Atop Hundred Medicines Peak, just as Zhou Chun was observing the various Spiritual Medicine seedlings in the Medicine Garden, contemplating the lack of foundations in some aspects of the Zhou Family.
A young man clad in a cyan-grey robe suddenly emerged from the palace hall in front.
The young man was slightly shorter than Zhou Chun, about one meter seventy-eight, with a complexion darkened and reddened from long periods near a furnace, resembling an ironsmith from the secular world.
After coming out from the palace hall, he greeted Zhou Chun with a smile and waved, saying, "Junior Brother Thirteen, the teacher already knows the purpose of your visit, come and pay your respects to him with me."
Zhou Chun heard this and promptly responded with folded hands in thanks, "I appreciate the trouble, Brother Six."
It turned out that this young man was also a disciple of the "Zheng" generation of the Zhou Family, ranked sixth and named Zhou Zhengyuan, who had been learning the art of Alchemy under the Great Elder Zhou Mingshan for eight years.
Therefore, despite his unremarkable appearance, his status within the Zhou Family was quite high, not even inferior to some core clan members.
At that moment, Zhou Chun followed Zhou Zhengyuan into the palace hall, and soon arrived at a hall where he met the Great Elder of the Zhou Family, Zhou Mingshan.
Since his lifespan was almost at its end, Zhou Mingshan looked like an old man in his advanced years, with white hair and a face full of wrinkles, exuding an air of old age.
After Zhou Chun entered and paid his respects, Zhou Mingshan merely gave the young descendant a cursory glance and spoke with a gentle tone, "Since the Clan Leader has ordered you to take medicine, I shall naturally comply with the Clan Leader's command."
He then turned to the attending Zhou Zhengyuan and instructed, "Zhengyuan, go fetch the medicine for him."
"As you command, Elder."
Zhou Zhengyuan complied, immediately going to the pharmacy behind and fetching a bottle of Spring Sun Pill and three bottles of Beast Spirit Pill, handing them to Zhou Chun.
As such, once Zhou Chun took the Elixirs and verified them to be correct on the spot, Zhou Mingshan waved his hand, signaling that he could leave.
However, Zhou Chun, as if he hadn't seen his gesture, carefully stored away the Elixirs and then bowed deeply to him once more, saying, "Elder, please discern, I have a Spiritual Object here which I would like to ask the Elder to help appraise."
Hearing Zhou Chun's words, Zhou Mingshan's eyebrows twitched, but he did not refuse. Instead, he looked at him and said indifferently, "Oh, what kind of Spiritual Object? Bring it out for me to see."
"It is a century-old Spirit Ginseng, acquired from the possession of a Bandit Cultivator."
Zhou Chun said, taking out the Wild Ginseng he had previously bought from a stall at the Hongya Marketplace.
He had always intended to wait until he had a chance to visit the Marketplace again to sell this item.
However, the encounter at Wild Wolf Ridge made Zhou Chun realize that he needed to enhance his cultivation level as quickly as possible.
In the Cultivation World, nowhere was safe. With insufficient cultivation level and strength, simply leaving the house could cost one their life.
Therefore, it was best to make use of whatever could be converted quickly to enhance one's strength as soon as possible.
Receiving the Wild Ginseng passed over by Zhou Zhengyuan, Zhou Mingshan examined it for a moment and then nodded gently, "Hmm, the quality is not bad. It seems to be over a hundred and thirty years old and can completely be used as the main ingredient for crafting Spring Sun Pills."
Only a hundred and thirty years old?
Zhou Chun felt a tinge of disappointment in his heart.
He would not doubt Zhou Mingshan's judgment, so it must have been the old man from the stall who had exaggerated the age of the ginseng.
But such was common practice in the Cultivation World. Sellers at market stalls could boast without consequences and were not responsible for their exaggerations.
Buying at a market stall truly tested the buyer's eye—if one was mistaken, it would mean a total loss.
The Wild Ginseng Zhou Chun had purchased, though not a fake, was less effective than the seller had claimed. All things considered, he was still at an advantage.
After a brief moment of disappointment, he quickly regained his spirits and looked at Zhou Mingshan, saying, "Elder, I would like to offer this item to the clan. I wonder if the Elder would be willing to exchange it for Elixirs?"
Zhou Mingshan pondered for a moment, then nodded slightly, "A century-old Spirit Ginseng would fetch about sixty or more Spirit Coins in the market. One Spring Sun Pill is valued at twenty Spirit Coins. If exchanged for Elixirs, I can give you three Spring Sun Pills in return."
He did not further inquire about Zhou Chun's acquisition of the Wild Ginseng.
This left Zhou Chun, who had prepared several reasons, feeling both frustrated and elated.
"Then I shall thank the Elder in advance."
Zhou Chun expressed his gratitude with a bow and immediately agreed to the exchange.
Not long after, Zhou Chun said his farewells to the master and disciple, Zhou Mingshan and Zhou Zhengyuan, and returned to Baozhi Peak.
Back in his residence, Zhou Chun immediately took out the Elixirs he had received.
There were five pills in a bottle of Spring Sun Pills, and he had exchanged the Wild Ginseng for three more, making it eight pills in total.
One bottle of Beast Spirit Pills contained ten pellets, so three bottles amounted to thirty pellets.
Zhou Chun had previously fed the Beast Spirit Pills to the Rock Earth Turtle and knew how to administer them for maximum effect.
Thus, he directly fed the Rock Earth Turtle three Beast Spirit Pills at once and let it enter a dormant state to slowly absorb the medicinal strength.
He himself entered the cultivation chamber and took out a Spring Sun Pill to consume.
The thumb-sized yellowish-brown elixir had a faint taste of honey and herbal medicine as it filled his mouth.
Zhou Chun swallowed the pill that had not yet dissolved, silently circulating the cultivation technique of the Five Qi Chaoyang Scripture, refining the medicinal power.
This refinement gave off a completely different sensation than the usual meditative practice.
Normally, when channeling nature's spiritual energy during meditation, the spiritual energy seemed abundant like cotton candy, but after refinement, the amount that could be transformed into usable spiritual power was very little.
However, the pure medicinal power contained in the Spring Sun Pill was dense like mercury, of high quality, and very easy to absorb and refine.
It took about three days for Zhou Chun to completely refine the medicinal power of a single Spring Sun Pill.
And it was this one Spring Sun Pill that saved him two to three months of cultivation time and helped him break through an acupoint.
The potent efficacy of the pill left Zhou Chun both shocked and delighted.
He seemed to have discovered a shortcut for rapidly increasing his cultivation level!
"No wonder out of the four great cultivation techniques, elixirs rank first!"
"If one disregards the special nature of the Spirit Cleansing Formation, the role of elixirs is indeed far more important than magic artifacts, talismans, and formations for cultivators!"
Zhou Chun couldn't help but speak out, gaining a deeper understanding of the importance of elixirs.
But as good as elixirs are, one must not overindulge.
As the saying goes, all medicine has its poison, and even though elixirs can save cultivators a lot of meditative practice time, even the most skilled alchemists cannot completely remove the toxic residues in elixirs.
Therefore, cultivators generally would not dare to take pills in quick succession within a short period of time, even if, like Zhou Chun, they obtained a good quantity of elixirs, in order to avoid cumulative poisoning causing irreparable harm to their bodies.
According to the research and experiments of senior cultivators, for elixirs like the Spring Sun Pill suitable for Qi Refinement mid and late-stage cultivators, a mid-stage Qi Refinement cultivator taking one every one or two months would not have to worry about the harm of medicinal toxicity.
Therefore, even though Zhou Chun still had seven Spring Sun Pills, he did not continue to take more.
On the other hand, Beast Taming Spirit Pets seemed to have very little concern in this aspect, probably due to the Demon Beast's robust physique and their path of bloodline ascension, which gave them a much greater capacity to eliminate toxins than human cultivators.
After several more days passed, Zhou Chun found some free time and went to Flying Rock Peak.
This time, his visit to Flying Rock Peak was not to read books in the Book Collection Tower, but to specifically pay respects to Zhou Daoquan, one of the three Elders of the Zhou Family.
The three Elders of the Zhou Family each have their own unique expertise.
The Great Elder, Zhou Mingshan, was adept in alchemy, and most of the Zhou Family's elixirs were produced by him.
The second Elder, Zhou Chongshan, was skilled in formation arrays, having studied under a Purple Mansion Phase Cultivator from the Mu Family, and had personally set up the Mountain Protection Array and the Spirit Cleansing Formation for the Zhou Family.
The third Elder, Zhou Daoquan, inherited the Zhou Family's Beast Taming Technique and his attainments in Beast Taming were on par with the Supreme Elder, Zhou Mingde, fostering two second-order spirit pets all by himself.
As for the Clan Leader, Zhou Daoyi, it was said that he also possessed a decent talent in Talisman Making, and his accomplishments in Beast Taming were only slightly behind the third Elder, Zhou Daoquan.
Zhou Chun was visiting Flying Rock Peak this time to ask for Zhou Daoquan's help in examining the mysterious serpent egg he had obtained from the Mu Family to see if this master of Beast Taming knew anything about the egg.
"Oh, something this peculiar? Bring out that serpent egg for me to see," said Zhou Daoquan after meeting Zhou Chun and hearing about the purpose of his visit, showing a surprise he could hardly contain, and immediately asked to see the egg.
"Elder, please take a look," Zhou Chun said, and with a pat on his storage pouch, he took out the jade box containing the serpent egg and presented it with both hands to Zhou Daoquan.
Zhou Daoquan took the serpent egg into his hands, first closing his eyes to scan it with his Divine Sense, then forming spells with his hands; he used a series of secret techniques—some of which Zhou Chun recognized and some he did not—attempting to probe and identify the serpent egg.
"How strange, this really is the first time I'm encountering such an oddity!" Zhou Daoquan said with his brows tightly furrowed, looking at the egg in his hands before saying to Zhou Chun, "This serpent egg indeed carries great research value. If you agree, leave it with me for research and testing."
"If I can figure out how to hatch it, I will naturally let you come and form a contract with it."
"If my research causes any damage to it, I'll compensate you with five hundred Spirit Coins. What do you think?"
Zhou Chun, of course, would not refuse such an offer.
He immediately agreed, "Elder, please feel free to conduct your research. I have no objections whatsoever."
Zhou Daoquan was satisfied with his answer and nodded, "Well then, you may leave now. Once there are results, I will inform you."
"Yes, this junior takes his leave."
After bowing, Zhou Chun promptly left Flying Rock Peak.