Two years passed in a flash. Markus and Sarah excelled under their own private tutelage and reached the 9th layer of Qi condensing. Upon reaching the 10th layer they both had shared intentions of going down the mountain.
Hatzu on the other hand seemed a bit strange to his recently acquired companies, as he took every odd turn he could in life. Over two years he traveled from city to city acquiring plants, books, and even spiritual beast. After making large sums he would establish local trading houses. Eventually he used his profit to purchase more ships developing a network.
Books he had acquired many of, copies were easy to produces and easier to trade with rouge cultivators. Seeds and plants – young weak saplings especially – would have been the most common to follow.
Due to this Hatzu would ship books to several locations and plants to others. Building small greenhouses and libraries on the outskirts of minor cities or major trading post.
Unfortunately, unlike cultivators Hatzu was quite lacking in strength and often had to purchase spiritual animals. This led to him purchasing less desirable spiritual beast like bunnies and mice.
After two years he had bread countless spiritual beast, harvested several cores and sold just as many living beasts for spiritual stones.
In the end he traded every stone he had personally set aside to quire two medium grade common spirit beast and one high level beast. A fire fox, lightning sparrow and an ice bear cub.
Hatzu never looked sadder than that fateful day. Every mouse and core were fed to the sparrow and each rabbit fell to the fox. Soon they grew near equal in strength to the bear cub and Hatzu drew his blade.
In front of the entire crew he slaughtered all three animals pulling out a shinning core from each. One by one he ingested the cores and then sat down to cultivate.
Through rain or shine Hatzu sat motionless. After several days and nights, he rose looked to his hand and cursed aloud.