"Everything comes to thirteen spirit stones total. Ten for the technique scroll and three for this rusted sword," the shop owner said.
Mu Chen tapped his bag of holding and pulled out thirteen spirit stones. The transaction went through, and he walked away with both items, the rusted sword already in his hand.
"I hope you are not planning to use that sword in a fight. It is completely useless."
"Of course not. I have other plans for it," Mu Chen replied.
Su Qingyue's curiosity kept growing. She waited for the moment Mu Chen would explain what he planned to do with the rusted sword. But it seemed he wasn't ready to say while the two of them were still outside.
After finishing at the shop, Mu Chen and Su Qingyue moved on. They walked back along the city's main road, not in search of an inn, but a qi house.
"We will go to a Qi House."
"What is that?"
"A complex of rentable rooms or houses built above a spiritual qi vein in the area. Only cultivators are permitted to use it."
"The purpose is straightforward. It lets cultivators cultivate by drawing on the spiritual qi from the local qi vein."
Mu Chen went quiet for a moment, then gave a nod and followed along. He would follow everything Su Qingyue said, given that he was new to Baiyin City. Acting without knowledge carried real risks.
The two of them walked a fair distance away from the city center, leaving the row of shops and inns behind. Up ahead, Mu Chen spotted a line of large hills covered in thick trees.
His steps stopped at a stone gate inscribed with the words Baiyin Spiritual Qi Vein Territory.
A woman in cultivator clothing sat out front, cross-legged and cultivating. She wore the uniform of a specific sect.
Could the Spiritual Qi Vein territory be controlled by a particular sect?
"One room is three spirit stones. A week's rent I'll give you for twenty."
"How long do you need, Mu Chen?" Su Qingyue asked.
"Not sure. Maybe three to five days."
The woman beside him nodded. She tapped her bag of holding and produced twenty low-grade spirit stones. The gatekeeper opened her eyes, accepted the black pouch, and put it away without checking it.
Shortly after, she produced a blue plate and tossed it toward Su Qingyue. "Your room is number thirteen."
Without much more conversation, Su Qingyue and Mu Chen walked through the gate. The female gatekeeper glanced at Mu Chen every so often, puzzled by what she was seeing.
A Core Formation cultivator with no sect. That is just foolish. And on top of that, a Core Formation wastes time teaching a Qi Condensation ant to cultivate.
She shook her head and let out a slow breath, with no idea what they were actually thinking.
The rooms in the Baiyin Spiritual Qi Vein territory were built flush into the stone hillside walls.
Each room had its own number, and Mu Chen's eyes caught blue spiritual qi flowing into every room as though people were already using them.
The door to room thirteen opened. Mu Chen stepped in and saw a few pieces of furniture inside. Nothing excessive, just the important ones: a bed, a chair, and a table.
His attention wasn't on the furniture, but on the square stone altar sitting in the middle of the room. Su Qingyue told him that was where he could cultivate.
"Won't you be cultivating too?" Mu Chen asked.
Su Qingyue shook her head, stepped inside with her usual graceful ease, and sat down at the wooden table. She tapped her bag of holding and pulled out a bottle of liquor.
"I... don't need to. Once you reach Soul Transformation, what you need is no longer Spiritual Qi, but Immortal Qi."
"Anything equivalent to Immortal Qi is incredibly hard to come by. It is far more valuable than spirit stones."
Mu Chen nodded, watching Su Qingyue enjoy her quiet moment with a drink while keeping her eyes on whatever cultivation he would be doing shortly.
Could it be that Primordial Origin Qi is equivalent to Immortal Qi, which is why she needs me so badly?
There was no time for Mu Chen to keep guessing. He stepped onto the stone altar, sat cross-legged, and began meditating.
His breathing settled into a steady rhythm. His mind cleared. His heart grew calm. Those three things were essential conditions for starting cultivation.
If even one of the three failed, cultivation would not work properly, leading to incomplete qi absorption or even a complete failure to cultivate.
Mu Chen's hands rose to chest height, drawing golden qi light to his fingertips. The Ancient God Cauldron flew out from his body through his forehead, expanding to its full normal size.
Su Qingyue paused, narrowed her eyes clearly, and began walking toward the cauldron.
It was the rare artifact she had been searching for all this time. She never expected it to have fused with Mu Chen's body and blood.
"I have still not forgiven you for lying to me about this," Su Qingyue said.
"I will make sure you forgive me eventually."
"How did an artifact like this fuse with your body, Mu Chen?"
"I'm not sure," Mu Chen replied. "But I'm certain it has something to do with my family's bloodline."
Mu Chen tapped his bag of holding and brought out the rusted sword he had bought. He threw it forward into the cauldron's basin, where it sank into the golden liquid inside.
The woman in the room was visibly caught off guard. She could clearly see Mu Chen beginning to use the Ancient God Cauldron the way one would use any ordinary cauldron, to refine something. In this case, he was refining the sword.
"Refining a weapon inside a cauldron normally only restores it to its original condition. It doesn't automatically raise its quality."
"I never expected it. A Qi Condensation cultivator who understands refinement better than a Core Formation one."
"I should recruit you as our sect's alchemist," Su Qingyue said with a light laugh.
"Alchemist?"
"Yes. Refining rare and herbal materials to produce pills."
Could the Ancient God Cauldron also raise a pill's quality if I refined it? I should try that sometime.
Mu Chen drew golden qi light from two of his fingers and aimed it forward. His golden qi light began heating the cauldron, producing flames that caught Su Qingyue off guard.
"Refining without an earth or heaven flame? That is interesting," Su Qingyue said.
He closed his eyes and kept his focus steady, channeling the golden qi light to heat the cauldron. Su Qingyue took another drink and watched, curious about what he was doing.
The sword refinement process took three hours, moving through removing the rust and impurities, restoring the sword's condition, and then raising its quality.
A golden qi pulse radiated from the Ancient God Cauldron at the center of it all. Su Qingyue was startled enough to rise from her seat, drawn in by the qi pulse.
The power of this qi pulse... is equivalent to an Earth-grade weapon.
But how? Isn't refinement supposed to just restore a weapon's original state without raising its quality?
Watching Mu Chen refine the rusted sword had Su Qingyue thinking hard. The cultivation world held a great many mysteries that most people had never uncovered.
Many cultivators knew the general uses of certain artifacts, but not many truly understood the uses of an Ancient God artifact.
True to its mysterious name, the Ancient God Cauldron really does work against the laws of nature.
From inside the cauldron, the previously rusted sword shot upward and kept pulsing powerfully with golden qi energy, the same as the energy of Primordial Origin Qi.
The rust fell away. The blade sharpened to a fine edge. The qi aura it radiated was strong, and its quality had risen from Mortal-grade to Earth-grade in just three hours.
COUGH!
Mu Chen coughed up blood from the toll of performing the refinement and upgrading the weapon's quality. Su Qingyue moved fast, unwilling to let a single drop of Mu Chen's blood hit the floor.
If it happened, she would never forgive herself for the oversight.
She formed a hand seal and directed a qi recovery technique toward Mu Chen. But an explosion of qi went off and stopped her cold.
What? Mu Chen's golden qi energy is rejecting my spiritual qi?
He wiped the blood from his hand, stopped the weapon refinement, and worked to settle the turbulent qi in his body.
He opened his eyes and looked at the sword he had bought for three spirit stones, now worth far more with its quality raised.
[Congratulations! Host has successfully completed Heavenly Refinement Mission Four]
[Reward: 1x Primordial Origin Qi Seed || 1x Earth-Grade Sword]
[Heavenly Refinement Mission Five: Break through to the 7th Layer of Qi Condensation using Heavenly Refinement Art, First Layer]
[Reward: 2x Primordial Origin Qi Seeds || Increase Qi Purity by 10% || 1x Profound-Grade Pill || 1x Ancient Profound-Grade Technique]
The notification panel appeared in front of Mu Chen. He reached out and took the sword in his hand. He gripped it firmly, feeling the aura of its power, stronger and sharper than before.
In response to completing mission four, a Primordial Origin Qi Seed rose from inside the Ancient God Cauldron.
Su Qingyue's eyes went wide, stunned and unable to believe that Primordial Origin Qi, known for being pure and dominant, could be condensed down into a seed form resembling a spirit stone.
"You... actually managed to condense Primordial Origin Qi into a seed?" Su Qingyue asked, astonished.
Mu Chen picked up the seed and returned the Ancient God Cauldron to his dantian. Both of his hands now held the two most valuable and rare items on the entire continent, a Primordial Origin Qi Seed and an Earth-grade weapon.
"I can't believe you can do this."
"Looks like you're interested in this, Yue'er."
"Primordial Origin Qi could work as an alternative to Immortal Qi, which is nearly hard to find. This could help me advance my realm."
The man sitting on the altar smiled wide, stretching out his hand but not yet giving the seed to Su Qingyue.
He had an idea for it.
"I can give this to you. But I have a condition."
"What is it? I'll agree to it."
Mu Chen gave a faint smile. "I will give you this Primordial Origin Qi Seed. In return, you are not allowed to force me into any sect, not allowed to restrict where I go, and not allowed to harm the people close to me."