The Wandering Immortal

Chapter 25 The Possibility of Hidden Spiritual Roots

Meanwhile, Qinghe pulled Jiang Yuan all the way back to the inn, closed the door tightly, and pasted talismans on it. Jiang Yuan seemed to be feeling a little better, but she still planned to use the Rejuvenation Technique to treat him.

Jiang Yuan reached out to stop him, "The Rejuvenation Technique can't heal soul wounds."

Jiang Yuan meditated in his inn room for two hours before recovering.

He secretly regretted that he had promised not to use his soul power again, but he couldn't resist at the time. Even if he let that ghost cultivator go, he wouldn't dare to chase after him again, there must be some reason.

Jiang Yuan asked Qinghe to open the ghost cultivator's storage bag to take a look. Inside were only three spirit stones and some other miscellaneous materials, which were not very useful.

However, there was a flat, green jade box with an additional restriction, which Qinghe was unable to open.

It seems that this is the reason why we must kill that ghost cultivator. There must be some kind of opportunity inside. Jiang Yuan could only think this way, but he didn't dare to tell Qinghe for the time being.

The old man always had seven or eight spirit stones, some talismans, and refining materials in his storage bag.

The walking stick was a low-class magical artifact, but the blue water sphere artifact gave Jiang Yuan a somewhat familiar feeling.

His natal magic weapon in his previous life was a water droplet, but it was colorless and formless.

After spending a day and a night at the inn, Jiang Yuan thought to himself that once he arrived in this mortal realm, it was generally unlikely that any cultivators would openly seek revenge in broad daylight, so this ordeal was temporarily over.

Jiang Yuan wasn't in a hurry to go home. Guangzhou was the largest city in Lingnan, and since he was there, he had to go and see it.

Now that I have several storage bags and plenty of worldly copper coins, I can buy some things to give as gifts.

Qinghe had often visited markets while serving Miss Zheng, but none of them were as bustling as Guangzhou. Besides, back then, she could only stare in envy.

Jiang Yuan was taking his wife shopping for the first time, and he was not stingy at all. He bought whatever he liked, as long as he had enough money in his pocket.

After a whole day of sightseeing, the two of them emerged in a large horse-drawn carriage!
There's no way around it; many of these are large, space-consuming items like fabrics, curtains, and rocking chairs.

Once they were out of the city and in the suburbs, Qinghe ran into the carriage and started stuffing things into her storage bag one by one. It was so convenient to carry things like this.

The two storage bags I bought from Li Qingqing earlier only had a few feet of space inside and were of very poor quality.

After killing the two robbers, the storage bags were all high-end items, as big as a room several feet wide, and divided into compartments for easy storage.

"This storage bag is so useful. Who would have thought it could hold so much stuff, and it's not heavy at all."

Jiang Yuan couldn't help but laugh at Qing He's smug look. His own natal magic weapon from his previous life had an inner space that spanned millions of miles, much larger than this little broken ball.

Qinghe put the carriage into her storage bag, and it seemed she even wanted to try putting the horses in. Jiang Yuan quickly said, "You can't put living things in your storage bag."

The two then leisurely rode their horses back to Qingyuan Town, a journey that took them a day and a half. When they were almost at the clinic, Qinghe had to stop, take the carriage out of her storage bag, and load some ordinary items into the carriage.

Most of them were given to the two elders, and they couldn't know that there was such a magical thing as a storage bag, which was inexplicable.

The Guan family elders were overjoyed to see their son and daughter-in-law had gone to Guangzhou, mainly to buy them gifts. However, they secretly regretted not being able to hold their grandson soon.

Jiang Yuan and Qing He returned to their room and took stock of their spoils again, filling half the room with them.

Qinghe finally opened her eyes to the world of cultivation, realizing that there were so many ways to cultivate immortality, including alchemy, talismans, formations, and the crafting of magical artifacts, in addition to cultivating Taoist techniques.

No wonder my husband said that many people can only stay at the Qi Refining stage for their entire lives; there is just too much to learn.

Looking at the pile of colorful pebbles, Qinghe asked curiously, "What are the wonderful uses of spirit stones?"

"The five-colored spirit stones correspond to five kinds of spiritual energy from heaven and earth. Try taking a green one; you can directly absorb the wood spiritual energy inside."

Qinghe tried it and found that she could indeed absorb spiritual energy. Wouldn't it be faster to cultivate this way?
Jiang Yuan waved his hand to stop her, "It's not worth it for low-level cultivators to absorb spirit stones for cultivation; they're mainly used for setting up formations."

Over the next few days, Jiang Yuan focused on explaining the principles of the formation to Qing He.

Talismans and formations are similar; both use special patterns to draw upon spiritual energy to cast spells.

The difference is that talismans require cultivators to inject their magic power in advance, while arrays use array plates and array flags to form special runes, and spirit stones to provide spiritual energy for the array.

There is no inherent superiority or inferiority between the two; obviously, talismans are more convenient for offense, while formations are more efficient for defense. As Jiang Yuan explained, he set up an illusion formation in a corner of the backyard, three zhang in diameter, completely invisible from the outside.

From now on, I won't be afraid of being seen by mortals when I practice magic in this space.

Afterwards, Jiang Yuan set up a small Five Elements attack formation within the illusion array.

Qinghe watched helplessly as a clump of thorns sprouted from the array flags, growing much faster than she could react. Qinghe's thorn spell was still too slow to grow, so she needed to use talismans as a distraction to buy time.

"In this way, my husband can also use formations to fight the enemy!"

Jiang Yuan shook his head and smiled wryly, "The enemy won't just stand by and watch you set up your formation!"

The battle at Baiyun Immortal City lasted no more than five breaths, with life and death decided instantly.

Qinghe had obviously thought of that battle as well, but suddenly blurted out, "Why must we kill that old man?"

Jiang Yuan knew that this was the weakness of kind-hearted people. Whether they were mortals or cultivators, most of them engaged in the dog-eat-dog world, while talking about benevolence and morality. If you were benevolent, he would benefit, so good people always suffer losses.

"If you spare him, and he gathers his accomplices to hunt you down, are you confident you can escape?"

Qinghe remained silent, and Jiangyuan said nothing more.

Killing demons would not bring Qinghe any guilt, but killing people is different; she needs time to calm her mind.

Only when there is a significant disparity in strength between the two sides can one say "forgive others when you can"; if the strength is equal, or even at a disadvantage, then being merciful is tantamount to courting death.

If that hadn't happened, I might have been able to earn some spirit stones by the Mid-Autumn Festival next year. Once I'd saved up five hundred spirit stones, I could set up a spirit-gathering array. I couldn't go to Baiyun Immortal Market again; I'd have to find another immortal market.

In this mortal realm where spiritual energy is scarce, it takes Qinghe more than a year to advance to each minor realm, which is still too slow.

Getting Qinghe to the fifth level of Qi Refining as soon as possible is crucial for Jiang Yuan to officially embark on the path of cultivation.

Reaching the fifth level of Qi Refining is a threshold for independent cultivators. It requires opening at least two spiritual meridians and breaking through seven or eight acupoints. Few cultivators can cross this level on their own.

Some cultivators with good aptitude are born with several unobstructed spiritual veins and several acupoints that have been automatically opened. Once they enter the immortal sect, they have a cultivation level of more than the fifth level of Qi Refining. They can learn many spells without a teacher. Such people are called spiritual root geniuses.

Anyone who is born with one or two spiritual veins can be considered to have spiritual roots, or at least be able to sense the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to cultivate.

Those who possess spiritual roots often exhibit extraordinary abilities from a very young age, and are quickly discovered by cultivators who then recruit them into their immortal sects through various means.

In orthodox esoteric sects, elders typically descend the mountain to accept disciples and then bring them up to cultivate. Some unorthodox sects, however, often abduct children with spiritual roots.

Those like Qinghe, who haven't shown any talent for cultivation by the age of fifteen but possess spiritual root aptitude, are called hidden spiritual root possessors.

Jiang Yuan suspected that Guan Canghai's body also had a hidden spiritual root. Otherwise, why would a reincarnated true immortal have stumbled upon him and been reborn? What mortals call "coincidence" is mostly due to fate and hidden mystery.

Jiang Yuan knew many methods to help disciples with poor spiritual root aptitude to unblock their spiritual meridians and open their acupoints.

But he has no magic power now, and almost all his methods are ineffective.

After discovering that Qinghe possessed an exceptionally high-quality Hidden Wood Spiritual Root, Jiang Yuan suddenly conceived of a method for opening the meridians that could be implemented with only the fifth level of Qi Refining cultivation.

Reaching the fifth level of Qi Refining is a prerequisite; otherwise, one's magical power will not be sufficient. In addition, one must know healing spells such as the Rejuvenation Technique and be good at controlling the flow of true Qi.

The last condition is that a set of metal and wood attribute needle-type magical artifacts is needed. Jiang Yuan is looking for Golden Silk Bamboo in order to refine a set of Wood Divine Needles.

Jiang Yuan had not revealed the method of using the Yi Wood Divine Needle to help him open his meridians, because he was worried that once Qing He had a goal, she would become impatient in her cultivation, and if anything went wrong, Jiang Yuan would be helpless.

Jiang Yuan was frustrated as his plans were disrupted once again.

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(End of this chapter)