivators refined pills based on intuition and experience, and those words like "a small amount" or "an appropriate amount" in pill formulas were as irritating as those little demons that often wandered into the mortal world of South Continent...

Li Changshou had long since developed countermeasures for this.

From the moment he started refining pills, he made detailed notes and summaries, constantly exploring the precise quantities in pill formulas;

He charted the refining process over time, recording changes in flame intensity, the order of adding ingredients, the age of the herbs, and the size and shape of the cut pieces, among other factors, to identify the most perfect scheme...

That was the key to guaranteeing a high success rate!

While mass-producing these mainstream pills, Li Changshou also planned to refine some high-tier pills at the limit of his current skill—one-turn and two-turn ling dan.

Ordinary xian dan were only divided into upper, middle, and lower grades;

Middle-grade xian dan had the best market in the towns, with many sects unskilled in refining buying them in bulk.

Pills that surpassed xian dan were called "ling dan," graded from one to nine turns;

But any pill called ling dan was considered a treasure.

On a side note, the Nine-Turn Golden Pill was the signature of the Ren Jiao leader's incarnation, Taishang Laojun!

As a result, the Ren Jiao lineages all excelled in refining pills, but Li Changshou didn't dare use Ren Jiao's exclusive formulas now, which invisibly added some difficulty...

For the sake of caution, there was no other way.

Li Changshou's "refining pills to amass wealth" plan was straightforward—

Reject the cost-performance route and prioritize improving the quality of xian dan;

Initially, slightly lower the prices to penetrate the Linhai Town pill market;

Once stable in the long term, ensure that whenever he appeared, his pills would be snapped up by all the pill shops!

Although he could refine "ling dan-level" pills, the success rate for ling dan wasn't guaranteed, so he didn't dare stock up on too many ten-thousand-year-old spiritual herbs;

Only after securing steady profits from mid-tier pills would he use the remaining herbs to take a calculated risk.

Amassing wealth had to be done steadily.

...

After refining the treasures he had exchanged into array bases and "fattening up" a small portion of Xiaoqiong Peak's composite great array,

Li Changshou's twelve hours each day were once again packed full.

Three hours for enlightenment, two hours perfecting the paper effigy divine ability, one hour reading ancient texts to broaden his knowledge, and the remaining six hours devoted to the dan room, wholeheartedly refining pills.

Since these batches of pills were for external sale, there was no need to worry about drawing attention within the sect...

This feeling was just like when he first started refining pills, obsessing over a pile of "formulas," staying up day and night, even meditating with a small pill furnace in hand.

Time passed unnoticed at the furnace, with the sun rising and setting again.

As Li Changshou focused on refining pills and cultivation, he barely noticed the flow of time;

Such was the way of cultivation.

The years flowing around him seemed to slow down, without the mortals' rush for meals and shelter, or worry over a mere hundred years of lifespan.

When he grew tired from intense refining, he would wander the mountains, take in the sights, tease his junior sister, tend to the ling fish in the lake, the ling shou in the mountains, and the herbs in the fields...

He was truly content with this life.

Turning months into days.

Blending tranquility into his heart.

Etching steadiness into his bones...

In the vast wilderness, only South Jambudvipa had distinct four seasons; aside from North Uttarakuru, most places enjoyed eternal spring.

It took Li Changshou over three years to process this batch of pills.

The paper effigy became more refined, fixing three or four obvious flaws—for instance, its facial features could now change at will;

Moreover, through the crude method of thickening the paper and adding more restrictions, Li Changshou raised the paper effigy's combat strength to the early True Immortal realm.

This provided even more security for his assets.

Li Changshou planned to wait for his master to emerge from seclusion, discuss it with him, let his master step out of the mountain-guarding array for a stroll, and then use the paper effigy for a second trip to Linhai Town.

On this outing, the paper effigy would display the cultivation of late Primal Immortal realm, a level not easily robbed;

Of course, there were many other precautions...

Sitting in the rocking chair, Li Changshou organized his thoughts for a while, then took out a jade token and listed the various treasures he needed to exchange for.

As long as this batch of pills sold smoothly, not only could the core array base of the composite great array be upgraded, but the trapping and illusion array around the dan room could also get a boost...

"I wonder when Xiao Shishu will come out of seclusion. I kind of miss her."

Li Changshou glanced at the storage pouch he had prepared for Jiu Jiu Shishu, which already contained some tasty pills and the wine she liked.

The underground array bases could be buried by hand, but for the surface arrays, it was safer to have Xiao Shishu handle them.

After finishing the list, Li Changshou stood up and stretched.

'Later, I'll go visit Elder Wan Linjun, then make preparations for the trip.'

Ah...

These fulfilling, laborious, yet leisurely days of immortal cultivation...

If they could go on like this, it wouldn't be bad at all.

...

"Hmph, these human cultivators who received great heavenly fortune, idly practicing day after day, discussing scriptures and the Dao."

On Jin'ao Island, in the treasure pool,

A green dragon slowly swam through the water, its slender dragon eyes tinged with a hint of helplessness.

By now, he was no longer the teenage dragon he once was;

But some shadows lingered in his heart, never fading.

Gradually, Ao Yi developed a condition where seeing a human-shaped old Daoist made his mind unsteady.

He knew he had a inner demon but couldn't overcome it.

This had even caused some issues with his body, yet he always avoided facing it.

Not far away, several Jie Jiao golden immortals were lecturing on the path to immortality for the many immortals yet to mature here.

Ao Yi wanted to go listen, but over there...

There were just too many old Daoists.

Especially a few with stern faces, which inevitably stirred up painful memories for him.

Through years of observing the human cultivators on the island, Ao Yi had discovered many problems and developed more doubts.

Sometimes he wondered... perhaps he had misunderstood the human race?

Maybe the group of stern old Daoists he encountered back then were just anomalies among humans?

No, it couldn't be!

Though these human cultivators seemed harmonious every day, cheerful and mingling with demons, spirits, and essences without distinction, shouting about Jie Jiao being one family and having no class barriers;

In reality, they were probably all...

Cold-hearted!

On the surface, most human cultivators called him "shidi" or "dao you";

But behind the scenes, they probably all saw him, the second prince of the East Sea Dragon Palace, as nothing more than a decorative dragon!

Was being the protagonist of the heavens really that impressive...

Over the years, a few jiao dragon spirits on Jin'ao Island occasionally chatted with Ao Yi, which brought him some comfort.

In terms of cultivation, that Wuyun Immortal had imparted some immortal arts in his dreams and tossed him a couple of spiritual treasures, but hadn't paid much attention since.

This master wasn't very attentive to him, but Ao Yi held no grudge;

Because after his last attempted escape, this was the price he had to pay.

By constantly stimulating his Dragon King bloodline, Ao Yi's cultivation had steadily reached the Primal Immortal realm, granting him more dragon clan divine abilities.

For dragons, passing the immortal tribulation was simple—just transform into their true form and charge into the tribulation clouds, using the thunder tribulation to complete a scale-shedding.

'When will I finally get to hear a saint lecture?'

Ao Yi sighed inwardly.

Jie Jiao was divided into inner and outer gates; the inner gate had few disciples, dedicated to the Dao passed down by Tongtian Jiaozhu;

The saint's inner gate disciples were led by the four great ones: Duobao Daoist, Jinling Shengmu, Wudang Shengmu, and Guiling Shengmu, along with a few of their disciples and grand-disciples.

The outer gate disciples were too numerous to count.

The four great outer gate disciples were Zhao Gongming, Yunxiao, Bixiao, and Qiongxiao; they already had their own Dao when they became disciples of Tongtian Jiaozhu, so they were classified as outer gate.

Those who had branched out across the three thousand worlds were all lineages from Tongtian Jiaozhu's outer gate disciples.

Tongtian Jiaozhu and the four inner gate disciples resided year-round in Biyou Palace.

Biyou Palace was the saint's domain, floating in the ethereal void, reachable only by Da Luo golden immortals, it was said.

On Jin'ao Island, there was a path to Biyou Palace, but no one knew where it was.

Anyway, Ao Yi had secretly searched the entire island and found no trace of that saintly path.

This was simply a matter of no destiny.

Among the three Daoist sects, Jie Jiao had grown immensely due to the phrase "having no class barriers," with disciples flocking from all directions, truly living up to "ten thousand immortals coming to court."

As for Ren Jiao, Ao Yi now understood it completely.

That great sect had only one saint and one direct disciple of the saint, yet it was one that neither Chan Jiao nor Jie Jiao dared to provoke; the Ren Jiao lineages in the Divine Land were always undisturbed, with no one daring to touch them.

Taishang Laojun, the first among the six saints, was hailed as the strongest saint below Daozu.

'If I had persisted back then and fought to join the Ren Jiao lineage, perhaps I could have turned the tide for the dragon clan, finding a way out for them.'

As for Duxian Men...

Ao Yi now looked down on it slightly.

Duxian Men was indeed part of the Ren Jiao lineage and had a saint's heritage, but its overall strength wasn't strong, and there were no renowned experts from the vast wilderness guarding it.

After listening to the sutras lectured by those golden immortals for a while, Ao Yi sighed and slowly sank to the pool bottom;

His dragon body coiled in the corner, quietly cultivating.

He couldn't fall asleep—sleeping led to nightmares, dreams of being treated as ingredients.

The more he learned, the more Ao Yi realized how deep and terrifying the waters of the vast wilderness were.

The Dragon-Phoenix Tribulation had cost not just the dragon clan's fortune, but also their true experts;

Now, with saints dominating the heavens, the dragon clan could only retreat to the four seas, while humans and the Daoist sects were the true protagonists.

Some of his earlier ideas had indeed been naive.

Reverse humiliation was useless;

No amount of slaps could wake a dragon pretending to be drunk.

But to revive the dragon clan, the only path was for dragon descendants to enter the saints' gates.

What should I, Ao Yi, do?

In fact, he had come up with a good idea a few years ago.

To make a name for himself.

As long as he, as the prince of the Dragon Palace and a Jie Jiao disciple, became famous across the five continents and four seas, he could influence his clan's thinking in return, gradually making them lower their pride...

That would be the chance to reverse their clan's destiny, and it was something he could achieve.

While cultivating, Ao Yi suddenly heard two passing Daoists chatting by the pool.

"This time, going to the eastern continent to discuss the Dao with several immortal sects, following their old customs, there might be another competition among young disciples. Where am I supposed to find young disciples..."

Ao Yi's spirit lifted at the bottom of the pool, and with a flick of his dragon tail, his body shrank rapidly as he shot out of the water.

The green dragon emerged, its azure scales gleaming;

The two Heavenly Immortal realm cultivators turned to look and saw the dragon transform into a handsome young man, descending slowly from the air and bowing to them with a Daoist salute.

“Two... dao you,” Ao Yi said, “I would like to go and experience it myself.

My cultivation time is short, so I can still count as one of our Jie Jiao's young disciples.”

There was no helping it—he was a disciple of Wuyun Immortal, and with so many cultivators on Jin'ao Island, he often got the seniority wrong.

As for this youthful form, like a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old...

He didn't know why, but ever since that group of old Daoists schemed against him, his human form had just... stopped growing.

The two Jie Jiao Heavenly Immortals exchanged glances and quickly agreed.