Dongfang Xiaotian returned to his own residence, battered and disheveled.
Cultivators generally have two types of residences for their cultivation.
One is the cave-dwelling carved out in places where spiritual energy gathers—in plain terms, it’s making a cave in a mountain full of spiritual energy.
Most of these are used by wandering cultivators, offering better concealment and denser spiritual energy.
The other is the type Dongfang Xiaotian lived in, a proper residence focused entirely on comfort.
Of course, the density of spiritual energy here couldn’t compare to a cave-dwelling.
But what need did a cripple like Dongfang Xiaotian have for a place filled with spiritual energy anyway? He couldn’t even cultivate.
“Senior Brother, you’re back!”
Just as Dongfang Xiaotian entered the residence, he saw his junior apprentice sister, Su Xiaoyun, sweeping fallen leaves. It was she who had delivered the news of Second Senior Sister’s misfortune.
During the days he was away from Four Sages Academy, it was also Su Xiaoyun who helped take care of his residence at the academy.
Dongfang Xiaotian’s relationship with his little junior sister was decent—not as close as with Second Senior Sister, and not as intimate as with his junior apprentice brother.
She came to tidy up his courtyard purely of her own accord.
Of course, Dongfang Xiaotian had tried giving her wages, but she always refused.
“Mm, I’m going to take a bath first.”
Dongfang Xiaotian stretched and said, “Please check through the items those people delivered.”
“I’ve already checked, here’s the list, Senior Brother.”
Su Xiaoyun fished a slip of paper from her person and handed it to Dongfang Xiaotian.
Dongfang Xiaotian accepted it, glanced at Su Xiaoyun’s jewelryless attire, and said, “You still don’t have a storage ring, do you? Here, take this for now.”
He tossed Li Yuze’s storage ring to Su Xiaoyun. Li Yuze’s ring could hold about ten cubic meters—one of the best storage rings in Lingtian City.
Of course, compared to the ones owned by Dongfang Xiaotian, Beichen Yue, and Tushan Bingxian, it was nothing.
Dongfang Xiaotian, after all, had wandered the Thirty-six Prefectures of Shenghua; he had several storage spiritual tools, the smallest of which held two hundred cubic meters.
Seeing Senior Brother casually toss over a storage ring, Su Xiaoyun hurried to catch it, afraid it might break.
“Senior Brother, I can’t accept something this precious!”
She immediately tried to hand it back with both hands. After all, a storage ring was a spiritual artifact—even the poorest, with just a single cubic meter of space, would cost at least several dozen spirit stones.
Ordinary outer sect disciples would have to save up for more than half a year, not spending spirit stones on cultivation, just to get one.
Let alone the one Senior Brother tossed over, with its lustrous, jade-like sheen—it was clearly a high-grade storage ring, worth far more than just a few dozen spirit stones.
“I’m not letting you have it for free.”
Dongfang Xiaotian took out another pouch and a storage ring from his waist.
“Inside this storage ring are over a thousand Third Rank Array Flags, as well as some other storage rings and odds and ends. Take them and have your junior apprentice brother sell them together.”
There was actually quite a demand for storage rings. Though they were hard to repair, couldn’t be nested inside other storage spiritual tools, and most had irregularly shaped interiors full of defects—
Still, nothing could beat the convenience of ignoring an item’s mass, pressing Newton firmly into his coffin, and not finding a better alternative.
The key was, artifact refiners capable of making space-type spiritual artifacts were exceedingly rare, so supply never met demand.
As a result, there was no need to worry about sales for storage rings.
“I’ve listed the prices inside as well. If he can sell them for more, that’s his ability—the extra profit will be his labor reward.”
Dongfang Xiaotian intended to cultivate his little junior apprentice brother.
He couldn’t just stuff him with pills, teach him techniques, or show him immortal arts; he also had to teach him about the ways of the world and human affairs.
“This time, just help your junior apprentice brother out.”
After all, those “pure and naive protagonist” types always grew under the protection of some powerhouse. As for himself… at most, he’d last two or three map changes before becoming useless.
But lasting until the protagonist became invincible in the world was already enough. Haibodong also became crippled around the story’s midpoint, so there was no need to aim too high.
“Yes! I promise to complete the task Senior Brother assigned!”
Su Xiaoyun immediately became earnest and solemn. Though she was only at the third level of Qi Refinement and couldn’t help in battle, she would do her utmost with chores like this.
She immediately took the bag of storage rings to find Junior Apprentice Brother Jiang Li.
Dongfang Xiaotian went to the bathhouse himself, fetched two buckets of water, heated them with fire-type spirit talismans, then undressed and began scrubbing the grime off his body with soapnut.
Honestly, Dongfang Xiaotian really couldn’t understand why his second senior sister and the others went half a month without bathing.
If it were just a matter of poor people lacking conditions, that would be understandable.
But Second Senior Sister was a cultivator—an ice-type cultivator at that, with more than enough water at her disposal. Water supply wasn’t an issue at all.
If it were the north, with winter temperatures below minus ten or twenty, that would be understandable, but here in the southern subtropics, didn’t she find herself sticky and uncomfortable?
But Dongfang Xiaotian hadn’t majored in biology in university, so he didn’t really understand fox habits. He just assumed wild animals liked rolling in mud.
He tossed several pills into his wooden tub. They dissolved instantly, turning the water a sparkling pale green.
These pills were Bone Tempering Pills, which could cleanse tendons and bones, refine the body, and speed up healing. Put simply, they were the physical cultivator’s version of experience pills.
The stabbing pain brought new sensation to Dongfang Xiaotian’s body, stiff after five days of digging. It was like a massage after a day of labor.
Exhaling a long, turbid breath, Dongfang Xiaotian picked up the compensation Beichen Yue had given him for the broken engagement.
“Ten Second Rank Recovery Pills, ten Second Rank Rejuvenation Pills, a Third Rank attack-type spiritual artifact, Second Rank Immortal Herb…”
Dongfang Xiaotian made a quick estimate. These boxes looked impressive, but many just contained gold, silver, and jade ornaments.
Still, he couldn’t say they were useless.
Just like the Spirit Paper used by a talisman cultivator—useless scrap in anyone else’s hands, but a tool for writing talismans in his.
Likewise, when arranging certain arrays, if a necessary element of the Five Elements was missing, some items could serve as substitutes.
For professions like talisman cultivators and array masters, knowledge truly was power. Gold and silver might be of little use to cultivators, but were handy for fringe techniques or bartering with mortals.
The Saint Hua Dynasty had even set an exchange rate for spirit stones and gold—roughly one ordinary spirit stone equals ten taels of gold, which equals a hundred taels of silver.
The one-to-ten ratio was easy to remember.
Of course, since spirit stones were useless to most ordinary people, and gold and silver likewise to most cultivators, such exchanges were rare.
As for why this channel was open, Dongfang Xiaotian could only speculate.
It was probably to allow the common folk to hire cultivators. Although expensive, a cultivator’s abilities were usually worth the price.
So quite a few wealthy merchants and officials, lacking talent for cultivation themselves, would use their money to find cultivators as their bodyguards.
Dongfang Xiaotian had seen many such cases. After all, everyone needed to eat and cultivate—everything cost money. Doing odd jobs for mortals wasn’t shameful.
Of course, most cultivators were arrogant and proud. They might do work, but if you tried to make them dig canals, build the Great Wall, or carry dung, they’d rather starve.
Dongfang Xiaotian roughly checked and estimated the value. The compensation from Beichen Yue was about five thousand spirit stones, a thousand of which were stored in spirit cards.
Leaning on the edge of the tub, Dongfang Xiaotian tallied up the spoils from fleecing Beichen Yue and his own cautious savings—he could scrape together about three thousand spirit stones.
Junior apprentice brother’s side likely couldn’t be cashed in immediately, so this was probably all the funds he could use in the short term.
For an outer sect disciple at a branch of Four Sages Academy, this was an enormous fortune. But for Dongfang Xiaotian, who needed to repair his spiritual sea, it was truly far from enough.
The reason Dongfang Xiaotian was called a cripple was because, in their eyes, damage to his spiritual sea was an incurable condition—a death sentence.
And when has curing a terminal illness ever been cheap?
“Sigh, in the end, it’s all because I’m poor.”
Dongfang Xiaotian couldn’t help but let out a long sigh. In the end, he still had to return to his old trade—drawing talismans!
“But I’m out of materials. I’ll have to buy some more first.”