I Just Want to Cultivate Quietly and Farm

Chapter 49: Chapter 49: Missing Essence

The transaction completed, Li Mu rode his sword back to Little Liang Mountain, the journey smooth without encountering any oblivious Tribulation Cultivators.

Back at Little Liang Mountain, the first thing Li Mu did was take out half a slab of Giant Fang Demon Pig meat from the storage bag to prepare it for curing.

He sliced it into strips about a pound each, washed them clean, then boiled a pot of water before blanching the meat in it to remove any surface dirt and impurities.

Once the Demon Beast meat was blanched and cooled, he scored it with a few cuts, then brought out a clay pot, mixed his curing ingredients, and placed the meat pieces one by one into the pot to cure.

After curing for five or six days, it can be taken out and air-dried to make preserved meat for storage.

Li Mu hadn’t learned any ice-based techniques, nor did he prepare an ice cellar in advance. He decided that when he had time in the future, he would dig a cellar, set a few Ice Spiritual Stones in place, arrange an Ice Seal Array to make a ’refrigerator’.

This much Demon Beast meat was enough for Li Mu to eat for about half a month, so curing it into preserved meat was the most suitable.

”Woo woo!”

Li Mu was busy with the preparations at the stove, while the red wolf, attracted by the aroma of the meat, circled around him, whining and begging for a bite from its master.

”Look at you, drooling. Here, take this to gnaw on!” Li Mu casually tossed a large bone to the red wolf.

The red wolf immediately picked up the bone and trotted out to the yard, lying by the Spirit Field while gnawing enthusiastically.

After storing most of the Demon Pig meat, Li Mu added some Spirit Rice and cooked a pot of Spirit and Flesh Porridge, roughly finishing his dinner.

After dinner,

Li Mu eagerly began to inventory the gains from this market trip. An Ancient Rong Wood Heart cutting board, capable of making about 8 Puppet Core Sources, a dozen batches of Tier Two Spirit Peach Wood, enough to create a series of Qi Refining Ninth Layer peak strength Combat Puppets.

Over nine hundred various Tier One Spirit Talismans, two hundred of which were left unsold after selling four to five hundred talismans, yielding: 138 Middle Spirit Stones, 1840 Lower Spirit Stones, with Broken Spirit being negligible.

He exchanged seven Tier Two High-Grade Golden Sword Talismans, three Tier Two High-Grade Golden Armor Talismans, and one hundred seventy Tier One High-Grade Spirit Talismans with Duan Pinghai for about eleven thousand Red Gold Ore, plus a large storage bag.

”Hmm! There are quite a few storage bags now, I’ve ascended to Elder of the Seventh Bag!” Li Mu pulled out seven storage bags from his person and placed them on the table, three of which were spoils from the Lei Brothers, and the other three were Xu Lijin’s gains.

Li Mu picked up the large storage bag holding the raw ore, walked towards the Artifact Refining Room, and prepared to refine these ores to see how much Tier Three Geng Metal and Tier Three Taiyi Refined Gold he could obtain.

Tomorrow, after selling the Wind Spirit Grass and dealing with the Cui Ling Fruit, he would try using these refining materials to see if he could produce a few more Tier Three Gold Element Spirit Swords.

Compared to selling Tier One or Two Spirit Talismans, selling Tier Three Spirit Swords was far more lucrative!

In the Artifact Refining Room, the Tier Two Flame Sun Refining Furnace’s internal Flame Sun Array activated, and the yellow Flame Sun Spirit Fire roared, releasing terrifyingly high temperatures.

Li Mu sat cross-legged one zhang from the refining furnace, opened the storage bag, projected his divine sense, and manipulated one yellowish ore piece after another to fly out of the storage bag, into the refining furnace, to hover above the yellow spirit fire.

Inside the refining furnace, the high-temperature Flame Sun Spirit Fire swiftly melted each piece of raw ore into a large mass of golden-red metal liquid.

Li Mu invested his divine sense within, separating the golden liquid from the red molten mass with black impurities at the bottom, and then gathered some small, unmelted golden particles together, ...

Other artifact refiners must go through multiple batches of smelting, refining, and purifying to achieve what Li Mu accomplished with ease, leveraging his powerful divine sense for a direct divine refining operation, efficiently expelling other impurities from the refining furnace.

From the exhaust port on the other side of the Flame Sun Refining Furnace, red slag erupted, carrying various impurities expelled continuously from the refining furnace. Meanwhile, the intake port on the other side saw ore after ore fly from the storage bag into the refining furnace continuously.

The refining furnace took in raw ore on one side and expelled impurity slag from the other, while Tier Two Red Gold, Tier Three Geng Metal, and Tier Three Taiyi Refined Gold were retained within the furnace.

In less than half an hour, Li Mu had processed one-third of the raw ore.

He obtained a large chunk emitting heat of Tier Two Red Gold, estimated to be around three hundred pounds, and two fist-sized pieces of Tier Three Geng Metal and Taiyi Refined Gold, each roughly three to four pounds.

After exhausting his divine sense, Li Mu rested briefly, pausing the material refining.

...

Time passed swiftly through the night.

Li Mu awoke, washed, and finished breakfast before heading into the Artifact Refining Room to conclude last night’s work, collecting the magma rocks into his storage bag and carrying them to the back mountain for disposal.

After disposing of the magma, an empty large storage bag in hand, Li Mu loaded the stack of Wind Spirit Grass from the Spirit Field into it.

The nine-acre Spirit Field had produced nearly fifty thousand pounds of Wind Spirit Grass, too much to fit in just one large storage bag.

Fortunately, as an ’Elder of the Seventh Bag’, Li Mu had cleared two storage bags to place all the Wind Spirit Grass.

Li Mu called for the red wolf, picked it up, summoned a Tier One Profound Iron Sword from the storage bag, and soared towards Qing’an Town to sell the Wind Spirit Grass.

”Woo woo!”

Suddenly taken up into the sky by Li Mu, the red wolf was terrified, burying its head in Li Mu’s embrace.

”You useless creature, we’re almost there!” Li Mu chided, patting the red wolf’s rear, speeding up the sword flight.

At the distance of three to four li from Little Liang Mountain to Qing’an Town, Li Mu took two to three hundred breaths in time, arriving at the south gate of Qing’an Town, landing slowly.

”Stay close! Don’t get lost!” Li Mu set the red wolf on the ground, motioning.

”Woof!” The intelligent red wolf barked, sticking close to Li Mu, feeling both curious and insecure amid the bustling town, the unfamiliar settings.

Paying a Single Broken Spirit for entry, Li Mu led the red wolf straight to the Zhang Family’s Spirit Shepherd Workshop.

”Oh! It’s the red wolf, what brings you here today?” At the entrance of the Zhang Family’s Spirit Shepherd Workshop, Zhang Baiping recognized the red wolf at once and waved at Li Mu eagerly.

An unfamiliar place, rare to see an acquaintance, the red wolf wagged its tail excitedly at Zhang Baiping.

”The Wind Spirit Grass has matured, I’m here to sell spirit grass, and also, I plan to take the Outer Disciple assessment soon, so I can’t take care of the red wolf. Brother Zhang, could you take care of it for a while?” Li Mu smiled slightly, explaining his intentions.

”So that’s how it is, no problem!” Zhang Baiping realized, agreeing immediately.

”Thank you, Brother Zhang. Here is the Wind Spirit Grass, and this batch is even better than the last, roughly around fifty thousand pounds.” Li Mu expressed his gratitude, handing over three storage bags.

”Oh! Let me take a look!” Zhang Baiping accepted the bags, took out a handful of Wind Spirit Grass.

”Oh! It’s actually top-grade Wind Spirit Grass, Uncle, look quickly.” Zhang Baiping excitedly handed a handful of Wind Spirit Grass to Zhang Shouquan at the counter.

Zhang Shouquan put down the account book, carefully inspected the Wind Spirit Grass for a moment, uncertain, snapping a stem and chewing it. Sensing something amiss, he frowned.

”Get some more; let me have a look!” Zhang Shouquan motioned to Zhang Baiping.

Zhang Baiping quickly handed the storage bag to Zhang Shouquan.

Zhang Shouquan accepted the storage bag, took out two more handfuls of Wind Spirit Grass, broke them, and chewed for a while.

”Peh! How did you grow this Wind Spirit Grass? The appearance, spiritual energy, form are all at top-grade Spirit Plant level, but somehow missing a large portion of its essence, reducing its value considerably. At most, a hundred pounds for a Lower Spirit Stone.” Zhang Shouquan spat out the Wind Spirit Grass, looking at Li Mu oddly, asking.

Li Mu paused slightly, immediately understanding the reason; it must be the talent - Plant Spirit Absorption.

”Uncle!” Zhang Baiping suspected Zhang Shouquan of deliberately lowering the price, complaining dissatisfiedly.

”Alright! Let’s sell them at this price! Brother Zhang! Let’s go weigh the Wind Spirit Grass!” Li Mu quickly interrupted, indicating his consent.

Zhang Baiping cast a puzzled glance at Li Mu, nodded, and led him to weigh the Wind Spirit Grass.