Taoist cultivation begins with being a miner

"snort!"

Du Qing snorted coldly and then fell silent, not following Lu Yan's lead in raising the price.

In the end, Lu Yan acquired the Azure Smoke Jade Soul Pendant for 730 mid-grade spirit stones.

A moment later, people from the auction house came to Lu Yan to hand over the items.

Lu Yan paid the spirit stones, put the Azure Smoke Jade Soul Pendant into his savings ring, and turned to leave without the slightest hesitation.

An elderly man in a yew tree on the second floor followed him out of the auction house.

Some cultivators were initially eager to make a move, but seeing this situation, they all chose to give up, as a sword cultivator in the mid-Foundation Establishment stage was not someone they could handle.

After leaving the auction house, Lu Yan did not choose to stay in the city.

Lu Yan couldn't be sure if the city's officials could protect him. After all, judging from the discussions just now, this Du Qing seemed to be a local tyrant in Tieyuan City with considerable influence here. Fighting him outside the city would be more convenient than fighting him inside the city, and he could act more freely.

It was the middle of the Yin hour (3 to 5 AM), and the sky was still dark.

Using the moonlight, he ran quickly out of the city. The journey was exceptionally smooth. After leaving the city, Lu Yan breathed a sigh of relief and then darted into the mountains and forests.

But before they had run far, they saw a purple figure standing on a tree branch ahead.

"Senior, are you planning to take up the profession of a cultivator who has undergone calamity? Aren't you afraid of being ridiculed by the cultivators of Tieyuan City?" Lu Yan took two steps back warily, holding a third-tier defensive talisman, the Xuan Guang Talisman, in his left hand and a third-tier offensive talisman, the Lei Ting Po Sha Talisman, in his right hand.

"Laugh at? Are you kidding me? In my knowledge, only the strong laugh at the weak. They are more afraid of me than anything else," Du Qing mocked.

"So, does that mean I'm doomed to die today?" After looking around and seeing that there were no other cultivators, Lu Yan breathed a sigh of relief.

"Actually, the outcome was already decided the moment you dared to compete with me. Hand over what I want, and I'll leave you with a whole corpse." Without much nonsense, he flashed in front of Lu Yan.

The overwhelming pressure made Lu Yan unable to lift his head; Du Qing felt much stronger than the Multi-Armed Demon General from before.

"Go to hell!" Lu Yan dared not wait any longer and directly used the Thunderous Evil-Slaying Talisman on him.

"You dare to bring out a mere talisman? Holy crap! A third-tier Thunderous Evil-Breaking Talisman!" Du Qing, who had been quite calm at first, was instantly shocked when he saw the surge of lightning.

It's no wonder Du Qing was careless; who would have thought that a cultivator at the seventh level of Qi Refining would possess a third-tier talisman?

Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately used his own magical artifact to defend himself.

A bronze umbrella appeared overhead first, but this precious artifact could only withstand the lightning for a moment before it was quickly reduced to dust by the lightning's attack.

Next came a breastplate, which shattered in an instant.

A large shield, a golden bowl, and three silver swords combined could not withstand the attack of the thunder, which finally struck Du Qing's armored body.

Even though the thunder's energy was greatly weakened, it still annihilated Du Qing, leaving not even his storage ring intact.

Those three top-tier second-order demonic beasts known for their defense, the Bone-Eating Beasts, were almost killed even after sharing the thunder's attack, not to mention Du Qing, who was in the mid-Foundation Establishment stage.

After Du Qing's death, Lu Yan did not dare to stay any longer and continued to flee towards Fuyue City.

The people in the city were completely unaware of this, and all thought that a Foundation Establishment cultivator could easily defeat a Qi Refining Stage 7 cultivator.

It wasn't until the next morning that Du Qing's family noticed something was wrong and went out to search. They only found some fragments of treasures in the woods, and then they realized that Du Qing had met with misfortune.

Du Qing's death shocked many cultivators, who all regarded Lu Yan as a cunning old fox pretending to be weak.

Meanwhile, Lu Yan had already arrived in Fuyue City after eliminating several waves of Tribulation Cultivators.

Find an inn to stay in, check your third-tier talismans. After using up the Thunderous Evil-Breaking Talisman, you only have four Mystic Light Talismans and three Thunderous Evil-Breaking Talismans left. You'll have to use them sparingly in the future.

Lu Yan took out the Azure Smoke Jade Soul Pendant and began to refine it, taking seven days to successfully refine it.

It has to be said that refining a magical artifact during the Qi Refining stage is still somewhat of a stretch. Not only does it consume a lot of mana, but it also doesn't allow one to unleash the full potential of the artifact.

However, the effect of the jade soul pendant warming and protecting his soul was remarkable. Combined with the top-quality magic artifacts he had purchased, he felt much more at ease resting every day.

After dealing with the matter of the magical artifact, Lu Yan began purchasing pills and medicinal herbs that could affect the soul.

Like Wuyou City and Tieyuan City, the truly good items only appear at auctions.

Lu Yan only bought a few first-grade high-level pills, Soul Warming Pills, from the Pill Pavilion. These pills can enhance the power of the soul. Although the effect is not as good as the Soul Origin produced by the Ghost Word Turntable, it can accumulate little by little.

Then Lu Yan bought the formula for the Soul Warming Pill and a large amount of medicinal materials, which cost him a lot of spirit stones.

With the Fuyue City Auction still half a month away, Lu Yan began learning how to refine the Soul Warming Pill.

Three days later, Lu Yan successfully refined the first pill. From then on, Lu Yan began to refine and consume five pills a day.

The quality of the pills improved from low grade to mid grade, and then to high grade, and Lu Yan's spiritual power also gradually increased.

……

On the day of the auction.

There were far more cultivators in the venue than at the Night Breeze Auction in Tieyuan City.

I overheard the discussion among the nearby cultivators, including one in the late Foundation Establishment stage.

This trip to the auction was like pulling teeth from a tiger's mouth; it's uncertain whether the Thunderous Evil-Slaying Talisman can eliminate it.

"Uncle-Master, Senior Sisters, hurry up and follow." Lu Yan had just sat down when he heard a familiar voice.

I turned my head and saw an eleven or twelve-year-old girl running into the auction.

Lu Yan would never forget her appearance, not even in death. It was when she first ran away naked that she was holding a sword, ready to cut down his little sixth brother.

The second time he was naked, he encountered her and a group of female cultivators again, and she chased and attacked him again, seemingly having a grudge against his sixth brother.

Lu Yan guiltily pressed down his straw hat, afraid that she would see it.

Then a dozen or so pretty female cultivators entered, surrounding a melancholy-looking young male cultivator. Their cultivation was above Foundation Establishment, so he must be the senior uncle she mentioned.

They didn't stay on the first floor, but went straight to the second floor.

Seeing Qing Huazhou's worried expression in the private room on the second floor, Zhao Jinmian advised, "Uncle Qing, there's no need to worry too much. We have already laid a tight net in Wuyou City and several nearby cities. As soon as Lu Liuyi appears, we will capture him immediately."

"Sigh~ We've been searching for months now, but we still haven't found any trace of him. I guess he's already fled far away. The Great Yan is so big, if he's determined to hide, how easy is it to find him?" Qing Huazhou sighed helplessly.

"Can't the Supreme Elder make an exception?" Zhao Jinmian asked.

"My father's place~" Speaking of his father, Qing Huazhou, he recalled the scene when he was sent here.

……

"Get lost, damn it! That beast Lu Liu actually laid a hand on my precious daughter! When I find him, I will tear him apart, skin him alive, and grind his bones to dust!" Qingmei Su cursed Lu Liu with extreme rage.