Lady Cultivator

Sometime later, Mo Tiange heard some astonishing news.

First, the cultivators on Luoyan Cliff would be dispersing. Since the demonic beasts had repeatedly failed to attack them, the smart high rank demonic beasts had scattered around and caused damage everywhere. With no other choice, the cultivators had to go separate ways to hunt them.

Second, news came from west Kunwu. Before Danding School could activate their Great Mountain-Protecting Formation, a ninth rank demonic beast had breached their territory, causing them to lose many disciples. Therefore, they had asked for help.

Last, Martial Uncle Shoujing was seriously injured and couldn’t hold on, so he had to return to Mount Taikang to recuperate.

After hearing the first two pieces of news, Mo Tiange finally realized how grave the demonic beast riot had become; a ninth rank demonic beast, which was equivalent to a middle stage Nascent Soul cultivator, had appeared. The last news gave her a peculiar feeling and a thought flashed across her mind.

However, before she could think things through more carefully, Martial Uncle Xuanyin informed her that they had another important task. She and Luo Fengxue were to follow him to Danding School immediately.

Mo Tiange hadn’t expected the task of supporting Danding School to fall on them, so she felt a bit apprehensive. Luo Fengxue then told her in secret that since Danding School was attacked, many cultivation groups were sending people to support them. For the time being, demonic beasts wouldn’t dare to keep attacking them, so things would actually be quite safe for them.

Once Mo Tiange thought this over, she also felt this was reasonable. Moreover, Danding School also had their own Nascent Soul cultivators; they just happened to have their borders breached.

Ever since she left her Virtual Sky World, she hadn’t had the chance to enter it again since she was always with Luo Fengxue throughout the entire journey. Although she and Luo Fengxue had a very good relationship, her Virtual Sky World was, after all, a heaven-defying magic weapon. Mo Tiange was determined to not tell anyone about it.

Not long afterward, they had to hasten on their journey to avoid wasting time.

Danding School was located in the middle of west Kunwu. It wasn’t that far from Xuanqing School. If they rode on a Core Formation cultivator’s flying magic weapon from Luoyan Cliff, it would probably take only three to five days to get there.

Several days later, their group of Foundation Building disciples arrived at Danding School’s Mount Tianhuo under Martial Uncle Xuanyin’s lead. From a distance, Mo Tiange could already see the tall, erect mountain. Fiery lava was gushing out the volcano.

Reportedly, the reason why Danding School was established there was because this was the biggest volcano in Kunwu. It had to be known that aside from skill, concocting fires was also very important for pill-concocting. Apart from Dantian Fires, Earthly Fires were also excellent for concocting, especially high-quality Earthly Fires—they could almost compare to the Sun’s Real Fire and were far better compared to Dantian Fires of low level cultivators. The reason why this volcano was called Mount Tianhuo ¹ was reportedly because the quality of the Earthly Fire here was beyond excellent.

Red flames occasionally spurted from the volcano, surprising a lot of disciples. There was a gigantic black furnace floating in the middle of the volcano. This was the emblem of Danding School, which was also present on the uniforms of every ordinary disciple of Danding School.

However, from the distance, they could already tell that the damage sustained by Danding School was severe.

The tall monastery gate was toppled, several buildings around the volcano collapsed, the school’s square was littered with broken bricks and fragmented jade, and black-uniformed disciples of Danding School were shuffling about here and there. There were also quite a lot busy-looking cultivators dressed in other cultivation groups’ uniforms. From what Mo Tiange saw, most of them were Aura Refining cultivators and some were Foundation Building cultivators, but there wasn’t even a single Core Formation cultivator.

This wasn’t strange at all. Aura Refining disciples were normally the most numerous in every cultivation group; if Xuanqing School hadn’t sealed off its monastery, the ones dispatched certainly would’ve been the Aura Refining disciples and Foundation Building cultivators would’ve acted as their leaders.

As for Core Formation cultivators, there weren’t many in small cultivation groups to begin with; there weren’t enough to protect their own groups and clans, so how could they possibly be dispatched to assist other cultivation groups? It was only Xuanqing School, who had long sealed off its mountain, who had this kind of skill.

Before they even reached the Great-Mountain Protecting Formation, a beam of light rose above Mount Tianhuo. Soon after, the Great Mountain-Protecting Formation was opened and a female Core Formation cultivator came out with several disciples to meet them.

“Senior Martial Brother Xuanyin, forgive me for not welcoming you sooner.”

Master Daoist Xuanyin cupped his hands as a greeting and said with a smile, “Junior Martial Sister Mo, there’s no need to be so polite. We’re just doing what we should do.”

The female cultivator shook her head and smiled bitterly. “Others are too busy looking after themselves—only your Xuanqing School sent Core Formation cultivators here. Senior Martial Brother Xuanyin, I’m going to be frank. Right now, we’re lacking high level cultivators, so we’re really grateful you came.”

Still with a slight smile, Master Daoist Xuanyin said, “Our schools are friends; it was only natural that we help each other. Junior Martial Sister Mo doesn’t have to be like this. Right, how’s the situation now?”

“Alas, the situation isn’t very good. Senior Martial Brother Xuanyin, you better come with me first.” She then turned towards the Foundation Building disciples behind her and said, “You guys make arrangements for these martial nephews from Xuanqing School; you are not to neglect them.”

“Yes, Master.”

As the cultivator surnamed Mo led Master Daoist Xuanyin into the main hall, Mo Tiange and a group of Foundation Building disciples were given arrangements to live in the temporary Immortal’s Caves by other disciples. Because their group of cultivators was large, Mo Tiange, Luo Fengxue, Han Qingyu, and Wei Jiasi were arranged to live together.

After examining the cave they would live in temporarily, Mo Tiange unexpectedly felt very happy. It was because this cave had a concocting room that could pull earthly fire into the room. Staying here was perfect for her to practice her pill-concocting technique.

Besides, this was Danding School, so they would naturally have many pill recipes. Hence, she looked for an opportunity to go out with Luo Fengxue.

“Tiange, if you want pill recipes, you can just ask master. Our Xuanqing School also collected a lot of them.”

Faced with Luo Fengxue’s confusion, Mo Tiange said, “Senior Martial Sister Luo, I’m someone who does things wholeheartedly. Now that I’m studying pill-concocting, I want to gather as many pill recipes as I can. Even though our Xuanqing School definitely has a lot of pill recipes, Danding School was, after all, a cultivation group famous for its pill-concocting; there’s definitely something special about it. I might even discover something good.”

“True…”

Although they had just gone through a great catastrophe, the market square inside Danding School was still open as usual. Because a lot of disciples were injured and lost many magic tools, talismans and so on, the market square was unexpectedly quite crowded with people.

Mo Tiange had already asked Danding School disciples for their advice, so she didn’t stroll around and directly pulled Luo Fengxue towards a shop.

“Hello Martial Uncles of Xuanqing School, please come in!” The clerk enthusiastically greeted them right after they walked into the shop. It was probably because many disciples had entered this school in the few days that he could easily recognize their uniforms. He swiftly offered them tea and said, “Martial Uncles, what may I help you with?”

Mo Tiange had never been so enthusiastically welcomed before she even said anything, so she felt rather uncomfortable. On the other hand, Luo Fengxue was very calm. She had been an elite disciple from a young age and she was also a steward, so what kind of fawning hadn’t she seen before? This kind of treatment was only natural to her. Seeing as Mo Tiange didn’t say anything, Luo Fengxue took the lead and said, “Do you have anything good here? We want to buy some things that can be useful for killing beasts.”

Upon hearing Luo Fengxue’s request, the clerk’s smile brightened. He said, “Martial Uncles, to show appreciation for your help, our School Head commanded all shops to give you a 20% discount a few days ago. Our shop has everything you might want—magic tools, talismans, medicinal pills… you can find anything useful here.”

“Oh? We have no need for magic tools; we can’t use them now. You can take out your talismans and medicinal pills… spiritual plants are okay too, but we only want those that are 200 years old or older.”

“Sure, please wait here for a moment.”

Once the clerk left, Luo Fengxue smiled and said, “This is really a good opportunity. Danding School has a lot of good medicinal ingredients we normally couldn’t find, and a 20% discount… Let’s buy them.”

With the Virtual Sky World, Mo Tiange really wasn’t interested in these spiritual plants. However, she still smiled and nodded.

The clerk moved very quickly. In just a short while, he carried a sack over. Although this sack was also a kind of Qiankun Bag, it couldn’t hold much and was cheap, so it was often used to move goods in shops.

After taking out the goods one after another and arranging them on the table, the clerk said with a smile, “Martial Uncles, please take a look. There are talismans for Foundation Building cultivators; all of them were created by the Core Formation elders of our school. Our small shop used to only use them to keep up appearances, but since talismans are urgently needed at the moment, we took all of them out.”

Mo Tiange picked up one of the talismans. Sure enough, it was a high level “Rustles of Falling Wood” talisman. Aside from that, there were also several “World of Ice and Snow,” “Shimmering Sword Light” talismans, and so on. All of them were brimming with spiritual aura and were made of the skin and the blood of third and fourth rank spiritual beats beasts instead of normal talisman papers and cinnabars.

“These are unusual magic tools that don’t need any offerings. Perhaps Martial Uncles would like them.”

The clerk opened a jade case in which several dozens of pure, translucent flying needles were neatly arranged. Upon picking up one of them, Mo Tiange saw it was so thin that it almost couldn’t be seen. Although she couldn’t perceive any spiritual aura at first, when she held it in her hand, she could sense there was spiritual aura sealed in the needlepoint.

“We also have these spiritual plants. If Martial Uncles have any particular requests, please don’t hesitate to tell me. Our Danding School might not have other impressive items, but our supply of spiritual plants could be considered one of the very best in the Celestial Pole.”

After hearing the clerk’s proud explanation, both Mo Tiange and Luo Fengxie looked down and started to examine the goods.

Indeed, he had Snow Mushroom Flower, Purple Slough Grass, Blue Jewel, and Snow Lingzhi Mushroom… All of them were relatively rare spiritual plants. Moreover, the ones arranged on the table were all more than 200 years old.

Mo Tiange and Luo Fengxue glanced at each other. “Senior Martial Sister Luo, what do you think?”

Luo Fengxue smiled and said, “It’d be better if we buy them together now. We can divide them in the future.”

“En.” Mo Tiangde nodded then turned towards the clerk and said, “We’ll take all of them. You can start calculating how many spirit stones we need to pay.”

The clerk looked surprised. Although these rare medicinal herbs weren’t that old, they weren’t that young either. Besides, there were at least ten kinds of them, so they would certainly cost about 5,000 to 6,000 spirit stones. That was a huge sum of money. An ordinary Foundation Building cultivator’s yearly rations would only be about 1,000 spirit stones at the most. Nonetheless, he quickly regained his composure. After a simple calculation, he said, “Martial Uncles, the total should be 5,760 spirit stones. After the 20% discount, the total is 4,608 spirit stones. I’ll round it down—let’s consider it 4,600 spirit stones.”

“Okay, wrap them up,” Luo Fengxue told the clerk. She then asked Mo Tiange, “I just wanted the spiritual plants. Do you want anything else?”

Mo Tiange muttered with hesitation for a moment before she pointed at the flying needle magic tool. These were good to mount sneak attacks, so she should have some in her hands just in case. When she was fighting over the Foundation Building-Pill in Yunwu Sect, she also obtained a handful of flying needles from Murong Zi, but her supply was dwindling low as she used them. Moreover, now that she had already built her foundation, they weren’t of much use.

“By the way…” Once the clerk had wrapped their things up and accepted Luo Fengxue’s spirit stones, Mo Tiange pretended to be absent-minded and asked, “Since this is Danding School’s shop, do you also sell pill recipes?’

The clerk promptly answered, “Of course! Our Danding School is best known for our pill-concocting technique. We have ordinary pill recipes and even some rare pill recipes. But everything depends on what kind of pill recipe Martial Uncle wants. There are some particular pill recipes we can’t directly sell; our school’s Core Formation grandmaster has to be the one who decides.”

In term of pill-concocting, Danding School was number one among other cultivation groups. It was only natural that they had unique skills outsiders didn’t have, so Mo Tiange didn’t feel strange upon hearing the clerk’s excuse. She said, “What about ancient pill recipes?”

The clerk asked, stunned, “What does Martial Uncle want ancient pill recipes for? Many of the spiritual plants needed for ancient pill recipes are extinct already, so naturally, those recipes also lost their purpose.”

Mo Tiange, who had long thought of an excuse, faintly said, “I’m doing some research on pill-concocting. Some of the medicinal pills from the distant past were fabulous, so I want to use common medicinal ingredients as replacements and see if I can concoct the pills.”

“Oh, turns out Martial Uncle is our kindred spirit.” A smile appeared on the clerk’s face. His attitude towards Mo Tiange became a bit more cordial. He said, “It’s all right, our school is also doing some research. Pill recipes also can be sold, but the prices are a bit expensive.”

Mo Tiange said, “No problem. If they’re ready, you can take them out.”