Cultivation Pills

Lin Feng watched incredulously as Zhou Yunfei was given a tour and taken into the back rooms. He was beginning to regret talking to Yang Xinhe. He seemed to have taken it as carte blanche to act however he wanted.

Lin Feng shook his head and stood up. According to the new customer, the road should have made enough progress now to start drawing in more customers. He figured he would go check it out.

Walking outside, the valley had changed.

When Lin Feng had first arrived, it was an untamed wilderness. His only shelter was an old rundown house and the shopping mall itself. Now, much of the valley was cleared of trees.

Mei's attack had burned many of them down, and the workers sent by the Yan Dynasty had cleared even more. Where once the trees covered the valley, they were now relegated to dense woods on either side of the wide road coming into the valley and leading to the shopping mall. Once you reached deeper into the valley and got closer to the shopping mall, the trees fully disappeared.

Thankfully, vegetation had begun to regrow around the shopping mall. It had been quite desolate immediately following the battle.

Now, there was finally some grass and shrubbery growing on the ground, and the earth no longer looked so much like baked clay.

Of the original courtyard house, the only things left were the towering stone lions that once stood outside the door. No longer covered in moss and ivy, they had an intimidating regal appearance. The workers had repaired them as best as they could, recarving much of the detail they had lost over the years.

In all their restored glory, the lions made of now-blackened stone guarded the end of the road and stood in front of the shopping mall.

The building around the shopping mall entrance itself was not rebuilt as it was before. Lin Feng had decided that a courtyard house wasn't welcoming enough toward customers.

He had asked the workers to build a large open-air pavilion similar in style to the Greco-Roman architecture of the main room. It wasn't an exact match. He didn't want it to be quite so imposing, and the stone was a gray slate rather than an austere white.

There was a flat roof held up on relatively small pillars upon an unraised stone foundation. Truthfully, perhaps the only thing reminiscent of the architecture of the shopping mall's main room were the pillars themselves. The outside pavilion was quite understated.

Lin Feng walked between the two stone lions and down the newly constructed road. Walking right up to the limit of his one-thousand pace range, he looked into the distance.

The mountain pass had been dug into and the ground leveled. Nearly everything in the road's way had been moved or built straight through. Cultivators were unexpectedly good at large construction projects and moving vast amounts of earth. There was little need for construction equipment when many of the workers were strong enough to do it themselves.

With the ground leveled and everything out of the way, Lin Feng could see straight down and out of the mountain range. It was only a distance of a few miles, looking to be cutting through five or six small valleys like this one, but it was far enough to imprison Lin Feng.

At this point, most of the demonic beasts in the immediate area were taken care of. The road and the construction crews were guarded by imperial soldiers that killed any that showed up. If Lin Feng wanted to leave, now would be a perfect time. Once construction was fully finished, the demonic beasts may start encroaching on the road again.

Lin Feng took one step forward toward the exit of the valley. Immediately, he felt all his strength leave his body and Lin Feng gasped as his vision swam.

After staying in the shopping mall for so long, being reduced back to his normal strength was extremely disorienting.

Lin Feng hurriedly took a step backward and sighed as strength filled his body again.

He stood there for some time debating on whether he should leave now that the road was built, but without the system's protection he felt naked.

"If I meet those imperial officials outside of the shopping mall, will they still show me so much respect? Or will they take the chance to take revenge for Yu Qingwei and the Duke's family?"

Lin Feng opened up his system menu and navigated to the Spirit Crystal Store.

Before, he had been a bit dismissive of the idea of converting spirit crystals directly into cultivation, but now he saw some value in it.

He had been reluctant to try it out after having questions about the system's motivations and origin, but maybe it didn't matter. He could only rely on the system if he wanted to survive in this world. Was there any point in questioning whether or not it was safe to use it? He was already using it every day.

Lin Feng decisively converted one of his forty-three spirit crystals into a glowing blue cultivation pill and swallowed it before he could change his mind.

He didn't feel anything.

When he looked at the system menu again, the cultivation base stat had been updated.

[Cultivation base: First Stage of the Qi Gathering Realm]

Lin Feng was now officially a cultivator according to the system.

Stepping outside of the thousand-pace range once again, Lin Feng immediately stepped back. It didn't feel any different.

"I guess… The first stage is too minuscule for it to make much of a difference. I should probably be at the Nascent Soul Realm at a minimum if I want to ensure my safety."

Lin Feng converted another spirit crystal into a pill and swallowed it.

Nothing happened. His cultivation base didn't change.

Lin Feng converted another spirit crystal into a pill and swallowed it again.

Still nothing.

Lin Feng narrowed his eyes and directly converted seventeen spirit crystals into one cultivation pill, leaving him with twenty-three spirit crystals. The pill that appeared in his hand was glowing much brighter than the ones he had made before. Lin Feng swallowed this new pill and the system finally updated again.

[Cultivation base: Second Stage of the Qi Gathering Realm]

"Is it twenty per stage? That's not too bad if it's true."

Lin Feng converted his remaining twenty-three spirit crystals into another cultivation pill and swallowed it.

He was still in the Second Stage.

"…Or an increasing amount of spirit crystals per stage." Lin Feng sighed. "This is going to take a while."

——

Zhang Fei froze when Lin Feng walked back into the shopping mall. He had never been able to discern Lin Feng's cultivation before. Ostensibly because it was so much higher than his own. Now, he could suddenly sense that Lin Feng was at the Second Stage of the Qi Gathering Realm, which was clearly impossible.

Yang Xinhe, who was standing next to him, was similarly shocked.

"This… must be Senior Lin's kindness to low-level cultivators. He's trying to say that no one, no matter their cultivation, can be bullied within the Immortal Shopping Mall."

"Or this is just Senior Lin's entertainment. Maybe he wants some fool to offend him, not knowing how strong he is. Doesn't he complain about how boring it is out here quite often?"

Yang Xinhe was silent. He didn't want to agree with Zhang Fei, and he didn't dare bad mouth Lin Feng, but he felt that this was more likely.

From this, it could be seen that Lin Feng had a truly wicked reputation among the customers. He had only killed two people who had attacked Mei first, but it had been so shocking that rumors of Lin Feng's wicked temper had become commonplace.

"We have to take special care in making sure everyone knows about this. No one can be allowed to offend Senior Lin."

For the first time, Zhang Fei and Yang Xinhe agreed on something.