In the northeast corner of Zhongdu City, most of the people living in this area are merchants.
The status of merchants in Daxia was not high, so no matter how luxuriously they built their homes, they would not dare to exceed the standards of the gates and interior.
On a dark and windy night, in a courtyard, a cultivator at the third level of Qi Refining was writing something.
Behind him, a dark shadow appeared.
At such a close distance, the cultivator at the third level of Qi Refining didn't feel anything at all. The black shadow stretched out his arms and embraced the cultivator.
The next morning, Gu Jia arrived at the crime scene.
He agreed to allow independent cultivators to enter Zhongdu City, and these independent cultivators abided by the agreement and did not cause any trouble in the city.
All the wandering cultivators were concentrated in the northeast corner of the city, and the royal family asked the merchants to accept the cultivators to stay.
There was nothing wrong with this decision originally, but everything changed when August came.
People were killed one after another. Previously they were just mortals, but this time it was a random cultivator who was killed.
Together with Gu Jia came the chief of the Liu clan, and the Dali Temple was sealed off on all sides.
"Such a strong and cold energy!" Gu Jia couldn't help but frown as he arrived outside the door of the crime scene.
"Fellow Daoist Gu, was it done by an evil cultivator?" asked Patriarch Liu with a grim expression.
"It's corpse refining. We can't be sure whether the cultivator is evil, but his method is too vicious. It's definitely not a good one!" Gu Jia frowned and said after he entered the room and saw the cultivator lying on the ground.
Almost every sect has the method of refining corpses, and it cannot be said that refining corpses is evil.
But the corpses that absorb the essence and blood of cultivators are beyond the tolerance of most sects.
The blood in the body of the cultivator on the ground was drained out, leaving only an empty skin bag on the ground, which looked extremely strange.
"Fellow Daoist Gu, this is a provocation to the Tianhai Sect. Please, Fellow Daoist Gu, make the decision for us!" Patriarch Liu said with a bow.
Gu Jia nodded. After all, this incident happened in Zhongdu City.
Although the entire Daxia is under the influence of the Tianhai Sect, as long as the cultivators do not cause trouble in the city, the Tianhai Sect is too lazy to pay attention.
But this time it was different. It wasn’t just in the city, but in Zhongdu City where monks from the Tianhai Sect were stationed. Before, it was a mortal who was killed, and now it is a monk.
"Wait until I find this monk!" Gu Jia said in a deep voice.
He took out an 'Intermediate Tracking Talisman' from the storage bag, activated the talisman with his spiritual power, and the talisman turned into a ray of light, locking onto the cold and gloomy air according to his will.
The 'Intermediate Tracking Talisman' can last for three hours, during which the target's whereabouts will be sensed by the user.
"Follow me!" Gu Jia said to Patriarch Liu.
Patriarch Liu hesitated for a moment and followed him out of the room.
Gu Jia did not use the "Light Body Technique". He just relied on his body at the seventh level of Qi Refining to lightly tap the wall and jumped over the high wall.
Chieftain Liu didn't have his strength, so he activated a 'Primary Light Body Talisman' and then jumped over the wall.
Gu Jia's speed was very fast. If he didn't need to track the breath sensed by the 'Intermediate Tracking Talisman', his speed would be even faster.
He stopped near the city wall.
"Fellow Daoist Gu, what happened?" Clan Leader Liu asked hurriedly when he saw him stop.
"We're in trouble. The monk controlled the corpses to commit crimes. He came here and collected the corpses. The tracking talisman lost its target!" Gu Jia shook his head helplessly.
At the same time, he thought of more in his mind. Compared with these casual cultivators, he had a deeper understanding of corpse refining.
The corpse refiner was able to act independently and was killed without being detected by a cultivator at the third level of Qi Refining. So the corpse refiner must have at least become a bronze corpse.
The bronze corpse among the refined corpses is a refined corpse of great status, and its strength is equivalent to that of a cultivator in the Qi Refining Stage.
The bronze corpse is also divided into early, middle and late stages, but as long as it reaches the bronze corpse level, the refined corpse will have a strong defense and can resist the spiritual attacks of Qi refining monks to a certain extent.
At the same time, the bronze corpse possesses tremendous strength, so great that even cultivators of the same level dare not confront it, and its attacks contain corpse poison.
The poison of the bronze corpse can make the body of a Qi-refining cultivator stiff. If not treated in time, large areas of the body will suffer from necrosis.
Judging from the bronze corpse that appeared this time, the fact that it easily killed a Qi Refining Level 3 cultivator meant that the bronze corpse’s strength was at least mid-level, or possibly even higher.
Combined with the timing of the Ascension Conference, Gu Jia had more associations.
"Fellow Daoist Liu, I will report this matter to the sect, and also let the independent cultivators take action. If there is a cultivator who can find the whereabouts of this cultivator, he can apply to the sect for resources of 500 spirit stones!" Gu Jia thought for a moment and said to Patriarch Liu.
When Patriarch Liu heard this, his eyes lit up at first, but he quickly reacted.
"I will spread the news!" Gu Jia can offer such huge benefits, so how could this matter be simple? Patriarch Liu responded.
"I'd better think too much!" Gu Jia felt a little heavy-hearted, he thought to himself.
Li Shiming became an official, but a seventh-rank official without a real job.
Generally speaking, the third place in the imperial examination needs to enter the Hanlin Academy and become an editor of the seventh rank, which is the most important talent training channel for the country.
However, no one thought that the emperor was suppressing him, because he received rewards several times more than the top scholar, and was even rewarded with a big house.
At the same time, a plaque with the words "Jinshi Jidi" issued by the palace was also sent to the mansion, which shows how great the emperor's favor is.
But Li Shiming did not move to the big house, but asked Mo Yan to take it over on his behalf.
There are only a few servants in the house now, and that house is more than ten times bigger than this one. He will be leaving here soon, so there is no need to make any more trouble.
Li Shiming was having a meal. He was holding a bowl of spiritual rice and there was a dish in front of him.
This dish is stir-fried spiritual bamboo shoots, which are grown from Fuling bamboo.
There was no way. Over the past six months, the Fu Lingzhu had grown very well and had a main trunk that was more than three meters high, almost reaching the top of the computer room.
There was no extra space in the computer room for Fu Lingzhu to grow wildly, so the newly grown bamboo shoots became one of his spiritual foods.
This solved the problem of the single spiritual food, as it was a rare opportunity to have a dish and a meal.
Spiritual bamboo shoots have much more spiritual energy than spiritual rice. At the rate at which spiritual bamboo shoots grow, he can produce one spiritual bamboo shoot every month.
One spiritual bamboo shoot is enough for him to eat for five days, mainly because with his cultivation level of the second level of Qi Refining, the spiritual bamboo shoot is a little too nourishing.
In fact, in other places, no cultivator would regard spiritual bamboo shoots as spiritual food, because the value of spiritual bamboo shoots will be greater after they grow into mature materials.
Li Shiming also discovered that as long as the Fu Lingzhu was not allowed to grow a second trunk normally, then as long as there was sufficient spiritual power and nutrient solution, the bamboo shoots would continue to emerge.
Anyway, he had no place to grow Fu Lingzhu now, so the bamboo shoots became a spiritual vegetable on his table.