Chapter 18

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“Meng’er, stop fooling around, get off of me.” Chu Chen guessed that he would be aroused soon and hurried off the little junior sister.

“Brother Chu is so stingy, you won’t die if you hugged me for a little longer.” Tong Meng pouted her pink lips and frowned.

“Let’s talk about happy things. Guess what is my current cultivation stage?” As he spoke, Chu Chen slowly revolved his spiritual energy.

Tong Meng also stretched out her little pale hand and placed it onto Chu Chen’s big hand.

“This…this…”

Meng’er’s eyes widened in surprise. As a powerhouse of the sixth level Spiritual Droplets Stage, she was very sharp in terms of her spiritual senses. When Chu Chen did not deliberately suppress it, she could clearly sense a surging tide-like spiritual energy from Chu Chen’s body.

“Ninth level Spiritual Mist Stage! That’s great! Brother Chu, you finally broke through!!” The little girl screamed in excitement, jumped up, hugged Chu Chen’s neck, and kissed him hard on the cheek. “That’s amazing! Brother Chu was still in second-level Spiritual Mist Stage a few days ago… It’s only been a few days… I’ve always said that Brother Chu was gifted!” As the little girl spoke, tears flowed out again. Her pink-flushed face was filled with ecstasy that came from the heart.

The 360 of Chu Chen’s cultivation talent made her happier than Chu Chen himself.

“You don’t have to worry too much about me in the future.” Chu Chen smiled, stretched out his hand and gently scratched Tong Meng’s Yao nose, and quickly put her down.

The excited Tong Meng led Chu Chen into her room. A girl’s boudoir was more refined than a man’s room.

Chu Chen looked around curiously. To be honest, it was the first time that he entered a girl’s boudoir.

When he brought the junior sister to this room, the entire courtyard was desolate and dilapidated because it had been uninhabited for many years. Today, after being cleaned up by Tong Meng, it was unrecognizable and near spotless.

Previously, when he carried the sleeping junior sister back to Blue Flower Valley, he had passed her to other senior sisters at the embouchure.

The little girl kept looking for opportunities to crawl into Chu Chen’s arms. She put her arms around his and refused to let go.

For the past couple of days, she had been worried, guilty, and sad all day long.

When she thought about how Chu Chen was about to be kicked out of the sect, she felt sad all night and had not slept well. Now, she was finally relieved and fell asleep in Chu Chen’s arms.

Chu Chen carefully put the junior sister on the bed. He looked at her delicate face and an uncontrollable feeling of tender affection suddenly arose in his heart. He could not help but lower his head to gently kiss her on her cheek.

When the junior sister fell into a deep sleep, Chu Chen looked around. On the table, he found several canvases, as well as some brushes and ink paintings.

Tong Meng had liked to draw since she was a child. Her delicate and vivid brushstrokes were extremely popular. Every once in a while, the junior sister would take her paintings to the nearby mortal market and sell them for some spirit stone fragments as a way to sustain herself.

Although sect disciples were in the beginner levels of cultivating some spells, they were still mortals after all and had to sustain their lives. Most of the external disciples mastered one or two of these survival skills.

Before becoming an internal disciple, the spirit stone fragments, mantras, and elixirs given by the sect were extremely limited. It was not sufficient. If one wanted to live a better life, one must master some of these skills and be able to manage one’s day-to-day.

Chu Chen thought of it and felt that he should also learn such a skill.

After all, he had decided to employ the weird cultivation method from the ink-colored jade slip produced by the “Black Fog Valley”. The speed at which it absorbed spiritual energy was ridiculously slow, and a large number of ‘spiritual gathering pills’ were needed to carry out the cultivation.

Chu Chen faintly felt that this weird cultivation method would be his best bet against Yao Jinghai.

Therefore, no matter what, he had to grit his teeth and cultivate to Spiritual Droplets Stage so that he could see how it was different from Crystal Spring Sect’s Spirit Drawing Mantra.

However, presently, Chu Chen was poor and blank (TN: be backward both economically and culturally)!

At first, Chu Chen wondered whether he should let his clone, Eaglet, enter the Black Fog Valley celestial mountain to grab some treasures and sell them. But when he thought of Eaglet’s stumbling and crawling appearance, Chu Chen quickly dismissed the idea. It was better for him to wait a few days for Eaglet to grow up, and at least learned how to fly before he circled back to this idea. Now, he had to learn some skills to make money.

When he thought of it, Chu Chen looked at the junior sister again, gently closed the door for her, and returned to his house in the dark.

As the saying goes, men and women were different. Although the people in the sect did not put too much care into this issue, for the sake of the reputation of the junior sister, Chu Chen could not stay there any longer.

After a good night’s sleep in the house, the next day, the well-rested Chu Chen came to the Mission Mall of the external sect to see if there were any missions, he could do to earn some spirit stones.

The sect’s Mission hall was a place specially created for the convenience of the sect members so that they could solve their problems.

For example, a certain elder who was about to refine elixirs, but lacked relevant auxiliary materials and herbs, could go directly to the Mission Hall to issue missions, and his disciples would collect and complete the mission.

This way, the elders did not need to put in the effort to complete the tasks themselves, and the disciples of the sect could get paid according to their actual abilities. It greatly utilized resources and was an efficient system.

The Mission Hall was full of people, and it had always been the liveliest place in the entire sect. However, Chu Chen rarely came here.

There was no other reason behind it. In the past, even with the most basic ‘herb quota’ task for the external disciple, Chu Chen would have to exhaust himself to complete it. He really had not the extra energy to do other tasks. Therefore, Chu Chen’s life had always been extremely simple and boring.

Chu Chen looked at the giant spirit stone monument dedicated to listing available missions for a long time and then frowned slightly.

There were not many good tasks, and most of them were only open to disciples of third level Spiritual Droplet Stage or above. Tasks that required disciples below the third level Spiritual Droplet Stage were all trivial things from collecting certain herbs to hunting for certain animal bones, which were time-consuming and did not pay well.

As he glanced through the mission board, his gaze instantly sharpened when he saw a line of clear small print which stated: ‘Elder Ling Xin is looking to recruit an elixir refining assistant! If an external disciple takes up the task, and if he/she does it for a full month, he/she can obtain the elementary elixir refining skills taught by Elder Ling Xin!

Obtain elementary elixir refining skills? This was exactly the skill that Chu Chen was interested in.

When he thought of that, Chu Chen hurriedly revolved his spiritual energy and directed it toward that mission. Within a few moments, a green-clothed woman stood out from the crowd, came to him, looked at him up and down, and said, “Are you the disciple who’s accepted Elder Ling Xin’s mission?”

The green-clothed woman in front of him had a graceful face and willow eyebrows, and she was very gentle and beautiful. She looked like she was in her twenties. She had a bright red beauty mole in between her eyebrows, and her whole face was as elegant and beautiful as a lotus in an empty valley.