Chapter 5: New Mission, Wealth of Cultivation

"That is why those Daoist Temples take their ordinary Magical Artifacts, Elixirs, and Talismans to Baoguang Temple to set up shops for convenient selling.

"Cultivators looking to buy ordinary items also go to Baoguang Temple. They will only visit the specific Daoist Temples that craft them if they are looking for Superior items."

"Oh... so Baoguang Temple is basically a market? That means they sell everything, including food?" Mu Xiaoyu came to a sudden realization.

Li Yinsheng explained, "Exactly. Other Daoist Temples rent shops within Baoguang Temple. Cultivators who want to sell their practice crafts or other miscellaneous items will set up stalls, making it quite a mixed bag of people and goods.

"So, not only do they sell low-grade Magical Treasures and Elixirs, but they also offer various side dishes, pastries, snacks, and even cosmetics.

"Of course, these mundane items completely unrelated to cultivation are exceedingly cheap."

"They even have pastries and snacks? Are they really cheap?" Mu Xiaoyu's eyes lit up.

Li Yinsheng thought for a moment. "Do you remember the Nourishing Essence Pill you ate last night? The price of one Nourishing Essence Pill is about three or four talismanic coins, which is already considered extremely cheap among Elixirs.

"However, a jar of those spring shoots you had last night costs only one talismanic coin. The Nourishing Essence Pills you consumed last night could buy dozens of jars of pickled spring shoots combined.

"The wild honey is a bit more expensive since it's sometimes used to refine low-quality honey pills. A jar of honey should sell for three or four talismanic coins..."

"Wow! That cheap?" Mu Xiaoyu exclaimed in surprise. "If a jar of those spring shoots were sold at my home, it would fetch at least a few dozen taels of silver. My mother would even pay hundreds of taels for that honey! These talismanic coins sure are valuable...

"Senior Brother, when can we visit Baoguang Temple? Can we buy some pastries and snacks? The side dishes were so delicious, so the pastries and snacks must be just as good, right?" she asked, her face quickly flushing with excitement.

"The food sold at Baoguang Temple is indeed a rare delicacy for mortals, and it's also very cheap for Cultivators, but..." Li Yinsheng looked at her with a gentle smile. "Junior Sister, how many talismanic coins do you have?"

Mu Xiaoyu froze. For the first time in her life, she was struck by a shocking realization—people actually ran out of money.

"I... I don't have a single talismanic coin..." Mu Xiaoyu lowered her head, but she immediately looked back up, her watery eyes wide as she pinched the corner of Li Yinsheng's sleeve. "Senior Brother... um... could you... maybe give me some talismanic coins? I don't want much, just ten... no, five! Five is enough! Please, Senior Brother..."

Li Yinsheng chuckled and took out a pale yellow talismanic charm no larger than a thumb. "This is a talismanic coin. This single piece represents one hundred talismanic coins. I'll give it to you.

"The next time I go to Baoguang Temple for supplies, I'll take you with me. You can buy whatever you want."

Although Xuanzhen Temple had fallen into decline, he wasn't completely penniless. Every now and then, he would venture into the mountains to search for medicinal herbs or other valuable items. Moreover, when other Daoist Temples found themselves short on disciples, they would hire people for short-term labor—such as cultivating medicinal fields, herding Spirit Beasts, or tending to alchemy furnace fires. He was a seasoned odd-job worker. Over the years, through frugality and hard work, he had managed to save up a fortune of over twenty thousand talismanic coins—even after purchasing essential items for his own protection. Among his peers, he was considered quite wealthy.

Therefore, giving his junior sister a hundred talismanic coins as pocket money was nothing to him. Besides, with the thirty years of Cultivation his junior sister had brought him, earning talismanic coins in the future would be vastly easier. If he hadn't been worried that giving her too many talismanic coins might make her a target for unscrupulous merchants at Baoguang Temple, and given that she currently had no need to spend money on anything other than snacks, he would have given her far more than a mere hundred.

"Senior Brother, you're the best person in the whole world!"

Mu Xiaoyu cheered. In her eyes, the previously detestable Li Yinsheng—whom she had practically seen as a green-faced, fanged monster—instantly transformed into an unimaginably handsome, ethereal, and utterly charming figure. But the moment Mu Xiaoyu accepted the talismanic coins with both hands, the grand, resonating sound of Huang Zhong and Da Lv that Li Yinsheng had heard yesterday echoed in his mind once more. A scroll unfurled before his eyes, revealing new Golden Characters.

[Master of the Cave Heaven: Mu Xiaoyu

Cultivation Aspiration: Among the four pillars of cultivation—"Method, Wealth, Companions, and Land"—"Wealth" is of utmost importance!

As the old saying goes, "With money, one can travel the world; without it, it is hard to take a single step." This truth also applies to the Cultivation Realm.

The Master of the Cave Heaven has just begun her cultivation journey. At this stage, her basic needs and Elixirs for cultivation are all provided by the Daoist Temple, meaning her personal expenses are minimal. This is the perfect time to save money, and she should accumulate talismanic coins as quickly as possible.

Please use all available means to accumulate as many talismanic coins as possible within one year. This Cultivation Aspiration will only last for one year, after which it will close.

The metric for this Cultivation Aspiration is the current talismanic coin savings possessed by the Master of the Cave Heaven. However, each reward can only be claimed once; reaching a milestone multiple times will not grant duplicate rewards.

Cultivation Rewards:

Acquire 1,000 talismanic coins: Reward 1 year of Cultivation;

Acquire 3,000 talismanic coins: Reward 3 years of Cultivation;

Acquire 10,000 talismanic coins: Reward 10 years of Cultivation;

Acquire 30,000 talismanic coins: Reward 20 years of Cultivation;

Acquire 100,000 talismanic coins: Reward 30 years of Cultivation;

Acquire 300,000 talismanic coins: Reward 50 years of Cultivation;

Current talismanic coin savings: 100 coins]

Li Yinsheng stared at the Golden Characters before him, his mind racing. He realized that the task was limited to one year, and the requirement was based on total savings—meaning if she earned the coins but spent them, she would have to start saving all over again.

Normally, a Cultivator who had just started cultivating would have extremely weak Magical Power. In a single year, they might not even be able to master a practical Magic spell. Just as the Golden Characters stated, new disciples in their first year—or even their first two or three years—only needed to focus on their cultivation. They didn't have to worry about spending money on Magical Artifacts, Talismans, or the like, keeping their expenses extremely low. But correspondingly, new disciples typically had no means of acquiring talismanic coins whatsoever.

For a newly initiated disciple to venture into the Hundred Thousand Mountains in search of valuables would be nothing short of a death wish, and no other Daoist Temple would hire them for odd jobs. As a result, they basically had to rely on the meager allowance of talismanic coins distributed monthly by their own Daoist Temple. A few temples might hand out up to a hundred coins, but the vast majority only provided forty or fifty a month. For a Cultivator who had only been cultivating for a year, having a few hundred talismanic coins to their name would already be considered exceptional, yet it wouldn't even be enough to reach the first milestone. This was perfectly normal. After all, who would think about making money in their very first year of cultivation? It was as absurd as expecting an infant who had just learned to walk and talk to go out and get a job.

But... just because his newly initiated junior sister lacked the ability to earn money, what did that have to do with him, Li Yinsheng, who had been hoarding his savings for over a decade?

Li Yinsheng recalled the exact amount of his savings. Unfortunately, he was still a bit short of the thirty-thousand mark, so he could only help his junior sister reach the ten-thousand talismanic coin goal first to claim the corresponding reward. Since each goal's reward could be claimed once, giving his junior sister ten thousand talismanic coins would mean the rewards from the first three goals added up to...

Fourteen years!