Chapter 0870: Renting a cave
“Wait-Wait…” Yuwen Qianping stopped Fei Er. “If this person hadn’t made such a scene already, we could go up right now. But with this person’s behaviour, I can say for sure that we aren’t the only one looking for him. Moreover, the public square has a lot of hidden masters, with quite a few people having eyes on him.”
Fei Er didn’t put Ning Cheng in his eyes, which was why he wanted to grab him immediately. But Yuwen Qianping’s words reminded him that Ning Cheng was a person about to disappear. Since they weren’t the only people eyeing Ning Cheng, they couldn’t grab him before Ning Cheng truly went out of sight.
“Let someone keep an eye on him; we don’t need to come out in person.” Ran Haosen said from the side.
……
Ning Cheng naturally wasn’t an idiot to put a Spiritual Consciousness Imprint on the Heartless Monk. Coupled with what happened in the exchange meeting, this action would give the Heartless Monk a sense of arrogance and unawareness against him, as the saying went, better to let your enemies despise you than to let them value you.
Ning Cheng learned this trick from Duan Gantai. After all, the best thing Duan Gantai could do was to pretend to be an idiot in front of others.
On the surface, it felt as if Ning Cheng despised the Heartless Monk, but in fact, he had nothing but vigilance against this person. Not only the Heartless Monk but even quite a few people who stalked him in secret. It didn’t include the people he hadn’t found yet, like the Lifeless Poisonhand.
However, Ning Cheng didn’t show any care towards these people. Instead, he went to the Quest Hall and changed the black card in his hand to a silver card. Since he already spent approximately 1.3 million points in the Quest Hall, he faced no difficulty replacing it with a silver card.
One could only get a silver card after spending at least a million points in the Quest Hall’s merchant house. The points Ning Cheng consumed at the exchange meeting were also considered as points exchanged with the Quest Hall’s merchant house. Therefore, adding everything up, he changed the card to a silver card without any issues.
Stepping out of the Quest Hall, Ning Cheng ignored the cultivators secretly stalking him. He had nothing to be afraid of, and in any case, he also had no plans to leave the Grand Essence Public Square for now. No matter how ruthless the Heartless Monk and the Lifeless Poisonhand were, they wouldn’t dare to openly act in the public square of the Grand Essence Ruins.
“Do you know how long I have been waiting for you?” A cold voice fell in Ning Cheng’s ear, and Ning Cheng saw Shan Yaocen standing some distance in front of him with an unhappy face.
“Waiting for me?” Ning Cheng frowned and looked at Shan Yaocen.
Shan Yaocen trembled with anger. She and Ning Cheng had an agreement to meet at the Grand Essence Ruins’ Restaurant. But despite waiting for more than an hour at the Grand Essence Ruin’s Restaurant, Ning Cheng never showed up. Moreover, to meet with Ning Cheng, she had even sent away Ying Yongxuan.
Others always fawned over her, when was it ever her turn to wait for a rogue cultivator? Moreover, did a rogue cultivator even have the right to make her stay?
Seeing Ning Cheng’s blank look, Shan Yaocen suppressed her anger and tried to speak in a calm tone. “Senior Apprentice Brother Ning, did you forget that I asked you to meet me at the Grand Essence Ruins’ Restaurant after the exchange meeting?”
Despite the anger, she still tried to ask Ning Cheng in a polite voice. She wasn’t willing to offend Ning Cheng at this time.
Ning Cheng suddenly spoke up, “Yes, I did hear such a thing. But, I didn’t make any promises to you, did I? Did someone else pretend to be me and made the promise to Junior Apprentice Sister Shan?”
Shan Yaocen took in a deep breath to calm herself. She believed that Ning Cheng would never forget this. But Ning Cheng simply didn’t bother to go to the Grand Essence Ruins’ Restaurant at all. The only explanation that could justify it was that he didn’t take Shan Yaocen seriously at all.
Shan Yaocen guessed it right this time, Ning Cheng truly never cared or bothered with Shan Yaocen. Come to the Grand Essence Ruins’ Restaurant, who said that I would?
“Senior Apprentice Brother Ning, you should know about the Grand Essence Great Meet, right?” Shan Yaocen forcibly squashed the rage building up inside her and tried to speak with a calm tone. But anyone could read that she was in an agitated mood.
Ning Cheng shook his head, “I don’t know about it. Why? Is there a problem?”
Shan Yaocen saw that Ning Cheng truly didn’t know about the Grand Essence Great Meet. Therefore she once again had to suppress her rage and explained, “Do you at least know what’s the most important thing for an Eternal cultivator to achieve Dao Sculpting?”
“Finding a Dao Fruit.”
“No.”
“Then, finding a good cultivation method? Or maybe, yes, that’s right….. It’s about finding the right opportunity.”
Shan Yaocen’s expressions had already twisted beyond the scope of what was possible. She didn’t wait for Ning Cheng to make another guess and said, “Neither. If you came from a big sect’s inner sect, you would know that what truly affected an Eternal cultivator’s path to reach Dao Sculpting was the conversion of their Essence Qi. A Dao Sculpting cultivator’s strength has a lot to do with the conversion of Essence Qi. Moreover, the location, timing, and even the source of Spiritual Qi could affect the conversion process of Essence Qi, which would also impact the height you could reach in the future. Of course, if you only want to reach Dao Sculpting and don’t care about the reaching higher than Dao Sculpting in the future, you can just forget about what I said.”
Ning Cheng’s heart suddenly moved. He truly was talking nonsense before, because he had no intention to speak with this woman. But Shan Yaocen’s words made him understand that those big sects truly had some skill.
If he didn’t put Shan Yaocen in his eyes before, he now knew that Shan Yaocen’s words had already started to work on him.
According to his previous plan, he wanted to find a place and immediately transform his celestial essence into spirit essence. But listening to Shan Yaocen’s words, he understood that he still lacked a lot of knowledge about spirit essence transformation.
“The best place for spirit essence transformation in the Grand Essence Realm is the Extraterritorial Spirit Spring. However, only a few people can enter the Extraterritorial Spirit Spring for the spirit essence transformation. Only the top people in the Grand Essence Great Meet have the chance to enter it. But at the same time, only by joining a sect will you get the chance to participate in the Grand Essence Great Meet, and get the opportunity to enter the Extraterritorial Spirit Spring and start the spirit essence transformation.”
Shan Yaocen seemed to have already expended all her energies today. So, after talking about the Extraterritorial Spirit Spring, she then said to Ning Cheng. “You have a lot of potential. My River Luo Sacred Sect lacks talented cultivators like you. If you want to join my River Luo Sacred Sect, I will try my best to help you. That way, you can also get the opportunity to enter the Grand Essence Great Meet…..”
As long as Ning Cheng showed the intention of joining the River Luo Sacred Sect, she would achieve her goal. As for whether Ning Cheng could truly enter the River Luo Sacred Sect? Hehe, he could just keep dreaming about it. Her River Luo Sacred Sect wasn’t a place any random cat and dog from the street can join.
As for entering the Extraterritorial Spirit Spring, don’t even dream about it. Even she, Shan Yaocen, wasn’t qualified to enter the Extraterritorial Spirit Spring. So how could a rogue cultivator?
Just as Shan Yaocen didn’t sincerely invite Ning Cheng to River Luo Sacred Sect, Ning Cheng also barely heard the words she said. Rather, her words were like passing clouds to him. However, he did focus on the four characters ‘Extraterritorial Spirit Spring’.
“Junior Apprentice Sister Shan, thank you for the reminder. But since I obtained a cultivation method, I want to retreat for a few months to study it. After a few months, I’d like to go to the Grand Essence Great Meet. That, I’m sure about it. What do you think, Junior Apprentice Sister Shan?” Ning Cheng already understood Shan Yaocen’s mind and had no intention to look for Shan Yaocen.
Initially, he planned to go into secluded cultivation and start the spirit essence transformation process. But now he understood that he couldn’t take a casual approach to it. Therefore, he decided to search for more information about it, study it carefully, and then try it.
Shan Yaocen felt disappointed when she heard Ning Cheng’s words. She initially thought that with her beautiful appearance and the River Luo Sacred Sect’s lure, it would immediately draw Ning Cheng to her. In that way, she could easily ask Ning Cheng to borrow her some points. Maybe she might not even need to borrow points from him, and Ning Cheng would take the initiative to give it to her. Perhaps Ning Cheng might even take the initiative to provide her with the spiritual consciousness cultivation he purchased in the exchange meeting.
But, now that Ning Cheng had already stated his intention to go into secluded cultivation, she couldn’t force Ning Cheng directly. Thinking of this, Shan Yaocen felt the urge to kick him over. When had she ever been wronged like this in her entire life? But it didn’t matter if she had to suffer through a few months. Once Ning Cheng comes out of secluded cultivation, she could still have another shot at it.
Thinking of this, Shan Yaocen took out a communications pearl and said, “In that case, let’s exchange communication pearls. Don’t worry. I will return to the sect and speak for you.”
From Beyond Heaven Path, the pair kept looking at Shan Yaocen and Ning Cheng talking and felt their expressions turning uglier by the moment. They didn’t expect that Ning Cheng wasn’t just related to Kong Ning but also had an association with Shan Yaocen of River Luo Sacred Sect. After some rogue cultivators saw the relationship between Ning Cheng and Shan Yaocen, they immediately dispelled any thoughts of plotting against Ning Cheng.
Ning Cheng smiled and exchanged communication pearls with Shan Yaocen before heading straight to the cave leasing area in the Grand Essence Ruins. With Shan Yaocen as a shield, at least no one would come up and talk nonsense before he entered the cave leasing area.
……
There weren’t many people in the cave leasing area of the Grand Essence Ruins. From this, one could tell that the caves here were pretty much either all rented out or almost empty. The cultivator in charge of leasing caves didn’t even lift his head when Ning Cheng walked up to him and only swept him with a casual wave of spiritual consciousness.
Renting out caves in Grand Essence Ruins barely needed any work. Moreover, Ning Cheng was just a rogue cultivator with low cultivation. It wasn’t worth the time to even look up at him.
“Only caves at the outskirts of the Grand Essence Public Square are available for lease. Nothing else available.” As Ning Cheng walked closer, the caves’ person-in-charge sent a blunt message, still not lifting his head.
Ning Cheng threw the silver card in his hand in front of the person-in-charge and spoke with a cold voice, “I want to rent a cave.”
Seeing the silver card in front of him, the cultivator seemed to have jolted awake and quickly stood up. Then, grabbing Ning Cheng’s silver card in both hands, he spoke up with a respectful voice, “What kind of cave does this dao friend want to rent?”
A cultivator with a silver card was an important person for the Quest Hall. As the cultivator-in-charge of cave leasing, he couldn’t afford to offend such a person.
“What’re the prices? Let’s hear it.” Ning Cheng’s tone also eased up a bit.
“The cheapest one here is for 1,000 points per year; better ones are at 5,000 to 12,000 points a year. The best ones are about 30,000 points a year, and even better ones….”
Ning Cheng interrupted the cultivator-in-charge, “I’ll take the 30,000 points a year one.”
Hearing that Ning Cheng wanted to rent a 30,000-points-a-year cave, the cultivator’s tone turned even more respectful. How many years would it take for an ordinary cultivator to earn 30,000 points? Yet, the person wanted to rent such a cave, which truly went beyond imagination.
In just a short time, the cultivator-in-charge helped Ning Cheng complete the leasing procedure for renting out the cave. A few moments later, he then handed Ning Cheng a number plate with the characters ‘Cave B1391’ carved on it.
Soon after Ning Cheng left with the number plate, a cultivator wearing a black robe appeared in front of the cultivator-in-charge.
With Ning Cheng’s example, the cultivator did not dare talk any nonsense. However, this black-robed cultivator did not come here to rent a cave. Instead, he threw out a storage bag and spoke with a hoarse voice, “The bag contains 5,000 spirit crystals. Just tell me which cave did that person rent?”
The cultivator-in-charge naturally wouldn’t help Ning Cheng conceal this matter. He put away the spirit crystals without hesitation, and at the same time, told the black-robed cultivator about the cave Ning Cheng rented.