CH 5

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Chapter 05: Old Drag

Brother Xu glanced at Li Xinmei, gave a loud snort then sheathed his blade. Zhang Zhizi carefully examined Li Xinmei’s wrist wound, then helplessly sat down and wiped his tears. Su Tingyun’s grandpa was a traditional chinese doctor who had helped people reattach and set their bones. Her parents died early and she had grown up with her grandpa so she had learned a bit from watching and listening. This Li Xinmei’s wound was still within her abilities.

Su Tingyun first helped reset Li Xinmei’s dislocated bone, then had Brother Xu cut plywood to make a simple splint to fix it in place. Unfortunately, there were no herbs available to apply on the wound. She explained to the other two the herbs she needed, wanting to find out where she could get them. However, they were bewildered: “Do those types of herbs really exist? Never heard of it.”

Su Tingyun:”……”

Her view of the world has once again changed. What to do if the cultural difference is too large? The two children look at her with the same gaze as if they were looking at a Jiang Hu swindler. Ah, that’s not right, not just a Jiang Hu swindler but a retard!

“Old thing, you must have gotten dementia from living too long, haven’t you!” The one called Xu Wei angrily shouted.

This guy doesn’t respect his elders, he’s sure to fail later in life. Su Tingyun silently curse at him in her heart and then urged Li Xinmei: ” You have to rest, if there is no herbal medicine to apply, it will take a long time to heal.”

“The ninth next month is the day the sects accept new disciples, on the third of the month they want the spirit stones. Now there’s only seven days left, how can we collect six mid grade spirit stones?” Zhang Zhizi muttered, sobbing and sniffling. That pitiful face made Su Tingyun feel uncomfortable. She wanted to ask how to gather the spirit stones, but with Xu Wei’s angry glare directed at her, Su Tingyun felt as if she was being locked on by the eyes of a poisonous snake. That pressure made her to be unable to breath, she couldn’t even utter a complete sentence.

However, they didn’t avoid her when they talked. Su Tingyun heard them discuss about how to kill spirit beasts and collect spirit herbs to exchange for spirit stones and was able to learned a bit more about this world.

Their hard currency is spirit stone. Cultivators can absorb spirit energy from the spirit stones to cultivate. The spirit energy inside the spirit stone is easier to absorb than the energy from the surroundings. so it can increase training speed. Spirit stones are split into top, mid and low grade; one top grade spirit stone is equal to a thousand mid grade spirit stones and a mid grade is equal to a thousand low grade.

The spirit stone mines of the cultivation world are all owned by the large sects, nobody else can touch them. And so, to obtain spirit stone, there’s only the method of hunting spirit beasts. The bodies of third tier spirit beasts and below contain low grade spirit pearl, which is equivalent to a few low grade spirit stone, third tier to sixth tier is mid grade, and sixth tier to ninth is high grade. And then there’s the option collecting spirit herbs or spirit treasures to exchange for the currency. In short, gathering spirit stones is a dangerous task for bottom rung cultivators and people seeking to join a sect. One careless mistake and they’ll lose their life.

These three are a temporarily formed team. Zhang Zhizi learned basic cultivation, currently at the second stage of refinement and knows a few simple attack spells. Li Xinmei is at the third stage of refinement, but she learned array techniques which are very effective in hunting spirit beasts. Xu Wei is at the fourth stage of refinement, he had learned sword techniques from a wanderer, his fighting power was not ordinary and he was the strongest member of their team.

They had already earned three mid grade spirit stones, in other words, if only one person was registering it’d be enough, but those spirit stone were gathered by three of them, everyone had contributed……

Right now the strongest one of the three is Xu Wei. If he forcefully take the spirit stones and leave, Zhang Zhizi and Li Xinmei basically wouldn’t have any chance of entering the Wuliang sect. But looking at how much Xu Wei worried for Li Xinmei, he most likely won’t do this and probably will wait until the deadline before he makes a decision?

“First, let’s rest. This is the surrounding area of Wuliang Mountain, there are no disciples guarding here so there may be danger. We’ll take turns taking nightwatch.” Xu Wei glanced at Zhang Zhizi: ” You probably can’t fall asleep now anyways, so you take first watch, call me when you’re sleepy.” After he finished talking, He stomped down, and in two, three steps ascended the tree, his movements extremely confident and casual.

Even though Li Xinmei’s hand was hurt, but her body was still light and graceful. She lightly tap with her toes and her body flew like a butterfly. She took a few steps up the tree trunk before also landing on a branch, then laid down, slanted against the thick tree trunk.

In this wilderness, there is the possibility of spirits being nearby so of course it would be slightly safer on the tree. However, this pile of old bones, Su Tingyun, has no way to fly up the tree. She hugged the tree and struggled for a while, before finally giving up and looking for a clean place underneath the tree to curl up and rest. She felt uneasy, so she couldn’t sleep well. And this time, she didn’t have that experience of being conscious of her surrounding again.

For lord know how long, she slept in a daze. Suddenly, Su Tingyun was awakened by an alarmed cry.

She opened her eyes and saw an ashen-faced Li Xinmei biting her lips and Zhang Zhizi with tears in his eyes.

That cold-faced teenager with the sword, Xu Wei, was gone.

“Xu Wei left.” Zhang Zhizi wailed: “And he took all the spirit stones that we spent a year collecting.”

“I know, don’t snivel.” Li Xinmei wanted to reach out and pat Zhang Zhizi’s head. Her fractured right hand slightly moved and her face showed a frown, then she lifted her left hand instead and softly spoke: “There’s still time, don’t worry. If we’re lucky, we can find high level spirit herbs.”

Li Xinmei was only ten or so and Zhang Zhizi was even younger. Seeing at these two children so deeply hurt, Su Tingyun felt really bad.

“Are we still going to Spirit Snake Ravine today?” Zhang Zhizi rubbed his eyes: “Without Xu Wei, we probably can’t even beat the green bamboo snake.”

“Of course we’ll go, why shouldn’t we? Even if we can’t fight the second rank green bamboo snake isn’t there still the first rank earth snake? Every little bit counts, once we have enough, you register first.” Li Xinmei waved her left hand after she finished speaking: “My left hand can also draw arrays.”

This young girl didn’t give her a good impression at first. When Zhang Zhizi called her over, she seem dissatisfied. However, after entering, she automatically gave space to Su Tingyun and also called her elder. After that she blocked a kick for her from that beard man, causing her right hand to fracture. And now, after being betrayed by a friend and clearly feeling sad, she still tried to cheer up the little one and even told him not to give up.

Su Tingyun’s eyes got a bit wet: “I’m also going, I’m sure I can help.”

Seeing the two kids’ disbelieving eyes, Su Tingyun did Popeye the Sailor Man’s signature stance and showed her biceps. However, she found that their eyes looked at her strangely and realized how dumb she look, so she smiled awkwardly before running to the side, wanting to pick up a rock to show her strength. She started by choosing a small one, she had no problem lifting it, but it didn’t impress the two kids either. So she gritted her teeth and searched for one that was slightly larger and looked about one, two hundred pounds. However, when she bent down and lifted, she felt that this rock was a bit too extreme of a choice.

Can’t lift it up?

From the start she was strong, after drinking the white jade dew, it was like she had the help of a god. Yet now, at this crucial moment, she couldn’t even lift up a rock!

This is way too embarrassing.