After I left the sect, the entire sect knelt down and begged for forgiveness.

Chapter 25 Stop pretending, I know you're not doing well.
After tidying up her things, she stood up and stretched.

Although I have already abstained from grains, I haven't eaten anything since I came out. Even cultivators occasionally indulge in delicious food to satisfy their cravings, and now I really miss modern hot pot and barbecue…

With that in mind, she used her divine sense to scan the storage bag and put out a number of items.

Tables, chairs, pots, seasonings, wild vegetables, shiitake mushrooms...

The sword spirit watched as she quickly laid out these things and asked in confusion, "What are you doing?"

"Enjoy life!"

The Blade Spirit couldn't understand and was somewhat shocked.

Seeing that the Crimson Demon had woken up, she went over to it, put down six Mystic Herbs, and patted its head. "Eat, child."

The red demon's eyes lit up, and it began to chew and eat the spirit herb. Lately, it had been eating whenever it was awake, and sleeping whenever it was full, living a very enjoyable life.

Lin Yan didn't think there was anything wrong with it. She hadn't expected the Crimson Demon, with its small frame, to be able to fight. And its ability to feign pitifulness was effective against cultivators, but not against other demonic beasts.

She conjured a wooden basin out of thin air, made a hand seal, and the basin was filled with water. She put the wild vegetables and spirit mushrooms into the basin to wash them, glanced at the spirit sword that was not moving, and then looked at the ingredients, and then ordered, "Go and hunt a first or second-tier wild boar."

There are quite a few monsters in the valley, so finding a second-tier porcupine shouldn't be a problem at all.

If the spirit sword had eyes, its pupils would be wide open right now. "I'm a Heavenly-grade magic weapon! You want me to go hunting? What do you take me for?"

"A magical artifact that automatically fights monsters."

"I'm not going, and I'm not eating."

Oh dear? Look at how capable it is, it's become unmanageable!

Lin Yan wasn't annoyed and shrugged indifferently. "If you're too scared to go, then don't go. Surely you can't even beat a first or second-tier demonic beast?"

The tactic of provocation is quite effective on a spirit sword with a sense of superiority. Especially for a spirit sword that has only recently developed sentience and has been trapped with its master for three hundred years with little contact with the outside world, such a remark will immediately make it jump up in anger.

The spirit sword flew out, declaring that it wouldn't be long before he would hunt down a hyena boar and return.

She hummed a little tune as she washed the vegetables and arranged them in the small bamboo house.

There's no hot pot base for sale in the cultivation world, but since I'm training in the Ten Thousand Demon Forest, I'll definitely want to have a meal occasionally, so I've prepared all the necessary seasonings and plan to make my own base.

The items for mortals are not expensive; I bought everything for just two low-grade spirit stones.

She's not a chef, and she can't make an authentic hot pot broth herself, but making a simplified version shouldn't be a problem.

To prevent the cave from smelling bad, Lin Yan used pebbles to create a small wind-gathering array next to the stove, which served as a smoke extractor. The wind-gathering array would draw the cooking fumes into the array, and then an outlet would be set up outside the cave to vent the fumes outside.

After setting everything up, she rubbed her hands together and started stir-frying the hot pot base. She used to watch food videos where people made their own hot pot base, and just watching made her want to try it herself. But alas, she was short of money and worried that if she bought the ingredients, they would be wasted, and she wouldn't even be able to eat it.

She put a low-grade spirit stone into the stove, conjured a fireball in her hand, and threw it under the stove, igniting the spirit stone.

Fire is sustained by spiritual energy. Low-grade spirit stones contain spiritual energy, and the size of the fire can be adjusted by controlling the amount of spiritual energy released from the spirit stone.

The pot was heated, and with a wave of her hand, the jar containing lard opened its lid by itself, and a piece of lard fell into the pot on its own.

I couldn't find beef tallow in town, so I had to use lard instead. Hopefully, the resulting hot pot broth won't be too bad...

To be honest, the stir-frying process smelled quite good. Even the Red Enchantress, who was eating grass, looked over and stopped chewing. In her mind, she heard the Red Enchantress's words: "It smells so good. What are you making? Can I eat it? I want some."

Lin Yan spoke at length, unsure if the Red Enchantress understood. But seeing it toss the last Xuan Grass aside, it seemed its mouth watered by Lin Yan's description, and the grass no longer smelled appealing.

Fearing that her stir-fry might smell delicious but not taste very good, she added, "This is my first time cooking, I don't know if I can succeed."

The rabbit carefully moved to the patch of black grass it had discarded and continued to pick it up and eat it.

After stir-frying, while waiting for the base to solidify, she sat on the stone platform and fed two more stalks of mystic herbs to the rabbits. Then she took out the manual on array formations and began to study it.

Having grasped the basic formations, Lin Yan was a little confused about skipping directly to advanced formations.

She didn't have a teacher around, and no one could help her when she encountered difficult problems. The manual only provided formula diagrams and simple explanations, which she only vaguely understood.

If only Dad's phantom hadn't disappeared, it would have answered many questions.

As she thought this, she felt a warmth on her wrist. She raised her hand and saw that the bamboo leaf mark had reappeared. She said, "Right? You're disappointed too."

Hearing a noise at the cave entrance, she put away the manual and went outside.

The spirit sword didn't return, but a raccoon appeared at the cave entrance, licking its paws as it got up. The commotion was probably caused by the raccoon scratching at the barrier and being thrown out.

She hadn't expected Wan Yaosen to have a cat.

Thinking about it carefully, a creature that can survive in the Ten Thousand Demon Forest is no ordinary raccoon. It might be a demon beast that uses its weak form to deceive cultivators, just like the Red Enchantress.

The raccoon saw her too, its tail swaying, and immediately lay down, trying to strike various poses to entice someone to pet it. However, the moment it made a move, it was enveloped in shadow, so it quickly jumped away and ran off.

--boom.

There was a dead wild boar where the tanuki had just been lying. The spirit sword had carried it back and simply dumped it where the tanuki had been.

The spirit sword snorted twice, showing off in front of Lin Yan: "I hunted it, and it's this big, what do you have to say?"

"You're very capable," she said, before going to put away the entrance to the formation.

She was only thinking about the cooking fumes and hadn't considered that the smell might attract monsters. She didn't want to be disturbed by monsters while she was enjoying her meal.

She had just learned about defensive formations from a formation manual, and although she only had a vague understanding of them, she wanted to try them out.

First, determine the orientation according to the formula, then place the array plate as the array core and insert spirit stones to activate it. Once activated, the array transforms into a massive protective shield.

One look...not quite satisfied...

A formation created with only a superficial understanding is not very effective. Those formation masters can set up a formation that can cover an entire city with a wave of their hand. Compared to them, it's like a firefly facing the moon.

Lin Yan was not discouraged. The cultivation resources she had now were far better than before. There's always a way to overcome difficulties, and one day she would be able to set up the Heaven-Shaking Array.

After setting up the formation, she looked at the wild boar and with a wave of her hand, several blades formed from spiritual energy swept across, instantly cutting the boar apart, separating its skin and flesh while preserving its internal organs intact.

She wasn't very good at handling pig offal, nor was she willing to, so she simply used her spiritual power to sweep away the wild boar's entrails and throw them out of the formation.

I didn't check for typos in today's update. Please point out any errors. o(╥﹏╥)o
(End of this chapter)