I proved immortality with thunder magic.

The fact that a Foundation Establishment cultivator would give a pill that could enhance one's cultivation and magical power as a gift upon first meeting showed Zhou Tai the generosity of such a cultivator.

He's no longer a clueless newbie. In the past few years, whether it's communicating with other miscellaneous disciples or reading in the library during his holidays, he has gained a certain understanding of the basic price system in the cultivation world.

He had just heard about the price and efficacy of the ginseng and qi-boosting pills that Yang Jinsheng gave him.

As far as he knew, these elixirs were priced by the pill, with each pill worth five low-grade spirit stones, and a bottle usually contained seven pills.

In other words, the gift Yang Jinsheng gave him was worth thirty-five low-grade spirit stones.

He had worked at the Golden Flower Ranch for three years, and the sect contribution points he received each year were only ten points, which was equivalent to ten low-grade spirit stones.

After receiving the pills, he was so excited that he immediately knelt down and kowtowed to express his gratitude.

After encouraging him again, Yang Jinsheng had Qi Yuntao take him away first.

"Junior Brother Zhou, you can see how much Uncle Yang values ​​you. You must work hard from now on and not let Uncle Yang down."

In the mountains and forests, Qi Yuntao led Zhou Tai around to familiarize himself with the environment of Leihe Peak, while also giving him words of advice and encouragement.

Zhou Tai knew that he was one of the people Qi Yuntao had brought up the mountain. If he did well, Qi Yuntao would probably gain face with Yang Jinsheng, which was why he was so concerned.

However, what the other party said was indeed reasonable, so he nodded repeatedly without getting annoyed and said, "Of course, it is a blessing for Junior Brother to meet Uncle Yang. Only by doing his best to do things well can he repay Uncle Yang's kindness."

"It's best that you have this understanding."

Qi Yuntao smiled with satisfaction, quite pleased with his answer.

Next, Zhou Tai followed Qi Yuntao to familiarize himself with the environment on Leihe Peak, and also met the other miscellaneous disciples, becoming acquainted with them.

Although Leihe Peak is Yang Jinsheng's cave dwelling and dojo, it doesn't mean that everything on the mountain belongs to him. Many spiritual herbs and trees planted on the mountain, as well as the demonic beasts raised here, belong to the Spirit Beast Mountain. Therefore, there are always servant disciples assigned here to take care of them.

However, Zhou Tai was a private servant whom he had specially requested using his inner disciple privileges; all he had to do was work for him.

Therefore, Zhou Tai's task afterward was to specifically help him raise the Thunder-Patterned Frog, a type of demonic beast.

Under Qi Yuntao's guidance, Zhou Tai soon encountered the Thunder-Patterned Frogs.

These frog-like monsters were being kept in a mountain stream. There were only about thirty of them, and most of them were low-grade first-tier monsters.

According to Qi Yuntao, these Thunder-Patterned Frogs were not native to Spirit Beast Mountain. Yang Jinsheng found and captured them from outside and raised them. They were unique in the entire Spirit Beast Mountain and were therefore highly valued.

The reason Yang Jinsheng went to great lengths to find this monster was to cultivate it into his own spirit pet.

As a veteran Foundation Establishment cultivator who has been at the Foundation Establishment stage for many years, Yang Jinsheng possesses a rare Blue-feathered Thunder Crane spirit pet, which he has already cultivated to the second tier.

Once the Blue-feathered Thunder Crane reaches the second tier, it can reproduce.

Although there are many demonic birds and beasts in Spirit Beast Mountain, there is only one Blue-feathered Thunder Crane.

Yang Jinsheng couldn't find another male Blue-crowned Crane to breed with, so he wanted to crossbreed other heron species with the Blue-crowned Crane.

Yes, although the Blue-feathered Thunder Crane is named "Crane", it is actually a kind of heron-like magical bird. It is called Crane only because Crane sounds better.

In short, Yang Jinsheng's idea was not wrong, but the Blue-feathered Thunder Crane was not willing, and according to the experience of predecessors, the offspring born from such hybridization would not have a high probability of possessing the Thunder attribute.

Because for both human cultivators and demon beasts, lightning is a relatively rare power compared to the other five elements.

However, based on the experience of Spirit Beast Mountain, if female lightning-attribute monsters can frequently eat other lightning-attribute monsters or spirit objects when breeding offspring, the chances of their offspring inheriting their lightning attribute will increase significantly.

So Yang Jinsheng went to great lengths to find the Thunder-Patterned Frog, a type of heron-like demonic bird that it loved to eat, hoping to use it to lure the Blue-Feathered Thunder Crane into mating with other heron-like demonic birds and laying Blue-Feathered Thunder Crane eggs.

Of course, as a rare lightning-attribute monster, the Thunder Frog also possesses other considerable value.

For example, its outer skin is an excellent material for making lightning-attribute magic talismans and is quite valuable. Frog eyes can be used in medicine and alchemy, and it also tastes very delicious.

In Zhou Tai's view, if the scale of breeding this kind of monster could be expanded, Yang Jinsheng would essentially have an inexhaustible gold mine in his hands in the future.

For this gold mine to truly take shape, this cultivator who has mastered lightning-attribute magic is clearly indispensable.

This made him unable to help but have some optimistic thoughts about his future.

Driven by this optimistic vision for the future, Zhou Tai was very serious and dedicated when learning about raising the Rat-striped Frog. Even Qi Yuntao praised him several times for his excellent attitude.

That day, after returning home from the habitat of the Thunder Frog, Zhou Tai rested for a while and then took out the bottle of Ginseng Spirit Qi-Boosting Pill from his storage bag.

He bought his storage bag from the Wang family, or rather, it was practically a gift, costing him forty low-grade spirit stones.

The internal volume of this object is about five feet square, and it can hold quite a lot of things.

After taking out the jade bottle containing the elixir, Zhou Tai immediately pulled out the stopper, poured out a pill, put it in his mouth, and then put the jade bottle back in its place.

Next, Zhou Tai calmed his mind and meditated, refining the spiritual energy released by the pill.

The spiritual energy released by this pill is extremely pure and can be converted into any type of spiritual energy for absorption. Therefore, any cultivator who refines it can improve their magical power cultivation.

Of course, due to the quality of spiritual energy, only cultivators in the early and middle stages of Qi Refining will experience a more significant increase in cultivation after refining it.

Zhou Tai cultivated for two hours, but only managed to refine 30% of the spiritual power contained in the elixir. The remaining spiritual power remained in his body and could be refined slowly later.

Even if he only refined 30%, the effect of this training was comparable to his usual seven or eight days of arduous cultivation.

"So, this one elixir is equivalent to more than twenty days of my cultivation on Thunder Crane Peak, and one bottle of elixir can save me the effort of four or five months of arduous training?"

Zhou Tai murmured to himself, his eyes filled with delight.

He had only heard that pills could quickly improve one's cultivation level, but none of the menial disciples he had come into contact with could explain the specifics.

Because most of the menial disciples would not be willing to spend spirit stones to buy this kind of pill.

For most ordinary disciples, the contribution points and spirit stones they painstakingly accumulate are all used to help them advance to the outer sect disciple level.

To be promoted to an outer disciple, one must not only have a cultivation level of at least the late stage of Qi Refining, but also possess a powerful magic weapon or a powerful demonic beast or spirit pet.

Whether it's magical artifacts or demonic beasts and spirit pets, they all require hundreds or even thousands of low-grade spirit stones, which is a huge expense. Many menial disciples need to save for twenty or thirty years to afford them.

Under such circumstances, why would they be willing to use their hard-earned spirit stones on pills to improve their cultivation?

But Zhou Tai was different. His biggest worry was that he would not be able to cultivate to the ninth level of Qi Refining before the age of sixty and miss the opportunity to establish his foundation.

Now that he has discovered how effective the pills are at improving cultivation, he immediately became excited.

He murmured excitedly, "If... if I could take a bottle of elixir every year, it would be equivalent to having an extra six months of cultivation time. Wouldn't that make up for the thirty years I lost?"

The lost time cannot be retrieved, but the lost cultivation time can be made up for with elixirs.

Zhou Tai finally realized where his hope for Foundation Establishment lay.

However, after a period of excitement, he gradually calmed down and began to think rationally.

That's right, by taking the elixir, he has the opportunity to make up for the thirty years of lost cultivation time.

But where would the elixirs needed to make up for those thirty years of cultivation come from?

A bottle of Ginseng Spirit Qi-Boosting Pill costs thirty-five low-grade spirit stones, and it is only most effective for cultivators in the early stages of Qi Refining.

Once he reaches the mid-stage of Qi Refining, to achieve the same level of cultivation as he does now, he will have to take even more expensive pills. At that time, he might have to spend hundreds of low-grade spirit stones a year, or even more!

How could a menial disciple like him have so many spirit stones?

Now, all he has left is the two hundred and sixty low-grade spirit stones he obtained through the "sperm-borrowing" transaction!

Thinking of this, Zhou Tai frowned, and his expression began to change unpredictably.

After a long silence, he clenched his fists, gazed resolutely out the window, and murmured, "I definitely need the pills, but until I can think of a way to reliably earn spirit stones, I can't easily use the spirit stones I have. Otherwise, if I don't even have the initial capital, all my methods of making money will be just empty talk!"

As a successful businessman, no one understands the importance of principal better than him.

His initial capital was hard-earned, and he would absolutely not use any low-grade spirit stones until he found another way to earn them.

However, after that day, Zhou Tai took even better care of the Thunder Frogs.

He knew very well that only by taking good care of those Thunder-Patterned Frogs and demonstrating his own value could he possibly receive more rewards from Yang Jinsheng, improve his status in the eyes of Qi Yuntao and other miscellaneous disciples on Leihe Peak, and have a chance to find a way to earn spirit stones.