Becoming an immortal and ancestor begins with the golden toad spitting out money.

Chapter 20 Gilded Bronze Head, Ancient Legend

After Zhang and Zhang Xiaolian reached a reconciliation in the real dream, the golden toad was enshrined as a divine object on the altar, and enjoyed incense offerings with the Zhang family ancestors every morning and evening.

Without human interference, Su Ji would go to the river to hunt for food every night when it was quiet, which made him quite happy.

The day before yesterday, Yan Tianchou had deduced the [Golden Toad Transformation] to the beginner stage. Su Jilu tried it out and, as Yan Tianchou had said, he could only move his stiff joints, and his state was like that of someone who had just come out of hibernation.

Today, Yan Tianchou has finally mastered the intermediate-level divine ability [Golden Toad Transformation]. Unable to contain his excitement, Su Ji came to the courtyard and transformed into a golden toad.

When the Golden Toad Rebirth skill reaches its minor completion stage, it can finally crawl on all fours. After a short period of adaptation, although it cannot jump long distances yet, its speed is quite impressive.

The only drawback is that the golden toad is too small; its body, less than three inches long, can only be called a tiny demon.

Fortunately, the golden toad is made entirely of metal, so even though it is not very big, it does not affect its brute strength.

After collecting some data, Yan Tianchou gave an appropriate evaluation: "After using the [Golden Toad Transformation] divine power, the speed decreases, but the defense and strength increase greatly. If you encounter the black-bellied white-ringed serpent again, you can suddenly pounce when it gets close and kill it within one or two breaths..."

Even though Su Ji's golden toad is just a minor demon, the power of the [Golden Toad Transformation] supernatural ability cannot be ignored. It can even fight against a minor demon with a mid-level demonic technique of minor mastery, let alone the black-bellied white-ringed snake, which is at most a low-level demonic technique of major mastery.

However, the Golden Toad Transformation also has its weaknesses.

The stationary [Golden Toad] can last for up to thirty-six hours, while the active [Golden Toad Transformation] has a minimum duration of three hours and a maximum cooldown time of twelve hours.

It's not that Yan Tianchou's ability is insufficient, but rather that the cultivation world also follows the law of conservation of energy. The more the golden toad moves, the faster its golden energy is consumed, and the more golden energy is consumed, the longer the cooldown time becomes.

Even Su Ji remarked with some emotion, "Reality is not Zhang Xiaolian's true dream after all; three to five hours should be enough."

In the past few days, he has been either cultivating or conducting in-depth investigations of the two villages. He has already discovered three suspicious places, and without exception, they all contain metallic objects.

Besides the Yin and Yang of Heaven and Earth, the most famous element in the universe is the Five Elements. Heaven has Qi Qi, Earth has Earth Qi, the Moon has Yin Qi, and the Sun has Yang Qi... Metals also emit wisps of metallic Qi.

However, while the metallic aura in water might still be traceable, metal buried in the earth doesn't even emit a trace of metallic aura.

Fortunately, after Yantianchou became a spiritual intelligence based on "Yin Yang Yi", it had a detection range of one zhang in radius. Even if the detection range was greatly reduced in the soil, it could still sense the metal energy through the soil more than one zhang deep.

After getting used to it for a while, Su Ji lifted her foot and walked out of the courtyard.

He had already sensed Zhang Xiaolian's gaze, but he didn't care at all.

After he mastered the [Golden Toad Transformation] technique, he became exactly the same as the divine toad that Zhang Xiaolian had dreamt about in her real dream... except that he couldn't conjure money out of thin air.

Many people were still in bed at this time, so Su Ji chose a place far away from the houses—a reed bed by the river.

This small river flows from the mountains and fields towards Caoshan Lake. Although it is only about ten feet wide, it is the lifeblood of the people on both banks.

After arriving at the reeds, Su Ji transformed into a "ruthless iron hand," ignoring the tangled roots of the grass and trees, and quickly dug a hole about a foot deep in the ground.

Upon arriving here, not only did river water seep from the earth, but wisps of golden energy could also be clearly felt.

Su Ji was, after all, a golden toad, so he was naturally not afraid of water and dug down another two feet or so.

At this moment, Yan Tianchou suddenly stopped Su Ji: "The golden energy here is not generated by money or wealth. If you go down one foot and two inches further, there is a gilded bronze bull's head."

It was precisely because of the gilded part on the bronze bull's head that Yan Tianchou made this place his focus, but the result was somewhat unexpected.

Su Ji was surprised: "A gilded bronze bull's head?"

Although Yan Tianchou did not know where the bronze bull came from, he still tried his best to describe it: "The head of this gilded bronze bull is slightly larger than a human head. A small part of the gilding has fallen off, and the exposed bronze part is severely corroded, with not a trace of its original appearance remaining."

Clearly, this gilded bronze bull's head had been buried underground for so long that people had probably completely forgotten about it, which is why it no longer possessed any power.

Su Ji's real goal wasn't that; after noting it down, he headed towards another suspicious place.

The second location is in a mulberry grove in the village, which belongs to the Wu family. This is the place with the highest probability of ill-gotten gains in the Yantianchou divination.

Because of the delay, most of the villagers were already asleep when Su Ji returned to the village. With the vague sense of his Heavenly Soul, he did not encounter any creatures in the village.

Su Ji's golden toad form was not fast, and by the time he arrived at the mulberry grove, it was already past eight o'clock in the evening.

The bright moon cast its silvery light upon the mulberry grove, and if you listened carefully, you could even hear the sound of the mulberry trees sprouting new buds.

Before long, the sound of digging echoed through the mulberry grove, startling some of the small animals in the forest and keeping them away.

The instigator, Jin Chan, paid no attention to any of this. As if he had inexhaustible energy, he quickly struck the ground more than a foot deep.

At the same time, Yan Tianchou brought good news: "The wooden box a foot below the surface was indeed filled with gold and silver. Judging from their volume, there were about eight taels of gold and about thirty-five taels of silver."

“In this world, one tael of gold can be exchanged for fifteen taels of silver… This box of gold and silver is worth at least one hundred and fifty-five taels of silver.” The Zhang family consists of only the mother and daughter, whose income comes solely from weaving, mending, and washing clothes. Zhang also has to save up for her daughter Zhang Xiaolian’s dowry, which is why the family is now destitute.

In fact, most villagers in Dongsang and Xisang grow mulberry trees and raise silkworms, and also grow rice along the riverbank, so they are quite wealthy.

Even so, 155 taels of silver is still a huge sum of money, enough to buy two or three small courtyards in Jinfeng City, or forty or fifty acres of fertile land.

Su Ji felt a chill run down his spine: "The fact that the Wu family became the wealthiest 'big family' in Dongsang Village is probably inseparable from the previous local earth god!"

The Wu family's comfortable lifestyle was not simply due to their silk business; perhaps the previous local deity had bestowed upon them a considerable amount of "dirty money."

Su Ji had long regarded this ill-gotten wealth as spoils of war from the local temple, so he naturally took it with a clear conscience. With his strength, he managed to take all the gold and silver out in just a few tries.

On the way back and forth transporting the gold and silver, Su Ji even planned to dig deeper into the Wu family's past...

The golden toad only expends a lot of its supernatural power when digging; walking normally doesn't require much of its supernatural power. After making several trips and taking all the gold and silver, only an hour and a half had passed.

Afterwards, Su Ji began to erase the traces left by the golden toad. With Yan Tianchou's meticulous guidance, the traces that could be erased disappeared.

After all that was done, it was past 11 p.m.

After a long night of hard work, Su Ji transformed back into his physical form and began a buffet-style activity in the mulberry grove.

Within the area of ​​the Land God Temple in Dongsang Village, Su Ji had no need to worry about his safety. His transformation into a golden toad was merely a means to facilitate the digging and transport of gold and silver.

The golden toad is too heavy and will leave obvious marks, while the toad's body is much lighter and there is no need to care about any marks.

Before long, the Zhang family's courtyard came into view. Su Ji happened to run into Zhang Shi, a patrolling spirit soldier, and quickly greeted him.

Upon arriving at the Zhang family's courtyard gate, they encountered the Left Gate Divine Soldiers again. After entering the courtyard, they found the Earth God, the Middle Gate Divine Soldiers, and the Ji God Divine Soldiers all there.

As Su Ji arrived at the courtyard, an internal exchange meeting of the local temple began.

Su Ji first nodded to the local earth god, then smiled at the group of spirit soldiers and said, "It's been seven days since the ghost case ended, and the City God Temple's reward will take some time to arrive. As for our earth god temple's reward, I dug it up..."

The Golden Toad's actions tonight did not escape the notice of these spirit soldiers. They initially thought the Golden Toad was doing something for the Earth God, but upon closer inspection, they realized it was also related to them.

As expected, the local earth god didn't even put away the spirit official's talisman, and generously took over the conversation: "This gold and silver was obtained by the previous earth god from the black tiger demon. You are all meritorious individuals, so naturally you should also get a share..."

Under the guidance of the local earth god, each of the spirit soldiers received a share of five taels of silver, and those who were absent could receive their share later.

At this moment, the Earth God looked at Su Ji and smiled: "Seven days ago, the Day Wandering Spirit Soldier personally killed a vengeful ghost, and today he has gone to great lengths to dig out these gold and silver. You can get thirty taels of silver."

The other spirit soldiers had no objection to this. Not to mention that Su Ji's contribution was already greater than theirs, if it weren't for the Golden Toad's help, they wouldn't have even received this unexpected reward.

At this point, there were still more than seventy taels of gold and silver left, which naturally belonged to the local earth god who had made the greatest contribution, and the group of spirit soldiers had no objection.

Most of the spirit soldiers had been ghosts for a long time and no longer needed worldly silver. After a little discussion, they traded their divine power with the local earth god.

One tael of silver is roughly worth four strands of divine power. In other words, Su Ji's fixed monthly salary of thirty strands of divine power can be exchanged for seven and a half taels of silver.

Su Ji thought to himself with a sigh, "Although this amount of gold and silver seems like a lot, it was nothing to the previous local deity... Perhaps it was just a bonus in the transaction!"

After expressing his feelings, Su Ji asked a question in front of everyone.

"A gilded bronze bull's head?" The local earth god had only recently taken office and was unaware of this matter.

The other spirit soldiers exchanged glances, most of them also looking puzzled.

"I have heard a legend—"

The scholarly-looking Zhongliu Shenlingbing stepped forward and said with refined manners, "It is said that in ancient times, there was a great river here, but it stopped flowing during an earthquake."

"Perhaps, someone once used a gilded bronze ox as a water-suppressing beast here... It is a kind of fate that the day-roaming spirit soldiers have found it now."

Immediately, the others sighed in admiration.

Throughout history, countless secrets have been buried between heaven and earth. The discovery of the gilded bronze bull's head today is merely the tip of the iceberg of history.

While Su Ji and the others were immersed in their emotions, Yan Tianchou suddenly proposed a contingency plan.

"The gilded bronze bull's head weighs nearly 100 pounds, but it is just a forgotten object and should be ownerless."

"If the [Golden Toad Transformation] divine power is cultivated to perfection, it might be possible to change the shape of the gilded bronze bull's head and transform it into a bronze toad at the level of a minor demon!"

(End of this chapter)