Immortality: Starting with the Fruit of Taiyin

Unclaimed spiritual veins do not exist; spirit stones are required in the market.

The resources for immortality—wealth, methods, companions, and land—are all owned by someone.

As for renting a courtyard with a superior spiritual vein... well, aside from the expenses incurred in exchanging for essence blood, Wang Xuan didn't have much savings.

Before leaving the Lower Academy, he took four first-tier inheritance jade slips with him.

As long as Xiaoqing breaks through to the second tier, he is confident that he can monetize it while ensuring safety.

Otherwise, even if he possesses a second-tier demon beast, unless he plans to do some business without any initial investment, he'll be left with nothing.

Otherwise, facing this life of constant setbacks as a rogue cultivator, Wang Xuan would find it difficult to cultivate peacefully.

"On another note, this is probably what the major powers in the cultivation world want to see as well."

"If a rogue cultivator wants to cultivate, they must work hard day and night."

"If one could cultivate peacefully in the market town, who would bother mining deep within the earth's veins, gathering herbs in the deep mountains and forests, or risking their lives to hunt demons?"

"And who are they going to sell their various healing pills and low-level talismans with short 'shelf life'?"

"You should know that in the entire cultivation world, in areas without a demon king in charge, low-level demon beasts have long been wiped out by cultivators who swarm like locusts, and there's no chance for rogue cultivators to kill them."

"While those large mountain ranges and rivers are teeming with monsters, no one can guarantee that they won't run into a powerful demon on its journey."

"If you walk by the river often, you're bound to get your shoes wet."

"Even with a low probability, you'll eventually encounter a ghost if you keep doing it."

"Only by driving rogue cultivators to risk their lives can we transfer the risks and ensure safety."

As he pondered, although it was a world of cultivation, Wang Xuan had a strange sense of déjà vu.

"Even if the rogue cultivators earn rewards from it, they still have to spend them on spiritual veins, pills, and talismans, which means it all comes back to them."

"No wonder that in the cultivation world, only Foundation Establishment families that possess second-tier spiritual lands are called families; those that don't are just large, independent cultivation groups."

"In the words of my past life, spiritual veins are the means of production that can stably generate profits."

"Without this, no matter how high your cultivation level is, you're just a laborer and won't be taken seriously by the former."

Wang Xuan sighed inwardly, feeling that the experiences from his two lifetimes had collided here, giving him a deeper understanding of the essence of the cultivation world, while also making him less surprised by what he had seen and heard yesterday.

Although the Han family was established not long ago, they are a true family of cultivators, and their way of thinking is naturally different and cannot be measured by ordinary people's thinking.

So Wang Xuan shook his head slightly and stopped thinking about it.

Since he had nothing to do recently, he planned to stroll around Baihe Market to get a feel for the environment where he would be cultivating in the future.

As soon as he stood up, the communication jade talisman in his storage bag suddenly started flashing.

"Um?"

"Have you made a decision so quickly?"

Somewhat surprised, Wang Xuan took out the talisman and scanned it with his spiritual sense.

He quickly read the information from the jade talisman.

"This is... an invitation that abandons the idea of ​​bringing me into the family and is simply offered as an external guest advisor."

"But in this process, am I not allowed to join other factions at will?"

With a slight change in expression, Wang Xuan pondered for a moment as he looked at the contents of the jade talisman.

If these are the conditions... then it's barely acceptable.

Anyway, he just wanted to take advantage of the spiritual vein; other things would be nice if they were available, but it wouldn't matter if they weren't.

……

The next day.

Baihefang Market is a location located in the southwest.

Spanning several acres, it is adorned with carved railings and painted beams, and is richly decorated.

From a mundane perspective, this palace is undoubtedly a very high-class building; its grandeur is evident even from a distance.

Unfortunately, in the cultivation market, the craftsmanship and taste of buildings are never the focus of independent cultivators; they only care about price and quality.

Unfortunately, the Han family's Dan Pavilion does not have either of these two items.

On the third floor of the pavilion, Wang Xuan sat at his desk, looking at the first-tier legal decree pushed in front of him.

Spirit contracts are valuable, and second-tier spirit contracts are even more expensive, with a single contract costing an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator dearly.

Therefore, apart from sects and clans that cultivate their own spirit contract masters, very few people would use second-tier spirit contracts to restrict Qi refining cultivators.

Fortunately, even a first-grade high-quality magic contract is enough to limit the late stage of Qi Refining, and it will not become ineffective for thirty or forty years.

As for the reduction in power... although it's not fatal for a cultivator to violate a magic contract of the same level, it will definitely not be a good thing.

So Wang Xuan held the contract in his hand and reviewed the terms on it.

"Hmm... there's not much content, basically just a few points."

"You may not leave the territory of Chen State at will, or refuse to receive messages from the Han Clan... You may not sign similar terms of accession with other forces..."

"However, in return, the Han family will grant me access to the Dan Pavilion's Earth Fire Chamber, as well as the cultivation area near the Dan Pavilion's spiritual vein node."

"In general, they are all things that can be objectively determined."

It's not surprising that there are no clauses such as "teaching diligently" or "no betrayal".

Because Wang Xuan is not truly a member of the Han family, and Fa Qi does not have the ability to do so.

After all, words are inanimate, but people are alive. Faqi doesn't know what kind of behavior constitutes betrayal of the family, let alone whether you are attentive when you teach.

Ultimately, this thing isn't a lie detector; it can't manipulate people's minds.

Even the second clause of the contract, which states that one cannot refuse to accept a message, can be avoided by 'accidentally' destroying one's own communication jade talisman, thus directly circumventing the backlash of the contract.

In short, this kind of thing is certainly useful for protecting secrets.

It can be used to control cultivators and create slaves... but demonic secret arts and poisons are more reliable.

"It's alright, nothing too troublesome."

"It seems that the Han family is quite serious about training the next generation of alchemists."

Nodding to himself, Wang Xuan had discussed his future treatment with Han Changde before obtaining the legal decree.

Because he refused to fully join the Han family, there were no more residences near the core of the second-tier spiritual vein within the Han clan's territory.

He didn't care much about this. After all, without the identity of a sect disciple, even if the Han family gave him this opportunity, Wang Xuan would not rashly set foot near Xiaozeshan.

In addition, the supply of medicinal materials to the core of the Han family was also cut off.

However, he naturally does not need to perform the obligations that other cultivator families' external retainers are required to fulfill.

Wang Xuan understood this point as well.

Because the rogue alchemists supported by other forces often shoulder huge alchemy tasks, if I give you a few medicinal materials to study first-grade mid-level alchemy, you have to repay me by refining ten times the amount of first-grade low-level pills.

Even under these conditions, many independent cultivators are deeply grateful.

After all, in the current environment, first-tier pills are really not profitable... Without core competitiveness, one can only rely on hard labor to earn resources.

The core of the contract can be said to be that he is responsible for teaching alchemy apprentices within the Han clan, and the Han clan's alchemy pavilion provides him with a spiritual vein for cultivation, which is something that many independent alchemists have done.

The only difference might be that most of them only possess incomplete inheritances, while Wang Xuan's guidance would be more valuable.