Chapter 161 Upgraded to the Ancestor-Level, #1 in Rankings
“There’s no reason, it’s just my feeling.” Lu Zhiruo shook her head again after finishing speaking. “It shouldn’t be her, right? They are so much in love, why would she want to poison him?”
“I actually felt anticipation toward your words earlier.” Li Ziqi facepalmed. Given Lu Zhiruo’s intelligence, it would be incredible if she managed to deduce a reason.
“Just ignore them. That Cai Tan isn’t a fool. As long as he thinks through, he would discover the answer.”
Sun Mo passed the prescription of the giant medicine packet to Li Ziqi. “Do you think you are able to find these herbs?”
“What is this prescription for?”
Li Ziqi took it and swiftly glanced through. Lu Zhiruo also curiously leaned over; her face was next to Li Ziqi’s as she looked.
“For medicine baths!”
Sun Mo explained it in simple terms.
“There’s a total of 27 herb ingredients on it. Out of the 27, 19 can be purchased from the Nine Provinces. But for the snow ginseng, shore lotus, and shallow grass which is among the 19, the difficulty is higher. It’s very rare for medical stores on the market to have these three herbs in stock. Even if they have some, the herbs are not only expensive, the quality wouldn’t be too good either.” Li Ziqi then glanced at the remaining 8. “As for the other herbs, they can only be found on the Darkness Continent. I’ve heard of them before but I have no idea about their effects or method of usage. If you wish to purchase them, we can only try our luck in the black markets.”
Sun Mo frowned. As long as it was something from the Darkness Continent, it was a guarantee that it would be expensive. If the ingredients for the giant medicine packet were too expensive, he might as well just purchase them from the system merchant store.
Honestly speaking, Sun Mo could harvest about +300 favorable impression points for each Medical Cultivation lesson. This was already enough for him to purchase three giant medicine packets from the system store.
“Teacher, you don’t have to worry about it. Leave the collecting of these herbs to me.”
Li Ziqi volunteered. Her teacher was someone destined to do great things, how could she allow him to be distracted by such minor matters? As the eldest disciple, she naturally had to take over.
“Alright, I’ll have to trouble you then.”
After hearing Li Ziqi’s words, Sun Mo decided to go ahead with his plan of concocting the giant medicine packet in the future. If it was for his own usage, he could just buy the giant medicine packets from the system. But he still had six disciples, and it was impossible for them all to bathe together every time, right? After all, males and females shouldn’t be in physical contact before marriage. If they took a bath together, it wouldn’t look good.
Also, after his last usage, Sun Mo discovered that the effect of the giant medicine packet was extremely good. Even Tantai Yutang and Jiang Leng obtained immense benefits from it. Since that was the case, the improvement to Li Ziqi and Lu Zhiruo would surely be even greater.
“It’s what I’m supposed to do!” Li Ziqi smiled. Her teacher didn’t mention anything about money. It meant that he treated her as one of his own and didn’t regard her as an outsider.
Money? Right now, although Sun Mo only had a few hundred taels of silver, if he continued being a ‘masseuse’, he would surely be able to earn a lot of money although there was no need for that.
as non
As long as he could create giant medicine packets, he could just casually sell a few and earn back his capital.
One must know that in the medicine world, the expensive things weren’t the ingredients. It was the prescription. For example, the GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical company would spend hundreds of millions every year just to develop a new medicine.
Sun Mo believed that given the powerful effects of the giant medicine packet, even a 3-star great teacher would wave bundles of cash before Sun Mo to purchase the giant medicine packet. What if ordinary teachers wanted to buy too? Sorry, could the poor please step aside? Since they came to the residence, Sun Mo also gave Li Ziqi and Lu Zhiruo the full massage treatment. The aladdin genie came out again, but it stood at the side with its arms crossed before his chest, showing no intentions of moving
Sun Mo felt that this genie was a fool. If it was other men who had the chance to massage Lu Zhiruo, they would surely massage her body so hard that her papayas burst.
Ding!
“Congratulations on drawing 1,000 spirit gathering runes within a month. Reward: 1x black-iron treasure chest!”
A metallic treasure chest appeared before his eyes.
Sun Mo lowered his head. “What’s wrong?”
Lu Zhiruo was lying on the bed like a salted fish. She blinked her large and beautiful eyes.
“Nothing.” Sun Mo mentally mused that since he had been massaging this auspicious mascot for over 5 minutes, his luck stat would surely be boosted by quite a lot, right? Hence, he decided to open the treasure chest.
A bright light flashed as a mahjong tile-like object appeared.
Ding!
“Congratulations on obtaining ix time emblem (restricted version: spirit runes). You can only use it to increase the proficiency level of a spirit rune drawing technique.”
“There are restricted versions too?”
Sun Mo was bewildered. After he finished his massage sessions for the two girls, he got them to shower. After that, he took out the time emblem and crushed it.
Pak!
A burst of green light spread out to a certain distance before stopping. After that, they converged into a stream and shot into Sun Mo’s forehead, instantly causing his body to be cloaked in a green glow. “System, if there’s a chance, I will definitely make you wear a green hat (being made a cuckold).”
Sun Mo took another note against the system in his mental notebook. To men, the color green was the most unbearable color. However, the effect was quite good. As the green light entered his mind, a large amount of information generated and became his knowledge. “Congratulations, your training of the Black Tortoise Spirit Rune Drawing Technique has progressed by ten years. Your proficiency level increased from the expert-grade to the ancestor-grade!”
The system congratulated.
“What?”
Sun Mo clicked his tongue, feeling as though he had heard wrongly.
“Ancestor-grade!” the system repeated.
“Why does the proficiency level increase so much this time around?”
Sun Mo was curious. He had never drawn a single Black Tortoise Spirit Rune before. If he could find the trick behind it, wouldn’t he be able to increase his proficiency crazily in the future?
“Because your talent in the study of spirit runes was already very outstanding. Moreover, your spirit gathering rune drawing technique is also near the ancestor-grade. Hence, with the push from the time emblem, it led to such a huge increase in your proficiency level,” the system explained.
Bluntly speaking, the time emblem would give you ten years of experience, but the amount of increase in proficiency level was dependent on the individual’s talent. After all, there would be some who would enjoy a higher increase and some who enjoyed a lower increase.
“In that case, what’s the ranking of my Black Tortoise Spirit Rune?”
Sun Mo waved his hand and drew one in the air.
“You are ranked #1 in the Central Province Academy, #1 in Jinling City, and #1 with two other ancestor-level individuals in the Central Province,” the system replied. After seeing the three #1, Sun Mo smiled with satisfaction. Leaving aside the Central Continent, he was the sole #1 in Jinling. This meant that he was the highest authority on this subject. After that, Sun Mo heaved a sigh of relief. Honestly speaking, every spirit runes class was him speaking about spirit gathering runes. Even if the students weren’t vexed, he himself found it annoying. Now, there was finally a new rune he could talk about.
“System, what about those below 30 years of
age?”
Sun Mo continued to ask.
“F***!”
The system cursed and almost added the words ‘your mom’ behind it. “You are already the overall ranked #1, yet you still want to know the ranking for those below 30 years old? Are you too bored that your balls are aching?”
“Would you die if you praise me a little more?”
It truly wasn’t easy to take the slightest bit of advantage from the system. “Teacher, why are you smiling?”
Li Ziqi returned. Because she just took a shower, her skin seemed extremely fair and tender, and there were also tiny droplets of water on it.
“Because I feel myself growing stronger again.”
Sun Mo then added mentally, “System, you can go take a break for now!”
“Teacher, there are still two months before we will be heading to the Darkness Continent. Do we need to prepare anything?” Lu Zhiruo was filled with anticipation.
“The school will reveal a list of items. At that time, we just have to prepare according to the list. But for things like medicine, it’s naturally best if we could bring more.”
Li Ziqi had prepared for this. She confidently thumped her chest. “Teacher, don’t worry. Leave this to me.”
As the eldest martial sister, she naturally had to settle these trifling matters and not let her teacher worry.
“I’ll have to trouble you then.”
Lu Zhiruo rubbed Li Ziqi’s head. “Boohoo... Teacher finally rubbed my head.”
Li Ziqi felt a little joy. After that, she sneakily glanced at Sun Mo’s expression and felt some worry. Could the feel of her head be more inferior than the papaya girl’s? Ding!
Favorable impression points from Li Ziqi +15. Friendly (640/1,000).
Lu Zhiruo stood at the side, her lips twitched. Now that Sun Mo wasn’t patting her head, she felt a little disappointed.
Concentrate Fragrance Court was one of the three largest brothels in Jinling. The females here were all passionate and open-minded; they were extremely straight-forward.
Reciting poems, admiring paintings and scenery? They didn’t exist.
Drinking, singing, bodies gyrating against each other in dancing—these were the theme here. Hence, many nobles didn’t frequent here, but as for those affluent second generations from the merchant clans, they liked to go to this place a lot.
Right now, in the second VIP room of the Sky-titled Room, the screams of a female grew increasingly louder.
This was the third time Mama-san Qian went to knock on the door. In the end, a flower vase was thrown out and her head almost broke. Seeing that there was nothing she could do, she could only go to find Li Tai.
“Little duke, please help me out. If Young Master Zhou continued hitting Little Lihua, she would definitely be beaten to death,” Mama-san Qian cried.
“I’ll go and take a look!”
Li Tai was embracing two ladies, one by his left hand and the other by his right. On the way there, he was also not afraid of meeting familiar people. His hands groped around their chests and when he saw pretty courtesans while heading there, he also stretched his hand out to touch them as well.
However, most of the girls would dodge and smile, throwing a seductive glance at him.
Although this Li Tai wasn’t handsome, his status was extremely high. He was the youngest and most dotted son of the current Great Tang Emperor’s younger brother, Li Zixing.
With the shiny golden halo of a little prince, Li Tai didn’t even need to do anything and there would be women crawling into his embrace.
Bang!
Li Tai kicked open the door. “Who is it? You don’t want to live anymore, right?”
Zhou Yong ferociously turned his head. He took up a vase and was prepared to throw it over.
“Zhou Yong, why are you going crazy?” Li Tai glanced over. That woman named Little Lihua was already lying on the ground. She didn’t even have the strength to scream. Her entire body was injured, and she didn’t even have a patch of clear skin on her. Whip marks and bruises could be seen everywhere on her body. “Little prince!”
When Zhou Yong saw Li Tai, he didn’t dare to be rash. He impatiently kicked the woman on the ground. “Why are you not scramming yet? What a mood damper!”
“I heard you got punished with the ‘ignorant and incompetent’ great teacher halo by a new teacher and then became an idiot for the duration of an entire lesson. Is that true?”
Li Tai asked. Although he was from the Myriad Daos Academy, the size of their social circle wasn’t that big. Any incident would be circulated around quickly.
Zhou Yong depended on his extremely rich father and had always been arrogant. Now that he had been taught a lesson, many people were silently rejoicing upon his misery.
When Zhou Yong heard this, he took up a vase and smashed it to the back of Little Lihua’s head.
Bang!
Little Lihua’s eyes rolled back. Fresh blood soon pooled around the area her head was at. Zhou Yong didn’t even glance at her. He returned to the desk and took a bottle of grape wine as he chugged it down. “Wanting to make a joke out of me? I will make sure that fellow loses his reputation within seven days and scram out of Jinling!”
Ever since he was young, Zhou Yong had never suffered like this before.
During Sun Mo’s first public lecture, Zhou Yong had wanted to take his revenge. But in the end, after his father Zhou Yuanzhi learned of this, he was grounded for ten days. Zhou Yuanzhi wasn’t angry at how his son had lost to another teacher. Rather, he was angry at Zhou Yong’s failure. He wanted to ground his son for ten days for his son to cool down and think of a better plan for revenge.
After ten days, Zhou Yong coincidentally heard of Gao Ben’s arranged duel against Sun Mo. He temporarily delayed his revenge plan and was preparing to jump out and ridicule Sun Mo after he got defeated by Gao Ben. But who knew that Gao Ben was useless! Not only did Gao Ben fail to crush Sun Mo, but he even became Sun Mo’s stepping stone, allowing Sun Mo’s fame to be greater. How outrageous.
Upon thinking of this, Zhou Yong felt so angry that his liver ached. But everything was fine now. He would continue with his arrangements, and Sun Mo would be finished in just a few days.
“Is that so? In that case, you mustn’t make everyone disappointed, alright?” Li Tai mocked. His eyes narrowed, as he wanted nothing more than for Zhou Yong to stir things bigger, flipping the entire Central Province Academy upside down. At that time, the Myriad Daos Academy would become the only famous school in Jinling.
At the grand residence of the Zhang Clan.
The third young master Zhang Qianlin just returned after schooling abroad for three years. His parents were both extremely happy and gave some monetary rewards to their servants, causing everyone in the Zhang Clan’s residence to be extremely joyful, resulting in a happy atmosphere.
“Father, what’s going on with that Sun Mo?” Zhang Qianlin impatiently stormed into the study to ask his father after speaking for a while with his mother.
“How did I teach you?”
Zhang Hanfu glared at him. “No matter what’s the occasion, you should not be impatient or angry. What have you learned during your studies these three years? Has all that education been wasted?”
Zhang Qianlin’s face turned black upon being scolded. However, he knew of his father’s temper. If he rebutted, he would surely be scolded extremely badly. Hence, he could only endure it.
15 minutes later, Zhang Hanfu spoke again after a round of scolding.”
“Have you gained anything during these three years after making a trip to three ‘A’-grade schools?”
Zhang Hanfu’s face was filled with admiration as he looked at his son.
Although Zhang Qianlin was the son of his concubine, Zhang Qianlin was extremely good-looking because of his mother’s good looks. His face and figure didn’t resemble Zhang Hanfu who was short and had a potato-shaped face. Zhang Qianlin was tall and fair and looked like the image of an elegant young master.
The main point was that Zhang Qianlin wasn’t only handsome, but he also had an extraordinary demeanor. Hence, he was highly regarded by Zhang Hanfu, and Zhang Hanfu also put all his heart and soul in nurturing him.
After his favorite son became an adult, Zhang Hanfu put his old face on the line and called in favors while also begging many influential people so that his son could get an opportunity to undertake advanced studies by visiting three ‘A’-grade schools.
This time, it could be considered that his son had completed his studies and finally returned.
“Now, I’m at the fifth level of blood-ignition. Although my cultivation base is a little low, my achievements in the study of spirit runes have already gained the approval of Teacher Wang. He said that no one in Jinling would be my match in the field of spirit runes after five years!”
Zhang Qianlin summarized for his father.
“Oh? Teacher Wang really said that?”
Zhang Hanfu’s eyes brightened. This Teacher Wang was the vice-headmaster of the High Mountain Academy and was also a 5-star great teacher. He had extremely high attainments in the field of spirit runes and was already considered half-a-foot into the ancestor-grade in terms of his proficiency level.
Teacher He of the Central Province Academy wasn’t bad as well, but when compared to Teacher Wang, Teacher He was still a hair inferior. If not, Zhang Hanfu wouldn’t send his son abroad to pursue advanced studies.
“It’s true!”
After Zhang Qianlin finished speaking about himself, he turned the topic back to An Xinhui. “Why did she suddenly have a fiance? Did someone force her into this engagement?”