Beast Taming Clan: I Have a Jade Book

Chapter 127: Chapter 128: Foundation Establishment Auction

In the blink of an eye, the New Year’s Spring had arrived again, marking Ye Jingcheng’s thirty-fourth year.

The gentle breeze and drizzling rain once again enveloped the entire Lingyun Peak.

Days of clear weather had long ceased to appear at Lingyun Peak.

Ye Jingcheng gazed at the still gloomy sky outside the window; the Four Phase Celestial Essence Scripture had also stopped running, concluding a night of cultivation.

At this moment, the sound of squeaking could be heard from outside the house.

Ye Jingcheng turned his gaze in that direction and saw the Jade Ring Rat shaking its pair of large jade ears, coming towards the courtyard.

It squeaked continuously!

Since the Purple Illusion Flower had grown into a plant, Ye Jingcheng no longer allowed the Jade Ring Rat to remain in the Array, considering that even without blooming, the Purple Illusion Flower would still emit some poisonous fog. The Jade Ring Rat could resist it for a short period, but not over a long duration.

Nonetheless, the Jade Ring Rat was accustomed to guarding outside the Three Talents Spirit Trapping Array daily.

Even if the Golden Scale Beast watched it longingly, hoping for its return, it remained unmoved.

Witnessing this, Ye Jingcheng’s gaze shifted, as though he had an idea.

He headed towards the Spirit Field!

Inside the Spirit Field, quite a number of Purple Illusion Flower plants, about two feet tall, were growing at the moment.

The leaves of these plants appeared scythe-like, interspersed with numerous gears.

At this moment, flower buds were opening on those gear-like leaves, with a few ready to bloom and some just beginning to form!

From a glance, Ye Jingcheng noticed that over forty blossoms had emerged in the Spirit Field.

The air was thick with rich purple poisonous fog.

Ye Jingcheng was instantly overjoyed.

After eight or nine months, the Purple Illusion Flower had finally bloomed.

Though it took slightly longer than he had anticipated, seeing each plant yielding three or four buds, he was extremely gratified.

The Treasure Light was still effective; in Ye Xinghan’s Jade Talisman, it was recorded that the Purple Illusion Flower would mostly open one bloom, with a maximum of two.

Yet here, they generally bore three or four.

This could also relate to the Spirit Field’s fertility.

Regardless, now the ten Five Poison Bees could finally be of use.

Otherwise, waiting another year, he was worried the Five Poison Bees would reach the end of their life span and perish.

After all, Spirit Insects typically have notably shorter lifespans than Spirit Beasts.

Species like the Five Poison Bee and Black Wood Ant usually live for about four to five years.

Previously accelerated in growth, Ye Jingcheng found it hard to gauge precisely.

Recently, he had infused the Queen Bee with extra Treasure Light, resulting in a slight shortage of Treasure Light.

As his body’s Treasure Book has opened only three pages; it requires two to three days to fully recover after using them.

Luckily, the Spirit Flower has now bloomed.

Ye Jingcheng proceeded to the trio of Spring Tea Trees adjacent to the Three Talents Spirit Trapping Array.

These tea trees were isolated within another Spirit Shield, unaffected by the poisonous fog.

They also appeared extremely lush, producing a massive cluster of tea stems.

New tender tea leaves densely sprouted atop the stems.

They were fully ripe for picking.

Ye Jingcheng urgently took out a pair of Jade Scissors, followed by a Jade Box.

Initially low in Spiritual Power, if the remaining power dissipated entirely, it would be a huge loss.

Thus, they must be carefully stored in the Jade Box.

Each tea leaf was tender and dripping fresh.

Furthermore, Ye Jingcheng could still smell their unique fragrance.

Having not visited Ye Xinghan’s place recently, he had been drinking the Qingling Tea he bought himself.

Expensive yet not as good in taste or aroma as the Spring Tea!

Finally, he felt relieved.

Additionally, he found the Spiritual Power contained in these Spirit Teas was significantly higher than Ye Xinghan’s.

If Ye Xinghan’s Spring Tea barely reached the threshold of Tier One Lower Grade Spirit Tea, the Spring Tea cultivated by Ye Jingcheng was undeniably Tier One Lower Grade.

Moreover, its tea scent was richer than what Ye Xinghan described.

Ye Jingcheng was immediately extremely satisfied, gaining more mastery over the Treasure Book’s functions.

Evidently, the Treasure Book’s Spiritual Light not only amplified the plant’s growth but also improved its absorption rate.

While ordinary Spirit Plants might absorb sixty percent of nutrients and Spiritual Energy from the land.

With Treasure Light augmentation, Ye Jingcheng could achieve full absorption.

This accounts for why the maturity cycle of the Purple Illusion Flower didn’t speed up much, but yielded more blossoms, enriched with Spiritual Energy, and produced higher-quality poisonous fog.

Similarly applied to Spirit Tea, resulting in denser Spiritual Energy and richer aroma without prematurely yielding Spirit Tea.

From three tea trees, Ye Jingcheng harvested about two ounces.

But don’t think it’s much, as the drying process reduces it by seventy percent.

Yielding merely forty percent.

With Spirit Tea being notoriously slow-growing. Additionally, for the continued growth of the Spirit Tea Tree, Ye Jingcheng couldn’t pluck all the tender leaves.

He only snipped off the top ones, benefiting the expansion of the Spirit Tea Tree’s width and its overall growth.

However, Ye Jingcheng speculated he might only be able to harvest once every fortnight, extracting four to five times during the entire Spring.

All things considered, it can produce three to four liang of spirit tea.

Although it wasn’t much, it was enough for Ye Jingcheng.

He was also a devoted cultivator, only mixing work with leisure a bit when his body felt overly tense, drinking some spirit tea and appreciating nature.

Therefore, he did not consume much spirit tea.

After picking the spirit leaves, Ye Jingcheng casually applied the Cloud-Forming and Rain-Spreading Technique to both the spirit tea and the Purple Illusion Flower.

Then, he took out a few moonlight stones and placed them beside the array, to provide some extra light to these spirit plants.

Once that was done, Ye Jingcheng returned to his courtyard and began drying the Spring Tea.

Before leaving the array, Ye Jingcheng once again rewarded the Jade Ring Rat with a Cyan Spirit Pill.

Now, his furnace steadily produced nine Cyan Spirit Pills, and it was not uncommon to refine ten pills at a time.

Hence, he did not lack that one Cyan Spirit Pill, and he wanted to see if the Jade Ring Rat could reach the Late Stage of First Tier.

Besides the Jade Ring Rat, Ye Jingcheng’s next focus was on the Five Poison Bees.

The Five Poison Bees would absorb nectar from poison flowers to produce spiritual honey, which was the Five Poisons’ spiritual honey; the toxins from the flowers would all concentrate in the poison needles of the Five Poison Bees.

Therefore, the poison bees raised on the Five Poison Peak would be more poisonous than those raised by cultivators.

But in major sects, it’s the opposite; the poison needles of their Five Poison Bees are notoriously venomous and large.

These ten Five Poison Bees received the most comfortable treatment they had ever known.

Settled on their hives, they absorbed a large amount of treasure light and fed on the tier one lower grade spiritual honey that Ye Jingcheng purchased for them.

In the cultivation realm, spiritual honey can neutralize erysipelas, so even lower grade spiritual honey costs about thirty spirit stones per jin!

Tier one middle grade spiritual honey costs about eighty-one per jin.

Of course, spiritual honey is much heavier than mortal honey made by ordinary bees.

Especially the six worker bees, which received special attention from Ye Jingcheng.

Thus, after five more days, the Purple Illusion Flower finally bloomed.

All six worker bees were released by Ye Jingcheng.

Only one queen bee and three Xiong Feng remained; Ye Jingcheng also wanted to release them, after all, six Five Poison Bees would take forever to collect honey.

But these four spirit bees seemed somewhat bewildered and didn’t know how to gather spiritual honey.

Evidently, spirit bees, just like ordinary bees, had only certain ones responsible for important tasks!

Seeing this, Ye Jingcheng didn’t force it, instead, he went to the side of the Three Talents Spirit Trapping Array to observe the spirit bees collecting honey.

Each of the six Five Poison Bees, now the size of a thumb, was very excited, flitting from this flower to that flower.

The poisonous fog everywhere had no effect on them at all.

Ye Jingcheng had entered this poisonous fog before; upon entering, he felt as if he had become an immortal, preaching in a sermon.

Fortunately, at the critical moment, he bit the Ice Purity Pill in his mouth.

Only then did he recover, and after looking around to ensure no cultivators were present, he felt relieved, as the scene of him preaching would indeed be quite embarrassing!

The toxin of the Purple Illusion Flower was even stronger than the original poison, inspiring Ye Jingcheng to consider refining a Cloth Bag Spiritual Artifact to store some of the Purple Illusion Flower’s poisonous fog.

It might just provide some unexpected and unique outcomes in certain situations.

Collecting honey once on Five Poison Peak didn’t take long but leaving the array was quite troublesome, so Ye Jingcheng simply moved the Five Poison Bee’s hive next to the Spirit Platform, erecting a dedicated stone pillar for them to build their nest.

This way, he wouldn’t have to open and close the array every day.

By having the Jade Ring Rat guard nearby, he could ensure everything was secure!

With spiritual honey in hand, Ye Jingcheng took out a teapot, planning to visit Ye Xingqun.

After all, his Five Poison Bees were not yet fully of use, so he planned to start the grand work of proliferating them once they had recovered some.

Ye Jingcheng still did not fully understand these secret techniques and would need Ye Xingqun’s enlightenment.

Before seeking answers, Ye Jingcheng also intended to visit Ye Haiyun, as well as Ye Haiping, Ye Haitian, and other elder clan members who treated him well.

Even Xing Han’s side required a visit!

After attending to all the spirit beasts at home, Ye Jingcheng set out with the dried Spring Tea towards Ye Haiyun’s cave.

However, on his way, Ye Jingcheng saw the array on the family’s Lingyun Peak activate, and in the next moment, a spiritual ship returned to the clan’s mountain.

From a distance, Ye Jingcheng saw cultivators on the spiritual ship, the same ones who were stationed at Jade Dragon Valley last time.

It seemed the five-year term had ended, and it was time for a guard replacement!

But, being a tier one top-grade alchemist, Ye Jingcheng was exempt from the tasks of ore vein guardianship and excavation.

Hence he hadn’t heard a word about it!

However, seeing Ye Jingyu and Ye Jingyong disembark from the spiritual ship, Ye Jingcheng felt genuinely happy for them both.

Both of them noticed Ye Jingcheng and hurriedly came over from afar as well.

“Jingcheng!”

“Second Brother, Fourth Brother!” Ye Jingcheng greeted the two, and in the next moment, looked towards Ye Xingyu.

“Congratulations to Fourth Brother on his breakthrough to the Qi Cultivation Ninth Layer!” Ye Jingcheng congratulated.

“Jingcheng, don’t tease your fourth brother, don’t you already know how he reached the Qi Cultivation Ninth Layer?” Ye Jingyu shook his head!

The three of them shared the Beast Communication Pattern, so there was no need for riddles.

Ye Jingyu and Ye Jingyong both looked a bit surprised at Ye Jingcheng, as their perception told them that Ye Jingcheng had also broken through to the Qi Cultivation Eighth Layer.

“I was just very lucky!” Ye Jingcheng scratched his head, feeling a bit embarrassed from their gazes.

“Jingcheng, you should also start preparing, the Taiyi Sect has already refined a batch of Foundation Establishment Pills, and there will be an auction at the Taihang Market next year to auction them off. Moreover, this time there are eight Foundation Establishment Pills! Even if the Xu Family and the Mo Family take five, there will still be three left!”

“Our Ye Family stands a very real chance!”