23. The Unusual Big Black

Big Black is a low-level demonic beast with the intelligence of a five or six-year-old child. It could understand some of what Yao Qian said. Upon hearing her question, it didn't even lift its head. It had cubs now, so of course it had to be fat; how else could it raise them?

Yao Qian had never raised a pet before. She was only responsible for feeding Big Black regularly and didn't worry about anything else. Naturally, she never guessed that Big Black was fat because it was pregnant. She didn't even know if it was male or female. For such an adult wild beast to accept her food was already a sign of trust; how could it possibly spread its belly to show her its gender?

Yao Qian urged it again, "Big Black, I'll be at home for a while. If you're hungry, come find me." She always told Big Black before heading to the Yama Cave so it wouldn't wait for her in vain.

Big Black let out a "meow," finished its food, licked its paws in high spirits, and ran off.

Yao Qian sighed softly, "Run off after eating—what a jerk." She grumbled, but her eyes were full of smiles. If circumstances allowed, she would have loved to raise a kitten. Imagine it sleeping by her side while she drew talismans—that would be a heavenly life!

Yao Qian closed the gate and continued practicing the Solar Herb-Gathering Technique. Her body was currently overloaded with Taiyin true energy and desperately needed solar energy to balance it out. If only the Solar Talisman in her sea of consciousness could practice autonomously like the Taiyin Talisman, that would be ideal.

Yao Qian spent her time in the cave dwelling practicing and drawing talismans. By the next evening, she set out to meet Jin Xiu'er, and the two went to the auction together. Jin Xiu'er also had a catalog and the auction sequence. "I want to buy a larger storage artifact. Are you buying one, Qianqian?"

Yao Qian nodded, "Yes." Hadn't Luo Ming said that the Wuji Sect’s land reclamation was essentially looting resources? The major resources would certainly be taken by the sect, but given Pei Changqing’s temperament, he should allow everyone to have a sip of the soup, right?

Jin Xiu'er was a bit nervous. "I hope it’s not too expensive." Unlike Yao Qian, who had a "gold finger," no matter how good Jin Xiu'er's aptitude was, she had only been active in the middle sections of the Yama Cave for the past few years. While her supply of Yin Spirit Stones looked plentiful, after deducting what was needed for cultivation, she had very little left.

"I don't know why the Ancestor won't let me raise Gu. She always says raising Gu makes one poor for three generations, and those insects are just too hard to feed," she whispered, grumbling. "They eat more than I do every single day."

Yao Qian nodded in deep agreement. "Insects really can eat." Her own Golden Silkworm Gu had also hatched and laid eggs. Although it didn't lay eggs every day, it produced a batch every ten days or half a month. Yao Qian had no experience at first and let it lay and hatch them, resulting in thousands of Gu insects within three months. They clamored for food every day, which terrified Yao Qian.

Later, she firmly forbade the Gu mother from laying eggs and made it focus on leading those thousands of baby insects in their cultivation. Yao Qian didn't feed them demonic beast meat either; she used the pure Yin energy from dead Yin-ghost beasts and Yin Spirit Stones. She had accumulated over ten thousand strands of pure Yin energy stored in the Tianyan Stele, which was enough to feed them for a long time.

When the two reached the auction, the venue was bustling. Many people were setting up stalls, and to her surprise, storage artifacts were even being sold there, though their capacity was at least half that of standard ones. Yao Qian even saw someone customizing spirit robes on the spot and, feeling tempted, pulled Jin Xiu'er over.

After some haggling, Yao Qian ordered two sets of outdoor clothing with basic protective functions, along with masks, gloves, shoes, and waist pouches. She also ordered a waterproof and insect-proof tent. She had originally wanted to order these from the Duobao Pavilion, but they were too busy with weapon manufacturing and weren't taking other commissions, so she was just looking for another shop to do it.

Jin Xiu'er asked in confusion, "Doesn't the sect provide Daoist robes?"

Yao Qian replied, "We don't know what we'll encounter during land reclamation. I'm preparing a few extra sets of clothes and shoes so I won't run out of things to change into." Dust-repelling talismans were also necessary; there certainly wouldn't be any conditions for washing up in the wild.

Jin Xiu'er thought about it and followed suit, deciding that being prepared was never a bad thing.

Yao Qian also bought three copper cauldrons of various sizes, the smallest being only the size of her palm, along with several hundred catties of spirit grain and two catties of spirit grain seeds.

Seeing this, Jin Xiu'er asked hesitantly, "Can you cook?" She had been surviving on Inedia Pills for years simply because she couldn't cook.

"I can." Yao Qian was lazy, not incapable. Having lived alone for years while studying abroad, who didn't have a few tricks to scrape by? Her greatest skill was the "one-pot stew"—she didn't even have to wash extra dishes, just the pot—which was why she specifically bought a small cauldron.

Jin Xiu'er's eyes lit up. "Then I'll buy some too; we can make porridge together." She hadn't eaten real food in a very long time. It wasn't that she was greedy, but she missed the days back home. Although her home didn't have the conditions of the Wuji Sect, she had her ancestor and her siblings there. In the Wuji Sect, she only had Qianqian to rely on, and luckily, she had her.

Thinking about how she hadn't had a single good meal since crossing over to this cultivation world, Yao Qian felt a surge of grand spirit. "What’s a little porridge? Let’s buy more ingredients, and I’ll cook you a feast!"

Jin Xiu'er nodded repeatedly with sparkling eyes. The Golden Gu Lady had a voracious appetite, and Jin Xiu'er had often eaten well while following her. Unfortunately, after arriving at the Wuji Sect, she hadn't had a single hot meal, let alone anything delicious. Eating Inedia Pills every day, she felt like she was turning into a pill herself.

The two swept through the stalls, buying plenty of food. Jin Xiu'er was greedy, but Yao Qian lacked a sense of security and subconsciously hoarded food—just in case she ever got trapped somewhere, at least she would have enough to last over a decade.

The pre-auction stalls stimulated everyone's spending. When the actual auction began, Yao Qian spent five hundred spirit stones on a gourd vine and five thousand on a large-capacity storage ring, which could hold at least a small mountain.

Jin Xiu'er didn't buy a gourd vine, but she also bought a large-capacity storage ring. This was a lesson they had learned in the academy: the worst thing when traveling is having a storage artifact that isn't big enough, forcing one to leave behind most of the spoils—some wild beasts were as large as small hills.

Luo Ming also attended the auction, sitting not far from them. He didn't buy a storage ring but managed to win a talisman treasure that could teleport a hundred miles. Although it could only be used once, it was a life-saving artifact. There were many bidders, and he finally secured it for ten thousand spirit stones.

Normally, such a talisman would only cost eight thousand at the Duobao Pavilion, but they weren't selling them recently, making the auction the only place to get one. Yao Qian silently sneered: are all large sects this good at business? Squeezing money out of poor, struggling Daoist acolytes without a shred of guilt—truly worthy of a demonic sect.

Yao Qian didn't buy the teleportation talisman. To high-level demonic beasts in the cultivation world, a hundred miles was only a matter of a few breaths. The talisman only bought a few moments of escape time.

She had enough Golden Light Talismans; if she activated several tens of thousands of them, she could buy more time than a teleportation talisman ever could. Yao Qian firmly believed that as long as her health bar was thick enough, she could outlast any enemy!

It was already late at night when they left the auction. Jin Xiu'er was in a hurry to return and practice. After getting home, Yao Qian took a hot bath, changed into loose pajamas, and crawled into the tent inside her secret room.

This tent had been custom-made at the Duobao Pavilion when she had some extra funds. It had no defensive capabilities, only basic waterproof, fireproof, and spirit-gathering properties, which was enough for her.

The tent wasn't luxuriously furnished, but it was filled with soft cushions everywhere. Yao Qian practiced diligently, but she wouldn't let her practice space feel like a ascetic's cell; she decorated this private sanctuary entirely to her own taste.

Yao Qian pulled two Dust-Repelling Talismans from the tent’s display shelf and activated them. That was the convenience of the cultivation world; many chores could be replaced by arts. She sat cross-legged on a cushion, closed her eyes, and silently recited the Scripture of Clarity.

As her divine sense entered the space of the Tianyan Stele, Yao Qian’s state of mind quickly calmed. She used her divine sense to pick up a brush and ink, focusing on drawing Way-Finding Talismans on the talisman paper. This was the talisman she was least proficient in; she hadn't even drawn three thousand yet, but she should be able to finish them in three months.

The reason Yao Qian wanted to draw three thousand of each was that she discovered that after drawing a certain type of talisman three thousand times, the talisman could be perfected, and the more she drew, the more powerful it became. For instance, her most proficient Golden Light and Sweet Dew talismans had brush strokes completely different from those in the outside world, and she had even condensed them into talisman seeds within her sea of consciousness.

With these two seeds, she could instantly condense talismans using spiritual energy. These spiritual energy talismans were more powerful than ordinary paper ones. The only downside was they couldn't be kept outside for too long, or they would trigger autonomously. However, as long as she moved them into the Tianyan Stele space, they could be preserved indefinitely.

Yao Qian figured she had likely mastered these two talisman arts through sheer practice. In a sense, talisman arts and talisman talismans were interconnected. The earliest talismans were patterns drawn by ancient sages when they observed the Great Dao of Heaven and Earth and gained insights.

These patterns were the earliest talismans. When a cultivator drew them on paper, they were talismans; when cast, they were arts. Therefore, generally speaking, when a talisman master understood a talisman pattern to the extreme, they could naturally manifest Daoist arts similar to the pattern.

But this required long-term, massive amounts of practice, and Yao Qian was no exception. She had also reached this point through thousands and thousands of drawings. What surprised her was that the Tianyan Stele could not only preserve Yin energy but also the Daoist arts she had performed. This was absolutely defying the heavens!

This meant she could face enemies without consuming spiritual power, which undoubtedly greatly enhanced her combat capability. The heaven-defying nature of the Tianyan Stele kept breaking Yao Qian’s understanding of its limits; she was calm about it now.

Even if she discovered one day that the Tianyan Stele was a supreme treasure born at the dawn of creation, she wouldn't be surprised. Yao Qian wanted to evolve the Spirit-Travel Talisman to be more perfect over these three months, then focus on the Three Suns Talisman, aiming to condense its seed in her consciousness before they set off.

After hearing Luo Ming explain the main use of the Three Suns Talisman, Yao Qian had a premonition that once she condensed the Three Suns talisman seed, it might have an auxiliary effect on her Solar Talisman. She currently had too much Taiyin true energy and desperately needed to boost her Solar true energy, lest she fear she might one day suffer from Qi deviation.

After the auction ended, the sect’s shopping enthusiasm didn't wane but increased. The Duobao Pavilion remained in a state of long-term stock shortages. The shopkeeper of the store where Yao Qian always bought talisman paper even contacted her privately, urgently asking for a thousand Spirit-Travel and Way-Finding talismans.

Yao Qian happened to need to grind her proficiency in Way-Finding Talismans, so when the shopkeeper asked, she readily provided them. When Luo Ming found out, he complained to her at length, roughly saying she wasn't being a good friend by holding back.

Yao Qian used a small knife to skillfully trim the lean meat from the spine of a demonic beast. "I was just afraid you wouldn't be able to eat that much."

Luo Ming watched as she sliced the meat into strips and placed them in a large basin, asking curiously, "What are you doing?" If he didn't know her temper and personality, he would have suspected she was cooking to treat him.

"Cooking."

Yao Qian’s words gave Luo Ming a strange sense of pleasant surprise—was she really cooking for him? But that surprise was quickly shattered by a leopard cat that had grown into a ball. He watched, dumbfounded, as the leopard cat suddenly darted out and ate the meat strips Yao Qian had trimmed.

He stared, stunned. "You’re feeding demonic beast meat to a leopard cat?"