The ancients said that a little horse cannot pull a great cart.
After Li Qiuchen swallowed the first Spirit-Gathering Pill, he came to a profound realization of his own frailty.
And of the cruel fact that the stupid bird’s cultivation far surpassed his own.
After the white crane ate a Spirit-Gathering Pill, it absorbed the spiritual qi of heaven and earth for a full twelve hours, swelling up like a balloon, yet it was still lively and kicking.
Being a bottomless rice bucket was also a kind of talent.
Li Qiuchen did not possess that talent.
The instant the spiritual qi of heaven and earth surged into the meridians throughout his body, he felt like the egg in a plate of egg fried rice.
Fried to pieces.
The operating efficiency of the Qi-Guiding Art was directly raised tenfold. All forty-eight thousand pores across his body opened at once, frantically seizing the spiritual qi of heaven and earth within a radius of a hundred zhang, then violently smashing it into his meridians.
Li Qiuchen’s consciousness struggled to hold on for less than the time it took to burn an incense stick before he could no longer control his own body. Pine branches tore through his flesh one after another and burst out, growing vigorously at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Before long, his body had almost completely lignified, growing into a human-shaped pine tree.
At that moment, a glimmer of understanding finally arose in Li Qiuchen’s heart.
The spiritual roots spoken of by his great-granduncle did indeed exist.
The seed that the old Daoist Fang Hong had planted inside Song Laosan’s body was not necessarily meant to harm him either.
The essence of the Medicine Master’s blessing was life, not humanity.
Within the vast ecological chain of nature, the lower a living being was positioned in that chain, the faster it grew.
The wild grass spreads across the plain; each year it withers and flourishes. Wildfire cannot burn it away; when spring winds blow, it grows again.
A single bamboo shoot could grow two zhang in a single day and night.
A pair of tigers could at most give birth to two or three cubs in a year.
Humanity’s position in the ecological chain was similar to that of tigers.
In other words, its life form was relatively stable, high-level, and not easily changed.
Absorbing the life energy within plants and trees was certainly a shortcut in cultivating the Great Dao of the Medicine Master.
But plants and trees grew too quickly. Under the Medicine Master’s blessing, they could easily replace a human’s own flesh and blood.
In a daze, Li Qiuchen sensed a wave of killing intent from in front of him.
He vaguely saw the white crane spread its wings, countless feathers turning into sword light as they came rushing straight at him.
Stupid bird! Don’t farm me like a mob!
The sharp feathers chopped down countless branches. Li Qiuchen did not feel any pain; instead, he felt much of the burden lighten, and his consciousness gradually cleared.
Plants and trees possessed no spiritual wisdom. He could not allow them to grow wildly as they pleased.
In the end, it was because he had failed to transform this spiritual qi of heaven and earth into his own cultivation. Instead, it had become fertilizer for the plants and trees.
Li Qiuchen gathered his mind and controlled the Qi-Guiding Art to continue circulating.
Once, twice, three times…
He did not know how long had passed. When the faint light of dawn once again illuminated the hill, Li Qiuchen finally opened his eyes and woke from cultivation.
Countless withered branches and leaves rustled down from his body. Of course, his new clothes had also been stretched full of holes and once again turned into a beggar’s outfit.
A cool breath slowly circulated within his spine. Countless tiny rootlets, so fine they were difficult to discern with the naked eye, grew out from the seams between his bones, tangling and connecting with one another.
Of the Dragon Court’s Thirty-Three Heavens, three levels had now been reforged.
A wisp of green light flashed through Li Qiuchen’s eyes. He raised his palm toward a distant tree and pushed lightly. A wooden spike half a chi long shot out from his palm like a flying sword, directly piercing through a trunk as thick as a bowl.
Just this one Spirit-Gathering Pill had allowed him to successfully draw qi into his body and enter the early stage of Qi Refining.
That violent spiritual qi of heaven and earth had already been refined by him into true qi and stored within his body.
Li Qiuchen made a rough estimate. With his current true qi, he could support firing eighteen Palm Thorns.
The power of this spell was comparable to the white crane’s flying feathers. In other words, he now possessed the ability to instantly kill eighteen ordinary people.
I’m invincible!
Li Qiuchen stood up. The moment he raised his head, his gaze met the white crane’s.
The stupid bird looked at him as if looking at an idiot. It lifted a wing and swept it lightly, and two or three nearby trees, likewise as thick as a bowl, snapped straight through the middle.
Where exactly did this inexplicable urge to compete come from, you gaga-bangbang pig!
Li Qiuchen said helplessly, “During these days we delayed by taking pills and cultivating, the county’s troops should have already set out. Should we go take a look?”
“Gah!” The white crane nodded in agreement.
It was also brimming with confidence now.
Putting away his beggar’s outfit and changing into a spare set of clothes, Li Qiuchen took the white crane out of the mountain ditch and arrived at the nearest village.
Cooking smoke curled upward, immortal air drifting about…
It seemed there was no movement?
“Maybe they went somewhere else first.”
In truth, Li Qiuchen did not know where the county seat was either. There was no Baidu Maps in this era, and aside from the mountain gullies around Jiguanshan, which he was fairly familiar with, he truly had no idea what the outside world looked like.
One man and one crane crossed mountains and ridges, revisiting several villages they had explored before.
Without exception, all they saw were Medicine Master believers racking their brains and struggling against tree roots. As for the troops from the county seat, they did not see so much as a single hair.
“That shouldn’t be. How many days has it been already?”
Could they have been delayed on the road? Or had Jiang Tingyue’s letter not been delivered?
Surely they were not thinking of waiting until the three-month deadline drew near, when Perfected Mohe and the Medicine Master believers gathered together to hold some kind of discussion meeting, before wiping them all out in one net?
Li Qiuchen thought for a long while, but this was the only reason he could come up with.
Counting the time, it was actually almost time.
There were still many Spirit-Gathering Pills left, but Li Qiuchen did not plan to take them continuously in the short term.
Their medicinal effect was too good. Eating one had left him with psychological trauma.
Jiang Tingyue had said to take at least one every three days, but that was probably an inference based on her own standards.
Li Qiuchen felt that even taking one a month was not very safe. He had to properly settle himself first.
Or perhaps find a cultivation method more advanced than the Qi-Guiding Art in the “Yellow Pagoda Tree Chapter.”
This thing’s grade was too low. It was like pairing a bird’s stomach with a buffet: you could only feast your eyes, unable to eat much at all.
Seeing that the three-month deadline was already approaching, yet there was still not the slightest rumor of the county seat’s troops, Li Qiuchen returned to the village where the old Daoist Fang Hong was.
Even now, he still did not know what this village was called… and even if he did, it would not mean much. Small mountain villages like this were given names at random, full of local flavor.
Seeing Li Qiuchen again, the old Daoist was overjoyed.
The main reason was that he had truly managed to plant the peach tree root alive. This left him with not the slightest doubt about Li Qiuchen’s identity anymore.
Now, the village’s “Senluo Grand Formation”—when Li Qiuchen had originally fooled him into making this thing, he had never even considered whether it could actually take effect—had actually been connected together by him.
Beneath the persimmon tree, the peach tree root had now produced a sapling six or seven cun tall. Every emerald-green leaf was filled with the aura of life, and if one drew close, one could even smell a faint, indistinct fragrance.