Xue Wei and Hei Gou rushed back to the inn where they quickly closed the door behind them and sat down on the floor.
They took out the four jade slips they had bought from the Golden Chambers. "We spent the majority of our money this time to buy these compendiums and clothes," Xue Wei said, sighing as he realized that the path ahead of them was an expensive one.
To buy clothes suitable for their cultivation base would become even more expensive in the future. To purchase resources would also be an expense that they could not afford with their current wealth.
"If you kill a few more experts in this tournament, and if you manage to become the champion, or just get into the top three, then we will become rich!" Hei Gou laughed, but Xue Wei shook his head.
"Even this wealth will only get us so far," he said dejectedly. "We will need spirit fruits, spirit pills, and various other items to assist our cultivation base if we wish to stay competitive. They are all expensive, and we will end up paying a high price for these items. Eventually, even this amount of wealth will prove insufficient to sustain us on our path of cultivation."
Hei Gou seemed to understand that Xue Wei was speaking the truth. "So we need you to win first place in this tournament if we want to be able to live a peaceful life – for a short time at least." He sighed. Xue Wei nodded.
"I will do anything that I can to win the first place!" Xue Wei said with great conviction and clenched his fist.
"But first let us see what we’ve earned today. We can’t afford to not use the things that I procure after a battle. We don’t have much time to raise our strength, after all!" he said, and placed the jade slip with the compendium of magical herbs on his forehead.
He then infused a bit of his Qi into the jade slip to activate it. As he had expected, a stream of information went straight into his brain, branding itself inside so that he would now remember every single herb that was described in the compendium.
He then took a look at the herbs that were placed in the bag and started sorting them. The ones that were meant for the recovery of one's physical body went to one pile, those that strengthened one's physical strength to another. Those that restored Qi to a third pile and those that increased one's base Qi to a fourth. Finally, there was one herb that increased one's soul's strength, which went to a pile for itself.
In total, there were twenty-three herbs. A single one of those that increased one's soul strength, six that restored Qi, three that increased one's physical strength, four that increased one's physical strength, and finally nine that increased one's base Qi.
This was quite a big haul, not to mention that there were also the spiritual fruits that Xue Wei had not even taken a look at yet.
Apart from the spiritual fruits and the herbs, there were also pills. Pills were ranked according to the cultivator stage they were meant for, like the pills made for Ordinary Warriors, for Earth Warriors, Sky Warriors, and so on.
Furthermore, the pills were also split into low, middle, and high grade purities.
Xue Wei picked up the jade slip with the recording of all contemporary pills and pressed it to his forehead before even more information etched its way into his mind.
Xue Wei had thought that the stronger a scent the pill exuded, the higher the purity the pill had, but he discovered that he had been completely mistaken about this. A high grade pill leaked no scent, as all the medicinal properties were locked within the pill, and there was no way for it to disperse until consumed.
If it was incredibly fragrant, then it was a low grade pill; if it had a bit of a scent, it was a middle grade purity pill.
The pills in front of Xue Wei and Hei Gou almost all had some smell, some more than others. There was only one pill without any scent at all, and this pill had been stored in a jade vial of its own.
It was clear that the dead expert had not had the heart to part with it. There were quite a lot of low grade pills, but Xue Wei had no intention of consuming them, neither had Hei Gou.
Both of them were aware that their Qi was incredibly pure. If they ate pills with low purity, it would damage their foundation and maybe even cause Qi deviation later on in their cultivation life.
Still, Xue Wei did not dispose of the pills. Even if they were filled with impurities, they could be sold for at least a few coins.
Were it back in the Heping Kingdom, then they could have sold them for quite a fortune because pills were rare, especially those for the Sky Warrior rank, but this was closer to the center of the continent so they were not worth as much.
Still, he should be able to get a bit of coin from it. And at the same time, he had a feeling that maybe they could come in handy one day.
After putting the low grade pills back into the storage ring, he looked at the middle grade pills and sighed. "With our purity, if we take a middle ranked pill, it will end up with us lowering the quality of our Qi, unless we somehow find a way to purify it later on." Xue Wei shook his head, and even though he was regretting it, he quickly placed the middle ranked pills into the storage ring as well.
Although it was tempting to use them, he was not willing to sacrifice the purity of his Qi, and he knew that Hei Gou would agree with him.
He then looked at the last pill. It was a Qi Storing Pill, a pill created for the Sky Warrior rank that contained a certain amount of Qi, which would be released in one's body.
It would be added to one's base Qi, increasing one's overall strength. But as to how much of the medicinal efficiency would be released depended on the potential of the person taking it.
It would take up to twelve hours to fully digest the energy provided by the pill, but those twelve hours spent cultivating could be equal to more than a year of ordinary cultivation with the essence of the heavens and the earth.
Xue Wei looked at the pill and sighed. Although he was tempted to take it, he did not wish to be the only one to benefit from it, so he placed it to the side and grabbed another jade slip.
This time, it was the jade slip about Spiritual Fruits. He did not know much about spiritual fruits, other than there were multiple fruits in the world, and that they worked very much like pills.
They had different uses depending on what type of fruit they were, but they were in general much more useful than herbs as they had much more energy stored within.
These spirit fruits were all different. Some of them were small; others were larger. Some had strange patterns and various colors, while some were simply just one color.
These spiritual fruits were an attractive commodity because, unlike pills, they were all without fault in their purity since nature crafted them. Although they were not categorized in classes of purity, they were not nearly as potent as pills. But they were also expensive.
Xue Wei was quite shocked to discover the absurd amount of spiritual fruits inside the ring
Spiritual fruits were expensive. Not as expensive as high purity pills, but they were more expensive than pills of medium purity.
To see this many within the ring, Xue Wei could vaguely guess that the disciple he had slain was likely to have been holding the fruits provided by their sect to their team for Wan Qiang’s tournament.
With this thought in mind, he could not help but snicker. So the one he had killed was actually a fat sheep that brought loot and goodies to his door. This was something he would never complain about.
Looking at the fruits, he found a variety of sorts; some increased base Qi, some improved the physical body, others increased spiritual power, or strengthened the soul, and a few had the power to restore Qi, while there were a couple gems that could completely recover injuries of a certain degree
However, the majority of the fruits were those that improved one's body and base Qi. Xue Wei pondered for some time before he split them between himself and Hei Gou.
"Take them for yourself!" Hei Gou was not pleased with the fact that they were split equally. Xue Wei frowned.
"There are quite a few spiritual fruits," he said seriously. "Even if I wanted to, I would not be able to consume them all in time for the second round of the tournament. In that case, why not have you increase your strength as well? If we both get stronger, we are more likely to get out of this messy situation we have dragged ourselves into in one piece."
"Not to mention, if we are smart, we might even be able to be the fishermen fishing in troubled waters. Many will die. It is clear that this Wan Qiang wants us to kill each other, and since this is the case, why not do as he wants us to do? We will continue to increase our strength, and we will constantly be on our guard."
Hei Gou nodded his head. What Xue Wei said made sense, but he was still a little worried. "Don't worry," Xue Wei smiled at him, "in the end, we cannot expect to get something without going through some challenges and risks. Danger and rewards go hand in hand."
Hei Gou finally sighed and seemed to be convinced. He grabbed a spiritual fruit and glanced at Xue Wei. "I can accept that we split the fruits, but you will take the pill," he finally said. This was his bottom line, and he was not going to change his opinion.
Seeing his friend being so stubborn, Xue Wei did not disagree and instead picked up the pill. He scrutinized it and finally popped it into his mouth. This was the very first medicinal pill he had ever consumed, and he was not sure of whether or not he should chew it or swallow it whole. However, the moment it came into contact with his tongue, it turned into a liquid that streamed down his throat.
This liquid started to slowly spread through his entire body, from the throat to the stomach and out through every limb.
The usual calm flow of Qi within his meridians picked up in speed at an accelerating pace, coursing through its pathways faster than it had ever done before. The Qi that entered his meridians from that source of exploding energy also caused the stream to move even faster, culminating into a figurative storm before it entered the azure pearl-like core that was within his dantian.
The small pearl slowly grew in size. It grew at a speed that, albeit slow, was visible to the naked eye, and he mentally gasped as he observed the changes that were happening inside of his body.
Xue Wei was stumped for words. He had never expected that there would be such a massive change in his cultivation base just because of one pill. And although he had just recently had a breakthrough into the third layer of the Sky Warrior rank, he could feel how the energy was constantly climbing, reaching the peak of the third layer and continuously knocking against the walls that led to the fourth layer.