Chapter 49: Grade 2 Formation Flag

Cultivators in the Meditation Plane could only wear magic apparel as they weren’t able to use spirit items yet.

Unlike magic treasures that were bound to their owner by blood, a spirit item had to be processed through one’s spiritual power.

A cultivator would not be able to use a spirit item if they didn’t process it, and it was something that Meditation Plane cultivators could not achieve yet.

However, even though the magic apparel was a magic item, it was hard for cultivators to get their hands on one.

The apparel was able to stop the attack of a mortal’s sword and spear, and the wearer would not be harmed by fire.

If a mortal were to find one, it would become their family’s treasure that would be passed down for several generations.

There were a lot of cultivators still in the Meditation Plane at Luo Sheng Sword School, at least 10,000 or even more.

To the casual disciples, magic apparel was nothing more than a piece of everyday clothing.

Xu Ziyue was a good example of someone who was too lazy to process his own magic apparel and decided to purchase one with spirit stones instead. He could even choose the design he liked.

Although magic apparel might seem like a cheap product, selling it would still be profitable.

If other cultivators were to have had a servant who could suggest such a great idea, they would’ve been overwhelmed with happiness.

However, Chen Jingzhai was different.

It wasn’t wrong that selling magic apparel was profitable, but it was still lacking when compared to selling elixirs. That was why he had come to the conclusion that he shouldn’t waste too much time on raising spirit silkworms.

He instructed Hong Xiu to continue to raise the silkworms, but instead of focusing on having them mature as soon as possible, he wanted her to focus on their quality.

He was even willing to pay out of his pocket.

That instruction wasn’t only directed at raising silkworms but also at planting spirit plants and herbs. Naturally, he wanted the best possible quality he could obtain.

The reason he wanted higher quality products was simple. For example, planting herbs was a painful process, and a lot of time and energy had to be spent on it.

If he wanted Grade 1 herbs, all he had to do was purchase them, and it would still save him more money than planting these herbs.

That was why he had decided to only plant seeds of herbs that were Grade 2.

The same went for spirit plants. There was simply no benefit in planting Grade 1 plants.

After sufficiently planning everything out, Chen Jingzhai had already spent half of the spirit stones he had on purchasing seeds and activating formations in the field.

All four ladies felt a little uneasy about watching him spend so much in a single day.

However, Chen Jingzhai wasn’t fazed by it. He just thought of it as an investment. All he had to do was earn more in the future.

After arranging work for the four servants, he headed to the training room to prepare for his Seclusion Training.

Before he began, he activated his talent and was greeted with a huge surprise.

Location: Tianyahai Pavilion

Base: Built out of the corpse of a 10-thousand-year-old ancient tree that died because it wasn’t able to form sentience.

Effect: A place where essence power gathers and hidden spirit response could be found. Beneficial to people who are trying to comprehend a path.

Flaw: The essence of that place lies three feet below ground. The effects will be doubled if a formation is placed there.

Although Chen Jingzhai was able to freely activate his talent, success was not guaranteed.

He would not be able to find flaws in places that weren’t special.

That was why he was lucky that he was able to find a flaw at the Tianyahai Pavilion.

The flaw didn’t mention which formation he should deploy, but he chose to set up the Yin Yang Formation without thinking twice.

That was the formation that he had mastered the most.

He was extremely focused as he created the flag for the formation, even when it was a basic one.

The flag had two different sides, one black and one white, representing Yin and Yang, respectively.

It would cost around three thousand spirit stones to activate the formation, but it was the most suitable one for cultivators of Daoxuan Peak.

It wasn’t a powerful formation as it would only make its target drowsy, but it needed a cultivator who based their practice around the formation to activate it.

That was why he had chosen to use the Yin Yang Formation.

When he arrived at the location mentioned in the flaw, he activated a spell and dug a three-foot-deep hole.

He then set the two-sided flag up in the hole and activated the formation with his spiritual power.

The power of the Grade 2 flag immediately came alive as the drawing of a pair of black and white fish started to chase after each other.

“Looks like I didn’t waste all those spirit stones for nothing.” Chen Jingzhai nodded with satisfaction.

The moment the formation was activated, he could feel the essence power gather around it.

A Grade 2 flag was fundamentally better and easier to use than its Grade 1 counterpart.

The boy then sat down, closed his eyes, and started to cultivate.

However, just a few minutes later, he suddenly opened his eyes as he realized that he had already spent a lot of the essence power that he had gathered, but he had yet to start comprehending the path.

As his foundation was too strong, he would require a lot of essence power to cultivate.

Even with the help of a Grade 2 flag and the leak of the Tianyahai Pavilion, he was still unable to do so.

If he did, he would definitely thin out the essence power gathered around the pavilion, and the spirit response would also disappear.

Having no other choice, he decided to stop cultivating. Instead, he began to create elixirs.

He took the White Crane Cloud Tree Celestial Cauldron out and activated it by injecting his spiritual power into it.

Chen Jingzhai then activated a spell technique to summon water and wash the cauldron before creating a fire in its fire chamber to heat it up.

There was no need to start a fire on the ground for the special cauldron. All he had to do was activate the magic restriction inside.

The flame inside the cauldron could be classified as an Essence Refinement Elixir Cauldron restriction. It was extremely pure and gentle, which was the most suitable for creating elixirs.

The only downside was that maintaining the flame would cost a lot of spiritual power, and most cultivators would have depleted all their reserves in just a few minutes.

However, Chen Jingzhai was different as having a vast amount of spiritual power was his strong suit.

That was why the White Crane Cloud Tree Celestial Cauldron was the best for him.

The water started to evaporate as the cauldron heated up.

Chen Jingzhai increased his spiritual power output to activate another restriction, and the temperature inside the cauldron rose even further.

He then started to drop the ingredients for Essence Cultivation Elixirs into the cauldron according to the recipe.

Most elixir alchemists, even most Grade 3 elixir alchemists, could only make 36 Essence Cultivation Elixirs at once, and they weren’t even able to make sure all of them possessed the same quality.

However, Chen Jingzhai was able to do that. That was the most beneficial thing he had gained from the Pill Extraction and Purification Scripture.

As long as he had the special cauldron he had created, the success rate of him making an elixir was 100 percent.

That was something almost impossible to achieve.

Not a single alchemist in the world would have the guts to say that their success rate was 100 percent.

However, with the White Crane Cloud Tree Celestial Cauldron, Chen Jingzhai was able to create elixirs of Grade 2 and lower without any failure. Not only that, but all of them were of high quality as well.

That was the double benefit he had gained from both the scripture and the flaw.

The boy spent the next three days and nights creating elixirs.

When he finally exhausted all of his ingredients, he had already created more than 4,000 Essence Cultivation Elixirs.

By putting nine elixirs into one bottle, he had close to 500 bottles with him now.

When he finally got out of the training room on the fourth day, he headed to Deacon Hall with Hong Chan and Hong Yu accompanying him.

Deacon Hall was where all the matters of Daoxuan Peak were handled, ranging from missions to wages and even the arrangements of cave residences.

Disciples of Daoxuan Peak were also able to make purchases at the hall.

If they weren’t able to find what they needed at Deacon Hall, it would mean that Daoxuan Peak didn’t have that item in stock. They could then head to Tianzhu Peak to trade for what they wanted.

Since it was Chen Jingzhai’s second time heading there, he was already familiar with the place.

It didn’t take him much time to locate the deacon that was in charge of selling and buying flags—a Golden Core Sage named Hao Feng.

“Master-Uncle!” the deacon greeted.

“I have 300 bottles of high-quality Essence Cultivation Elixirs. Do you think you can buy them?” Chen Jingzhai asked.

Hao Feng could not hide the surprise in his eyes when he saw the bottles that Chen Jingzhai had placed on the counter.

Instead of asking about it, he opened one of the bottles and took an elixir out of it.

He then randomly chose other bottles and found out they were of the same quality.

“Master-Uncle, did you make all of these?” Sage Hao finally couldn’t hold back and asked.

“Yes.” Chen Jingzhai nodded with a frown. “Is there something wrong with them?”

“Not at all!” the sage laughed. “I’ve heard that Master-Uncle is talented in the path of elixir alchemy as well, and I thought it was just a rumor. It looks like that rumor has proven to be true! Our peak is lucky to have you.”

“They are just Grade 1 elixirs.” Chen Jingzhai smiled. “How much are they worth?”

“Around 10,000 spirit stones,” Sage Hao replied.

“Isn’t that a little too high?”

“Not at all. Elixirs of such high quality are hard to come by. Of course, it won’t sell for much if you only have a few of them, but it’s different when you are selling this many.”

Chen Jingzhai could not find any fault in the sage’s words.