Chapter 18: Harvest

After resolving the encounter with the three petty thieves with a narrow escape, Li Zhirui had no time to clean up the battlefield. He hurriedly seized the storage bags from their bodies and the magical tools they had discarded, then summoned his paper crane and vanished into the vast expanse of the sea.

At first, Li Zhirui's heart pounded like a drum, and his entire body was incredibly tense. After all, this was the first time he had killed anyone in his entire existence—how could he not be nervous?

However, as the sea breezes blew in waves, it felt as though they carried away the unease in his heart, allowing him to gradually calm down and causing a slight shift in his mental state.

By the time he returned to Great Banyan Island, Li Zhirui had completely shaken off the influence of those negative emotions. With a composed expression, he returned his command token and retreated to his small courtyard.

Once he closed the gates, the first thing Li Zhirui did was open those three storage bags!

"What on earth is all this!?" Looking at the colorful garments scattered all over the floor, Li Zhirui's mouth twitched in pure disgust.

The three men had looked like paupers, yet their storage bags were overflowing with items. However, most of them were women's intimate apparel, and they emitted a foul, fishy stench. Li Zhirui's stomach churned violently, and he nearly vomited.

With swift movements, Li Zhirui gathered these items into a single storage bag, deciding then and there that he would never use that specific bag again!

Having stowed away the disgusting items, Li Zhirui finally found the mood to inspect the assets of the three cultivators.

The useful items were not many: a total of four to five hundred spirit stones, three mid-grade first-tier magical tools, dozens of jade bottles containing unknown pills, and nine jade slips.

Li Zhirui first examined the jade slips. The first ones he saw were the *Azure Wave Manual*, the *Sharp Metal Manual*, and the *Thick Earth Manual*—three widely circulated basic cultivation techniques—along with the three men's personal insights and understandings of their respective methods.

Next was the *Compendium of Five Elements Spells*, a text recording first-tier five-element spells.

The value of these jade slips was not particularly high; the clan's library contained them as well. At most, they simply saved Li Zhirui the spirit stones he would have otherwise spent studying spells in the library.

As for the three sets of insights, Li Zhirui read them as well. His only impression after reading was that they were mediocre and lacked any highlights, which was a common drawback among rogue cultivators.

Most importantly, they were entirely different from the techniques he practiced, offering nothing of value for reference.

However, the remaining two jade slips provided a pleasant surprise, as one contained a fragmented but highly useful spell.

The *Cicada Breath Technique*. As the name suggested, once cast, the technique allowed a cultivator to conceal their aura, much like a cicada underground, making them extremely difficult to detect.

Furthermore, the *Cicada Breath Technique* recorded in the jade slip included cultivation methods for the Foundation Establishment stage and even made a brief mention of the Golden Core stage. This suggested the technique had an extraordinary origin, though the subsequent content had been forcibly erased by someone.

As for the final jade slip, Li Zhirui took only one glance before immediately withdrawing his consciousness. There was no other reason: it was an evil technique used for "plucking Yin to supplement Yang"—in other words, a demonic cultivation method!

In truth, similar techniques existed within the righteous path, but those were orthodox dual cultivation methods focused on the harmony and balance of Yin and Yang.

The "plucking Yin to supplement Yang" method, however, was developed by demonic cultivators, who also maliciously spread similar techniques far and wide.

Beyond the plucking techniques Li Zhirui encountered today, there were also methods involving the refining of ghosts and corpses, which had become evil due to demonic modifications.

Because these methods were modified based on righteous cultivation techniques, they were highly inconspicuous. Unlike demonic cultivators who radiated malevolent energy and could be identified at a glance, these practitioners could hide their identities.

But the drawbacks were immense. As cultivation progressed and their realms rose, the emotions of these evil cultivators became increasingly unstable. Their Dao hearts could even be polluted, turning them into skin-wrapped demons who knew nothing but slaughter and the satisfaction of their own wicked desires.

"No wonder they had so many women's intimate garments, and no wonder their strength was so poor despite being in the late stages of Qi Refinement. It was because they practiced such evil methods!"

When Li Zhirui had fought them, he had noticed that their spells were not as powerful as expected; now, he finally knew why.

Unstable spiritual power leading to insufficient spell potency was the second major drawback of evil cultivators.

Yet, despite such obvious hidden dangers, why did so many cultivators flock to them and pursue evil methods one after another?

Because evil cultivation techniques possessed one advantage that neither the righteous nor the demonic paths held: extremely rapid cultivation speed!

Moreover, this speed did not depend on innate talent! If one practiced a plucking method, the more one "plucked," the faster the cultivation speed would become.

Consequently, evil cultivation was a scourge that could never be fully eradicated; no matter how much the righteous factions suppressed them, they always managed to resurface.

Looking at the jade slip in his hand, Li Zhirui channeled a surge of spiritual power to destroy it directly, preventing it from accidentally being passed on and harming others in the future.

Especially since Li Zhirui spent most of his time on Great Banyan Island, if he were to cause harm to a fellow clansman, how could he face the rest of the clan with any dignity?

However, today's ambush served as a wake-up call. His decision to sell spirit rice at the street stalls had been too conspicuous, which is why he had been targeted. If he didn't find a way to change his approach, similar incidents would surely occur.

The problem was that the purchase prices offered by the shops in the market were too low! Li Zhirui was not yet wealthy enough to ignore the loss of a few spirit stones.

"Forget it, I'll take it one step at a time." After much agonizing thought, he couldn't come up with a good idea, so he could only set the matter aside for now and reconsider it once the next batch of spirit rice matured.

Time passed bit by bit, and in the blink of an eye, more than a month had gone by.

On this day, Li Zhirui sat cross-legged on a prayer mat. As his cultivation technique circulated, he refined a Jade Spirit Pill, turning it into specks of spiritual power that merged into his dantian.

With a large quantity of Jade Spirit Pills assisting his cultivation, although Li Zhirui had only recently broken through to the seventh layer of Qi Refinement, the spiritual power in his dantian had increased significantly. At his current rate of cultivation, he would be able to attempt a breakthrough to the eighth layer in less than a year.

As the medicinal effects of the Jade Spirit Pill were fully absorbed, Li Zhirui slowly opened his eyes and said with a hint of lingering desire, "It's a pity I can only refine three Jade Spirit Pills a day. If only I could refine more."

It had to be said that human nature is greedy. Li Zhirui's current cultivation speed was already comparable to cultivators with high-purity dual spiritual roots, yet he was still unsatisfied.

However, even though the Jade Spirit Pills were refined using water methods and contained minimal medicinal toxins, it did not mean they were entirely free of them.

Three Jade Spirit Pills a day was the upper limit for cultivation and refinement; the accumulated toxins would naturally be expelled from the body. But if one exceeded this limit, the cultivator would have to find a way to actively expel the toxins themselves.

And that was an extremely troublesome task. To do it properly required a massive expenditure of time and energy, and the effort was disproportionate to the gains.

After a moment of reflection, Li Zhirui stood up and headed toward the warehouse to hand in this month's five hundred Jade Spirit Pills and three hundred Spirit Supplementing Pills.

Passing by the small pond in the courtyard, he saw Da Qing sleeping soundly and couldn't help but sigh.

Having been fed Jade Spirit Pills for several months, it was impossible for Da Qing not to have made progress, but to say the progress was significant would be an exaggeration.

The root cause, aside from the inherent difficulty of spiritual beast cultivation, was Da Qing's status as a member of the Turtle Race!

The hallmarks of the Turtle Race, besides their long lifespans, were slowness and laziness.