Chapter 318: I Don't Recommend It

When Chu Liang returned to Silver Sword Peak, he felt like it had been a lifetime ago since he was last there.

The reason wasn't that his last mission had been particularly arduous. Rather, it was because Silver Sword Peak had been quite empty and unfrequented for decades, but now it was bustling with an endless stream of visitors. It was so lively that the noise from the activities could be heard from all over Mount Shu.

Seeing how lively Silver Sword Peak was, many members of Mount Shu's other peaks were so envious that their eyes practically glowed red with anger.

In their eyes, Silver Sword Peak's visitors were not people but sources of sword coins! Shiny golden sword coins were flowing into Silver Sword Peak so easily!

The sect had increased the peaks' allowances by thirty percent, but that was insignificant compared to Silver Sword Peak's income.

Chu Liang's creation, the Berry Wonderland, was a unique and novel attraction in the world of immortality cultivators, and it had become famous far and wide due to several rounds of advertising.

However, a berry-picking garden didn't actually have much practical value; it shouldn't have been able to become this popular. Chu Liang had predicted that the novelty of the Berry Wonderland would only last for perhaps ten to fifteen days. After that, the large crowds would reduce to a more regular stream of customers. He would have been satisfied as long as the Berry Wonderland could produce a stable flow of income. Nevertheless, if it ended up being an unprofitable venture, it had been within his plans to shut the Berry Wonderland down.

Yet, even after all this time, business was still booming at the Berry Wonderland! In fact, it was doing even better than before! This was beyond Chu Liang's expectations.

Then he saw a letter from Celestial Pivot Pavilion outside his cabin, and he finally understood why this was happening. The letter was from Zhang Xiaohan. She'd sent it to Chu Liang yesterday, expressing her sincere gratitude to him.

Chu Liang's story,

The Legend of the Berries,

had been a hit! The first half of the love story between a human and a demon had successfully captured the interest of the gazette's readers, and of course, it was human nature to want to read the second half.

Therefore, a large number of readers wrote to Celestial Pivot Pavilion, urging them to release the rest of the story sooner. It was too painful to have to wait a month.

Consequently, the higher-ups at Celestial Pivot Pavilion decided to release a special mid-month issue just for Zhang Xiaohan's piece, dedicated solely to the second half of

The Legend of the Berries

. This was unprecedented at the Celestial Pivot Pavilion!

After the second half was published,

The Legend of the Berries

spread by word of mouth and became extremely popular. Consequently, many immortality cultivators wanted to visit Silver Sword Peak to see the special plant of the fruit that had been mentioned in

Stealing Fruit From the Mountain of Immortals

. It also made many ordinary people yearn to visit Mount Shu's Silver Sword Peak just to see the fruit from the legend.

Chu Liang thought about it for a moment. There seemed to be a deep reason for

The Legend of the White Snake

's great popularity across the nine provinces.

Humans and demons were real in this world; they weren't just mythical beings. That made the story very relatable and much more significant to the people in this world.

Imagine just walking along and suddenly encountering a beautiful snake demon who insists on marrying you, helps you with your career, gives birth to your son who becomes a top scholar... And she still loves you even after being imprisoned under a pagoda for decades... Just the thought of it is quite exhilarating.

It seems that literature and culture are indeed the keys to extending the life of a business!

Chu Liang pondered for a moment and then wrote a reply to Zhang Xiaohan.

Miss Xiaohan, you needn't thank me. Thanks to your sect publicizing my peak's Golden Vein Berries, my business has become much more well known. I should be the one thanking you instead.

Actually, there are many more stories about the Golden Vein Berries.

Did you know that in the Far East, there was once a powerful deity dynasty?! And in that dynasty, there was a family of commoners that one day discovered an unfamiliar fruit growing in their fruit garden. It was the specialty fruit of my peak—the Golden Vein Berry.

When the family cut open the berry, they found a chubby little baby crying inside!

[1]

That family's surname was Meng, and the baby was born from a berry, so they named the child... Meng Jiangnu.

...

After sending the letter to Zhang Xiaohan, Chu Liang shut the door of his cabin and prepared to have a joyous session of rewarding himself once again.

During this trip to the abandoned courtyard of the Shen Family Residence, he had slain more than a dozen vengeful spirits. It had been quite a fruitful endeavor, which meant he could reward himself over a dozen times today and be a dozen times happier.

Chu Liang entered the White Pagoda's space in a cheerful mood.

Outside, the Berry Wonderland was flourishing, and inside, the Large-Headed Doll was enveloped in a haze. Chu Liang felt happy to see that he was thriving both inside and out.

Chu Liang thought,

I should find time to visit the South Melody Conservatory again and ask Miss Xue for some help so that I can upgrade my Golden-Core Puppet's circulation to Perfect Qi Circulation. With my dual ultimate-tier Golden Cores and my dual meridian systems in a state of Perfect Qi Circulation, my cultivation speed will soar.

Ordinary geniuses could no longer compare with Chu Liang now. Even if Chu Liang were vastly inferior in terms of natural talent, his dual ultimate-tier Golden Cores could make up for the difference and even swiftly help him surpass it. He might be cultivating too quickly compared to his peers, but who would complain about that?

Everything was going great for Chu Liang. The only exception was that Liu Xiaoyu'er was busy acting as the fruit garden's mascot, so it was an inconvenient time for Chu Liang to ask her for help with his rewards.

Chu Liang gazed at the dozen or so cells containing the phantoms of the vengeful spirits like a stingy landlord inspecting his properties. He smiled for a while before stepping forward to refine them.

Boom.

There was a flash of light.

A long item floated out of a cell, covered in white light.

[Chain of Resentment: It can silently connect two beings, causing them to harbor strong resentment toward each other for a quarter of an hour. However, the distance between them must be within two zhang. It is ineffective against people at a higher realm and people in the seventh realm.]

Huh?

Upon seeing the item description, Chu Liang thought of his other two divine skills, the Evil-Dispelling Spell and Mystic Fingers. Both skills were very unusual and mysterious.

After gaining some understanding of the Great Dao, Chu Liang knew that the Evil-Dispelling Spell was derived from the Great Dao of the Seven Emotions, and Mystic Fingers was derived from the Great Dao of the Universe. Both of these Great Daos were minor parts of the Great Dao.

That was why these mystical skills were useless against those who had reached the Dao Attainment Realm. Once a cultivator had reached the seventh realm, they could utilize their immense understanding of their Great Dao to effortlessly cast these mysterious spells. Additionally, they had a certain level of immunity to spells derived from other types of Great Dao[2]. That meant they did not need to fear the spells of other cultivators.

This Chain of Resentment also seemed to fall within the scope of the Great Dao of the Seven Emotions.

Chu Liang proceeded to refine the next phantom, and he was given another Chain of Resentment. It seemed the White Pagoda had produced items with the same attribute as the vengeful spirits that the wish-fulfilling spirit had created. However, these special gadgets might have amazing effects if they were used well, so it wasn't a bad thing to have more of them.

After rewarding himself, Chu Liang felt refreshed, so he prepared to head over to the Berry Wonderland and have a look at how it was doing.

He'd left it to his teacher to watch over the Berry Wonderland for the past few days. Liu Xiaoyu'er, Lin Bei, and Shang Ziliang were busy at work inside and outside the Berry Wonderland, while the Golden-Furred Hou and the Baize youngling guarded the place.

Chu Liang himself hadn't gone over there much. He had truly been too busy.

As soon as Chu Liang stepped out of his cabin, he ran into Chen Su.

"Junior Brother Chu, where are you headed?" Chen Su asked as she approached.

Chu Liang replied truthfully, "I'm going to the fruit garden."

"If it's not urgent, come to the Hall of Alchemy first. The Alchemy Master heard you were back from your mission and sent me to ask for you immediately," Chen Su said with a smile.

"

Ah,

" Chu Liang uttered, smacking his forehead.

He had forgotten all about his promise with the Alchemy Master.

Chu Liang had agreed to go to the Hall of Alchemy at least once a week to learn alchemy from the Alchemy Master after the Mount Shu Summit was over. The previous day was a week after his last session with the Alchemy Master, but he had been unable to meet with the Alchemy Master due to his mission.

Chu Liang replied, "Okay, I'll go right away!"

Since he wanted to learn alchemy, he had to do it diligently.

However, the Alchemy Master had only taught Chu Liang the theoretical fundamentals of alchemy so far; he hadn't given any lessons involving practical work. Consequently, Chu Liang found the lessons rather boring.

Nevertheless, he understood that theory was like the foundation of a building, and the practical work was whatever was built on top of it. The stronger the foundation, the taller the building could be built. Therefore, Chu Liang studied these theoretical fundamentals very seriously and took the initiative to improve his understanding of alchemy.

Upon arriving at the Hall of Alchemy, Chu Liang found it was emptier than usual. No one was going in and out of the hall, and it seemed that all the disciples were in their rooms practicing alchemy.

Seeing Chu Liang, the Alchemy Master showed a bright smile that was full of kindness.

When this kid was only Di Nufeng's disciple, I truly hated him so much that I would gnash my teeth in anger. But when this genius became my nominal disciple, I just can't stop grinning from ear to ear.

These were the Alchemy Master's true thoughts.

"I was held back by my mission yesterday. I hope you won't blame me, Elder," Chu Liang said, greeting the Alchemy Master with a bow.

"It's fine. That was the sect's first mission after the Mount Shu Summit, so it's quite important. I heard you and the others did very well. You killed all the evil spirits as planned and even retrieved a drop of a shaman god's blood," the Alchemy Master praised. "You always somehow manage to leave us pleasantly surprised."

"It was a joint effort. I just contributed a small part of it," Chu Liang said modestly.

That was indeed the truth.

During the battle at the Shen Family Residence, it had indeed been Chu Liang who released the little golden butterfly, which had been vital in causing major damage to the wish-fulfilling spirit's precious bottle.

However, Senior Sister Jiang remained calm and led the team well as the head disciple, so some of the credit goes to her. Senior Brother Xu descended like a god and saved everyone from danger, so some of the credit goes to him too. Ling Ao carried the injured Chen Luo steadily and made sure he was comfortable... so Ling Ao contributed as well...

In short, it was a team effort.

Seeing how modest Chu Liang was, the Alchemy Master gazed at him even more fondly.

The Alchemy Master said with a smile, "Get ready. I'll teach you how to concoct a pill today."

Chu Liang grinned. "You're finally letting me use the furnace?"

"Yes. You could have started using it much earlier, but I wanted to help you build a solid foundation. Today, I'll teach you how to concoct a relatively basic pill. You can concoct high-grade Green Pills, so this pill shouldn't be a problem for you."

"What is it?"

"It's the Spirit-Concentration Pill. You haven't concocted this pill before, have you?"

"

Ah...

" Chu Liang was a little taken aback. "Indeed, I haven't. But why this pill?"

"Firstly, it's one of the pills that's simpler to concoct, so it's suitable for you to practice with," the Alchemy Master explained. "Secondly, the price of the Spirit-Concentration Pills in Taotie City has suddenly soared. I've issued an urgent order to all my disciples to make Spirit-Concentration Pills. We should concoct more of these pills and sell them in Taotie City for a big profit."

"

Uh,

well..." Chu Liang scratched his head awkwardly. "I'm fine with learning how to concoct the Spirit-Concentration Pill, but... I don't recommend producing them on a large scale."

"What do you mean?" the Alchemy Master asked puzzledly.

"What I mean is..." Chu Liang chose his words carefully. "What if the price of the Spirit-Concentration Pills in Taotie City suddenly drops? The martial world is full of uncertainties..."

1. I think this is probably referencing the story of Momotaro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momotarō. GT thinks it might be Princess Kaguya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_the_Bamboo_Cutter as well. For all we know, it could be a mix of the two. ☜

2. Eminent Ones all pursue different Great Daos. Those at the seventh realm only pursue one. ☜