Chapter 41: Divine Turtle

“Were you ambushed again?” Li Shiqing looked at the agitated Li Shiren, a dark glint flashing in his eyes.

If it weren't for the fact that the Li family had only just arrived in Yunping Prefecture and were wary of the Yuanming Sect, Li Shiqing would have long since moved to exterminate those three eastern families.

Although he hadn't had much time to cultivate over the years and his cultivation level hadn't increased significantly, his late-stage Foundation Establishment realm—coupled with his late-stage Foundation Establishment spirit beast, the Azure-Eyed Tiger—meant that with a manageable cost, he could completely crush those three families one by one!

“It was two greedy, death-defying rogue cultivators. Relying on a secret technique they possessed, they attempted to kill us to seize our treasures,” Li Shilian explained the situation on the road.

“Second Brother, please activate the main hall's formation!” Li Shilian said with a solemn expression.

Moved by his words, Li Shiqing immediately activated the formation, encompassing the main hall within it and severing all contact with the outside world.

“This matter is related to Zhirui; it is best to let him tell you himself,” Li Shilian said, stepping to the right to bring Li Zhirui into view.

Li Zhirui first took out the scroll from his storage bag. Although he knew the scroll was no ordinary object, he moved with extreme caution.

“Patriarch, this is a visualization scroll I discovered by chance at an auction. Hidden within it is a visualization method called the *Divine Turtle Suppressing the Sea Diagram*.”

Li Shiqing, who had previously only thought the divine turtle looked lifelike, underwent a drastic change in expression. Upon Zhirui's reminder, he immediately plunged his powerful divine sense into a specific part of the turtle's shell, seeking to verify the truth of Zhirui's words.

Li Zhirui did not mind Li Shiqing's direct attempt to comprehend it, for he had never intended to monopolize the visualization method. Had he truly wanted to keep it to himself, he wouldn't have told Li Shilian about the scroll's secret back at the auction house.

However, he would absolutely never give up the scroll itself!

At most, he would allow the clansmen to observe the scroll and grasp its true meaning to manifest the internal landscape of the Divine Turtle Suppressing the Sea within their seas of consciousness, but the ownership of the scroll belonged solely to him!

A moment later, Li Shiqing withdrew from the scroll, his face filled with smiles. “It truly is a visualization method! It should have the effect of suppressing inner demons.”

“Second Brother, then you...” Thinking of the ownership of the Divine Turtle Diagram, Li Shilian swallowed his words. Using a voice transmission technique, he informed Li Shiqing that the scroll had been purchased by Li Zhirui using the family's spirit stones.

Cultivating this visualization method would benefit both him and the other clansmen, but Li Shiqing felt somewhat embarrassed to ask Li Zhirui for it.

“I can hand the visualization method over to the family and agree to let the clansmen observe the scroll for cultivation, but the owner of this object must be me!” Li Zhirui spoke, timing his words perfectly.

“Fine,” Li Shiqing agreed without hesitation. He added, “To reward your immense contribution to the family, all the spirit stones you borrowed are waived.”

“Thank you, Patriarch!” Li Zhirui did not refuse. This arrangement benefited both sides, and he wouldn't be able to produce such a large amount of spirit stones in a short time anyway.

“The Divine Turtle Diagram can be hung in the Library during the day, but I will take it back at night to assist in my own cultivation,” Li Zhirui requested.

This was a reasonable request. They couldn't exactly let Li Zhirui cultivate in the Library at night; if anything went wrong and the scriptures were destroyed, it would be bad for both the Li family and Li Zhirui.

“Keep the scroll with me for a while. I will return it to you once I have fully comprehended the *Divine Turtle Suppressing the Sea Diagram*.” It wasn't that Li Shiqing wanted to embezzle the scroll, but rather that he wanted to refine the method to make it easier for the clansmen to practice.

Li Zhirui nodded. Catching a glimpse of Li Shiren still immersed in shock, he gave him an apologetic look. It wasn't that he had intended to deceive Li Shiren, but rather that the visualization diagram was of great importance, and the fewer people in the outside world who knew about it, the better.

Subsequently, Li Shilian recounted what they had seen and heard at the auction, most importantly the exorbitant price of the Foundation Establishment Pill, to Li Shiqing.

“Eighty thousand spirit stones?” Li Shiqing's expression shifted slightly. Although the general store and the Cloud Tower were currently making a fortune daily, it would still take several years of accumulation to save that many spirit stones! After all, maintaining a large family was a significant expense.

His mind raced, and he sighed, “We must find a way to cultivate more clansmen capable of refining Jade Spirit Pills!”

He didn't expect them to become master alchemists; he only hoped that with the family's unlimited investment, they could learn to refine Jade Spirit Pills.

This was the best option Li Shiqing could think of.

The Li family possessed three second-tier inheritances: Beast Taming, Formations, and Spirit Plant Cultivation.

Beast Taming was the foundation of the family. The first-tier spirit beasts they raised were processed into spirit food by the Cloud Tower, earning the family vast amounts of spirit stones, but they had already reached their limit.

First, the spiritual energy on Great Banyan Island was limited, making it impossible to expand the scale of the spirit beasts; second, regarding the scale of the Cloud Tower's business, although many cultivators passed through the market, spirit food was not cheap and could not be a frequent purchase.

Finally, there was another important reason: a new restaurant had opened in the market called Xiankela, which had previously been the Yingxianke Restaurant. Because of its lower prices, it had drawn away some of the Cloud Tower's customers.

Of course, you get what you pay for. The taste and spiritual energy content of Xiankela's spirit food were inferior to the Cloud Tower's, so while it was a threat, it wasn't a massive one.

As for Formations and Spirit Plants, there wasn't much demand for formations among rogue cultivators in the market, and spirit plants served the purposes of alchemy and beast taming, making them difficult to sell on a large scale.

Therefore, if the family wanted to earn more spirit stones, they had to find a way through alchemy, and water-refined Jade Spirit Pills were the best choice.

The difficulty of refining them was relatively low, the market demand was enormous, and most importantly, the price was high.

Facing Li Shiqing's lament, Li Zhirui remained silent. He had already handed over all his insights and techniques regarding the refinement of Jade Spirit Pills to the family, and with the more experienced Alchemy Elder Li He present, there wasn't much more he could do.

“However, water-refined pills have recently begun to appear on the market,” Li Shilian said, a hint of gloom on his face.

Li Zhirui and Li Shiren, who were also learning this for the first time, were both momentarily unsettled, though their reactions differed: the former was lost in thought, while the latter frowned.

Before the Li family introduced Jade Spirit Pills, water-refined pills simply did not exist in Yunping Prefecture. It wasn't that other powers didn't know water-refining was better; it was just that the investment cost was high and the difficulty was great.

Fire-refined pills could also earn vast amounts of spirit stones, and since they already had extensive experience in that area, they had never considered learning the water-refining method.

But things were different now. With the sudden rise of the Li family, various water-refined pills with better effects and less medicinal toxicity had appeared, and their prices were as high as fire-refined pills. It was only natural that water-refined pills would be highly sought after by cultivators.

However, this meant trouble for other powers. The Li family had occupied a massive market share. If it weren't for the limited quantity of water-refined pills, many pill shops would have been forced to close due to poor business.

Driven by necessity, these powers had begun to study the water-refining method, and after several months, they were finally producing results.

“It's fine. The market for water-refined pills is massive; one family cannot consume it all,” Li Shiqing said meaningfully. “Sometimes, being the sole dominant force is not a good thing.”

Especially before possessing sufficient strength, if the Li family did not know how to be restrained and make concessions, they might be attacked by all other powers combined.

Li Shilian and Li Shiren's expressions shifted slightly; they only saw the loss of profit to the Li family, but failed to see the hidden crisis.

Li Zhirui felt that the appearance of water-refined pills from other powers would not lead to a decrease in the Li family's income—at least not for now—but Li Shiqing was thinking much deeper and further ahead.