Chapter 227 The Ruthless Senior Brother of the Path ...
Shen Ting felt that partners should be cultivated from a young age, and the person he favored was naturally Heng Mo, who had learned everything from the Seventh Elder.
"If you need any materials in the future, just tell me. If you want any fruit or meat, tell me too. As long as I can do it, I will definitely get it for you!"
Shen Ting patted his chest and assured him, while Heng Mo nodded obediently beside him. The atmosphere between the two was harmonious and friendly, and they were just short of sticking incense and kowtowing to become sworn brothers.
The Third Elder, who had been secretly eavesdropping at the door, was so angry he was practically spinning like a top. After spinning around eighteen times, he finally couldn't resist pushing the door open and going inside.
"Heng Mo's aptitude is no less than yours; he's a promising talent for swordsmanship. Don't lead him astray!" The Third Elder glared at his young apprentice, his beard bristling.
Shen Ting couldn't help but curl his lips: "You still want to take on disciples? Can you afford to raise them? You're not planning to send Xiao Mo to our mountain to eat those tasteless fasting pills, are you? Oh, I heard that the spirit stones for buying these fasting pills were provided by Junior Uncle."
The Third Elder was so angry that he almost drew his sword to punish the sect, but then his little disciple continued to expose his secrets: "Putting everything else aside, if you really snatch away Junior Uncle's precious disciple, do you think he would cut off our mountain's supplies?"
The Third Elder immediately became obedient, nodding with feigned composure and pretending that nothing had just happened.
"Hengmo, the demonic cultivators in your Anguo have been dealt with. Qingmu has also set up a Xuan Yang Sect outpost there. From now on, it will be our Xuan Yang Sect's territory. The Xuan Yue Sect has also been driven out." The Third Elder abruptly changed the subject.
As for the fact that the Xuan Yang Sect's station in Anguo was just a newly proposed suggestion, and the Xuan Yue Sect had only just sent out a warning letter, these things are not very important.
At worst, he can just get things done while he's out having fun. It's only a matter of a day sooner or later, it doesn't make much difference.
Heng Mo was indeed very concerned about Anguo's affairs. After hearing that the problem had been basically resolved, he finally felt relieved and breathed a sigh of relief.
He respectfully bowed to the Third Elder to express his gratitude. The fact that the sect was stationed in the country was a mutually beneficial arrangement. In the cultivation world, those who were unwilling to get married and have children were basically one in a thousand. If they wanted to have new disciples, they had to go to the mortal world to test their spiritual roots and take on disciples.
The top three countries are vast and rich in resources, with many cities and a large population. They have spiritual roots and can cultivate, so more and more children are being chosen.
Although most cultivators with high cultivation levels have lived for a long time and have no connections in the mortal world, there are always some cultivators who care about some past ties and are willing to lend a hand when something happens. There are cultivators stationed in every city, so demonic cultivators generally don't cause trouble.
In addition to exorcising demons, the cultivators' outposts also regularly test the spiritual roots of the people and take children with spiritual roots as disciples.
As this cycle progresses, people live in peace and prosperity, multiplying and multiplying. With the increase in population, naturally more people will embark on the path of spiritual practice.
But it's a different story in some smaller countries. Without systematic testing, many children have no way out at all.
Take Heng Mo for example. If His Majesty hadn't gone against the majority opinion to test the spiritual roots of all the children and gone to the trouble of sending them to the Xuan Yang Sect, he would have lived a mediocre life.
Small countries have few cultivators, and even fewer who succeed. Even if one or two cultivators achieve success, it usually takes decades or even centuries for them to reach the Golden Core stage. They are sent to sects to cultivate from a young age, and their familiar relatives have long since passed away.
How many people would actually go through the trouble of exorcising demons and monsters? Even if they did, it would only be if they encountered something serious, like hearing that demonic cultivators had massacred a city in their former country.
As for the matter of a few civilians being captured by demonic cultivators, for a small country, the one or two cultivators who have completed their training simply cannot take care of it, and even if they want to, they are powerless to do so.
Now, thanks to Heng Mo, Anguo is under the protection of the Xuan Yang Sect, and from now on, sect cultivators will be stationed in every city.
He looked up at the Third Elder, trying to ask for the reason. Heng Mo didn't think that a newly initiated disciple could make the sect do such a thing.
While stuffing dried meat into his mouth and chewing, Shen Ting said, "I know about this. It was Junior Uncle who suggested it to the Sect Leader. He said that if Anguo has a top-grade ice spirit root like Xiao Mo, there are likely others. He suggested that the sect arrange for people to be stationed there. He even took out ten high-grade spirit stones and a bunch of pills himself."
The Third Elder finally couldn't help but slap him on the head: "I told you to study swordsmanship properly, not to run around everywhere, how come you know everything!"
He had only heard about this recently, so how did his little apprentice already know? And many of the things he mentioned before were secrets! Where did he get his information from?
Seeing his little apprentice talking even with his mouth full of snacks, the Third Elder curled his lip, snatched half of Chen Ting's snacks, and then said with disdain, "How can you eat so much?"
After saying that, he also took a piece of jerky and chewed it. To be honest, this thing tasted really good. Although it wasn't as soft, sticky, and sweet as braised pork, it was still very chewy and left a lingering fragrance in his mouth.
Shen Ting looked at his master with resentment. Where was the aloofness and otherworldly elegance that was supposed to be associated with sword cultivators? Why was his master so disrespectful to his elders?
"Master, is it delicious? This was specially made for me by Xiao Mo to comfort me after a month of hardship eating fasting pills."
The Third Elder almost choked on the jerky and couldn't help but cough twice, but he didn't intend to exchange the stolen snacks for them. As for his image, he never needed to care about his image on Xiao Qi's side of the mountain.
"Xiao Qi is too much! She keeps such delicious food to herself and has never made it for me before!! From now on, I'll process the monsters I catch here. By the way, besides spicy, can this jerky be made with honey? It would taste even better with sesame seeds sprinkled on top."
The Third Elder's loud and self-righteous complaints made Shen Ting forget to even complain. After all, with his master's thick skin, complaining seemed pointless.
In the end, Heng Mo explained that the recipe for making jerky was something he brought from the mortal realm (actually, Lin You gave him the recipe because he couldn't bear to waste the prey while doing his missions and the roasted meat didn't taste good), and it wasn't that his master was keeping it a secret.
Then he asked someone to buy the ingredients and made a lot of jerky of various flavors and other snacks from the recipes Lin You gave him. He filled a storage bag for each of them, master and apprentice, so that the two of them wouldn't turn against each other over a bite of jerky.
Like Shen Ting, Heng Mo had always had the misconception that cultivators did not eat grains and did not indulge in gluttony. Now he realized that cultivators are actually human beings as well.
He specially took a mid-grade spirit stone and bought many delicious-tasting demon beasts, and made them into various flavors of jerky, dried meat, meat patties, and meatballs according to the method Lin You taught him.
A mid-grade spirit stone has considerable purchasing power; it can buy a lot of even the best-tasting monster meat, which, after being dried, filled seven storage bags.
Fortunately, with the help of the two handymen disciples assigned by his master to take care of him, and Shen Ting who insisted on living in the same courtyard with him, and with the magic to dry them, Heng Mo only had to work on all these snacks for two days.
A storage bag is about one cubic meter in size. It can keep food fresh by putting in a few pieces of millennium-old ice. It is the most commonly used item by ordinary cultivators.
Heng Mo happily distributed the snacks: one bag for Senior Brother Qingmu who had helped him, one bag each for his two sword cultivator senior brothers Qingya and Qingqiong, two bags for his own master, one bag for Lin You, and one bag for himself—perfect.
The Third Elder was still gloating to the Seventh Elder about receiving a gift from Heng Mo, and that he was Heng Mo's favorite elder, when he saw that the Seventh Elder had received two storage bags.
Not only did it have twice as much as mine, but the quality of the snacks inside was also significantly better. Mine was just ordinary wild animal meat, while Xiao Qi's was clearly made from spirit beast meat that had cost a lot of money!
The Third Elder returned dejectedly. Although he often shamelessly begged for things from Xiao Qi, he really couldn't bring himself to refuse the filial piety of his precious disciple.
As for asking Heng Mo, a junior, to freeload, he couldn't bring himself to do it, unlike Shen Ting, who helped out while also freeloading and collecting scraps to fill half a storage bag with new snacks.
To prevent his unscrupulous master from stealing snacks again, he even strung the snack storage bag together with a rope, hung it around his neck, and stuffed it into his clothes, which almost made the Third Elder want to expel him from the sect.
After his idealized image of his master shattered, Shen Ting returned to his true nature and let himself go. The Third Elder was actually quite happy about this, except for wanting to beat him up.
His swordsmanship is different from Xuan Ling's ruthless path of suppressing one's true nature. The Third Elder felt that cultivation should be more about seeking one's true heart. When his little disciple first became a disciple, he was dressed very seriously with his sword, but the Third Elder could tell at a glance that the boy was lively.
The Third Elder squatted on the rooftop and took a leisurely sip of wine. "Cultivation is about cultivating your true self. If you suppress your nature and erase your true heart, can you still call it cultivation?"
There was another reason why he took a liking to Heng Mo and wanted to teach him swordsmanship: the boy didn't blindly worship and admire Xuan Ling like others.
As the sect's top swordsman besides Xuan Ling, he always fought hard and endured hardship whenever the sect had trouble.
He ranked third in the sect after fighting in the arena for seven days and seven nights without Xuan Ling showing his face. But every time it was mentioned, people still regretted that Xuan Ling didn't participate, otherwise their Xuan Yang Sect would definitely have been number one.
The ranking of sects is based on resources. The first and third place are missing out on a lot of things. Even if he says he doesn't care about fame or fortune, we haven't seen him reduce the sect's supplies.
Don't think he doesn't know what that guy is thinking. On the surface, he seems aloof and detached from worldly affairs, but in reality, he uses the interests of the entire sect to enhance his own reputation. He is narrow-minded, selfish, and doesn't care about the lives of others.
The Third Elder couldn't help but fum when he thought about it. He squatted on the roof, drinking three jars of wine while the northwest wind blew through the air, and howled for most of the night.
It took the three apprentices a long time to coax him, and they even pooled their resources to give him a new bag of snacks before they finally managed to appease him.
Afterwards, Shen Ting secretly complained to Heng Mo that he felt his master was deliberately pretending to be pitiful in order to trick him and his fellow disciples out of their snacks.
However, since it was his own master, Shen Ting complained but still went hunting with Heng Mo while Heng Mo was doing quests.
He didn't have many spirit stones and couldn't afford the meat of demonic beasts, but he was already at the Qi Refining stage, and with his swordsmanship, he could easily deal with some low-level demonic beasts.
While Lin You was still in seclusion, Heng Mo had already completed the more than one hundred tasks he had received for the first time, earning 132 game points.
However, he still couldn't afford most of the items in the game store. Other things aside, what Heng Mo wanted most was the Breakthrough Pill.
A pill that can break through bottlenecks, almost a legendary item in the cultivation world, can be purchased for 1,000 game points in the game store.
Heng Mo doesn't need this kind of pill for the time being. He plans to buy one for his master, who is the seventh elder and has the lowest cultivation level among all the elders, but is also the only one at the Golden Core stage.
The lifespan of a Golden Core cultivator is five hundred years, which sounds like a long time, but Heng Mo remembered that when Senior Brother Qingmu was telling the history of the sect's development, he said that the youngest of these elders was already over four hundred years old.
There were seven elders in total, the youngest of whom was none other than his own master. He had once heard his third senior uncle mention that his master was already at the late stage of the Golden Core realm, but had been stuck at the bottleneck for nearly a hundred years.
Even if there are pills that can prolong life, there is a limit to how much they can be used. All the longevity pills that Master can refine can only extend life by a hundred years at most, which is only a temporary solution.
Most importantly, Master needs to break through his bottleneck. Not to mention the improvement in combat power and cultivation, his lifespan alone can be increased by five hundred years.
The cultivation methods that his master taught him were profound yet simple, and the foundation was solid. All he needed was a breakthrough opportunity.
Enticed by the Breakthrough Pill, Heng Mo worked even harder on completing tasks. After submitting all the tasks, he immediately started refreshing the task list.
[Ding! A food item with attributes has been created and received positive reviews from ten people. (3 points)]
[Ding! Harvested ten spiritual herbs in perfect condition. (2 points)]
[Ding! You have earned ten low-grade spirit stones through your own abilities. (2 points)]
[Ding! You spent two hours with your elder and received ten compliments. (2 points)]
[Ding! Among the disciples who entered the sect at the same time, you are the first to advance your cultivation to the mid-stage of Qi Refining. (5 points)]
………
Heng Mo's eyes lit up when he saw the newly appeared tasks. These tasks were a bit more difficult than the previous ones, but they also yielded a lot more points. As long as he worked hard to complete the tasks, he would soon be able to buy medicine for his master!
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