Cultivation begins with harvest.

"It's a real pity that you're no longer refining pills, fellow Daoist," Cang Yunxian sighed. "If you're willing, our Fanglin Hall will purchase at least three days' worth of Crimson Fusion Pills."

"It is truly impossible to refine it," Chen Guang shook his head.

"Our Lintang also buys pills such as Qi Nourishing Pill and Tranquilizing Pill. If you are interested, you can sell them to our Lintang."

"No problem, no problem."

Chen Guang gave a perfunctory answer.

Both of these are methods to enhance one's cultivation level.

The Crimson Heart Pill Scroll is actually more inclined towards the "Living in Water" school of thought. It can also refine some pills from other schools of thought, but it is definitely not very good at them. Different types of pills require different basic techniques and processing of medicinal materials.

It's like saying some are bus drivers and some are two-wheeled electric vehicle drivers. There's no insurmountable gap between them, but in terms of professionalism, a long-term alchemist who lives by the water cannot be expected to have a satisfactory success rate and high quality when refining pills from other schools of thought.

Simply put, it means: you're definitely going to lose money.

An alchemist would naturally not be confined to one school of thought, but Chen Guang was only an apprentice alchemist. He was only proficient in this one school of alchemy, and in terms of his actual skill level, he could not be called "proficient".

The Long-Term Water-Dwelling School is a common school of thought in alchemy, which can be considered a basic type. One of its characteristics is that its function is biased towards a certain aspect, and its effect is a complex one. For example, the Crimson Fusion Pill is effective in the fire attribute, and its actual effect is an extension and change related to the fire attribute. However, its function is not singular, and it has effects such as avoiding cold and reducing the consumption of fire attribute mana.

Secondly, it can be refined quickly. Even without using magic to catalyze it, it can naturally release a relatively large proportion of medicinal power as soon as it enters the mouth.

This is not a characteristic unique to long-term water dwelling; high-grade elixirs all possess these properties, with Baopu and Guang taking this to the extreme.

"If I sell it to you, won't I just become a tool for alchemy? If I spend all my time refining pills and farming, what's the point of me cultivating?" Chen Guang thought to himself, and thus politely declined.

Chen Guang took a sip of tea before revealing his purpose: "I've come to purchase a defensive magical artifact, preferably an inner armor or one with cloud or light-like attributes."

In terms of defense, the inner armor and outer ring provide passive defense, requiring no distraction in operation.

Cloud and light-type defensive weapons are not very strong, but they are easy to operate, versatile, and fast. Their defensive coverage and diversity are quite outstanding. For a newcomer like Chen Guang, these two types of defensive magical artifacts can be fully utilized without needing to specifically control their precision.

Defensive magical artifacts such as shields, hoods, covers, umbrellas, rings, and mirrors can only exert two or three tenths of their defensive capabilities if the handling technique is not right. Zhong Qi and the other person advised that it would not be too late to decide whether to choose a more exquisite magical artifact after Chen Guang has experienced more than thirty battles of varying sizes.

Cang Yunxian's eyes flickered slightly, but she didn't ask anything. She simply took out two thick, exquisite books: "There are many types of defensive spiritual artifacts. Fellow Daoist, you might as well take them back and consider them carefully before making a decision. These books contain not only defensive spiritual artifacts, but also various unique spiritual artifacts, which are also treasures of my family."

"What you say is true, but now I want to see the corresponding type of spiritual weapon. I hope you can give me some guidance."

"Inner armor-type defensive magical artifacts have always been scarce, and they are all on pages 18 to 25 of the second volume; cloud-type ones are..."

Following Cang Yunxian's guidance, Chen Guang quickly found the corresponding page, calmed his mind, and began to read it carefully.

Perhaps because he was looking at things too closely and too slowly, Cang Yunxian was called away several times and replaced by a shopkeeper. Once Chen Guang made his decision, she could be called back if needed.

"call--"

After nearly an hour of looking at them, Chen Guang finally finished examining all three types of spiritual artifacts and made a decision.

"Can Your Excellency make a decision on the Golden Scale Armor, the Purple Jade Gourd, and the Thousand Bright Azure Flame Lamp?" Chen Guang announced three names that surprised the shopkeeper, each carrying more weight than the last.

"The second manager instructed that anything a customer asks for can be purchased," the manager said with a smile. "The Golden Scale Armor is worth 30,000 silver coins; the Purple Jade Gourd is worth 50,000 silver coins; and the Thousand Bright Azure Flame Lamp will cost 60,000 silver coins plus ten hundred-year-old spiritual herbs."

Ten century-old medicinal herbs...

Chen Guang was speechless.

The value of a low-grade spiritual weapon is usually between 800 and 5,000 taels of silver. For non-standard items, the value usually starts at 1,000 taels of silver.

Mid-grade spiritual artifacts start at 8,000 grains of rice, while non-standard ones mostly start at 10,000 grains of rice. Some superior spiritual artifacts are not simply traded in grains of rice, but are mixed with century-old spiritual herbs as a measure of value.

Chen Guang doesn't have a single plant left.

"Guests need not worry. The Thousand Bright Azure Flame Lamp can be traded for with Spirit Vein Pills. For every Spirit Vein Pill provided, the price of the Thousand Bright Azure Flame Lamp will be reduced by five thousand silver coins and the requirement of a hundred-year-old spiritual herb. This applies not only to the Thousand Bright Azure Flame Lamp but also to other spiritual artifacts that require a hundred-year-old spiritual herb," ​​the shopkeeper said politely.

Chen Guang asked, "Was this also ordered by your manager?"

The shopkeeper nodded: "Yes."

"No other pills are needed?" Chen Guang asked.

"These are the shopkeeper's orders, how could I change them on my own?" The shopkeeper remained honest and unassuming, but then lowered his voice, "However, I have heard that there are several kinds of pills that are as rare and expensive as the Spirit Vein Pill, so their values ​​are probably similar."

"So they're after my alchemy skills, but isn't this just casting a wide net and making empty promises? Because I don't currently possess the ability to refine pills of this grade."

The Thousand Bright Azure Flame Lamp truly tempted Chen Guang. Although it was a mid-grade offensive spiritual weapon, and its full power would inevitably be unleashed in his hands, it did not diminish his desire for it.

Chen Guang no longer felt any repulsion or apprehension about demonstrating his alchemy skills.

There's no need to use the word "expose" anymore; instead, it's about "showing off." On the surface, he had refined nearly three hundred pills in fifteen days. This number wasn't exaggerated, but it wasn't mediocre either, which is why it attracted some extra attention from the Cang Clan.

Only by displaying talent can one receive cultivation.

Although it's a good thing, Cang Yunxian really dared to mention the [Spirit Vein Pill].

It requires more than one kind of century-old spiritual medicine, up to six pieces, to enable a cultivator to open up all the acupoints and meridians, making the physique closer to a transparent body. Its value is self-evident.

However, this also makes it extremely difficult to refine and requires expensive materials.

Its school of thought belongs to the "Embracing Simplicity and Light" school, and its main focus is on using expensive medicinal materials to cultivate the best life force, which is not easy to refine.

As for pills of the same level, they are extremely rare and highly sought after among first-tier pills, and their value is more expensive than many second-tier pills.

"Please bring the Golden Scale Armor and the Purple Jade Gourd as well," Chen Guang said.

The shopkeeper brought both magical artifacts, which were packaged in exquisite jade boxes. After checking them and finding nothing amiss, Chen Guang accepted the artifacts, exchanged a few polite words, handed them over to Sui Yuan, and left.

The spells and magical artifacts are almost ready. If I had to say what I'm missing, it's some healing and mana-replenishing pills and a cheap, portable magical artifact.

Chen Guang planned to study the Crimson Heart Pill Scroll and then select one from it to refine. As for escape-type spiritual artifacts, they were not easy to control. Simple flying spiritual artifacts were fine, but Chen Guang required a spiritual artifact that could provide efficient mobility in battle. This required a lot of special practice. His winter training plan was already full, so he would put it aside for this year.

Back at the branch, she first retrieved the Thousand Needle Wren and took good care of it before opening the two boxes containing spiritual artifacts under the radiance of the moon's glow.

The Golden Scale Armor, once unfurled, instantly filled the courtyard with a chilling aura. The inner armor, gleaming with golden light and resembling snake scales, was neatly folded and placed in a jade box. Upon closer inspection, it seemed to resemble the skin shed by a snake. The craftsmanship was astonishing.

As he refined the Golden Scale Armor, he mastered each of its intricate patterns. He sensed that the armor was inscribed with several metal-attribute defensive spells, making it exceptionally effective against attacks on the material level and also quite effective against magical attacks.

As the inner armor, it is the last line of defense. Its weakness is that it has no active protection capability, and the parts exposed outside the inner armor are completely unprotected.

Chen Guang opened another box, which could be easily handled with one hand. It was like a purple jade stone, but with a slightly transparent appearance.

It can be hung at the waist. It is also a spiritual artifact with dense patterns. With a thought, a large amount of thick purple mist, thick enough to isolate divine sense, will surge out. Although it isolates divine sense, it is not very effective against Qi Refining cultivators. Apart from spiritual cultivators, no matter how strong the divine soul of other cultivators is, they have no means to release their divine sense. It only takes three breaths to cover the whole body and spread outwards. When it reaches a distance of five zhang, the mist stops spreading.

I tried using a cotton fire needle, and although it looked like mist, it was like a high wall. The cotton fire needle could only penetrate about two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters) before it started to sway.

Considering that the Fire Needle is a low-grade spiritual weapon, and the Purple Jade Gourd takes about ten breaths to extend it to a length of ten feet, I felt relieved.

These two things are definitely enough to support their defense.