A Mortal's Start in the Spirit Beast Mountain

Seeing Luo Ming's hesitant expression, the young man in white guessed his concerns and immediately tried to smooth things over: "Junior Nephew Luo, there's no need to be troubled. This is Steward Feng from the Feng family of Bozhou. One of Steward Feng's descendants urgently needs a Foundation Establishment Pill to break through. If you could generously give him a Foundation Establishment Pill, it would definitely be of great benefit to you in your future journey in the cultivation world of Yue Kingdom."

The young man in white revealed the other party's identity to Luo Ming, essentially trying to make him understand whether he wanted to offend a powerful force for the sake of a Foundation Establishment Pill.

"The Feng family of Bozhou?" Luo Ming's heart skipped a beat, instantly recalling the Feng family's reputation. Although the Feng family didn't have a Golden Core ancestor like the Yan and Chen families, it was still quite powerful. Several Foundation Establishment cultivators held important positions in various sects of the Yue Kingdom, and the family head, Feng Lu, had already reached the peak of the Foundation Establishment realm and could break through to the Golden Core realm at any time. Thinking of this, he suddenly remembered Feng Yue, whom he had killed—could the other party be from this Feng family of Bozhou?

Luo Ming composed himself and explained tactfully, "You two deacons should know that the path to Foundation Establishment is extremely perilous, and it is by no means guaranteed to succeed simply by having pills. Although I have three Foundation Establishment Pills, I cannot guarantee that I will definitely succeed. If I fail to establish my foundation because I lack a single pill, what is the point of obtaining any amount of spirit stones or magical artifacts? I hope you two seniors can understand."

Both men fell silent after hearing this. The cultivator surnamed Feng opened his mouth, wanting to persuade Luo Ming to believe that he would definitely succeed in Foundation Establishment, but he couldn't bring himself to say such a thing—in the cultivation world, apart from cultivators with exceptionally gifted Heavenly Spiritual Roots, no one dared to guarantee a 100% success rate in Foundation Establishment. An awkward silence fell over the scene.

Just then, Luo Ming had a sudden thought and said, "This junior promises that if I succeed in establishing my foundation this time, and there are any pills left over, I will definitely keep the Foundation Establishment Pill for Steward Feng. What do you two seniors think?"

He felt that by doing this, he neither completely offended the cultivator surnamed Feng, nor did he fail to focus on his attempt to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage. This was the most suitable solution he could think of.

At this moment, the white-robed youth's eyes lit up. After glancing at Luo Ming, he said to the cultivator surnamed Feng, "I understand why Senior Brother urgently needs the Foundation Establishment Pill. But what you say isn't without merit. If our request causes him to fail in his Foundation Establishment, wouldn't we become sinners? I think your suggestion is good. Let him use the pill to try and break through to Foundation Establishment first. If he succeeds and there's still some left, the Foundation Establishment Pill will be dispensable to him. Then Senior Brother can exchange it for equivalent resources. What do you think?"

Having said all that, the cultivator surnamed Feng had no reason to insist further. Moreover, no matter how unwilling he was, he dared not openly do anything to Luo Ming within the Spirit Beast Mountain. He had no choice but to reluctantly agree to the plan.

Luo Ming watched the two leave, secretly relieved, but also feeling a strong sense of urgency: he had to go into seclusion and attempt to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage as soon as possible, otherwise things might get complicated and other troubles might come knocking.

Moreover, the cultivator surnamed Feng had a gloomy expression when he left. If he failed to successfully establish his foundation, the other party might seek revenge, which was definitely not what he wanted to see.

He originally intended to cultivate discreetly on Spirit Beast Mountain and avoid trouble. However, resources in the cultivation world are limited, and the news that he possessed three Foundation Establishment Pills had already spread. Naturally, trouble would come knocking on his door. This is what is meant by "When you're in the martial world, you're not in control of your own destiny."

Without further hesitation, Luo Ming returned to his cave and quickly packed up all the necessary supplies for Foundation Establishment. He had prepared all these things in the past month.

He then affixed a wooden sign outside his cave that read "Closed to Visitors" before heading towards the sect's alchemy area. There, he found a large spirit-gathering array with abundant and gentle spiritual energy. He planned to use alchemy as a pretext to cultivate in seclusion there, thus legitimately avoiding any disturbances from others.

There are, of course, reasons for using the guise of alchemy.

The alchemy area was located within a mountain peak at the center of the sect. Upon arriving at the cave entrance, a handsome gatekeeper was seen asking a bearded, dark-faced cultivator, "Senior brother, are you here to refine pills?"

"If you're not here to refine pills, are you here to play around?" The bearded cultivator's tone was fiery, his face full of impatience. The gatekeeper's face flushed red from the retort, but he dared not speak out—he was guarding the gate only to complete the sect's mission and earn a small amount of spiritual energy as a reward. Having seen all sorts of cultivators, he knew that this kind of person, with considerable cultivation and a bad temper, was not someone to be trifled with, otherwise he would lose this easy job.

The bearded cultivator impatiently snatched the alchemy room token from the gatekeeper and went straight in. When it was Luo Ming's turn to complete the formalities, the gatekeeper hadn't recovered from his earlier frustration and had just begun to say, "Fellow Daoist..." when Luo Ming interrupted him.

"I need a high-level alchemy room," Luo Ming said bluntly, stating his request directly.

The gatekeeper disciple snapped out of his daze and explained with a troubled expression, "Senior brother, I'm sorry, but the sect has a rule that Qi Refining stage cultivators can only rent Yellow-rank alchemy rooms, while Earth-rank and above alchemy rooms are only for Foundation Establishment and above cultivators."

Luo Ming sighed helplessly—he had originally wanted to rent a Rank 1 alchemy room, having heard that the concentration of spiritual energy there was even stronger than that of a typical Foundation Establishment cultivator's cave dwelling, but he hadn't expected such restrictions.

Left with no other option, he had to settle for a lower-grade alchemy room, which cost one low-grade spirit stone per day. Luo Ming took out a mid-grade spirit stone from his storage bag and handed it to the other party, saying calmly, "I'll refund any overpayment and make up the difference." He then took the token and entered the cave.

When Luo Ming arrived at the door of his alchemy room, he happened to run into the bearded cultivator who was also walking towards him—the other man must have come from the other passage, so the two hadn't met. Judging from this, the other man's alchemy room should be right next to his.

Out of politeness, Luo Ming nodded to the other person, but the other person only glanced at him sideways before pushing open the door and entering his alchemy room without even a hint of response.

This scene further lowered Luo Ming's impression of cultivators. He muttered to himself, "It seems that cultivating immortality only improves one's cultivation level, not necessarily one's brain!"

This is actually normal. In this world, cultivators, unless they are specially educated scholars, will pay attention to etiquette and manners. Most low-level cultivators only need to recognize basic characters and understand the annotations of cultivation manuals, which is enough. They simply don't have the energy to study etiquette and morality.

This is why many cultivators, even those with high cultivation levels, behave with unusual rudeness, a situation that is even more common among demonic cultivators.

As a progressive young man who had received more than ten years of education, Luo Ming's understanding of cultivators had deepened even further.

However, Luo Ming quickly put that person out of his mind; at this moment, he was only thinking about arranging preparations for breaking through to the Foundation Establishment stage.