The head master has a new female apprentice

Chapter 399 Rotting Bone Dog: You think I'm a herbalist, but I'm actually a feng shui master (6k)

Last time, outside the Kunpeng Palace, Zhou Qing went to great lengths to kill Yan Weiyi, a late-stage Spirit Slaying Realm expert.

First, they pretended to be seriously injured and on the verge of death, and then launched a surprise attack while the other party was injured in the palace.

Finally, it was only with the help of the "Blood Soul Slaying Talisman" personally crafted by the five ancestors of the Yan family, which he obtained from Yan Sen's storage bag, and the use of an extreme weapon, that he was barely able to kill him.

Now, he can rightfully and alone kill a powerhouse of this level.

This growth was earned through countless life-or-death battles.

It's a pity that the other party didn't unleash their artistic conception so I could experience it.

Suddenly, the tip of his ear twitched slightly.

Several powerful divine senses were already probing this direction from the distant horizon.

The battle at the Spirit Severing Realm, coupled with the widespread presence of obsessive emotions, ultimately attracted uninvited guests.

"We can't stay here long." Zhou Qing quickly checked the battlefield, and after confirming that nothing was left behind, he carefully tucked the old hen into his arms.

The little guy had been nestled in his arms the whole time during the fight, not even showing his head.

Then I'll just keep pretending. Hopefully, when it really comes down to life and death, it will lend me a hand.

Ripples spread across the space at his fingertips, and a dark crack slowly tore open.

Zhou Qing took one last look at the blood-stained wasteland, then stepped into the void and disappeared.

Shortly after he left, several figures quietly arrived...

……

Under the sunlight, the Greystone Mountains stretch for thousands of miles, with peaks upon peaks, shrouded in clouds and mist.

Just then, the space above the mountain range suddenly tore open, and a blood-stained figure staggered out.

Zhou Qing's face was ashen, his lips were purple, and the spiritual power within his body seemed to be forcibly suppressed by some force, solidifying inch by inch in his meridians.

His pupils constricted, his heart filled with horror: "This poison... can actually seal cultivation?!"

"Pfft—" Another mouthful of black blood was spat out, and the blood mist spread in the air, actually corroding the surrounding spiritual energy and making a sizzling sound.

His vision went black, and his limbs felt as heavy as lead. He could no longer tear through the void, let alone maintain the most basic ability to fly.

"That old guy... he's really taking things one step at a time. We can't delay any longer, we need to find a safe place quickly... Oh no!"

Before he could finish speaking, his entire body suddenly spasmed.

In his final moments before consciousness faded, he only saw the cliff below rapidly enlarging in his vision, the wind whistling in his ears, and his body plummeting like a kite with a broken string...

……

"hateful!"

A suppressed growl suddenly rang out from the dense forest on the outskirts of the Graystone Mountains.

A young man dressed in a coarse cloth jacket was wielding a thin branch, whipping the roadside weeds hard.

He was about seventeen or eighteen years old, his thin face filled with resentment, and the stubbornness between his brows now turned into a burning rage.

"Why do you say I'm not qualified? It's just that I don't have the affinity for Buddhism. I wouldn't even want to be a monk!"

He continued to lash out at the bushes while cursing, as if trying to vent all the frustration in his heart.

"Snap!" A branch lashed through a clump of dense grass, and suddenly, a dark shadow darted out!
"Hiss—" Before the young man could react, a sharp pain shot through his wrist.

Looking down, he saw a thin snake, entirely black with scales that shimmered with a bluish luster, biting his wrist tightly!
"Ah!" he cried out in surprise, jerking his hand away.

The snake released its fangs and quickly darted into the grass, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

"Black-backed snake?!" The young man's expression changed drastically as he stared intently at the rapidly turning purple wound on his wrist, his voice trembling.

"Aren't these snakes only found deep within the Graystone Mountains? How come they're here..."

It's over! It's over!

He shuddered, cold sweat instantly soaking his back—the black-spined snake was extremely venomous, and without an antidote, he would surely die within two hours!
He hurriedly pulled off the storage bag at his waist and frantically searched through it, but apart from some dry food and a few low-grade spirit stones, there wasn't even half a detoxification pill inside!
Even if they rushed back to their family now, it would be too late, not to mention that there was no antidote at home.

"Damn it!" He looked up abruptly, a flash of anger in his eyes. "Are they all bullying me? I can't beat them, but I can at least deal with you, you long worm?"

With a roar, he gritted his teeth and chased after the direction where the snake shadow had disappeared.

Soon, the image of the black-backed snake came into view again.

Ignoring the toxins raging within his body, he lunged forward fiercely and began to fight them directly.

The snake was extremely fast, almost slipping away from his grasp several times, and even managed to bite his leg twice.

The young man was in so much pain that he broke out in a cold sweat, but finally managed to grab the snake by its vital spot in front of a crevice in the rock!

"Huh...huh..."

He was panting heavily, his body limp, the toxins beginning to erode his consciousness.

At this moment——

"rustle……"

A low, panting sound came from the bushes, followed by the slow emergence of a large, gray-furred monster.

It resembled a wild dog, but was twice the size of an ordinary dog, with protruding fangs, foul-smelling saliva dripping from the corners of its mouth, and a pair of turbid yellow eyes staring intently at the young man.

"A bone-rotting dog?!" The young man's face turned ashen.

The carrion dog feeds exclusively on carrion, and especially enjoys prey that has been poisoned!
He was covered in wounds, the poison was spreading, and his wounds had begun to emit a faint putrid smell, which was exactly the smell that the monster loved!

"It's over..." He gave a bitter laugh, feeling completely drained, and he couldn't even stand up straight.

The bone-rotting dog growled and slowly approached, its stench assaulting the senses.

A look of resentment flashed in the young man's eyes, but then a flash of inspiration struck him, and he thought of a way to save himself.

His eyes rolled back, he held his breath, and fell straight to the ground.

The bone-rotting dog stopped in its tracks, twitched its nose in confusion, and slowly approached to sniff.

The young man's heart pounded like a drum, yet he still gripped the black-backed snake tightly in his hand.

"Yes...that's it..."

Soon, while the bone-rotting dog was sniffing the wound on his leg, he suddenly sat up and flung the black-spined snake toward its nose!
"Hiss!" The black snake bit down hard on the tip of the bone-rotting dog's nose.

"Awooo!" The bone-rotting dog howled in pain and shook its head, tearing the black snake to shreds in a few bites in a fit of rage.

It ignored the young man and fled in panic into the depths of the mountains.

The young man's face lit up with joy. He seized the opportunity to struggle to his feet and staggered after him.

Because he remembered his late father telling him when he was a child, "I have a plan: after spring arrives, put ten dogs in the same cage, one male and nine females. After three days, release them and observe the grass the male dog eats, then steal it and eat it!"

Now that this bone-rotting dog has been bitten by a venomous snake, it should instinctively seek out antidotes to save itself!

"I'll take the gamble..." He gritted his teeth and followed, dragging his increasingly heavy body, his eyes fixed on the rotting bone dog ahead.

After being bitten by the snake, the bone-rotting dog moved much more slowly, but it still wandered through the forest, occasionally lowering its head to nibble on some inconspicuous wild grass.

The young man dared not slack off; he ate whatever the bone-rotting dog ate.

Bitter grass roots, sour berries, and even mushrooms with an earthy smell were all swallowed whole.

Before long, the bone-rotting dog's pace slowed down, and it eventually staggered to a shady rock, where it collapsed and began to foam at the mouth.

The young man's heart tightened, and he quickly followed, lying down in the same way as the other animal.

"Could there be some kind of antidote here?" He forced himself to stay awake and looked around.

But there was nothing around except ordinary weeds and moss.

He lowered his head and smelled the soil beneath him, but there seemed to be nothing special about it.

Time passed slowly, and his consciousness grew increasingly blurred, but his instinct for survival kept him staring intently at the bone-rotting dog.

Suddenly, it dawned on him—something was wrong with this dog!

He struggled to his feet, staggered to the side of the bone-rotting dog, reached out and touched it, and immediately turned pale.

"Damn it!" he couldn't help but curse, "Dead?!"

He stood frozen in place, filled with despair.

Despite eating so much food along with it, there was no sign of the toxins in my body being relieved at all.

Could it be that... this dog wasn't looking for an antidote at all, but rather that the poison was taking effect and it was instinctively looking for a place to die before it was about to die?

He gave a bitter laugh, staggered back a few steps, looked up at the sky, and clenched his fists in resentment.

"Am I, Cao Aman, really going to die here?"

If those people found out, they'd think I committed suicide because I wasn't chosen by Jiyuan Temple.

"Heavens above, earth below, you—"

"Whoosh-bang!"

Before he could finish speaking, a dark shadow descended from the sky, landing directly on him and slamming him to the ground.

"Ouch!" he cried out in pain, struggling to get up. Just as he was about to start cursing, he saw a strange young man lying on the ground.

He was about the same age as him, but his face was bluish-black and his lips were purple, clearly indicating that he had also been deeply poisoned.

He paused for a moment, then gave a wry smile: "Looks like we really are two brothers in misfortune..."

He sighed and simply lay down next to the young man.

Looking up at the dappled sunlight filtering through the trees, he murmured, "Although I don't know your name, it's fate that we met before I die... Let's go together then."

He slowly closed his eyes, his consciousness gradually fading.

Just as darkness was about to fall, a frantic cry suddenly came from afar—"Aman! Aman, where are you?"

He shuddered, his eyes snapped open, and he struggled to sit up, tears instantly streaming down his face: "Mother—"

……

The candlelight flickered in the room. Cao Aman moved her fully recovered arm and stood in front of the bed looking at Zhou Qing, who was still unconscious.

He bent down and carefully examined the face of the unfamiliar young man, his brows furrowing slightly.

With a "squeak" sound, the door was pushed open.

A woman dressed in a plain-colored long dress walked in, exuding the unique aura of a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

"Mother!" Cao Aman rushed to greet him, "Why hasn't he woken up yet?"

Madam Sun walked to the bedside, reached out to check Zhou Qing's pulse, and said with a solemn expression, "Strange, this person's aura is sometimes strong and sometimes weak. He clearly seems to be in the Foundation Establishment stage, but there's something different about him."

"Foundation Establishment Realm?!" Cao Aman's eyes widened. "He looks about my age!"

Mrs. Sun raised her hand and gave her son a sharp rap on the head: "You, you!"

She scolded him with exasperation: "There were clearly purple heart grass and green spirit vines all around. If you had crushed them and applied them to the wound, you could have detoxified it. You just stupidly waited to die!"

"If I hadn't seen this person fall from the sky and followed to check, I really wouldn't have found you."

Cao Aman scratched his head sheepishly: "I didn't study these things properly before."

“So just ignore whether he’s at the Foundation Establishment stage or not.” Madam Sun glanced at Zhou Qing on the bed. “This young man is handsome and clearly smarter than you…”

"Oh, right!" Cao Aman quickly interrupted her mother's nagging, as if she had just remembered something, "He still has that ugly chicken on him!"

“She won’t eat millet even after we feed her, so we keep her in the cage outside.” Mrs. Sun shook her head.

"It looks like an ordinary poultry, probably his pet. This man saved your life, so don't you dare try to take that chicken."

"I'll go into the city later and ask an alchemist to take a look and see if he can find out what kind of poison he's been given."

Cao Aman nodded solemnly: "Don't worry, I will never touch my benefactor's things. I haven't even touched the storage bag on his waist."

"We, the Cao family, must repay kindness." Madam Sun glared sternly at her son. "If you dare to take advantage of our misfortune, I'll break your legs!"

"I know, I know," Cao Aman waved her hands repeatedly. Madam Sun gave a few more instructions before turning to leave.

Cao Aman then turned around, picked up a damp towel, and gently wiped the sweat from Zhou Qing's forehead.

But seeing Zhou Qing's tattered clothes, still bearing the marks of battle, he couldn't help but sigh:
"Brother, they say that those who survive a great calamity are destined for good fortune. You must hang in there."

……

Zhou Qing felt his consciousness floating up and down in the darkness, in a daze.

There seems to be something extremely important to do, but I just can't remember what it is.

I could faintly hear the sound of water dripping, as if it were coming from a very far place.

His eyelids felt as heavy as if a thousand-pound boulder was pressing down on them, and he struggled to open them a crack.

In his blurry vision, he seemed to be in a simply decorated house.

"Uh," he tried to make a sound, and a strong smell of herbs entered his nostrils, which cleared his muddled consciousness a little.

Upon awakening, the four-colored flowers within his sea of ​​consciousness, which had been rotating slowly, began to spin slightly faster.

"Where is this?" he murmured to himself. As the spiritual energy around him began to circulate, his mind became clearer and clearer.

"Li Wusheng, Formation within a Formation, Deadly Poison..."

Fragmented memories kept flashing through his mind.

He suddenly opened his eyes wide, forced himself to sit up, and looked around warily.

After confirming that it was an ordinary family, they finally breathed a sigh of relief.

At this moment, faint voices could be heard coming from outside.

"Why are you so ugly? They say spirit pets resemble their owners, and your owner is almost as handsome as me, so you... are a kind of contrast."

"Hurry up and eat something, you chubby little chicken."

"Oh, Mother, you're back. Where's the alchemist?"

A woman's voice followed immediately.

"Don't even mention it!" The woman's voice was clearly displeased. "They all look down on people like that, charging five mid-grade spirit stones for a single trip. They really think they're something special!"

"Huh? So expensive?" the young man exclaimed in surprise. "What should we do?"

The woman sighed, "I used the few spirit stones I had left to buy a mid-grade antidote pill to try."

The footsteps drew closer, and the door creaked open.

When the Cao family mother and son saw Zhou Qing sitting up, their eyes lit up.

"Brother, you're awake?" Cao Aman quickly stepped forward.

Zhou Qing looked at the two of them: "Did you save me?"

Mrs. Sun breathed a sigh of relief: "Looking back, it was you who saved my silly boy."

She then briefly explained what had happened.

After listening, Zhou Qing finally understood the whole story.

In any case, the mother and child saved themselves, so this place should be safe.

"Thank you!" Zhou Qing said.

"No need to thank me, we're brothers in misfortune." Cao Aman grinned. "My name is Cao Aman, what's yours, brother?"

"Zhou Qing".

“So it’s Brother Zhou, what a nice name, I…” Before Cao Aman could finish speaking, Sun grabbed her sleeve.

Sun took out a small jade bottle from her bosom and handed it to Zhou Qing: "I see that you are about the same age as my Aman, so I will call you Xiao Zhou."

She gently shook the jade bottle. "This is an antidote pill. Although you've woken up, there's still some poison left in your body. I don't know exactly what kind of poison it is, but let's give it a try."

Zhou Qing did not refuse, but took the jade bottle. After all, he had heard the conversation outside clearly and knew that this pill was hard to come by.

"Thank you." He thanked her solemnly, holding the jade bottle in his palm.

Madam Sun nodded slightly, then pulled Cao Aman, who was still about to speak, towards the door: "Then we won't disturb you any longer. Take good care of yourself, and call us if you need anything."

She turned back and added, "By the way, your spirit bird is outside, and we're taking good care of it."

"Thank you for your trouble," Zhou Qing said again.

Cao Aman stumbled as she was pulled, but still turned her head stubbornly, saying, "Brother Zhou, I'll be waiting for you."

Before he could finish speaking, Sun dragged him out of the door.

After the door closed, Zhou Qing put the medicine bottle aside, immediately sat cross-legged, and began to circulate the Yin-Yang Technique.

He quickly let out a long sigh, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"I see," he murmured to himself.

The poison that Li Wusheng set up in the second formation was quite peculiar; it seemed to only temporarily render people unconscious and seal their cultivation.

It was likely a second contingency plan left behind to prevent the void beasts he had summoned from far exceeding his capabilities.

These toxins are now dissipating on their own, and with the help of his spiritual power to expel them after waking up, he should be able to recover his Spirit Severing Realm cultivation in at most three days.

"A rogue cultivator," Zhou Qing sighed softly.

Being able to cultivate to the Spirit Severing Realm on one's own means that one's temperament, preparation for action, and combat experience far surpass those of cultivators of the same level from sects and aristocratic families.

They were clearly each other's benefactors, yet they turned against each other because of greed.

Fortunately, I was the one who survived in the end.

He then took out Li Wusheng's storage bag, easily opened it, and couldn't help but shake his head: "He really is a rogue cultivator."

Besides some miscellaneous items, there were only about ten top-grade spirit stones and the Five Prison Soul-Guiding Grass used to lure the Void Beast.

Zhou Qing carefully sealed it away, since this thing seemed difficult to obtain.

Then he took out an irregularly shaped, top-grade wood-attribute spirit stone and began to restore his cultivation.

……

The next morning, his cultivation had recovered to the Nascent Soul stage, and he finally had the ability to protect himself.

He opened the window, and the blue sky and white clouds came into view. He took a deep breath of fresh air.

"One hundred and fifty years," Zhou Qing sighed with emotion. "We've finally escaped. I'll never go back in again, no matter what..."

At this point, he suddenly remembered something and quickly spat out several "Pah, pah, pah!" sounds, "You absolutely mustn't say that!"

He was incredibly lucky to escape this time.

The Void Realm is vast and boundless, and the probability of encountering a Void Hunter who opens a passage and being able to escape in a short time is extremely low.

Not to mention that surviving in a void where there is no direction and no concept of time is an extremely difficult thing in itself.

“Void storm, void rift, void beast,” Zhou Qing muttered to himself, shuddering as he recalled those terrifying dangers.

The sheer amount of spiritual energy required to sustain such a feat is enough to deter most cultivators.

Who could be as lucky as him, not only encountering a moving mountain of spiritual stones, but also having them eat and drink their fill while ignoring him?

Thinking about this, Zhou Qing couldn't help but feel a wave of fear.

Then, with a thought, 30,000 spirit seals appeared around him, and a relieved smile finally appeared on his face.

Although this journey through the void was perilous, the biggest gain was the addition of 20,000 spirit seals, bringing me one step closer to becoming a legendary level 5 array master.

“But…” Zhou Qing frowned slightly.

In the first thirty-four years, with the help of the Enlightenment Ancient Tea Tree, he easily condensed ten thousand spiritual seals.

However, as time goes by, the ancient tea trees require more and more wood-attribute spirit stones.

The time required to comprehend the spiritual seals also increased, to the point that it took another hundred years before ten thousand more seals were added.

Recalling the early days when ten wood-attribute spirit stones and a month were enough to easily comprehend a thousand spirit seals, and then look at it now—

Zhou Qing focused his mind on the storage bag, gazing at the ancient tea tree that exuded an ethereal aura.

To condense a thousand spirit seals next time, I'll probably need at least 1,800 wood-attribute spirit stones and more than 17 years of comprehension time.

Fortunately, the ancient tea tree is currently well-fed, and the next time it needs to condense, it will only require a long period of seclusion.

However, such a speed is already quite astonishing.

It's important to understand that as array masters progress, it's not just a matter of comprehending a thousand spirit seals over a decade or more; sometimes, even comprehending just one can take an unpredictable amount of time.

At the same time, the array formation inheritance left to him by his senior Xuan Qingzi only reached the level of a fifth-level array master.

This means that he will have to figure out the way forward on his own from now on.

"People can be really foolish sometimes. They don't know how to cherish what they have. Now that I'm out here, I'm actually starting to miss the back of that giant tortoise. Where am I going to get so many wood-attribute spirit stones in the future?"

Zhou Qing gave a self-deprecating laugh.

"Bang bang bang!"

Just as he was deep in thought, a loud knocking sound came from outside the courtyard.

"Aman! Aman!" A boastful voice rang out from outside the door.

Cao Aman, who was teasing the old hen in the yard, got up and opened the door in displeasure.

Zhou Qing looked in the direction of the sound and saw two men and a woman standing outside the door, looking at Cao Aman who had opened the door with an arrogant air.

"What?" Cao Aman asked irritably, clearly dissatisfied with the attitude of the three.

"Oh, still sulking?" Cao Quan from the eldest son's family scoffed, arms crossed, his tone flippant.

"Don't worry, it's just that out of the four younger members of our Cao family, you're the only one who wasn't selected by Jiyuan Temple to be a novice monk. It's no big deal."

“Exactly,” Cao Xian from the second branch of the family grinned, a hint of mockery in his eyes, “If Jiyuan Temple doesn’t work, why not try Wuxiang Temple? Maybe we’ll get selected then.”

As Cao Aman listened to the two men's sarcastic remarks, his face grew increasingly gloomy.

Cao Ying from the third branch blinked and said innocently, "Don't be discouraged. When I become a female bodhisattva at Jiyuan Temple, I will definitely give you a special favor."

"Hmph!" Cao Aman sneered, a hint of resentment flashing in his eyes. "So what if you answered a few monks' witty Zen questions correctly? What's there to be so proud of?"

"You're just being sour grapes!" Cao Quan immediately got angry, raising his voice several decibels. "We were just trying to help you out, and you don't appreciate it!"

"Let's go," Cao Xian said, tugging at his sleeve. "Ever since Fourth Uncle left, he's been utterly hopeless."

"Who's hopeless?!" Just then, Madam Sun stormed out, her eyes blazing with anger. "Those three brats, do they really think they're something special?"

"Fourth Aunt." The three of them immediately wilted, their voices weakening.

"Don't call me Fourth Aunt!" Madam Sun sneered, her eyes like knives. "Those who know the truth will think you've entered Jiyuan Temple, while those who don't will think you've become disciples of some venerable master!"

“My son may not have any affinity for Buddhism, but he’s much better at dealing with people than you all!”

Cao Aman's eyes welled up with tears as she looked at her mother, who was standing in front of her, and a warm feeling welled up in her heart.

The three men turned ashen-faced, snorted coldly, and stormed off.

"Mother," Cao Aman's voice trembled, choked with sobs.

Madam Sun turned around, her gaze firm yet gentle: "Aman, don't boost others' morale and diminish your own. In your mother's heart, you will always be unique."

She gently stroked her son's face and continued, "This Southern Phoenix Prefecture is vast and boundless. Besides those two temples, there are countless sects standing in the sky."

"You must remember, it's not them choosing us, it's us choosing them."

Upon hearing this, Cao Aman felt as if a fire was burning in his heart.

All the pent-up feelings of inferiority and resentment vanished at that moment, especially with his mother's encouragement, an unprecedented fighting spirit surged within him.

"Mother, I understand!" He nodded heavily, his voice firm and resolute.

(End of this chapter)