Longevity Begins With Zongmen Handyman

Chapter 60: Growing Old with a Beautiful Woman

On a clear morning three months later, Li An finally emerged from his secluded stone chamber.

The scenery in the valley was tranquil, with birds chirping and everything flourishing in a joyous and prosperous scene.

With a single thought, he sensed a group of ants moving one meter away, a rose slowly blooming three meters away, and leaves falling with the wind four meters away...

Five meters!

This was his current limit of perception.

Although it was short, Li An was extremely satisfied.

Moreover, when he inspected his life seed, he felt something strange.

After condensing his divine sense, a faint golden vein appeared on the emerald life seed.

It looked like a golden stem.

As the life seed grew, his divine sense also gradually increased. Although it was very small, Li An still noticed it.

This filled him with even more hope.

It should be noted that it is extremely difficult to enhance divine sense. Generally, only Foundation Building or Core Formation cultivators have the possibility of improvement through realm advancement or obtaining rare soul treasures.

But now, the life seed could slowly enhance his divine sense, which showed its extraordinary ability.

In fact, Li An's understanding of the life seed had completely changed.

The life seed was more like a tree that was completely connected to his life. As the life seed grew, every aspect of his being would also grow.

Spirit roots, lifespan, cultivation level, recovery ability, divine sense...

The only drawback was its slowness.

It required endurance.

Fortunately, Li An had enough patience.

"There are three crystal cores left. I need to find an opportunity to give them to Gu Hong..." he murmured. But he wasn't in a hurry. Over the past few years, he had maintained communication with Gu Hong and knew that they had settled in Baihu City, where her senior brother had a solid foundation.

"The second-tier array formation needs more spirit stones..." At the same time, he looked at Cuimoon Valley and couldn't help but feel a headache.

Now he couldn't make ends meet.

The production of second-tier talismans, the purchase of Iron Tree Melting Gold Liquid, the collection of Cold Yin Finger poison... plus this second-tier array formation.

He felt overwhelmed.

There were only twenty to thirty spirit stones left in his storage bag.

He was so poor it made him want to cry!

"I need to sell some of the things in my hands..." He immediately left Cuimoon Valley and headed to Liuyang River Market.

Changing his appearance, he planned to sell all the top-grade spiritual medicines he had obtained from the Yunhuan Mountains in Liuyang River Market. Among them was a top-grade spiritual medicine called Thousand Spirit Vine.

He had a total of four top-grade spiritual medicines: Luminous Lotus, Purple Soul Grass, and two Thousand Spirit Vines he obtained from the storage bag of the Soul Reaper Horse-Faced Demon.

One Thousand Spirit Vine was enough.

Of course, if he didn't lack spirit stones, Li An wouldn't sell them. These things were strategic resources.

But now his financial situation couldn't hold up.

These items brought him a total of more than 1,600 spirit stones, barely enough to solve his urgent needs for the second-tier array formation in Cuimoon Valley.

After replenishing the spirit stones for the second-tier array formation in Cuimoon Valley, he returned to Qingyang Market.

"The income from making talismans is limited... not enough..." He pondered for a moment and decided to start another sideline.

Now he had two options: array formations or alchemy.

If alchemy succeeded, his income would grow rapidly. After all, it was the number one profession in the cultivation world.

He now had the alchemy experience from Gusong Creek and didn't lack an alchemy furnace. When that demonic cultivator came to his door for the first time, he killed him and found a decent top-grade alchemy furnace in his storage bag.

But Li An shook his head and vetoed it.

Alchemy required high comprehension. Although Li An's spiritual roots had improved a lot now, he lacked experience and would definitely need a lot of time to accumulate.

"I can only choose array formations."

In his previous life, he had also dabbled in array formations. Recently, he even successfully transformed an intermediate array formation into an advanced one.

Array formations and talismans had something in common. Both relied on certain standardized patterns to obtain power that didn't belong to oneself.

Thinking about it, he went directly to the array formation shop and purchased a lot of materials.

In just the first month, he made two sets of low-level array formations and entrusted the shopkeeper, Long Tao, to help sell them.

Long Tao was already middle-aged and had been assigned here due to being marginalized in the outer sect. It was difficult for him to return to the sect in this lifetime, so he was willing to do this kind of thing. After all, Li An would give him a share.

Therefore, when selling the array formations, he first promoted Li An's.

The two sets of low-level array formations sold for 180 spirit stones, and Li An gave him 40 spirit stones.

In the second month, Li An began to try intermediate array formations and made one set of intermediate array formations and two sets of low-level array formations.

This progress surprised Long Tao. He had only heard that Li An was a talisman master before, but he didn't expect Li An to be so accomplished in array formations.

But he didn't think much about it. The incident of Li An using a set of second-order formations to kill the Soul Reaper Horse Face was well known among the sect. It was normal for Li An to have something in formations.

Moreover, the higher Li An's level of formation-making, the more achievements he would gain!

...

"With divine consciousness, the production of talismans and formations is like having divine assistance!"

Inside the spiritual symbol shop, Li An raised his sore neck, rubbed it, and circulated his spiritual power a few times to relieve the pain in his cervical vertebrae.

He had been immersed in his work for several hours, but he still didn't feel tired. On the contrary, he was quite excited.

Now, his success rate in making runes and formations had greatly increased!

The main reason was that even with the control of things like brush pens and formation materials through his eyes and touch, there would always be mistakes.

But with divine consciousness, he could perceive even the slightest changes.

So his spiritual power became more accurate.

"If I earn a bit more money, I can try making second-order runes..."

He saw hope.

During this period, his production of second-order runes, Iron Tree Decision, and Cold Yin Finger had all stopped.

He couldn't afford the materials without money.

...

In the blink of an eye, two more years had passed.

"Two second-grade inferior Bursting Talismans and two Profound Shield Talismans have been refined!"

"Iron Tree Decision has finally reached completion! Cold Yin Finger is also almost there..."

On this morning, Li An got up and stretched, a satisfied smile on his face.

After two years of hard work, he finally obtained what he wanted.

And his cultivation had not been neglected either. He had already reached the seventh level of Qi Refining and could prepare to break through to the eighth level.

He looked at his recent letters.

Gu Hong had some unpleasant encounters with her fellow disciples in Baihu City. In the end, she established her own sect and continued to work hard to extend her master's life.

The letter also mentioned that life in Baihu City was not easy, but fortunately, she was an alchemist and could still make a living.

Li An replied to her letter, informing her that a fellow disciple from the inner sect of Xuan Yang Sect had found traces of a Yuan Soul Beast in the Spirit Beast Mountain Range. Li An would continue to pay attention, and if he succeeded in hunting it down, he would find a way to obtain the crystal core.

He wasn't worried that Gu Hong would seek confirmation from Xuan Yang Sect. Firstly, he knew that Gu Hong trusted him, and secondly, the discoverer of such things would definitely be cautious and keep it a secret, just like Gu Hong did in the past. So it was normal not to hear any news from Xuan Yang Sect.

As for Xuan Yang Sect, it had been quite calm. Tan Qingxue still sent letters, but the frequency had decreased a lot. Each time she sent a letter, she would also include some second-grade talisman paper or materials.

Based on those talisman papers and materials, Li An knew that she had almost no savings left and had given most of her spirit stones to him.

Li An sighed lightly. If Tan Qingxue could break through to Foundation Building, he would definitely prepare a pill for her when he prepared the Foundation Building Pill in the future.

But Tan Qingxue's aptitude had reached its limit after reaching the late stage of Qi Refining. She could no longer touch that ceiling.

She was already over seventy years old!

Time had passed, and if they were to meet again, even with the help of beauty-preserving pills, her wrinkles would be hard to hide, no longer the same as before.

The Dao was ruthless, but Li An's mood only had a slight ripple before calming down.

He had frozen his heart from the beginning, precisely because he saw the possibility of parting in the future.

In his previous life, he had experienced too many instances of powerlessness. He cultivated alone to the Foundation Building stage, and his wife and even his children left one by one...

That kind of pain, that kind of karma, was truly too heavy, enough to make his Dao heart fall.

In addition, Tan Qingxue mentioned a small matter. Mu Qingwan's husband failed to break through to Foundation Building for the third time, and his lifespan was greatly damaged. Now he had begun to look for ways to prolong his life.

Mu Qingwan had given birth to a daughter who was already twenty-one years old. Her spiritual roots were the same as Mu Qingwan's, a middle-grade yellow-level wood attribute.

Li An didn't pay much attention to this.

He even began to suspect whether he had been too neurotic back then. So many years had passed, and Xuan Yang Sect had always been very stable...

Could it be that the Soul Reaper Horse Face was really dead?

Even the demonic cultivators in the northern part of Dalai were gradually being eradicated and were no longer as powerful as before.

If that were true, it would be good.

On this day, he still went out to stroll around the market.

He wasn't aimless. Since he started making talismans, he had developed a habit of checking the protective formations in the market every once in a while.

Only the Foundation Building cultivators who were stationed there knew the foundation of the protective formations, but Li An had studied them continuously and had already grasped the basics of the formations.

He was the only one in the entire market who could do this. He had a deep understanding of formations and could observe them for a long time.

"Hmm?!"

However, when he walked to a cornerstone in the north of the city, his eyebrows suddenly furrowed.

The soil under a willow tree a hundred steps away from that cornerstone had been disturbed!

Seeing that there was no one around, he walked over and used his divine sense.

"Demonic energy!"

His expression changed. In this disturbed soil, there was actually a wooden box buried. Inside the wooden box was a rolling demonic energy, mixed with a large number of broken prohibition talismans.

Li An immediately thought of the first attack on the market...

Using the same trick again?!

His heart tightened instantly!

...

(End of this chapter)