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

Chapter 4: A Trip to the Second Village, A Bountiful Harvest

"Have you heard? Zhang's daughter from the East Village lost the lucky charms sewn into the clothes while washing them. The employer was furious and wanted to deduct a month's wages from her laundry work..."

Early in the morning, people were chatting at the village entrance. Due to the delay in information transmission, news from Dongsang Village yesterday afternoon did not reach Xisang Village until this morning.

"This is quite a big deal. I heard that the young girl is stubborn and almost got swept away by the river while searching for this amulet coin. Not only did she not find it, but she will also fall ill before the spring chill has subsided."

This person wasn't wrong; Zhang Xiaolian coughed a lot before going to bed last night, and had a runny nose all morning.

"What you know is all outdated. I heard that the little girl found a golden toad by the river and offered it on the ancestral altar. But this morning, a lucky charm and twenty-four copper coins appeared on the table!"

After getting up, Zhang was busy boiling water and making soup for her daughter Zhang Xiaolian, a medicine to dispel cold. It wasn't until their neighbor Zhou came to help that they discovered the silver coins on the altar.

Because the ancestral altar has a certain degree of privacy and seclusion, and given that the money may have been placed there by the Zhang family, even though the neighbor Zhou was very surprised, he did not dare to approach it.

When Zhang also showed surprise, Zhou realized that the money had appeared out of thin air. After thinking about it for a moment, the two of them suspected Jin Chan.

However, due to the angle and distance, Zhou did not see the piece of silver.

Zhang knew she couldn't flaunt her wealth, so she secretly held the loose silver in her palm and only said that she had twenty-four extra copper coins.

"A golden toad spitting out money? Could the golden toad be some kind of divine creature?"

There are countless legends in the world, and there are many things that are even more magical and bizarre than the golden toad spitting out money. But if this happened in the East and West villages, it would be a huge event for the villagers living there.

"If the golden toad is a divine creature, will it spit out copper coins today, silver coins tomorrow, and gold coins the day after?"

If the golden toad only spits out copper coins, it would be astonishing enough; if it spits out silver coins or even gold coins, even the officials would probably be interested in it.

Su Ji wouldn't play with fire and get burned. Besides, he wouldn't spit out any money; the twenty-four copper coins and silver coins were all his assets.

If it weren't for Zhang Xiaolian's illness, Zhang would have definitely noticed the copper coins on the altar immediately. Following the principle of not flaunting wealth, Zhang wouldn't have talked about it everywhere.

But things just happened by chance; the Zhou family found out about it, and then it started to spread.

Fortunately, Su Ji wasn't worried about anything.

Not to mention that he is already a daytime spirit soldier of this local earth god temple, the gimmick of the golden toad spitting out money can also bring him certain benefits.

People worship gods, which generates the power of incense and faith. They also have mixed wishes regarding money. The gimmick of the golden toad spitting out money can also attract a lot of discussion.

In the previous life, these discussions would spread online in the form of traffic. In this world with immortals, Buddhas, and saints, the level of discussion could also be transformed into some complex power of wishes, which would eventually be absorbed by the Heavenly Mandate.

While the villagers were discussing the topic of the golden toad spitting out money, they were unaware that the so-called golden toad was right above their heads. After Su Ji, the newly appointed Day-Roaming Spirit Soldier, left, they were equally oblivious.

Flying is a childhood dream for many, and something that can only happen in their dreams. Some people may fly using airplanes or other means, but none can be as carefree and unrestrained as Su Ji at this moment.

Last night, even though Su Ji had become a day-roaming spirit soldier, he still felt blocked from all directions because the yin energy far outweighed the yang energy at night. Even the power of the day-roaming spirit soldier's [talisman] was slowly dissipating.

Today, as the sun's rays descend from the sky, streams of yang energy rise from the earth, and Su Ji swims like a fish in an ocean of yang energy, enjoying himself immensely.

Even as he moved through the yang energy, he vaguely sensed a mysterious aura.

The "Small Yin-Yang Method" states that the forces of the sun and the moon clash, and only the dawn before sunrise and the twilight after sunset can generate a large amount of harmonious Yin-Yang energy.

"Now the power of the sun falls from the sky, and the yin energy stored in the earth last night rises from the ground. At the same time as generating yang energy, there is also a wisp of yin and yang balancing energy being generated."

"By simply absorbing this harmonious Yin-Yang energy, you can quickly grasp the basics of the Minor Yin-Yang Method!"

These things were mentioned in the annotations of the Earth God. However, the Earth God was previously a night-roaming spirit soldier who absorbed the harmonious energy of Yin and Yang during his night roaming by taking advantage of the natural operation of "Yin descending and Yang rising".

Su Ji is a day-traveling spirit soldier, so he needs to rely on the natural operation of "yang descending and yin rising" to absorb the traces of yin and yang harmony scattered on the ground during his day-traveling journey.

"The local earth god said that if I didn't master the Lesser Yin-Yang Technique within fifteen days, I should go to the City God Temple Fair to look for other profound skills. He really has a point!"

According to Yan Tianchou's calculations, with the help of the Sun Wandering Spirit Weapon, he would only need seven days to absorb the Yin-Yang harmony required for entry into the sect.

However, there are priorities. Su Ji only focused some of his energy on collecting the harmonious energy of Yin and Yang, and collecting the wishes for wealth from each household was the most important thing.

In the past, even if he could bypass the common people and the cats and dogs in the courtyard, he would be stopped by the door gods and spirit soldiers, and even the spirit soldiers of the middle lane. Now that he has the identity of a day-roaming spirit soldier, he can easily come to the people's homes.

Using the [Golden Toad]'s ability to absorb golden energy, Yan Tianchou quickly deduced where each household stored their money.

Su Ji felt at ease, as he neither stole nor robbed; he simply absorbed the mixed aspirations related to money.

In a way, his actions were aimed at removing the greed attached to money, making it cleaner.

Because of his mission to tour the area, he couldn't stay in one place for too long; he would absorb some of the mixed spiritual energy and then move on to another place.

In just one morning, he had thoroughly understood the situation of each household in Xicun. Each household did not have much money, but if the wealth of more than thirty households were added together, the complex and diverse spiritual power contained therein would be considerable.

The six-hour tour allowed Yantianchou to absorb more than a hundred units of computing power, making it a great success.

It should be noted that he served as a "computing power source" for nearly a year, but only provided 324 units of computing power.

The ability to deduce the [Golden Toad] supernatural power relies entirely on the computing power that Yantianchou extracts from itself, which is no more than three units of computing power per day.

Last night, he improved the [Golden Toad] divine power, which consumed most of the more than one hundred computing power accumulated by Yantianchou. Now it has finally been replenished, giving him great hope.

Filled with excitement, Su Ji returned to Dongsang Village, mainly visiting each household, while continuing to absorb the mixed wishes within the money.

When people are highly focused, they often forget the existence of time.

Su Ji was so engrossed in absorbing the mixed power of wishes that he became somewhat addicted, until the appearance of a figure brought him back to his senses.

"As soon as he took office, the Day-Roaming Spirit Soldiers began to tour every household and courtyard, and they were indeed competent."

The speaker was none other than the local earth god soldier in the temple. As he greeted him, he exuded an air of scholarly refinement.

He didn't come specifically to see Su Ji; he had other important business to attend to.

The Wu family is the wealthiest in Dongsang Village, but the Zhou family has the most people. A while ago, when the village was haunted, an elderly man surnamed Zhou died from fright. Now it is the seventh day after his death, and the spirit soldiers have arrived at the house early to wait for nightfall.

Su Ji quickly returned the greeting: "So you are a Zhongliu Divine Soldier. In my previous life I was a human, and in this life I am a demon. Now I am a Day Wandering Spirit Soldier. I hope you will take good care of me in the future."

In terms of authority, the Zhongliu Divine Soldier is superior to the Riyou Divine Soldier, and since this person is a trusted confidant cultivated by the Earth God, Su Ji lowered his stance.

Zhongliu Shenlingbing shook his head and smiled: "We are both spirit soldiers. I just have a few more things to do. In terms of combat strength, even the gate spirit soldiers are slightly inferior to the day and night wandering spirit soldiers. We can only say that we take care of each other!"

This statement is not false. During the day, the stronger the sunlight, the stronger the day-roaming spirit soldiers are, while at night, it is the night-roaming spirit soldiers' domain.

However, from another perspective, the strength of the day-roaming spirit soldiers drops significantly at night, and the night-roaming spirit soldiers dare not expose themselves to the sun during the day. Only the gatekeeper spirit soldiers maintain their fighting strength regardless of day or night. The middle-roaming spirit soldier was like a scholar, not pretentious, and spoke softly. He quickly became very friendly with Su Ji.

Since the two were both spirit soldiers of the local earth god temple, they didn't hold back when speaking, and Su Ji quickly learned some of the inside details of the haunting case.

It turned out that their stumbling upon the ghost story was too coincidental; they were already engaged in a fierce battle with the demons before they could even set anything up.

In order to protect himself, the previous local deity killed the demons who were about to be captured on the spot. Although the result was good, no one was left alive.

As a result, although the previous local deity was detained and investigated, there is still not enough evidence to convict him.

The current local earth god initially found the situation troublesome, but after Su Ji reported the strange snake incident, he realized that the village might contain something that the mountain demons wanted.

Since every household possesses a spirit weapon, the strange snake certainly wouldn't dare approach. What the mountain demons and ghosts want must be somewhere else.

The Night Wanderer has not yet been selected, so tonight might be an opportunity to lure them out.

Zhongliu Shenlingbing said seriously, "After nightfall, the Earth God will pretend to go to the City God Temple. If there are really demons and ghosts attacking, there will be a big battle in the village tonight. You should stay in the Zhang family. Unless demons and ghosts break into the Zhang family, it is best for you to stay on the sidelines and watch."

Once night falls, if you use the power of the daytime spirit weapon [talisman] to fight, it will be exhausted in a short time.

Su Ji had just begun cultivating profound arts, and even if his physical body transformed into a golden toad, he still couldn't defeat the demons and ghosts.

"Luring the snake out of its hole!" Su Ji was startled.

Even if he hadn't encountered the divine soldiers in the middle of the procession, other divine soldiers would have informed him of this matter after the tour was over; it was only a matter of time.

However, Su Ji felt that knowing this news in advance was very important. Better safe than sorry, at least he could make Yan Tianchou temporarily stop mining its own computing power and deduce the attack spells in advance.

"Thank you for letting me know. I will stay at the Zhang family's house tonight. If any demons or ghosts come to attack, I will make sure they don't leave alive!"

He just became a spirit soldier last night, and if he doesn't cooperate well, he will only cause trouble. Staying in the Zhang family to protect his physical body is the best policy.

Before the two had even separated, Yan Tianchou stopped tapping into his own computing power and instead began to deduce the methods of attack.

Take the [Golden Toad Transformation] supernatural power as an example. It is essentially a spell, but it was tailor-made for Su Ji's physical body. Even if it were passed on to human cultivators, they would not be able to transform into a golden toad.

After more than half a year of refinement and practice, this supernatural power has reached the level of a fully mastered magic technique, and even the local earth god thinks it is quite wonderful.

Logically speaking, if you want to deduce a new spell, you need to start from scratch.

Fortunately, Yan Tianchou plans to use the [Golden Toad Transformation] as the foundation to deduce a matching offensive technique. This will not only save a lot of calculation effort, but also make the offensive technique more powerful with the blessing of the [Golden Toad Transformation] supernatural power.

After the two finished their conversation and took their leave, Yan Tianchou had come up with an optimal plan, a new offensive technique named "Golden Toad Spitting Money".

The golden toad spitting out money is the key to Su Ji becoming a day-traveling spirit soldier. Now, it is rumored that the two villages in the east and west have given this supernatural power two forms.

The first method involves Su Ji using his Golden Toad Transformation technique to spit out a copper coin from his toad form, which can harm any living being with a physical body.

The second method involves gathering the mixed and drossy wishes about the golden toad spitting out money into a single wish-power coin. This coin can either be attached to the toad to inflict additional wish-power damage or used alone to deal with ghosts and monsters.

After the sun set, Su Ji's tour was completed, but he did not return to the Zhang family immediately. Instead, he stayed at the Wu family, the wealthiest family in Dongsang Village.

If demons or ghosts were to attack, they would have to wait until the people were asleep, or even until after midnight, which gave Su Ji more time.

The Wu family's wealth became a huge source of computing power. Just by staying here, they could provide a continuous stream of computing power support to Yantianchou.

An hour later, the "Golden Toad Spitting Money" had already taken shape.

Another hour passed, and the [Golden Toad Spitting Money] technique finally reached the entry level. With the blessing of the [Transformation into a Golden Toad] technique at the Great Completion level, even if it was not as good as the demonic technique at the Lesser Completion level, it was almost the same.

By 8 p.m., many people had already gone to bed, and Su Ji left the Wu family home satisfied.

According to the calculations of the Heavenly Calculation, the complex power of money can be transformed into more than two thousand units of calculation power. If given time, he can not only perfect the [Golden Toad Spits Money] technique, but also perfect a new technique.

Of course, if the mountain demons and ghosts were not a threat, he might have used all his computing power to deduce the [Golden Toad Transformation] until it reached the perfect level.

At this thought, Su Ji had some ideas: "The mixed vows attached to the money in the two villages alone have such great benefits. The evil magic that demons and ghosts cultivate by using the villagers' dreams is probably not simple either..."

He can absorb the complex and varied power of money through his divination, but he cannot absorb the power of dreams; this is what is meant by specialization.

The villagers' money circulates slowly, and it takes many years to accumulate so much complex and varied spiritual energy.

Dreams are very common. It would be one thing if demons and ghosts simply absorbed the power of dreams, but in order to cultivate evil magic, they even went so far as to damage the spirits of the villagers, which shows that their ambitions are far greater.

In comparison, Su Ji can be considered to have obtained his wealth ethically, while the demons and ghosts have engaged in destructive practices that harm humanity...

In the yin energy, the light of the day-traveling spirit soldier could not shine very far. Before they had gone very far, Su Ji made a new discovery.

As the power of the wandering spirit weapon dissipated, part of it was neutralized by the yin energy, while the rest transformed into a harmonious yin-yang energy, which greatly surprised him.

"If I have nothing to do at night, I can convert the power of the Day Wandering Spirit Weapon into Yin-Yang Harmony Qi before sunrise. In that case, I should only need five days to accumulate enough Yin-Yang Harmony Qi for the beginner level of the Minor Yin-Yang Method!"

This method wasn't even mentioned in the Earth God's notes, so he quickly made a guess.

It should be understood that the power of the sun is more violent than the power of the moon. Night-roaming spirit soldiers dare not be exposed to sunlight during the day, so they cannot use this power to transform the yin and yang energies.

The saying goes that every profession is like a mountain to climb. Perhaps the Cave Mystic cultivators who come from the ranks of day-roaming spirit soldiers understand these things, but the local earth god who comes from the ranks of night-roaming spirit generals knows nothing about them.

Soon, Su Ji approached the Zhang family's courtyard on the west side of Dongsang Village. The village was very quiet at night, but it was particularly "lively" not far away.

A procession appeared at the village entrance, including young boys and girls serving on either side, and a paper sedan chair pulled by a paper ox... Guided by a ghost messenger, the procession quickly arrived at the Zhou family's door, where white paper lanterns were hung.

Tonight is the seventh day after the death of the elderly man surnamed Zhou, the day for him to return home for a visit. As the sedan chair landed, the spirit of an old man walked out of the sedan chair in a daze.

At this moment, the divine soldier in the middle of the river began to sing:
"The previous Yin has passed away, the next Yin has not yet arrived, and the intermediate Yin is now present... The spirit tablet serves as the guide, and incense, candles, wine, and many other offerings are provided."

"From this day forward, I depart from the mortal world, temporarily resting in my hometown of no birth. When the incense offerings cease and my lifespan ends, I will be reborn in the underworld..."

While chanting, the spirit led the old man surnamed Zhou to his home. The underworld officials stood still, waiting for the ghost to leave the mortal world.

Su Ji had never seen these things before, and out of curiosity, he couldn't help but take a few more glances.

The paper boys and girls are incredibly lifelike, almost like real people; the paper ox skeleton is large and particularly robust...

Just then, Su Ji suddenly froze.

The paper ox's legs trembled, and a dark shadow emerged from it, disappearing silently into the night under the cover of the paper sedan chair.

(End of this chapter)