Chapter 151: Intruders in the Cave Will Be Killed! (Part 2)

Chapter 151: Intruders in the Cave Will Be Killed! (Part 2)

I'm used to living alone and prefer peace and quiet, so let's skip the banquet.

As for the other cultivators on the island, I don't have much interaction with them at the moment.

Now that they know where my cave abode is, and with the presence of the array, there shouldn't be any misunderstandings if they accidentally stumble upon it. So, there's no need for us to meet."

Chu Ning refused very decisively; he would rather everyone in the Thousand Lakes and Thousand Islands forget about his performance in the Thousand Islands Competition.

At this moment, he certainly didn't want to meet with these people.

If these cultivators wanted to form some kind of connection with him, it would be nothing but a nuisance.

Before Jiang Hongguang could respond, Chu Ning continued:

"Brother Jiang, I'll say it again: everything on the island remains as it was, and you can manage it however you see fit.

As for those visiting cultivators, just tell them that I'm in seclusion and won't be receiving guests for the time being.

If you encounter any danger on this Thousand Lakes and Thousand Islands, just infuse it with your spiritual power, and the law enforcement team of the Thousand Islands Alliance will sense it and come to your aid."

Jiang Hongguang paused here and added, "However, their response time might be a bit slow, and they usually won't interfere with minor disputes."

Chu Ning understood the underlying meaning and took the token without any hesitation.

Jiang Hongguang continued, "Since you're devoted to your cultivation, we won't disturb you further. From now on, I'll come every half a year to give you your share of the harvest."

"Harvest?" Chu Ning was slightly taken aback when he heard this.

He didn't recall Jiang Hongguang mentioning anything about a harvest on the island.

Jiang Hongguang smiled and explained, "I didn't inform you about this earlier.

Although this island only has a first-grade spirit vein, it's still quite large, and there are quite a few cultivators residing here.

These cultivators have planted spiritual fields, and they hand over their harvest every half a year, which amounts to about 1,800 spirit stones.

Out of this harvest, three-tenths are offered to the Thousand Islands Alliance as tribute, and the rest is ours."

Chu Ning finally understood the situation.

A broader smile appeared on Jiang Hongguang's face.

"Thanks to your outstanding performance in the Thousand Islands Competition, you defeated the cultivators from Jingquan Island and Beilin Island. Because of that, our Flying Rainbow Island doesn't have to pay any tribute.

So, our income will increase significantly in the following years."

Jiang Hongguang then tentatively asked, "What do you think would be a fair way to divide this harvest?"

The harvest of nearly 2,000 spirit stones every half a year was not a small amount.

However, Chu Ning didn't pay much attention to it, as he could earn more by crafting talismans in half a month.

But Chu Ning also understood the importance of being modest.

So, after a brief moment of contemplation, he suggested, "How about a fifty-fifty split?"

"Of course!" Jiang Hongguang immediately agreed.

He was more than satisfied with this distribution, given Chu Ning's proposal.

Although nominally, his family would receive two-tenths less income than before.

But they still had a second-grade spirit vein, which brought in more income than a first-grade spirit vein.

After Jiang Hongguang and his family left happily, Chu Ning returned to his cultivation.

He consumed a Golden Orchid Fruit and started cultivating the Nine Transformations Body Refining Art for the day.

【Blazing Fire Divine Wood Art (High-Rank Profound Grade), First Layer (174/5000)】

【Nine Transformations Body Refining Art, First Volume, Endless Sinews (740/1500)】

【Refine God Technique, Second Layer (325/2000)】

"If I follow the previous pattern of cultivating the Nine Transformations Body Refining Art, I'll encounter a bottleneck when the proficiency reaches halfway.

At that point, I won't be able to increase my proficiency through ordinary spirit fruits or cultivation, but I'm not sure if it will be the same for Endless Sinews."

Chu Ning pondered, feeling a bit dejected.

He didn't have any suitable Heaven and Earth spirit fruits for body refinement, and he only had three Seven Star Spirit Fruits left.

However, during his previous bottleneck breakthrough with the Undead Bone, the effect of the Seven Star Spirit Fruits had already diminished significantly.

Now, as he faced another bottleneck, it was hard to say if they would work.

With these thoughts in mind, Chu Ning continued cultivating the Nine Transformations Body Refining Art without hesitation.

After several consecutive days of cultivation, the proficiency of Endless Sinews finally reached 750.

As expected, after consuming the Golden Orchid Fruits for two more days, there was no progress in breaking through the bottleneck.

"Another bottleneck!"

In the cultivation room, Chu Ning took a Seven Star Spirit Fruit and popped it into his mouth.

It was the only option he had left, so he decided to give it a try.

After consuming three of them, he looked at the change in proficiency, and his expression became complicated.

【Nine Transformations Body Refining Art, First Volume, Endless Sinews (930/1500)】

He had initially thought that the effect of the Seven Star Spirit Fruits would be less noticeable for bottleneck breakthroughs.

But he never expected that their effectiveness would be reduced to such an extent.

After consuming three of them, his proficiency had only increased by 180 points.

At this moment, he had used up all the items that could help him break through bottlenecks.

It seemed that his body refinement cultivation would encounter a significant obstacle.

Shaking his head, Chu Ning left the cultivation room and went to the herb garden outside.

He walked into the garden where the Flame Twin Birth Fruits were planted and first performed the Mysterious Spring Green Technique. Then, he started cultivating the Blazing Fire Divine Wood Art.

Regarding the hidden talent of the Yin Wood Spirit Body, the introduction mentioned that he could transform and absorb the spiritual energy gathered by wood-attribute spells cast on spiritual plants.

Although the Mysterious Spring Green Technique could separate the five elemental Qi, it still belonged to the wood attribute. Thus, Chu Ning wanted to test it out.

At the same time, Chu Ning had another question in mind.

What if he used the Mysterious Spring Green Technique to separate not the wood-attribute Qi but the fire-attribute Qi to aid the growth of the Flame Twin Birth Fruits?

Could he then absorb the wood and fire dual-attribute Qi through this method and accelerate his cultivation?

All these possibilities needed to be slowly explored by Chu Ning.

However, he could only absorb the wood-attribute spiritual energy.

As for the Flame Twin Birth Fruits, he was unable to absorb the fire-attribute spiritual energy they drew from the Fire Spirit Crystals.

As for the other guess he had, Chu Ning could only try it out after becoming more proficient in the Mysterious Spring Green Technique.

In the following days, Chu Ning's life was peaceful and pleasant as he tended to his spiritual plants, crafted talismans, and cultivated. The only thing that bothered him was his body refinement, but he endured it with equanimity.

Every ten days, Chu Ning would leave Flying Rainbow Island and go to the Chen Clan Workshop to trade his talismans.

Of course, he used illusion magic to disguise himself as the person in the portrait he had painted for Chen Zikin.

Chen Zikin herself did not appear, but instead sent a trusted shopkeeper to exchange the talismans for spirit stones.

Time flew by, and six months passed in the blink of an eye.

During these six months, Chu Ning took one Emerald Primordial Yang Pill and one Golden Orchid Fruit every day, while also crafting talismans and studying talisman sources to cultivate his spiritual sense.

On average, his proficiency in the Blazing Fire Divine Wood Art increased by 5 points per day, and he was able to improve his Refine God Technique by 2 points per day as well.

As for the Nine Transformations Body Refining Art, although he couldn't achieve major breakthroughs, he found that as long as he persisted in consuming the Golden Orchid Fruits and cultivating, he could increase his proficiency by 1 point every ten days.

This rate of progress was extremely slow.

However, with no other treasures at his disposal, Chu Ning chose to continue with this method.

His progress in spell cultivation was quite satisfactory.

The Mysterious Spring Green Technique had reached the level of instantaneous casting, and he could now isolate the fire-attribute Qi.

Furthermore, as Chu Ning had predicted, when he used the Mysterious Spring Green Technique to absorb both wood and fire attributes from the Flame Twin Birth Fruits, he was then able to absorb both attributes while cultivating the Blazing Fire Divine Wood Art.

This was the main reason why Chu Ning's proficiency in the Blazing Fire Divine Wood Art could consistently increase by 5 points per day.

As for the Blazing Flame Technique, he had also reached the stage of merging 10 fireballs.

He had also completely figured out how to use the Fire Phoenix Feather Spear to its full potential.

At this point, Chu Ning was very confident that even without the small black dagger, he could easily defeat a Qi Refining perfection-stage cultivator of the same level.

He would even have a chance against a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Overall, his strength had improved significantly.

However, he encountered a slight bottleneck in his talisman crafting.

This afternoon, Chu Ning was in the cultivation room of his cave abode, frowning as he crafted talismans.

"Why can't I increase the success rate of crafting intermediate-low-grade talismans?" he muttered to himself.

The first elementary-low-grade talisman he had learned to craft was the Primordial Water Spirit Talisman, which allowed him to analyze talisman sources.

After breaking through to the perfection stage of Qi Refining, he attempted to learn another elementary-low-grade offensive talisman from the Primordial Talisman Manual.

However, after half a year of practice, no matter how hard Chu Ning tried, the success rate of his talismans remained at around fifty percent.

While this success rate would be considered excellent for a typical talisman crafter, it fell short of Chu Ning's expectations, as he had previously achieved a seventy to eighty percent success rate with elementary-low-grade talismans.

Initially, Chu Ning thought that the slow improvement in success rate was due to the inherent difficulty of crafting intermediate-low-grade talismans, and that he simply needed more practice.

However, at this moment, he began to suspect that there might be another reason.

As he picked up the talisman brush again, Chu Ning focused his spiritual sense not only on the brush tip and the talisman patterns but also on the entire process of infusing the brush with spiritual power and executing the brushstrokes.

After drawing ten more talismans while paying close attention to this process, he paused and turned his gaze to the medium-grade talisman brush in his hand.

After much contemplation, he suspected that the problem might lie with the brush.

Medium-grade talisman brushes were similar to medium-grade magical artifacts in terms of quality.

Moreover, there were variations in quality even among medium-grade talisman brushes.

The brush he was holding was the one given to him by Liao Yunming from the Lingfu Pavilion when he had first learned how to craft talismans. It was unlikely to be of exceptional quality.

The intermediate-low-grade talismans that Chu Ning was currently crafting were equivalent to the spell level of a Qi Refining perfection-stage or Foundation Establishment early-stage cultivator.

Therefore, Chu Ning suspected that the quality of his talisman brush might be holding back his crafting skills.

As he crafted the talismans earlier, he had specifically paid extra attention to the infusion of spiritual power, and he noticed occasional fluctuations.

"Looks like it's time to get a higher-quality talisman brush," Chu Ning muttered softly.

However, as talisman crafting was not a prevalent art in the Thousand Lakes and Thousand Islands, he was concerned about his ability to obtain a better brush.

Putting away his talisman-crafting tools, Chu Ning slowly walked out of the cultivation room to the viewing area outside his cave abode, where a lounge chair was placed.

He sat down to watch the sunset and enjoy some leisure time.

As the sun gradually sank below the horizon, the sky slowly darkened.

In half a zhi, it would be completely dark.

Just then, Chu Ning, who had been lazily lounging on the chair, suddenly straightened up.

In the distance, several streaks of flying lights were rapidly approaching the island.

"Someone is flying toward this island?" Chu Ning frowned slightly as he observed this unusual sight.

It was rare to see anyone flying over the lakes in the Thousand Lakes and Thousand Islands, as each island was typically equipped with a teleportation formation.

As Chu Ning focused his gaze, his eyebrows furrowed further.

The flying lights had already entered the island's airspace, so he could see them clearly now.

There were two groups, one in front and one behind.

In the lead was a middle-aged man with a yellow complexion, riding a magical artifact.

Although Chu Ning couldn't fully sense them yet, they all seemed to be Foundation Establishment cultivators.

The man in front seemed to sense something when he saw the array around Chu Ning's mountain.

He flew straight towards it.

Before Chu Ning could say anything, the man landed in front of the mountain.

Then, either because he understood arrays or used some other method, he broke through Chu Ning's array and entered.

However, he was quickly trapped by the outer layer of the array.

The two pursuers stopped when they saw him disappear, and they looked at each other. One of them, a middle-aged man with a square face, called out:

"Greetings, fellow Daoist. We were chasing an opponent who trespassed into your cave abode.

He entered your array formation, so we ask that you send him out."

Hearing this, Chu Ning replied in a deep voice:

"I will open the array restriction, and the senior who entered my abode can leave.

I do not wish to be involved in your conflict."

As Chu Ning spoke, he manipulated the jade pendant to deactivate the array.

Of course, the outside world was still inaccessible.

However, if the person inside wanted to leave, they could.

But what made Chu Ning frown again was that the man did not leave.

Instead, he said:

"Fellow Daoist inside, I perceive that this array is extraordinary, and these two won't be able to break it anytime soon.

If you let me hide here, I will definitely reward you handsomely."

Due to the array restrictions, the people outside couldn't hear what this person was saying.

However, the square-faced cultivator seemed to have anticipated what he would say, and he continued:

"Fellow Daoist, we are members of the Thousand Islands Alliance.

This person is a rogue cultivator who stole something from our alliance and fled here."

Chu Ning listened, and his figure flickered several times as he approached the Foundation Establishment cultivator who had entered his array.

He was about to forcibly escort the man out.

However, before he could act, the man's figure flickered, and he reached out to grab Chu Ning.

The man's movement technique was extremely fast, and Chu Ning didn't even have time to re-enter the array.

Instinctively, Chu Ning activated his defense and threw a punch.

Since his opponent was a Foundation Establishment cultivator, Chu Ning held nothing back.

The Chizi Bracelet's flames ignited, and he executed the Tian Gang Fist.

"Bang!"

The flame-clad fist struck the man's already pale face, and he died instantly from the blow.

Chu Ning was surprised, and he felt a headache coming on.

He had just acted out of self-preservation.

He never expected that his opponent was so badly injured that he couldn't withstand even a single punch without the support of the Jinglei Steps.

Chu Ning didn't know the background of this Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Although the people outside couldn't see what happened inside due to the array, they saw the man enter alive and leave dead. It would be difficult for Chu Ning to explain the situation.

Thinking of this, Chu Ning sighed softly.

He used the Drive Beast Art to throw the man's body out of the cave.

"Seniors outside, this senior was severely injured and couldn't hold on any longer. He has passed away."

The two Foundation Establishment cultivators outside caught the body and exchanged glances, their faces revealing joy.

Then, they immediately searched the body and the man's storage bag.

However, after searching for a while, their faces darkened.

The two looked at each other, and the middle-aged man with a square face said:

"Fellow Daoist inside, this person doesn't have what we're looking for. We suspect that he hid it in your cave abode.

Please open the array, and we will come in to take a look."

Chu Ning was slightly startled, as he hadn't expected this turn of events. He used his spiritual sense to scan the area where the man had been standing, but he didn't find anything.

He replied in a deep voice, "Seniors, please leave. That person didn't hide anything in my abode."

After hearing this, the square-faced cultivator outside coldly snorted:

"Don't think that we know nothing about this Flying Rainbow Island. You're just a Qi Refining cultivator.

We're being polite by addressing you as a fellow Daoist.

Junior, open the array now, or don't blame us for forcing our way in."

Chu Ning coldly glanced at them and understood that today's matter wouldn't end smoothly.

Even if he opened his cave abode and let them search, they wouldn't stop if they didn't find what they were looking for.

They would probably search him as well.

Moreover, letting them search his cave abode was a disgrace that Chu Ning would never tolerate.

"I'll say it again: back off, or don't blame me for being impolite.

Do you really think a Qi Refining cultivator's array can stop me?"

The square-faced cultivator sneered.

Chu Ning remained silent, and a faint voice echoed within the cave abode:

"Intruders in the cave will be killed!"

At the same time, the two cultivators outside saw that Chu Ning wasn't responding, and the square-faced man coldly ordered:

"Attack!"

As he spoke, the two of them joined forces and activated their magical artifacts, attacking the array around Chu Ning's cave abode.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end