Taoist cultivation begins with being a miner

After writing more than a dozen lines, Lu Yan's spiritual energy was exhausted. He picked up a spirit stone to replenish his energy, and then Steward Li took over to continue writing.

"Damn it, how did Old Liu's partner know I lived here? I specifically chose a secluded courtyard, and they still managed to find me. I'm truly impressed."

"I was up all night again yesterday, and when I woke up this morning my eyes were blurry, and I felt like my soul was about to leave my body. I felt like I had no will to live."

"..."

"Ouch! Help! Someone will die if this continues! This isn't a little vixen, she's a ferocious beast! I've never seen a female cultivator like this before!"

"..."

"After much deliberation, for the sake of my own life, I've decided to move again."

Lu Yan: ...

The entertainment industry is truly chaotic.

……

The next day.

Lu Yan continued feeding chickens and mining, living a simple and frugal life.

It wasn't until the tenth day that the spiritual energy inside the egg-laying rooster was fully stored.

That night, Lu Yan hid inside the house and began to let the rooster that laid eggs incubate the spirit eggs.

The rooster paced back and forth on its bed, perhaps feeling embarrassed, and it wasn't until half an hour later that it laid the spirit egg.

Mid-grade spirit stones and low-grade spirit stones have different colors. Low-grade spirit stones are bluish-white, while mid-grade spirit stones are emerald green.

The quality and quantity of spiritual energy within a spirit stone are far superior to those of a low-grade spirit stone.

After obtaining the spirit egg, Lu Yan quickly retrieved the rooster that laid the egg into the system and began to cultivate diligently.

With the help of mid-grade spirit stones, the cultivation speed is extraordinary, and the cultivation level increases rapidly as seen by the naked eye.

A mere fifteen minutes is equivalent to several days of hard training in the past.

Lu Yan was also engrossed in it, absorbing the spiritual power from the mid-grade spirit stone without moving.

However, this situation only lasted for less than two hours before Lu Yan's dantian and meridians began to swell and feel painful.

In order not to harm his body, Lu Yan had to stop cultivating and start resting.

This is the predicament of cultivators with poor aptitude. Their meridians and dantian are far less resilient and stronger than those of cultivators with good aptitude, resulting in slower cultivation speed and a lower daily cultivation limit.

This demonstrates the benefits of elixirs; a common low-grade Spirit Gathering Pill costs ten spirit stones in the market.

Although the total amount of spiritual energy contained in the pill is less than that of a spirit stone, the pill is easy to absorb and digest, and the added medicinal materials can also soothe the swelling and pain in the meridians and prolong the cultivation time.

The next day, Lu Yan went to the market and bought fifty low-grade Spirit Nourishing Pills. He then used them with mid-grade spirit stones to improve his cultivation. The matter of making talismans had to be put on hold for the time being.

As a cultivator at the lowest level, no one cared what he did. Apart from the neighbors on both sides who occasionally remembered Lu Yan, everyone else had gradually forgotten about him.

Seventeen days passed in the blink of an eye. After digesting the forty-fifth Spirit Nourishing Pill, Lu Yan happily put down the mid-grade spirit stone in his hand, which still had most of its spiritual power remaining.

Finally, he broke through to the second level of Qi Refining, greatly increasing his spiritual power and making his body much stronger than before.

It wasn't easy; it took me two years to break through from the first level of Qi Refining to the second level.

This is only because of the low-grade Spirit Nourishing Pills and mid-grade spirit stones; otherwise, it would have been delayed for several more years, and by then the person would probably be twenty-four or twenty-five.

There can't be any mistakes during this period. There can't be any malicious people like Zhang Ming causing trouble, and there can't be any major injuries or illnesses in the body. Otherwise, it will have to be postponed.

In the neighborhood where Lu Yan lives, most cultivators break through to the second level of Qi Refining between the ages of twenty-five and thirty.

At this age, only reaching the second level of Qi Refining basically means there's not much of a future for him, and he won't amount to much in the future. He can only honestly continue mining.

If you're lucky, you can break through to the fourth level of Qi Refining before you turn fifty and find a relatively stable job to live a life of leisure.

If you're unlucky, you might work yourself to death in the mine when you get old. Lu Yan has seen quite a few people like that in the past two months.

They vanished from this world like fleeting clouds, and no one will remember them or grieve for them.

The following day, Lu Yan spent a day stabilizing his cultivation level before continuing to make talismans.

There was no need to learn the most basic talismans anymore, so Lu Yan directly tried the Giant Strength Talisman, Swiftness Talisman, Warning Talisman, Yang Talisman, and Miasma Avoidance Talisman.

It turned out to be more difficult than I had imagined, and it took me a whole day to barely manage to craft a Giant Strength Talisman.

These five types of talismans were still somewhat troublesome for Lu Yan.

However, after the first one was successfully made, the subsequent refining processes became much easier.

Lu Yan calculated that he could now refine seven to nine of these five types of talismans every day. After all, it would take some time to meditate and recover spiritual energy after refining them, and it would be too wasteful to use spirit stones to recover them.

Each card sells for ten spirit shards on the market, and costs two spirit shards at cost, meaning you can earn eight spirit shards per card.

If you work as a full-time talisman maker, you can refine talismans for about twenty days a month, and use the remaining ten days to sell them, cultivate, and do other miscellaneous things.

If we calculate eight sheets a day, that's about one hundred and sixty sheets in twenty days, which translates to a profit of nearly thirteen spirit stones per month.

However, nothing is absolute. With the current large number of cultivators, there are many first-level low-level talisman makers, making the competition extremely fierce.

Lu Yan's products are counterfeit and cannot be compared with the legitimate and guaranteed talismans in the store.

To sell them, you either need to lower the price or offer them as a free gift.

In this case, two of the thirteen spirit stones must be removed, leaving eleven.

The stall fee is also a considerable expense; after deducting one yuan, ten yuan is left.

Furthermore, having become a talisman maker, one must continue to learn and improve. The desire to learn and improve inevitably involves some waste. After deducting two spirit stones to purchase talisman paper and spirit ink, eight spirit stones remain.

These eight spirit stones were sold under the condition that the sale went smoothly; otherwise, there would have been even fewer.

I thought I could escape this misery after becoming a talisman maker, but it seems I'm still just a lowly beast of burden.

He simply went from being a manual laborer to a skilled worker.

If you can't see any future for yourself, you might as well just mine and wait for the rooster to lay eggs.

It's a pity that the spirit egg can't be taken out openly.

Despite his complaints, Lu Yan couldn't stop learning how to make talismans, so he continued his studies.

……

It's that exciting time of the month again for the lottery. I not only need all sorts of items, but I'm also in dire need of low-grade spirit stones. To buy pills, talismans, and spirit ink, I only have a few dozen spirit stones left.

As soon as the numbers on the lock were reset to zero, Lu Yan eagerly pressed the zigzag dial.

After a moment, the spinning wheel stopped, revealing seven spirit stones, a chrysanthemum, a bronze donkey, and a jade bottle.

Lu Yan first clicked on the chrysanthemum.

"Chrysanthemum Eye Cleanser (Disposable)"

A magical chrysanthemum, born of the earth, growing in the sky, blooming on the body, can grant the user the ability to see for an hour after use.

Friendly reminder: Eyelids are still eyes, so why can't they see? That's so unfair! I want to explore and research this!

I eventually succeeded.

Since I can see behind me, I can easily avoid being ambushed from behind when I run away.

But don't forget to wear open-crotch pants when using it!