Am I the old man who's always by my apprentices' side?

Chapter 337 Ruthless Like Smoke

When Zhang Chengdao received the message, he was standing in a desolate valley in Liaodong. It was two hundred li away from Guangning Prefecture, near the edge of western Liaoning. Further east was the Bohai Kingdom.

The border between the Bohai Kingdom and the Xiao Kingdom was not very clear, because there were several continuous mountain ranges between them, with complex terrain, harsh climate, and few people.

Just like the valley where Zhang Chengdao was at this moment, it was clearly June, but the mountain wind was still cold.

Before him lay a lake that had dried up somewhat, with an unfathomable deep pit in the middle, and the lake's edge was almost entirely dry, with the riverbed extending for tens of meters.

The exposed stones at the bottom of the riverbed were not ordinary pebbles or gravel, but a strange, dark red rock that was hot to the touch.

At the same time, the air was filled with a faint smell of sulfur, along with a very weak, scorching, and restless fire elemental energy.

Zhang Chengdao was examining a few dark red stones with his spiritual energy when he suddenly heard a few familiar bird calls from above.

He looked in the direction of the sound and, sure enough, it was the red-billed blue magpie, the "messenger" of his second disciple, Murong Ruyan.

The message delivered by the red-billed blue magpie seemed to have been left in haste. Murong Ruyan's tone was hurried and urgent, but she only said that her disciple had discovered something that seemed to contain the five elements of spiritual energy and had been injured as a result, and that she was going to check on it.

"Can it damage a cultivator's five elements of spiritual energy?"

Zhang Chengdao was somewhat surprised.

Murong Ruyan knew about her disciples; most of them were still at the purple level, possessing considerable talent. Even the weakest among them was now a Qi Refining cultivator. In this martial arts and cultivation world where spiritual energy was almost nonexistent, any cultivator was a formidable force. It was somewhat possible for them to be injured by a grandmaster or through underhanded means, but to be injured by something natural…

How is this possible?
Could it be that they really found some "remains of an immortal"?
But if something unusual happens over there, how do we explain what's happening now?

Zhang Chengdao lowered his head again, gazing at the calm and beautiful lake before him, lost in thought.

Just as he was pondering this, another "messenger" flew in. This time, it was Ye Shuyun's "messenger".

This time, Ye Shuyun's message was much clearer, explaining exactly what had caused the disturbance over there...

"A bead containing cold-attribute spiritual energy?"

Zhang Chengdao frowned, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the dark red stone in his palm.

With his current cultivation level, the high temperature on the surface of the stone had no effect on him. Moreover, although it was barely perceptible, these stones did indeed contain fire-attribute spiritual energy!

Yiwulü Mountain is to the west, and the valley in front of us is called Kuandian Mountain to the east. In the middle is Liaodong.

This east and west, fire and cold, could not possibly be a coincidence.

……

Inside the farmhouse on Mount Yiwulü.

With Murong Ruyan's help, most of the cold energy in Lu Mao'er's body had been drawn out. Although her face was still pale, the bluish-black on her lips had faded, and her breathing had become much more stable.

After absorbing a large amount of the returning cold air, the gray bead seemed to have become more intense in color, no longer as dull as before. The shimmering light on its surface even had a hint of cloud-like blue.

Furthermore, when touching the bead again, the touch was no longer just cold, but exuded a stable, restrained chill.

"Master, I feel much better."

Lu Mao'er spoke weakly, her voice still trembling slightly, but it was noticeably stronger than before.

She hesitated for a moment, a hint of confusion on her face: "This bead... seems to have some kind of connection with me?"

"is it?"

Murong Ruyan withdrew her hand from Lu Mao'er's back and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

She carefully sensed Lu Mao'er's condition and nodded, saying, "Hmm, the cold has been dispelled, and the remaining bit has merged with your own spiritual energy. Given time, it may be able to be used by you, and it might even be beneficial to your cultivation of water or ice magic..."

"It all depends on what kind of spiritual root you have after you establish your foundation."

"As for this bead..."

She picked up the gray bead and examined it closely.

She could sense more clearly the pure, cold-attribute spiritual energy contained within the bead, but this energy seemed to have a certain "inertia".

For example, before Lu Mao'er used her spiritual power to investigate it, it was in a stable and harmless state and had no effect on the hunter. According to the hunter, this bead was just a "precious bead" that could cool people down in the summer and was only a little cooler than ordinary jade in the winter, and had nothing special about it.

At this moment, after Murong Ruyan helped Lu Mao'er introduce the cold energy into the bead, it returned to its stable and harmless state, looking exactly like a small pebble on the roadside, except that it was a bit rounder.

"This object should be a spiritual treasure of heaven and earth with some kind of extremely cold attribute, formed either by special opportunity or by the legacy of a great being."

"Cat, although you have suffered hardships this time, fortune and misfortune are intertwined. This bead is connected to your aura and is difficult for others to control. For you, it may be a rare treasure."

"Once your cultivation level recovers, you can try to refine it slowly; it might be of great benefit to your cultivation."

Just then, a whooshing sound came from outside, and a familiar figure quietly landed—it was Zhang Chengdao.

"Master!"

Murong Ruyan quickly got up.

"Master!"

Lu Mao'er tried to get up and bow, but as soon as she lifted the fur coat she was wrapped in, she was pressed back down by an undeniable spiritual force. The fur coat instantly wrapped her up tightly again, making her look like a big rice dumpling. "No need for formalities. Our sect doesn't need such empty formalities."

While waving his hand to stop him, Zhang Chengdao casually used his spiritual power to truly wrap the still weak Lu Mao'er into a "cat" wrapped in a fur coat.

Afterwards, he scanned Lu Mao'er's physical condition with his spiritual sense and roughly understood what had happened. He praised Murong Ruyan, saying, "Hmm, well handled. The cold energy is no longer a problem. On the contrary, it has turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Her spiritual root has been tempered by this, and her sense of the water element should be more acute. If she can completely refine this bead before she reaches the Foundation Establishment stage, she will probably not only have a single spiritual root, but also two spiritual roots, and at most no more than five spiritual roots."

Those with five or fewer spiritual roots who cultivate techniques and supernatural abilities corresponding to their spiritual root's five elements are considered to have talent. Those with more than five spiritual roots can only be considered mediocre.

Therefore, if enduring such suffering can guarantee that one will have a spiritual root within the five elements after Foundation Establishment, that would be a truly commendable benefit!
Lu Mao'er was extremely surprised: "Can spiritual roots still be guided before Foundation Establishment?"

"It can't be called guidance, but it can certainly influence the trend of spiritual roots."

Zhang Chengdao replied, "However, such opportunities are rare and hard to come by. In worlds with high spiritual energy concentrations, there might be some natural extreme environments, such as places that have been nurtured for tens of thousands of years, with extreme cold, extreme heat, extreme yin, and extreme yang. After some protective measures are taken, cultivators in the Qi Refining stage can cultivate in such environments year after year. Over time, they can naturally temper their physical bodies to be more compatible with the corresponding environment, which will help the corresponding spiritual roots grow and strengthen during the Foundation Establishment stage."

"But this method not only consumes a huge amount of resources, but also requires finding a suitable environment—if it's too harsh, it can easily backfire and ruin the cultivation. If the spiritual energy of the five elements in the environment is not abundant enough, it cannot play a role, and the balance is really difficult to maintain. Moreover, even if all the external conditions are prepared, and several years are indeed spent cultivating in preparation for foundation building, whether one can ultimately build a single spiritual root corresponding to the five elements is still unknown and a matter of probability. There is no need to spend so much effort to prepare."

"Of course, there are more ingenious methods, such as this bead. This kind of bead is a natural treasure. It is born from the gathering of cold energy in a stone and then nurtured by spiritual energy over the years. Although strictly speaking, it is equivalent to a large-sized cold-attribute spiritual energy 'spirit-gathering stone', it can still be refined and will be a good magic weapon in the future."

"More importantly, what a coincidence..."

After saying that, his gaze turned to the gray bead in Murong Ruyan's hand.

Without even touching it, he could already feel the extremely pure and cold spiritual energy.

"The cold energy, or rather, the cold-attribute spiritual energy, within this bead isn't particularly powerful. It's been nurtured for at most a thousand years, and its cold-attribute spiritual energy has actually been slowly dissipating. By the time you 'activated' it with your spiritual power, the power of the cold-attribute spiritual energy it contained was negligible, just enough for you to withstand. But if this had happened a few hundred years ago, you probably would have been frozen solid in just a short time!"
"Furthermore, although the power of this cold-attribute spiritual energy is limited, it is completely free of impurities. This is because the spiritual energy in this world is inherently thin, and it is extremely rare for spiritual energy of the five elements to be generated, let alone mixed with others. Therefore, the cold energy in this bead is truly pure, which is just right for you to absorb and refine. If there were even a trace of impurity, when Ruyan helped you draw it out, it would only expel this cold-attribute spiritual energy, rather than be refined and drawn out."

"In short, it is only through such a series of coincidences that you were able to turn misfortune into good fortune and pick up such a treasure for your own use!"

Zhang Chengdao was deeply moved.

So, not only are his own disciples the protagonist template, but his own disciples' disciples are also the protagonist template?

Such stringent conditions, yet they all miraculously matched. Are they some kind of legendary, gold-level lucky winners?
Lu Mao'er didn't think much of it at first, but after listening to her sect leader's explanation, she realized how lucky she was!

If I hadn't recklessly tried to use my spiritual power to examine this bead, I probably wouldn't have gotten such a good deal!
Just as Zhang Chengdao said, Lu Mao'er's cultivation level was just right, and she encountered a treasure with pure cold-attribute spiritual energy of just the right power. No disciple with a different cultivation level could have such a good thing!
"Oh, by the way, I've learned about this from Shuyun's letter. Isn't this bead the hunter's? Where is he now?"

No matter what, the bead belongs to someone else, and even if Lu Mao'er is a perfect match for it, it's not right to snatch it away without a word.

Murong Ruyan snorted coldly. Her eyes were originally filled with anger, but when she subconsciously looked up and saw her master's eyes, she suddenly felt a little guilty and her voice became much softer: "That person thought this bead would kill the cat and tried to run away, so I tied him up and threw him into the woodshed!"

Zhang Chengdao's breathing paused almost imperceptibly.

Very good, this handling method is very much like "Emperor Ruyan".

He wanted to give them a talking-to, but then he thought, "The children are grown up and have their own self-respect. It's not appropriate to lecture them in front of their apprentices." So all he could say was a sigh. He casually told the two of them to "get some rest" and then turned to go to the woodshed to look for them.

An old man was squatting at the door of the woodshed. Zhang Chengdao asked him a few questions and learned that the old man was the head of the household, surnamed Li. Because he was senior in the village, everyone called him Grandpa Li.

Grandpa Li was squatting here because Murong Ruyan had asked him to guard the door to prevent the hunter from escaping.

Just as Zhang Chengdao was pondering whether to apologize first and then apologize, or apologize first and then apologize and finally smash the bead with gold, he didn't expect to smell a strong stench of urine as soon as he entered the woodshed.

"what--"

A disheveled middle-aged man, with suspicious water stains on his trousers, cried out the moment he saw Zhang Chengdao, then twisted his body and kowtowed repeatedly, begging for forgiveness:

"I'll never dare to do it again! I'll never dare to do it again! I know I was wrong! I know I was wrong! Please, God, have mercy on me! Please, God!"

Zhang Chengdao's foot, which was about to step into the woodshed, awkwardly stopped in mid-air.

He frowned, stepped back from the demolition site, and asked Grandpa Li in a low voice, "Uncle, what did Ruyan, the girl in the red dress, say to this man? How did he get so scared?"

"Oh dear, it's his own fault for being so dishonest!"

Grandpa Li rubbed his hands together and lowered his voice, beginning to ramble on:

"This guy also has the surname Li, we call him Li the Great Deceiver. He's actually from the same clan as me, but we're not even five degrees apart, we're not related at all!"
"This Li the conman has always been using bone beads and the term 'snow doll' to swindle money! Bah! Everyone knows he's a street hustler! He's swindled eight out of ten out-of-town businessmen! This time, he's finally caught a tough nut to crack! He even ruined that young girl's apprentice! What a tragedy!"
"But this girl is really fierce, she's terrifying. She came up here shouting and threatening to kill, saying that if Li Da Huyou runs away again, she'll break his legs first. If her apprentice dies, she'll have him slowly sliced ​​to death. Oh, this slow slicing, they say it's like cutting a piece of frozen meat, one slice at a time, until it's cut into tens of thousands of pieces before killing him. My god, that's so cruel!"

At this point, Grandpa Li even shuddered, but then continued, "Is this girl your sister? If so, tell me, she's too fierce! What's with this young lady being so aggressive? And I can tell she never intended to kill anyone, she was just trying to scare Li the Conman. But even if she was just trying to scare someone, my god, freezing them and slicing them into pieces! That's an incredibly cruel method!"

After hearing his apprentice's "heroic feat," Zhang Chengdao chuckled awkwardly, trying to salvage his second apprentice's reputation: "Hehehe, she... she does have a fierce tongue... but actually... she's not that ruthless..."

"Hey, don't just listen to what you think, you have to listen to what I think!"

Grandpa Li shook his head, smacked his lips a few times, and then continued, "Tsk, she's too fierce. Even the fiercest tigress in our village isn't as fierce as her! I know, all martial artists like you are very fierce. For example, the girls from the Longtan Sect are very fierce. A few months ago, I saw two girls from the Longtan Sect beat a boy to a pulp. Oh my, what a terrible scene!"
"Hey, that Li the Conman never learns his lesson. Last time he tricked a martial artist, and the guy got beaten up and couldn't get out of bed for a month. This time he's tricked martial artists like you! Tsk, you call him shrewd? He just can't tell that you travel-savvy kids can tell you're martial artists just by looking at your clothes and your demeanor, and he still goes for it! You call him stupid? He's always out there swindling people with his 'Snow Doll' theory. Oh dear, it's a real shame that our Li family has produced such a scoundrel..."

Old Li was really in high spirits. After Zhang Chengdao was forced to listen to how Murong Ruyan threatened and intimidated the hunters, he then began to listen to the other party recount his romantic history from his youth.

What about the Zhao family's daughter-in-law who, even after getting married, still flirts with him every day? And what about the Liu family's widow who always passes by his yard when she does laundry for him...?

Zhang Chengdao recalled the layout of the village as he passed by from the sky. It seemed that the only way to get from the village to the river to wash clothes was through the path in front of Grandpa Li's yard...

After listening to a lot of nonsense, Zhang Chengdao finally managed to get away and went back into the woodshed.

By this time, the hunter's voice was hoarse from screaming, and his face was filled with despair.

(End of this chapter)