Ancient Strengthening Technique

AST 1335 – Scouting Jade Emperor Bees, Mutated Demonic Spider, Tianhe Country

Since Qing Shui knew the old man’s condition, he had the confidence of having things within his control. After all, the old man’s life was within his grasp. Earlier, he was still worried that Yehuang Clan would threaten him. Now, he knew that it was just a false alarm.

Unlike Qing Shui and Old Master Yehuang, everyone else was astonished. Old Master Yehuang’s words made it very clear. The Longevity Noodles were really effective. If that was the case, when one reached the end of their lifespan, they would be able to have at least an additional 50 years of lifespan if they were to have the Longevity Noodles.

In their current situation, 50 years was very short but when one reached the end of their lifespan, even five or ten years could be said to be extravagant, let alone wanting another 50 years. This was especially true when one still had unfulfilled wishes at the end of their lifespan.

Another thing was that Qing Shui had said that he would be able to attain a breakthrough in his medical skills within 50 years at most or possibly even within a couple of years if he was lucky. When that happened, he could increase one’s lifespan even further. Putting aside whether that was the truth, there would definitely be people from the Yehuang Clan who would try it out. Right now, what they needed to do was to think of ways to get into a good relationship with this Miraculous Physician.

Qing Shui didn’t bring the Jade Steamed Bun since it had been quite a while and many people had eaten it before. Furthermore, there were so many people today and he didn’t have so much of it.

Qing Shui’s aim was not to sell his buns. Selling of the buns was just a means. Therefore, it was impossible for him to sell it to everyone or to sell in large batches. Other than the Longevity Noodles, he also brought along a small vat of Plum Blossom Wine.

The Plum Blossom Wine once again kicked up a commotion, causing wine from the Imperial Cuisine Hall to spread throughout the Yehuang City within a short amount of time. However, it was still impossible for everyone to get to try it. Qing Shui’s plan was to rake up the reputation.

Old Master Yehuang was very happy. He hadn’t expected to be able to eat something so delicious and drink wine so great within his lifespan. Humans were born with the instincts for food and sex, with food being the most important thing. It went to show how important food was.

“Great wine. Does the Miraculous Physician still have a lot of it?” Old Master Yehuang seemed a little impolite when he asked this. Asking the person who had presented a gift to see if he had a lot of it was as if asking for gifts from the person.

“This wine requires too long a time to make. It is made from plum blossoms that are several thousand years of age and needs to be stored for several thousand years to get to this taste. It’s even harder to get hold of this than the Longevity Noodles.” Qing Shui didn’t say much more.

How could Old Master Yehuang not know this? Otherwise, with his status, he wouldn’t have been so impolite to ask this.

“I don’t have much but I can gift Old Master with two vats. One can get addicted on drinking too much of it. It’ll make it such that you won’t want to drink any other wine. Therefore, it’s better for you to drink less of it. After all, it’s not practical to be drinking it for your entire life.”

“Then I shall thank the Miraculous Physician. It’s about time, let’s start the feast!”

Everyone stood up to toast to Old Master Yehuang before they went on with their own activities. Some went to get closer to members of the Yehuang Clan, some pulled connections. It was also very lively around Qing Shui.

However, Qing Shui didn’t appear to get too close to anyone. Neither did he make himself appear too distant either. Right now, he requires prestige, to build up his prestige as a Miraculous Physician. With that, in the future, people who wished to lay their hands on him would all have to consider his reputation as a Miraculous Physician.

Qing Shui didn’t stay for long before he stood up and bade goodbye to the people from Yehuang Clan. The members of Yehuang Clan had tried hard to get him to stay but it was all formalities. Therefore, Qing Shui politely rejected them and left with Soulsearch. He couldn’t become friends with Yehuang Clan.

Other than Qing Shui, there weren’t many who could leave the banquet early. Unless they had important things to attend to, they would stay until the banquet ended. Powerful forces would make the weaker forces feel overwhelmed and honored just by appearing for a short moment at the latter’s birthday celebrations or at the opening of their trade associations. On the contrary, when weaker forces were to attend the celebrations for powerful forces, they would generally stay until the very end.

Old Master Yehuang was a Peak Martial Emperor existence. Although Qing Shui couldn’t sense his exact cultivation level, he knew that the Old Master wasn’t a False God cultivator. Even if there was a False God cultivator in the Yehuang Clan, the person wouldn’t be present.

Qing Shui didn’t know if Old Master Yehuang’s strength was at 300,000 suns, 500,000 suns or somewhere in between.

Thinking back on his own abilities, Qing Shui headed back to Qing Clan once. Right now, he had reached quite a high level of cultivation and most importantly, he had the identity of being a physician. With Qing Shui’s current abilities, it wouldn’t be much trouble for him even if he were to be dealing with a person who had a strength of 150,000 suns.

…

Time passed by quickly and another two months went by.

Everything went on smoothly during the two months but he didn’t attain any breakthroughs. His demonic beasts were still improving at a terrifying rate. Another pellet had appeared in Qing Shui’s Dantian, which was a result of the powers he had gotten from the Golden Scaled Dragon Elephant. Although it wasn’t much, it was still quite a good amount. Qing Shui was in no hurry to refine it either.

Within the past two months, what had made Qing Shui the happiest was that both the Treasure Hunting Pig and the Jade Emperor Queen Bee had both become Grade Three Spiritual Medicinal Beasts and the medicinal herbs in the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal were also growing at a tremendous rate. Qing Shui didn’t look at their age but only sensed their medicinal effects. It was fine if they had a good medicinal effect.

The Treasure Hunting Pig’s appearance hadn’t changed. It was still as cute as ever but its speed was now faster and its movements were sharper now. At the same time, the Jade Emperor Queen Bee had given birth to another batch of Jade Emperor Bees. However, this batch of Jade Emperor Bees were different from the ones before and had a strange spiritual Qi in their bodies. This gave Qing Shui the feeling that it should be related to the fact that the Jade Emperor Queen Bee had become a Spiritual Medicinal Beast.

Of course, these young Jade Emperor Bees weren’t Spiritual Medicinal Beasts but they should be Spirit Beasts. Since then, Qing Shui had been feeding them with the Jade Emperor Queen Bee Nectar from the Grade Three Spiritual Medicinal Beast. Not only that, Qing Shui had also added crystal physiques into the Jade Emperor Queen Bee Nectar.

The reason Qing Shui did all this wasn’t so that these young Jade Emperor Bees could become powerful demonic beasts but for them to become Scouting Bees. Qing Shui had always felt that he didn’t have enough information and he wished to let these Jade Emperor Bees spy for him, becoming his ears and eyes.

This was also something which the Jade Emperor Bee had communicated to Qing Shui. At the beginning, Qing Shui had wanted to nurture some people to collect information for him but now, he decided to first see the Jade Emperor Bees’ abilities before deciding. After all, he wasn’t sure of their abilities.

The reason Spirit Beasts were called that was because they could form divine connections and could understand the human language. Although they weren’t as intelligent as the humans, they had better potential in certain areas, for example in their scouting abilities which Scouting Bees had.

Bee and ant type creatures lived in groups and they would be split up into categories such as soldiers, workers and of course, there would also be those who were scouts, in charge of getting information. This batch which Qing Shui was training were the scouting Jade Emperor Bees.

He would still need some time but with the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal, it shouldn’t take too long. Another thing was the Seven-Headed Demonic Dragon Spider’s subjects. He didn’t know if it was due to the Seven-Headed Demonic Dragon Spider’s mutation or due to other reasons… A portion of the Seven-Headed Demonic Dragon Spider’s subjects had gone through mutation.

There were the Burrowing Demonic Spider, Parasitic Demonic Spiders, Venomous Demonic Spiders, Diamond Demonic Spiders, Lightning Demonic Spider, Tenacious Web Demonic Spider…

Qing Shui liked these demonic spiders which had gone through the mutation. It was because he was full of expectations for their abilities. The Burrowing Spiders could move about with ease underground, launching sneak attacks. The Parasitic Demonic Spiders could quickly lay their eggs on the target, even if the target was made of steel. Such demonic spiders were the ones people are the most afraid of.

The Venomous Demonic Spiders were completely pitch black with a type of black aura around their bodies. Their venom wouldn’t lose out to the Ten Thousand Poisonous Violet Sable and in terms of their numbers, they weren’t something which the Ten Thousand Poisonous Violet Sable could compare against.

The Diamond Demonic Spiders were completely golden and could withstand terrifying attacks. Once the target was entangled by their huge spider legs and spider silk, they would be doomed.

The Lightning Demonic Spiders could move almost as if they were teleporting if it was within close proximity. This was useful primarily to break the flow of the opponent’s powerful attacks. Another thing was that they also had relatively sharp spider legs.

The Tenacious Web Demonic Spiders were as their names suggested, without any other specialties but that the spider silk they produced was extremely firm and tenacious. Compared to the spider silk of ordinary demonic spiders, their silk was several times of over ten times stronger. Of course, it was still a notch weaker when compared to the Seven-Headed Demonic Dragon Spider’s.

These mutations were all born from the eggs laid by the Seven-Headed Demonic Dragon Spider after it had grown its dragon head. This was also the reason why Qing Shui had felt that it could be due to the Seven-Headed Demonic Dragon Spider’s mutation. Regardless, this was a good thing.

It was also good for him to have a massive army of demonic spiders.

The Imperial Cuisine Hall was now on track. Not only the people from the Yehuang City knew of their existence, even the other places in the Yehuang Country as well as those from other countries would come and patronize. Qing Shui’s reputation got stronger and stronger.

Qing Shui was not afraid now. The good thing about being a physician was that there would be generally no one who would assassinate him. Of course, that was with the exception of those in the same trade. However, chances of this happening were very low. It was because those from weak powers wouldn’t be able to do this and those from strong ones would find ways to collaborate or get him to join them.

Another thing was that a great physician would always want to have the protection of a similarly great power. For example, the Yehuang Clan was keen on working together with Qing Shui. It was a pity that the Yehuang Clan had yet to find any news of Yan Zhongyue.

Qing Shui wasn’t surprised. He knew that Yan Zhongyue won’t be easy to find. One thing was that he didn’t know if there had been any changes to Yan Zhongyue’s appearance nor if he remembered the past. Therefore, Qing Shui wasn’t pinning much hope on the Yehuang Clan.

“Elder Brother, do you know of the Divine Beast Sect?”

Most of the time, Qing Shui would stay in the Imperial Cuisine Hall, studying about cooking when he was free. Of course, he would also do some other things. Li Ji was already three months pregnant and had started to have her quiet rest.

“The Divine Beast Sect is the one ruling over the Divine Beast Country, a country which is even stronger than the Yehuang Country. The Divine Beast Sect is also a sect that’s more powerful than the Yehuang Clan.” Soulsearch didn’t know why Qing Shui would suddenly ask about the Divine Beast Sect.

“Then where is the Divine Beast Country? Is it far from the Yehuang Country?” Qing Shui hadn’t expected that the Divine Beast Sect was so powerful. It seemed like they must really have False God existences.

“They are separated by Tianhe Country.”

“Tianhe Country?” Qing Shui felt that he had neglected some existences all this while.

“The Tianhe Country is a unique existence. Although the area situated a little far from the capital of the Dancing Phoenix Continent and aren’t considered to be part of the continent’s capital boundary, no one can ignore their existence. I’m not very sure either but I know that the Tianhe Country is very powerful and not many people from the Dancing Phoenix Continent would dare to offend them.”

“Is the Tianhe Country strong? Or is it because a certain force there is strong?” Qing Shui gave it some thought and asked.

“Tianhe Country’s Tianhe City is the country’s capital. The Tianhe Clan is a clan which inherited an ancient legacy and it’s their legacy which kept them going on without deteriorating. There really aren’t many in the Dancing Phoenix Continent who can be compared with Tianhe Clan,” Soulsearch smiled and said.

Tianhe Country and Yehuang Country were close to each other and the Tianhe City was also the city closest to the Tianhe Country. However, there would tend to be some space between each country and he didn’t know if the Tianhe City was also situated close to the Yehuang Country.

Qing Shui felt that there was a need for him to get associated with different powers. With that, he would be able to have a stand in the continent’s capital in the future and then look for that lady from the Demon Lord Palace. Before that, he would still have to attain a breakthrough to the False God level.

False God… Three years? Five years? Or ten years? How long would he need to reach that level? Yang Pellet… He was going to be able to refine the Yang Pellet very soon!