Chapter 50 – The Old, the Brave, and the Greedy

After Yun Xian fell asleep, Lynn Naya was about to continue her cultivation when she suddenly sensed an old lady with a basket of wild vegetables outside who had slipped and fallen. She waited for a moment and, when the old lady still didn’t get up, she opened the courtyard door and went outside.

“Are you okay?” The old lady had fallen right in front of her gate. There were even scratches on the ice on the ground. Lynn Naya stepped forward and helped the woman up, but as soon as she saw her face, something felt off.

This old lady was ancient. Her face was covered in wrinkles, and she was so hunched over that the wrinkles on her face sagged even more.

Because of the turmoil more than ten years ago, there were very few elderly people among the survivors. After ten years of hunger and cold, there were almost no old people in the mortal district, only overworked middle-aged people who had become prematurely old.

But Lynn Naya had already sensed that there wasn’t a single ripple of spiritual energy on the old lady.

Does this mean she has no spiritual energy, or is her cultivation too high for me to sense?

This thought flashed through Lynn Naya’s mind, and she quietly and subtly put some distance between herself and the old lady.

“I’m fine.” The old lady picked up her basket with some effort. There were still a few wild vegetables with new shoots inside. “I’m old and useless now. I can even fall down while walking. Don’t be afraid, little girl. I’m just a common person.”

Lynn Naya: “…”

This time, she took a big, clean step back and had a talisman ready in case she needed to run.

“Kids these days are so cautious.” the old lady said, covering her mouth and coughing violently in the cold wind. Her weak appearance was no different from a common person.

After the old lady finished coughing, she spat on the ground. Lynn Naya noticed a faint trace of dark blood in the phlegm.

This was usually a sign of poisoning, and a severe one at that.

Just as Lynn Naya was pondering this, the old lady spoke again. “Since you helped me up, I’ll give you a chance. Are you willing to take me home?”

Lynn Naya didn’t even think twice. “I’m sorry, I’m not willing.”

The person’s origin was unknown, and she couldn’t let her guard down. If the other party were just a simple ordinary person, that would be fine. She could call others to help. But from the way she spoke, the other party was clearly not ordinary and was very likely from the mountain.

To be honest, Lynn Naya liked Yun Xian very much, admired Yanxi, and even thought the hidden schemers in the DaoPalace were very capable. But that didn’t mean she trusted the Dao Palace.

In her eyes, the Dao Palace was a power that was bound to form after humanity developed, just like imperial power in her old world. Anything involving power and profit was bound to be complicated, and she didn’t have the ability to get involved just yet.

After being rejected by Lynn Naya, the old lady finally opened her drooping eyelids and looked at Lynn Naya with a hint of mockery. “Heh, another coward.”

With that, she leaned on her cane and carried her wild vegetable basket, walking into the darkness. The light from the houses on both sides fell on her vaguely, and the darkness around her was like a specter, slowly swallowing her.

After watching the old lady disappear into the depths of the street, Lynn Naya looked at the bloody phlegm on the ground, then got some dirt from the side to cover the traces before returning to her house.

When she woke up the next day, she asked Yun Xian if there were any particularly old grandmas in the Dao Palace, the kind with so many wrinkles that they could hide a copper coin. Yun Xian’s eyes darted around as she vehemently denied it.

Alright. A double denial is an admission.

Lynn Naya was a little puzzled. Last night’s old lady was clearly there for her. Could it be that because she was close to Yun Xian, the old lady came to test her character?

She thought about it for a long time but couldn’t figure it out. Since Yun Xian wouldn’t talk, Lynn Naya simply changed the topic. “They say cultivators can keep their youthful appearance. Why was the old lady I saw last night so old?”

“It’s not that mystical. At most, a thirty-year-old would look twenty, and a hundred-year-old would look eighty.” YunXian said.

“Oh. What if you take an eternal youth pill? Would you return to your youth?”

“No. You basically stay at the age you were when you took it. But forget about the eternal youth pill. It’s as rare as a Foundation Establishment pill. The Foundation Establishment pill is only fought over by cultivators who need to break through to Foundation Establishment, but the eternal youth pill is fought over by every female cultivator in the world. Ordinary people can’t even get their hands on one.”

“I see.” Lynn Naya changed the subject. “But the old lady I saw last night looked at least a hundred and fifty years old. Does that mean she’s even older than that?”

Qi Condensation cultivators gain five years of life with each layer, living up to a hundred and fifty years at most. Foundation Establishment cultivators are said to have a lifespan of two hundred years.

Yun Xian, who was just in high spirits, immediately closed her mouth again.

Reaching out and pinching her cheek, Lynn Naya didn’t make things difficult for her. “Alright, I’m going out. Feel free to stay or sleep.”

“I also have something to do on the mountain. I’ll see you later.” Yun Xian ran off as if her butt was on fire, afraid that Lynn Naya would ask her another question she couldn’t answer.

With that speed, I bet she won’t be back to see me for at least a month.

As for the old lady she had encountered last night, she couldn’t make any sense of it, so she stopped thinking about it. She also didn’t feel any regret about not having latched onto her.

Interactions between people were sometimes a form of transaction. To get something, you had to give something up. She was poor right now and couldn’t afford to be messed with. So as long as the other party didn’t intend to harm her, she would just treat the encounter as a dream.

When the dream was over, improving her own strength was a more realistic goal.

She grabbed her talismans and sword and went out to call her neighbors. As usual, they went to the wilderness to clear land.

Another half a month passed. The area they were responsible for had been completely cleared. The original forest had become a desolate wasteland.

At the end of the wasteland was a branch of the West River called the Greenbird River.

Lynn Naya didn’t know why it was called that, but the mountains on the other side of the river, which were perpetually shrouded in white mist, captivated her. It was said that if you passed through those mountains, you could get out of the soul fog’s range and no longer have to worry about the weather when traveling.

“Our land-clearing is done. Do we still have to come tomorrow?” Qi Guangzong asked Lynn Naya on behalf of everyone.

In the past month, the authority of this small group had involuntarily fallen onto Lynn Naya.

Before, everyone was willing to listen to Qi Guangzong because he and his brother were both present. But after Lynn Naya had warned everyone several times to get away from danger, Qi Guangzong very consciously asked for Lynn Naya’s opinion on any issue that came up.

“Don’t you want to?” Over the past month, Lynn Naya had gained more than just spirit stones. Because of the real-world combat, her sword art experience had not only improved, but she was now halfway to the fourth-level proficient. Her cultivation had also reached the sixth layer of Qi Condensation more than a month earlier than she had anticipated.

After reaching the sixth layer of Qi Condensation, Lynn Naya didn’t feel much of a difference. Her five senses didn’t improve by much, but her cultivation speed, which now only gained a little experience every ten days, once again made her feel the difficulty of cultivating.

By her calculations, she would need at least three years to reach the late stage of Qi Condensation.

Another three years, and another three years. How many three-year periods do I even have in my life?!

Just as she was in a state of self-pity, ready to continue grinding for experience, Scarface Qing suddenly told her some inside information. A disciple from the Dao Palace’s Pill Peak had come to him and said that they would be opening a special counter for selling pills in the cultivator market.

Pills, not the low-quality pellets sold by the Administration Hall before, but real pills—the kind that could increase one’s cultivation.

When Lynn Naya heard this, she couldn’t help but slap her thigh. She knew that since the Dao Palace had already come up with a way to train its forces, it wouldn’t fail to provide them with things that could help them improve their cultivation.

Mortal cultivators were the future backbone of humanity.

These pills were good in every way, except for their price. The lowest-grade spirit recovery pills cost twenty spirit stones a bottle, and a bottle only had ten pills. But the spirit recovery pills didn’t help with cultivation. The qi absorption pills that could assist with cultivation cost fifty spirit stones a bottle.

Lynn Naya calculated her assets. If she wanted to be consistently assisted by pills, she would have to go out and rob people in the wilderness.

“I want to come,” Lin Qingwan answered Lynn Naya. She was still gentle and soft-spoken, but after breaking through to the second layer of Qi Condensation, there was a newfound determination in her eyes. “Naya, are you coming with us?”

“Of course.”

As soon as Lynn Naya said that, the others immediately followed suit, saying they wanted to come.

Seeing that everyone was eager, Lynn Naya nodded. “Alright, let’s go home and rest for now. We’ll meet up at the usual spot tomorrow. If you have time tonight, you can go to the market. You might find a surprise.”

Tonight was the opening day of the pill counter Scarface Qing had mentioned. Regardless of whether they could afford the pills, a little motivation was always a good thing.

With pills, the gap between all the mortal cultivators would only grow wider, but this was unavoidable.

Every being strives to climb higher.

After Lynn Naya returned home, she tidied up and took out all the pills she had accumulated from the three storage bags.

Before, she hadn’t touched these pills because she didn’t know what their properties were or what effects they would have. Now that there were pills for sale in the market, she had a place to compare them.

When night fell, Lynn Naya put the pills in her pocket and went to the market.

When she arrived, the market was already a sea of people. Lynn Naya didn’t try to push her way through. She just stood outside and looked at the pills in the hands of the buyers, comparing them to the ones in her mind.

Half an hour later, after she had roughly identified the pills in her storage bags as spirit recovery pills, calming pills, detox pills, and Qi absorption pills, she turned around, disguised herself, changed her clothes, and returned to the market.

She didn’t buy any pills. Instead, she laid out her own pills on the ground and priced them two spirit stones cheaper than the pill counter.

She didn’t feel safe taking the evil cultivators’ pills herself, so she was selling them at a low price. Let the buyers beware. In the end, she would use the spirit stones she earned to buy the pills from the counter.

The cultivators in the market were already eager because of the new pill counter, but they were short on cash. Now that they saw a cheaper option next to them, they all gathered around.

“These pills are so cheap. Is there something wrong with them?” someone asked.

To this, Lynn Naya replied, “I took these from an evil cultivator. This is the price. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to buy them.”

After she said that, she calmly closed her eyes.

Well, she had been completely honest. Some people who were standing around were unwilling to take a big risk for a small gain, but others felt that they could compare the pills later. Since it was a rare chance to get them so cheaply, they gritted their teeth and bought them.

In the end, the eight bottles of Qi absorption pills, fourteen bottles of spirit recovery pills, five bottles of detox pills, and three bottles of calming pills that Lynn Naya had sold earned her over one thousand one hundred spirit stones. She then turned around, exchanged those spirit stones for twenty-two bottles of Qi absorption pills, and disappeared into the night outside the market, leaving everyone dumbfounded.