Seed of Dao

Mysterious seeds

"One hundred spirit stones for one storage pouch with one meter diameter." A fat seller immediately spoke when finding Ye Chen was looking at his storage pouch merchandise.

Ye Chen appeared to frown slightly and asked, "Are there any with larger space?"

"Larger?"

The seller looked at Ye Chen again, and when seeing Ye Chen didn't have a single storage pouch on his body, a smile appeared on his face. "I have one with five meters diameter, do you want it?"

"Let me see."

The seller searched around and then a dark yellow pouch, the same as the others appeared.

"Five meters diameter is far more expensive than two meters, so it's sold for three hundred spirit stones." The fat seller said while handing the storage pouch to Ye Chen.

Three hundred spirit stones?

Ye Chen immediately knew he was being taken advantage of again, but he didn't intend to buy it and began to look at the storage pouch in his hand. But he didn't find anything different, it was the same as the others, its shape made from dark yellow and rough cowhide.

"How do I know if inside has five meters of space?" Ye Chen asked innocently.

"Check it!" On the other side, the seller felt strange, and looked at Ye Chen confused.

"Well, actually I don't know how to check it." With an embarrassed and innocent expression, Ye Chen who began to scratch his head with a foolish smile said.

"Don't you know?" This time the seller was the one who felt confused, but then he realized something and smiled widely.

"How about I teach you with an additional five spirit stones?"

Robbery!

Ye Chen almost shouted at the fat seller, but he still pretended to be stupid, and said, "No problem with twenty-five or even thirty spirit stones. The problem is, what if you can't teach me well? At that time, do I still have to pay it too?"

"Don't worry, the way to open it is truly very easy." The seller smiled confidently and began to teach Ye Chen how to open it.

Indeed, the way to open it wasn't too complicated, it was just injecting spiritual consciousness into the storage pouch while reciting some mantra words. Of course it wasn't difficult for Ye Chen to open it, but he pretended he couldn't do it, and stood in front of the seller for more than half an hour.

"Damn it! Are you really stupid!? How can you practice to qi refinement first level if you can't even open a storage pouch!" The seller began to lose patience, and shouted at Ye Chen.

Ye Chen himself, could only scratch his head and smile foolishly like someone truly an idiot.

"My brother, you already promised to teach me. So--"

"Go, go! Don't bother me again, you idiot!" The seller began to lose patience with Ye Chen's stupidity and drove him away harshly.

"Alright..." Ye Chen appeared disappointed and left with a gloomy face.

Until finally he walked far from the previous fat seller, Ye Chen's facial expression returned. Then entering a narrow alley and taking out the dark yellow storage pouch with a smiling face.

"You want to fool me, Ye Chen? You're still too young." Ye Chen grinned and began to open the storage pouch as taught.

Whoosh

At that moment, all the contents in the storage pouch from the man who was going to make Ye Chen his disciple came out all at once.

Ye Chen, who for the first time tried and succeeded in taking out its contents smiled embarrassedly, and saw that the unnamed man's items were actually quite many. But he didn't check for now, and began to put them in one by one before finally becoming proficient in using the storage pouch.

Then looking for some of the cheapest inns for the time being, and managed to rent an inn with only one room and one bed priced at one spirit stone per month.

Examining both storage pouches using his consciousness, Ye Chen found that the old man's storage pouch from the past actually had ten square meters of space. While the white-clothed young man had one meter more space.

From the old man's items from the past, Ye Chen also found several jade bottles, herbs and training formulas he didn't recognize at all. Besides, there were also about twenty-seven spirit stones—a not small amount for a qi refinement cultivator.

Taking out books and jade bottles, Ye Chen found that the book was actually a complete training formula of fire, water and metal types. Where one such training formula could be used to practice up to grand qi perfection, or twelve qi refinement levels.

According to the price Ye Chen knew from market transactions before, one such formula should be able to sell for forty to fifty spirit stones. Unexpectedly, the old man who never mentioned his name in the past was quite wealthy.

Ye Chen felt satisfied, and began to look at pills in bottles and found six light blue pills, four red pills. These ten pills must be valuable, but he didn't know their names and uses.

Setting aside things he didn't know, Ye Chen examined the white-clothed man's storage pouch, and found several books that caught his attention.

The first book was a sword technique named Fast Sword Control. Reading the book's contents for some time, Ye Chen finally realized that the reason he couldn't use the small black sword was because he didn't have consciousness inside the sword.

According to instructions from inside the book, if he wanted to control that sword, he had to imprint his soul consciousness into the sword. As for how to do it, all the procedures were written completely in the book.

"Finally found a proper fighting technique!" Ye Chen was very happy after getting that book, but he didn't immediately study it, and took other books.

Besides sword technique, there were four other thin books that made Ye Chen's eyes sparkle. Those were basic spell books that apparently had to be mastered by all cultivators.

The first book titled "Basic Fireball Spell" which explained how to condense qi into a fireball to attack enemies. The second book was "Object Control Spell" technique to move small objects with qi. The third book "Light Wind Spell" allowed cultivators to move faster with wind's help. And the last "Water Shield Spell" defensive technique to form a shield from water element.

Ye Chen didn't expect that the white-clothed young man actually had basic spell books that were very valuable for rogue cultivators like himself. With these books, he didn't need to bother looking for or buying at expensive prices in the market.

"Turns out that young man was truly a disciple from a sect or cultivation family," Ye Chen muttered while flipping through those books. "No wonder he had complete basic knowledge."

Storing the spell books carefully, Ye Chen continued examining the storage pouch's contents. But he didn't find anything else, besides thirteen spirit stones, seven white pills and four blue pills whose uses he also didn't know, what remained were only ordinary items like clothes, food and so on.

With a total of forty spirit stones from both storage pouches, plus the very valuable basic spell books, Ye Chen felt that he now had capital to survive in the cultivation world. Although this amount of spirit stones might not be much for experienced cultivators, for a rogue cultivator like himself, this was quite enough for the next few months.

"Alright, now examine the small sword." Ye Chen turned to his chest to see the small sword, and finally he also found the necklace with another black seed.

"That's right, since I started practicing, it seems I've never examined this seed. Let's see, is there a secret inside?" Ye Chen took that small black seed and examined it.

First he tried to inject spiritual energy, but it didn't give any effect. Using spiritual consciousness, Ye Chen felt his soul beginning to be sucked and hurriedly pulled his consciousness back with fear. But he couldn't pull it back.

He began to panic and didn't know what was happening, but moments later the seed shone with bright light and flew toward his forehead.

Ye Chen's face changed, but the seed's speed was very fast, and before he could react, the black seed entered the forehead between both his eyebrows. Moments later pain from his soul came, that pain was so painful that he couldn't even scream.

As if his soul was being torn apart and forcibly pulled out from his body, Ye Chen's consciousness began to blur and he no longer knew what was happening.