Chapter 51 – The Wise Man on the Hill

After circling outside for a while to make sure she had shaken off anyone following her, Lynn Naya quietly returned home.

When she came back, Zhang Mingguang and Xue Dailang were already asleep.

Since Xue Dailang was now eleven years old, Xue Yong had originally wanted to divide the house on their right side to give each of his children a room. But there was too much clutter in their house, and it would have been too cramped. XueDalang and Zhang Mingguang had a good relationship, and Zhang Mingguang’s room was spacious, so Xue Dailangsimply gave his room to his sister and moved in with Zhang Mingguang.

After pulling the blankets up for the two boys, Lynn Naya went to the basement and took out the Qi absorption pills she had just bought.

The Qi absorption pills were different from the Qi-Blood Pills she had taken before. The Qi-Blood Pills were clearly made from herbs, but the Qi absorption pills in her hand were a glowing green color. If not for the medicinal scent they gave off, they would have looked like fine jade beads.

She popped a pill into her mouth. As soon as the medicine entered her stomach, Lynn Naya felt a surge of warmth spread from her lower abdomen, quickly radiating through her limbs and bones. With the help of this heat, the spiritual energy in her body began to circulate faster.

Knowing that the medicine had taken effect, she didn’t waste any time. She quickly took two spirit stones and placed them in her palms to absorb the spiritual energy and began to cultivate.

After one complete cycle, Lynn Naya felt a huge difference. If her cultivation had been a gentle stream before, calm and unhurried, now it felt like a rushing mountain creek, roaring down with the sound of the wind. The speed was far greater than before.

Is this the power of pills?

Suppressing her excitement, Lynn Naya continued to cultivate.

An entire night passed without her knowing it. When the first ray of dawn appeared in the morning, Lynn Naya slowly opened her eyes.

She hadn’t slept at all last night, so she felt a little tired, but her cultivation progress was good. She could clearly sense that her spiritual energy had increased.

“As expected of a pill that costs five spirit stones a piece.” You get what you pay for. The only downside was that the pill’s effect didn’t last very long. One pill’s effect only lasted for one hour. If she were to take them all day, it would cost her sixty spirit stones a day, and one thousand eight hundred in a month.

Of course, a normal cultivator wouldn’t be this extravagant, but Lynn Naya currently had over twenty bottles of Qiabsorption pills. And from the evil cultivator’s spirit stones, she had used over two hundred in the past six months, leaving her with two thousand. She had also earned a few hundred from selling weapons, plus the past month of robbing evil cultivators in the wilderness. Her current assets were close to four thousand spirit stones, not to mention her market dividends.

It was a shame that not many people were buying storage bags yet. Otherwise, if she sold the three storage bags she had, it would be a nice chunk of income.

With such a hefty fortune, Lynn Naya thought about it carefully and decided to take the pills all day.

Although the effect would be worse during the day than at night, making it not as cost-effective to take the pills, her strength was her life. Every little bit of improvement counted. Only the things she consumed were truly hers. Similarly, the spirit stones she spent on herself were the only spirit stones that truly belonged to her.

Before the sun came up, Lynn Naya and the rest of her team had already gathered at the edge of the settlement.

Their land-clearing mission had ended. From now on, they would be responsible for patrolling. Patrolling was just wandering around the area. It didn’t matter where they went. They were responsible for their own earnings and their own casualties.

Because they were going into the wilderness, Qi Guangzong had also specifically gone to the outer sect mission point to accept a mission to kill evil cultivators. The mission required them to kill fifty evil cultivators and the reward was one hundred Sect Contribution Points.

Sect Contribution Points were the only way to exchange for Dao Palace martial skills, mental cultivation methods, and so on. However, because the amount of contribution points required for an exchange was so high—a good cultivation method started at one thousand contribution points—everyone joked that it was like a carrot on a stick: you could look at it, but you couldn’t eat it.

Qi Guangzong just accepted it casually. “We’re going to be killing evil cultivators anyway. I don’t think we’ll have a problem. We’ll just split the contribution points as we did before based on how much each person contributed. How does that sound?”

“Works for me.” Everyone agreed with this.

After they had finished talking about business, they began to chat about other things and inevitably brought up the interesting things that happened in the market last night. “Talisman Master Lynn, were you there last night? Someone was selling pills next to the pill counter. The pills they were selling were much cheaper than the ones at the counter. It’s a shame I heard the news and rushed over, but they had already sold out and left.”

“Oh? How much cheaper?” Lynn Naya asked, pretending she hadn’t been there.

“Two spirit stones less per bottle.”

“Oh, that is indeed much cheaper.”

“Didn’t they say that the pills weren’t as good as the ones sold at the pill counter? I heard that the person selling the pills even went to the counter to buy some themselves.” Zhou Yuan said. Her husband had told her about this when he came back last night.

“No, they’re all the same. Someone compared them, and the effects were the same. That’s why I regret not getting there in time.” Qi Guangzong said.

Unlike his brother who regretted not making it, Qi Yaozu was more interested in the person who sold the pills. “How many evil cultivators do you think that person had to kill to have so many pills? In the past month, I’ve only collected five bottles, and they weren’t even good quality.”

“It’s hard to say. I feel like that person wasn’t a mortal cultivator. They were probably an immortal from the mountain.” someone guessed. “I heard that several people chased them but couldn’t catch up. They must have gone toward the mountain. Those people are so daring, to even covet that kind of fortune. That immortal must have a good temper, otherwise, one strike would have been all it took to send them packing.”

This guess was widely accepted by everyone. The immortal they were talking about was now among them, cultivating with her eyes closed.

As the sun rose, the soul fog that had shrouded the outer safe zone quickly dispersed. Once again heading into the wilderness, Lynn Naya slightly adjusted her strategy.

Whether or not they would encounter evil cultivators was a matter of chance. To increase their chances, Lynn Naya chose the land they had already cleared. She would wait in the middle while the others, led by the two second-layer QiCondensation cultivators, would split into two teams and patrol the sides. If anything happened, they would blow the whistle, and she would rush over.

Everyone had already witnessed Lynn Naya’s speed when she ran away, so they had no objections. More importantly, they themselves also needed to take on some isolated first or second-layer cultivators. Otherwise, with the contribution-based distribution, they wouldn’t even get a share of those small fry.

After they had discussed all this, Lynn Naya chose a spot by the Greenbird River since all the trees had already been cleared. She picked up a wooden stick and pretended to be fishing, while in reality, she was furiously taking pills and cultivating by the river.

Her method worked quite well. As soon as she heard the whistle, she would immediately spring into action. She could usually take down low-level evil cultivators with one sword strike, or two at most. After killing them, she wouldn’t even look at their loot. She would just go back to her spot and continue cultivating. The efficiency and earnings were far greater than before.

Sometimes, Lynn Naya would also help out the two teams on her left and right that hadn’t finished clearing their land. After a while, those two teams would come by the river to see if she was there before they started clearing land.

Ten days passed. As Qi Guangzong completed his outer sect mission, rumors of a powerful “fishing guy” by the Greenbird River also began to spread.

“They want to join us, too,” Qi Guangzong told Lynn Naya one day as they were heading back into the safe zone. The two land-clearing teams next to them wanted to join them after their mission was completed. “I told them I couldn’t make the decision and that it was up to you. If you want them to stay, I can tell them.”

Qi Guangzong was actually a little reluctant. The more people there were, the more complicated things would get. And he didn’t know what their characters were like. Who knew if they would cause some conflicts later on?

“Just reject them,” Lynn Naya said. She also didn’t want too many people. “If they are nearby, we can help them if they need it, but they can’t join us.”

“Alright.” Qi Guangzong was immediately relieved. “By the way, when I was coming back from the south district today, I ran into Auntie Feng. She said she got a wild boar and asked me to see if you have time to go over tonight.”

Speaking of this, Qi Guangzong was a little emotional. This wasn’t the first time Auntie Feng had asked him to ask her. Ever since she opened her eatery, whenever she got something new, she would think of Talisman Master Lynn.

Most of the time, Talisman Master Lynn wouldn’t come, but Auntie Feng always remembered her.

He was a regular customer, and he didn’t even get that kind of treatment.

“Pork, huh.” Lynn Naya thought of the juicy, fatty pork belly. “Then I’ll take a detour today.” She decided not to stay for dinner. Whenever she came, Auntie Feng would be busy making things for her. She would just get some pork belly and take it back for the kids at home to try.

At the intersection by the safe zone, Lynn Naya said goodbye to Xue Yong and the other two and followed the Qi brothers to the south district.

Because of the large-scale land clearing, a steady stream of wood was being brought in, and the price of wood had plummeted. Some ordinary people who couldn’t afford to build wooden houses before were now building them.

As Lynn Naya walked, she saw many families on both sides of the street planning their new homes and thinking about what to plant in their yards. It wouldn’t be long before the streets were also lined with green trees.

When they arrived at Auntie Feng’s eatery, the place had changed a lot. Lynn Naya looked at the two-story building and the liquor sign hanging upstairs and couldn’t help but smile.

Things have changed so much. It’s really nice.

Auntie Feng saw her inside and was about to come out with a teapot to greet her when someone’s head popped out from the second floor and called out before Auntie Feng could. “Naya, come up and sit!”

Lynn Naya looked up and saw Yun Xian waving at her. Then, Qing Xiaozhou and the black-clothed man who had disappeared for a long time also appeared next to Yun Xian.

Two of the three people had higher cultivation than her, and they had probably deliberately concealed their auras, so she hadn’t noticed that anyone was upstairs.

I wonder if Yanxi is here.

Yun Xian was probably calling her up to introduce her to the two people. Lynn Naya didn’t want to turn down Yun Xian’s goodwill. After greeting Auntie Feng, she went upstairs.

Upstairs, there were only Yun Xian and the other two. Lynn Naya relaxed a little and went to sit down next to Yun Xian.

“Senior Brother Wen, Senior Sister Qing, this is Naya,” Yun Xian said. Then she introduced the two people opposite her to Lynn Naya. “Naya, this is Senior Sister Qing Xiaozhou. She’s also a talisman master. If you have any questions, you can ask her.”

Lynn Naya greeted Qing Xiaozhou. “Hello, Senior.”

“Don’t call me Senior. We’ve already met. What you did last time was very well done.” Qing Xiaozhou said, not stingy with her praise. She was already very familiar with Qiao Guanyuan and knew that the person who had instigated all the talisman masters to work overtime was the person in front of her.

“It was what I had to do.” Lynn Naya said politely.

The two of them started chatting, and the black-clothed man on the side couldn’t help but tap on the table, dissatisfied. “I say, are you two forgetting to introduce someone? This junior sister still doesn’t know my name.”

Yun Xian laughed and added, “Naya, this is Senior Brother Wen Zaituo. You can just call him Senior Brother Wen like I do.”

Wen Zaituo?

Lynn Naya’s gaze on the black-clothed man paused for a moment, and then she continued to greet him without any change in expression. “Hello, Senior Brother Wen.”

She didn’t react, but Wen Zaituo looked at her with a probing gaze. “I heard from the little bird that Junior Sister Naya’ssurname is Lynn. May I be so bold as to ask, is Junior Sister from Western Proximity City?”

Lynn Naya’s expression didn’t change. “No.”

“Oh, I knew it was too much of a coincidence.” Wen Zaituo leaned back in his chair again.

Yun Xian was a little curious and asked, “What’s too much of a coincidence?”

Wen Zaituo just shook his head and didn’t speak.

Because of this little incident, Lynn Naya no longer had the heart to stay. After a few more polite exchanges, she found an excuse to leave.

After she left, Qing Xiaozhou said to Yun Xian, “If she has a natural spiritual root, Granny Shi would really like her.”

Yun Xian’s eyes flashed with a hint of strangeness. She then seemed to have thought of something and asked tentatively, “Senior Sister, you didn’t mention Naya to the granny, did you?”

“I did,” Qing Xiaozhou said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “It’s so boring on the mountain. The granny is always interested in interesting things and people from the outside. When I meet someone, I have to tell her about it. It’s a shame she’s never willing to come down and take a look. If she saw all these changes at the foot of the mountain, she would be in a much better mood.”