Family Cultivation: Rise of the Wilderness

Chapter 180 Foundation Building Pill Recipe
Monkey Valley, at the valley entrance.

A muscular man with a serious face led five or six cultivators inside.

"Uncle Qianshi".

Li Xiangming, Li Xianghua, and others came out to greet them.

Li Qianshi looked around and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Cao Fuyi and Cao Yanjun were safe and sound.

"Xiangming, what happened?"

"The former protector of the Youmang Sect has been spotted in Puyin Mountain. I have already verbally described the details to Yujue. Please have Uncle Qianshi take this back to the head of the family."

"Is it the Mang Cult again?"

Li Qianshi frowned and took the jade pendant.

"Fellow Daoist Cao, I apologize for the poor hospitality on this trip!"

Li Xiangming then bowed to Cao Fuyi.

Cao Fuyi waved his hand: "It's unexpected to encounter the demons of the Mang Cult. We are all fine, so Young Master Li, please don't take it to heart. If anyone is to blame, I am also responsible. It was my insistence on watching the rogue cultivators hunt demons that led to the series of accidents that followed."

"Fellow Daoist Cao is a guest, how can we blame a guest?"

Li Xiangming shook his head repeatedly.

He knew that Cao Fuyi meant well and wanted to help him share some of the pressure.

Ultimately, it was due to my own poor planning; I hadn't gotten rid of Ma Wu and the others beforehand.
Even if the head of the family knew the whole story, he would only be dissatisfied with himself, and would not involve Li Xiangfeng, Li Xiangting and others who actually arranged the work, let alone mention the Cao family.

Who made himself the head of the animal trapping yard?

"Fellow Daoist Cao, Miss Cao, please take your time. I will definitely visit Yuyuan when I have the opportunity."

"Haha, that's for the best."

After saying goodbye repeatedly, Li Qianshi led the Cao family uncle and nephew back to Dangui Mountain.

Li Xiangming remained silent as he watched their retreating figures.

The monsters on Puyin Mountain are as numerous as hairs on a cow, which probably excited the Cao family uncle and nephew.

The Beast Catching House also made an appearance. Although they were no match for Liu Xiong Yu, the group was facing a Foundation Establishment cultivator after all. It would be strange if the Beast Catching House could join forces to defeat Liu Xiong Yu.

Overall, the Beast Capture House is quite powerful, and with Li Xiangming, who has become acquainted with the Foundation Establishment cultivator, Qingyang Daoren, in charge, Cao Fuyi should understand that the Beast Capture House has the ability to supply demonic beasts to Yuyuan.

As long as the Cao family understands these two points, their cooperation with the Li family will not fall apart.

However, although he managed to salvage the partnership between the two companies, Li Xiangming was still uneasy.

This is mainly because his future is uncertain.

Liu Xiongyu's revelation of the evil green-robed man was tantamount to someone telling Li Xiangming that he did not belong to this world.

That's why Li Xiangming was so terrified.

Most importantly, there is the evil Green Robe itself.

Although the evil green robes granted him many benefits, they bound him from beginning to end.

He is now completely inseparable from the evil Green Robe; if the evil Green Robe is truly in danger, then he will surely die.

Is the evil green-robed figure actually dangerous?
To unravel this mystery, perhaps the only way is to find Liu Xiongyu.

But in doing so, you'll be led by the nose by the other party.

In a short period of time, Li Xiangming's expression changed several times.

Seeing this, Li Xianghua shook his head, wondering what kind of shock Li Xiangming had received.

"How is Xiangfeng?"

"Fortunately, Liu Xiong Yu didn't kill him. He should be able to recover in a few months without any problems."

Li Xiangming sighed. Although Li Xiangfeng had angered Liu Xiongyu, he was, after all, acting on his orders and for his own benefit. He hadn't gone anywhere for the past two days, focusing instead on healing Li Xiangfeng's injuries.

In fact, it would have been more beneficial for Li Xiangfeng's injuries to have Li Qianshi take him home.

However, since it wasn't a fatal injury, Li Xiangming decided to let Li Xiangfeng stay.

The reason is simple: Li Xiangchuan was confined to his quarters, and another senior official, Li Qianzhong, was unfortunately killed in battle.

Even now, the position of deputy head of the animal trapping station is still vacant.
If Li Xiangfeng goes home to recuperate, it's almost impossible for him to take on this position of deputy head.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Upon returning to the animal trapping camp, Zhao Jindou sneaked over to the door again.

After failing to see Li Xiangming several times, Zhao Jindou became even more anxious and stayed at the animal trapping camp almost every day.

Li Xiangming had no intention of seeing him, so he arranged for Li Xiangting to keep him outside the door.

With the help of more than a dozen itinerant merchants, and after spending several months, they still couldn't subdue Zhang Mazi.

Li Xiangming grew increasingly dissatisfied with Zhao Jindou. This fellow was very proactive in handling matters in Daishan, but his attitude changed when it came to Puyinshan.

Previously, the animal trapping center had relaxed its pressure on Zhang Mazi, and Zhao Jindou was instead targeted by Zhang Mazi, crying and begging for help.

After returning, he immediately used public opinion to force Zhang Mazi to withdraw from the Huangyadan market, and Zhao Jindou recovered his strength.

However, this fellow still did nothing.

Despite the current urgency, the business he's discussing is still the same old routine. He keeps repeating the same thing over and over without ever getting anything done. The traveling merchants are annoyed with him and have been reporting him to the authorities quite a bit.

Doesn't Zhao Jindou know that the members of the Puyinshan Guild Hall are losing money every day?

Ah, it was probably done on purpose.

In this campaign to eliminate Zhang Mazi, everyone contributed differently, but overall, everyone suffered losses.
The longer Zhao Jindou drags things out, the greater the losses will be for everyone.

Anyway, this business war is inherently unfair. Anyone with eyes can see that the Puyinshan Guild Hall, with the support of the Li family, will inevitably win.

At that time, the power of itinerant merchants in Puyin Mountain will be forced to reshuffle, and the Puyin Mountain Guild Hall will redistribute the profits from this huge pie.

At this time, all the small traveling merchants in the guild hall went bankrupt, and even medium-sized traveling merchants such as Madam Feng and Zhang Zhiang were short of money. What good would it do to distribute cakes to them?
Will they be able to eat all those sweet and delicious cakes?

If you can't eat, do you have to go to Zhao Jindou, who is the chairman?

"Xiang Guang, come here and give this letter to Zhang Zhi'ang."

Li Xiangming summoned a member of the animal trapping unit and gave him instructions.

Zhao Jindou is cunning and shrewd. He is clearly suppressing both sides, but he pretends to be doing his best.

No wonder he became the leading traveling merchant in Pudong.

But Li Xiangming would not allow him to have his way; he would not allow the Puyinshan Guild Hall to become the only dominant entity.

If Zhao Jindou cannot deal with Zhang Mazi in a short period of time, he will support other itinerant merchants to slowly erode Zhang Mazi's market share.

In the end, Zhao Jindou will have gained nothing.

After watching Li Xiangguang leave, Li Xiangming handled a few more official duties, then looked at the sky, picked up some high-quality monster meat and went out—the beast-catching room often hunted small monsters and shared the meat.

The place Li Xiangming was going to was the nearby Qingyang Temple.

It had been almost a year since I last saw him, and Qingyang Daoist had actually already reached the Foundation Establishment stage.

This was completely unexpected by Li Xiangming.

According to the conversation between Qingyang Daoist and Liu Xiongyu, the Daoist must have taken the Foundation Establishment Pill before he made a breakthrough.

But where did this Foundation Establishment Pill come from?

Recalling the Thousand-Jin Grass he had given to Qingyang Daoist a long time ago, and the other party's evasive expression, Li Xiangming cleared away the fog and suddenly understood.

I've come to visit today to find out what's going on.

Qingyang Temple remained largely unchanged, slightly more dilapidated than a few years ago, but showing signs of renovation; overall, it was still clean and tidy. A light knock was made, and a boy of about ten years old peeked through the crack. Upon recognizing Li Xiangming, the boy was overjoyed, yanking the door open and shouting, "Nineteenth Brother!"

"When did you come back?"

"Just got back! We received a letter from Master at home, and Uncle Qianshi brought us here."

"I see."

Li Xiangming nodded. Not only did his family have to take the Cao family uncles and nephews back, but they also had to escort Li Xiangshu and the others over. No wonder they had to send Li Qianshi, a Qi Refining Stage Perfection cultivator.

"The Taoist temple is not like Danggui Mountain; its spiritual energy is limited. You must cultivate even more diligently."

"Yes!"

Li Xiangshu loudly vouched for it, his little face unusually serious.

Seeing this, Li Xiangming said nothing more and followed Li Xiangshu into the temple.

The reason he specifically instructed Li Xiangshu was because he discovered that Li Xiangshu had already reached the third level of Qi Refining. Generally speaking, children sent by the Li family to other families are not too bad in talent. After all, the Li family values ​​its reputation in this regard.

Li Xiangming and Li Xiangshu both possess the aptitude of three spiritual roots. If Li Xiangshu's cultivation progresses smoothly, he should advance to the fifth level of Qi Refining before the age of 20.

This speed is naturally not as fast as Li Xiangming's, but Li Xiangming is an anomaly. His cultivation speed, besides talent, comes more from hard work. As a transmigrator, he started cultivating diligently from the age of seven or eight. Other children at this age cannot compare to his self-discipline.

In addition, he did not engage in production and did not take on any missions during his time in Green Cloud Cave. All his cultivation expenses were taken care of by Li Qianhe.

After ten years of arduous cultivation, although Li Xiangming did not receive guidance from Fairy Green Cloud, he was still an "elite" cultivator of Green Cloud Cave, with cultivation far surpassing his peers.

So as soon as he got home, he was favored by the fourth wife and comforted by Li Chenglu.

Of course, his cultivation level at that time was no match for Li Xiangren and Li Xiangyu, and even due to the age difference, he was not as good as Li Xiangru and Li Xianghua, so the elders naturally did not pay special attention to him.

For someone like Li Xiangshu, who possesses three spiritual roots, reaching the fifth or sixth level of Qi Refining around the age of twenty is the typical cultivation progress of an ordinary person.

If you're lucky, you might be able to cultivate enough Qi Refining stage magic power before you turn fifty and then attempt Foundation Establishment.

Regardless of whether one can establish a foundation, there are at least two or three opportunities to do so.

Li Qianshi is a representative of this type of person. However, Li Qianshi, who also has three spiritual roots, has better aptitude and reached the Great Perfection of Qi Refining in his early forties.

His family valued him highly and spent a lot of money to buy him a Foundation Establishment Pill. Unfortunately, Li Qianshi failed to establish his foundation and his cultivation level dropped back to the ninth level of Qi Refining.

Several years passed before Li Qianshi finally regained full Qi Refining Level 9 and entered the Great Perfection realm again. However, by then, his family could no longer provide him with Foundation Establishment Pills.

Otherwise, the other Qi Refining Level 9 cultivators would cause an uproar.

Having no other choice, Li Qianshi had to find a way to break through on his own, but he was never confident and remained at the Great Perfection realm for several years.

People like Li Qianshi actually have wives, second wives, and third wives.

Although the Li family only has five Foundation Establishment cultivators, there are more than a dozen who are just one step away from Foundation Establishment.

Leaving aside the Qian generation, Elder Li Chengzhi is already at the Great Perfection of Qi Refining. Elders like Li Chenglu and Li Chengdian, although they have failed to reach the Great Perfection of Qi Refining multiple times, still have the cultivation of the ninth level of Qi Refining and retain a sliver of the possibility of reaching the Great Perfection of Qi Refining.

However, these people, lacking the Foundation Establishment Pill, could only wait in vain.

They had considered taking a gamble, but their past failures had left a deep scar on them.

Everyone wants to successfully build their foundation, but what if they fail?
Then the difficulty of the next foundation building will increase exponentially.

The more you try to build a foundation, the further you get from achieving it.

That's why Foundation Establishment Pills are so important to cultivators in the late Qi Refining stage.

One in ten thousand people can successfully establish their foundation without consuming Foundation Establishment Pills, just like Li Xiangren.

Upon entering the Taoist temple, Li Xiangming immediately saw the Taoist priest Qingyang who came out to greet him, as well as Sun Siyan and the other children.

"The presence of Layman Li brings great honor to Qingyang Temple."

Qingyang Daoist laughed heartily, took Li Xiangming's arm, and acted very affectionately.

Li Xiangming was flattered and immediately bowed to invite them to leave.

Although Qingyang Daoist was on good terms with him and even flattered him at one point.

But that was the Qingyang Daoist in the Qi Refining stage, while the current Daoist has leaped over the Dragon Gate and achieved Foundation Establishment.

Li Xiangming naturally understood the difference and dared not show the slightest disrespect. A person's greatest virtue is self-awareness.

"I haven't formally congratulated you on your foundation building yet, but I am just offering my humble greetings."

Li Xiangming bowed and then took out the monster meat and a pot of spirit wine that he had brought with him.

"You've brought some good stuff; we're sure to drink until we drop tonight."

"That's right, that's right!"

After a few rounds of drinks, the two chatted about many topics.

Of course, the highlight of this event was the foundation-building process of the Qingyang Taoist.

Seeing that Li Xiangming had finally asked, Qingyang Daoist put down his wine bowl and said, "I was able to establish my foundation thanks to your Thousand-Jin Grass, so I will not hide it from you."

"When I was in my twenties, my sect fell into ruin, and I began to travel around. I lived a carefree life, but my cultivation progress was quite slow, which made me very dissatisfied."

"I have been recruited by sects and families, but for various reasons, I have not gone."

"Later, the Wuliang Sword Sect suddenly announced that it would launch a large-scale attack on the Nanbin Demon Clan and set up a flag in Zhangning Prefecture to recruit cultivators. A friend of mine invited me to go with him. At that time, I was suffering from a lack of spirit stones for cultivation, so I agreed to join the Wuliang Sword Sect's cultivator alliance."

"In the Allied Forces, we were organized into squads and fought day and night. I won't go into the hardships we endured, but I got along well with one of the cooks in the squad. He was a spiritual cook who was in charge of our meals and also a half-doctor who helped us heal our wounds, so he was very popular."

"But he died unexpectedly in our camp. Our camp was very well hidden. At the time, everyone thought it was a great demon invasion and was in a state of constant fear. But several of us carefully examined the cook's body and finally found a clue and tracked down the real culprit."

"The real culprit is actually a member of our team. Under our questioning, the culprit confessed that he killed the cook to steal the unique Foundation Establishment Pill recipe after discovering that the cook possessed it."

"Upon hearing this, everyone was shocked. You know how precious the Foundation Establishment Pill is, especially for us rogue cultivators. This pill formula is an opportunity that comes along only once in a hundred years. Therefore, at that time, seven or eight people in the team fought each other for this pill formula."

"I was unwilling to get caught up in infighting over the pill formula and kill my colleagues who had risked their lives for me, so I left the team under the pretext of being seriously injured. However, since I was the only alchemist at the time, I had seen the pill formula. It contained a spiritual material called Thousand-Jun Grass, which could be used to refine Foundation Establishment Pills."

"The Foundation Establishment Pill is certainly attractive enough, but what exactly is the Thousand-Pound Grass? Nobody has ever heard of it, let alone seen it. Even the storeroom that the Boundless Sword Sect set up for us doesn't have any Thousand-Pound Grass. Without this thing, how can we refine the Foundation Establishment Pill?"

"Are you kidding me?"

"Therefore, I didn't take it to heart at the time. After the great victory at Qishan, I took the reward from the Wuliang Sword Sect, withdrew from the allied forces, and went to seek the opportunity to establish my foundation on my own."

Upon hearing this, Li Xiangming's eyes flickered.

Surrounded by wolves, the Green Sheep Taoist managed to escape unscathed, which is no small feat.

Moreover, the Taoist priest did not mention anything about the monsters harming people in his words.

So where did the Taoist priest get his serious injuries?
It seems there are many more stories behind this, but of course, none of them have anything to do with Li Xiangming.

Li Xiangming continued listening, but Qingyang Daoist sighed: "However, decades later, I was old and still unable to establish my foundation. At that time, I heard that someone in Qishan had discovered a spiritual material that was very similar to the Thousand Jun Grass. I immediately remembered that special foundation-building pill formula."

"So I re-entered Shun'an Prefecture and searched for a long time in Qishan, Wumushan and Puyinshan, but found nothing."

"I never expected that it was you, Layman Li, who found the Thousand-Jin Grass. I took this spiritual herb and the collected auxiliary medicines and went to experiment with the pill formula."

"It's true that a formula for the elixir was ultimately derived?"

Li Xiangming's eyes shone brightly.

"That's right, the formula is genuine. Although there were many unexpected problems during the refining process, I did manage to refine the Foundation Establishment Pill. However, I prefer to call it the Thousand-Jin Pill rather than the Foundation Establishment Pill."

"Thousand-Jun Pill"

Li Xiangming murmured to himself, then raised his head: "Daoist Master, how many Thousand-Jun Pills have been successfully made?"

Four.

The Green Sheep Taoist stroked his beard and said calmly, "The Thousand-Pound Pill is not easy to refine. My skills are limited. I only have one Thousand-Pound Grass. It is already difficult to refine four Thousand-Pound Pills."

(End of this chapter)