After paying respects to the small courtyard, the Head Butler couldn't help but bubble with joy, feeling that his fortune was immense, and that a glorious future must be just around the corner. Wait, what was a glorious future? Being accepted into an immortal sect and obtaining ancient immortal techniques—that was the real matter.

"What sort of gift should I present for a master's apprenticeship? Gold and silver are vulgar things; immortals likely wouldn't care for them."

He was utterly distressed. Suddenly remembering something, he turned back, hands clasped behind his back, and harshly rebuked the maids, "What were you all screeching about just now? You’ve clearly never seen the world. This is an immortal trace, an immortal being displaying power here. Mortals must not approach. This matter is absolutely not to be spread; if you disturb the immortal’s peace, you’ll be dealt with severely. What are you standing there for? Get back to work!"

Steward Wu, worried that the news would spread and frighten the immortal away, gave the maids stern instructions and shooed them off.

"Yes!"

The maids quickly covered their mouths, their eyes shining, and hurried away. Having been immersed in such tales since childhood, they held boundless admiration for immortals who could soar through the heavens and burrow through the earth. However, being young, their reverence was mixed with a good deal of curiosity.

Within the small courtyard, Ye Qin’s mind was completely immersed in the Fire Source, unaware of Steward Wu and the maids’ commotion.

He had set up restrictions around the courtyard not to intentionally scare the maids, but simply to prevent any disturbances during his process, so he had prepared the entire area beforehand with a simple restrictive array.

If any other cultivator were to trigger the restriction and attempt to enter, he would be instantly aware and able to react in time.

As for alarming the mortals nearby, he truly hadn't given it much thought.

Even if they noticed something, it wouldn't matter much to him; they were merely passing by. Once he figured out the two items he currently possessed—the Fire Source and the Treasure-Gathering Gourd—he would leave and head to Northern Qi to rendezvous with Yan Xuan, Lü Yuan, and other sect members to complete his trial.

Even if mortals discovered something amiss in the small courtyard, it would only become another vague legend of an immortal trace within Qingzhou, which was a common occurrence in the Southern Liang Kingdom and hardly a major event.

Five or six days flew by in a blink.

After attempting hundreds of different trials, a hint of joy finally broke through the slight fatigue on Ye Qin’s face.

He had finally managed to clarify the two functions of the Fire Source over these days.

One function was the automatic gathering of Fire Spiritual Qi, a property already understood and need not be mentioned again.

The other function was its ability to condense the gathered Fire Spiritual Qi, thereby drastically increasing the temperature of the flames. This condensation process was exceedingly slow, typically measured in days, and almost imperceptible under normal circumstances.

This second function was something Ye Qin discovered accidentally while "burning firewood."

He had originally intended to test if the Fire Source could be used for alchemy or artifact refinement, so he tossed a small section of spirit wood grown in his Purple Mansion into the Fire Source. The snippet of spirit wood instantly ignited, the flames of the Fire Source surged, and the Fire Spiritual Qi clearly intensified.

Tossing in ordinary wood yielded no such effect; it had to be spirit wood. Once the spirit wood burned away, the contained Wood Spiritual Qi completely dissipated, with the majority transforming into Fire Spiritual Qi.

Of course, using the Fire Source wasn't mandatory; burning spirit wood with ordinary Yang Fire would similarly convert the Wood Spiritual Qi into Fire Spiritual Qi. In this regard, the Source offered no difference from Yang Fire—both could transmute Wood Spiritual Qi into Fire Spiritual Qi.

"Wood gives rise to Fire" was a rule already established within the Five Elements of cultivation, so there was nothing surprising about it.

The difference was that the energy generated by ordinary means dissipated quickly, whereas the energy from the Fire Source did not—that was the sole distinction.

After consuming the spirit wood, the Fire Source gathered a substantial amount of Fire Spiritual Qi and its physical size increased slightly.

The vortex of the Fire Source continued to spin slowly.

At this point, no significant change was yet apparent.

Placing it within his Wood Mansion yielded no change either.

However, when he placed it inside his Fire Mansion, an unexpected change occurred that Ye Qin had not anticipated.

The rotational speed of the Fire Source markedly increased, and the Fire Spiritual Qi underwent a phenomenon of drastic condensation.

Approximately one hundred strands of low-grade Red Earth Fire, after being condensed by the Fire Source for two to three days, were ultimately condensed into a single stream of mid-grade Azure Earth Fire. Beyond that, it could not condense further. A single strand was the minimum size, incapable of being reduced further.

This phenomenon greatly surprised Ye Qin.

If the Fire Source were removed, the condensation of Fire Spiritual Qi would automatically cease; it would not condense into a higher-grade Earth Fire. This Fire Source played a crucial role.

In his amazement, Ye Qin retrieved all the unused spirit woods from his Wood Mansion and tossed them into the Fire Source. Since the Wood Mansion lacked sufficient spirit wood, he even used spirit stones to cultivate more spirit wood just to fuel the fire.

Several days later, the Fire Mansion produced nearly a hundred streams of Azure Flames.

These hundred-plus streams of Azure Earth Fire began to be condensed again by the Fire Source, and the might of the fierce flames became somewhat oppressive. Even Ye Qin’s Nascent Soul at the Foundation Establishment stage felt it was becoming unbearable, daring not approach carelessly.

The process of condensing from Azure Flame to Blue Flame was even slower; after several days, only a small portion had condensed. By the look of it, it would take at least half a month to a full month before it could be completely condensed.

Ye Qin was exceptionally excited, barely restraining himself.

Azure Earth Fire was equivalent to the Innate True Fire possessed by Foundation Establishment cultivators. If these nearly one hundred streams of Azure Earth Fire continued to condense, they certainly wouldn't remain Azure Flames; they should become a higher-grade flame. The highest probability was that they would transform into a stream of Blue Earth Fire.

Blue Earth Fire’s power was comparable to the Samadhi True Fire wielded by Core Formation cultivators.

If a stream of Blue Earth Fire were to appear in his Fire Mansion after half a month, it would mean he could directly command a high-grade flame typically mastered only by cultivators of a higher realm, breaking through the limitations of the Foundation Establishment stage.

This Blue Earth Fire could be preserved within the Fire Mansion without dissipating, ready to be retrieved and used at any time.

That, in turn, would bring enormous benefits, whether for alchemy or artifact refinement.

The only concern Ye Qin had was that cultivating this Blue Earth Fire demanded a substantial consumption of spirit stones.

He could use Fire Spirit Stones directly, extracting the Fire Spiritual Qi from them, or he could use Wood Spirit Stones. However, Wood Spirit Stones required cultivation into spirit wood first, which then had to be burned, otherwise, the Wood Spiritual Qi couldn't smoothly convert into Fire Spiritual Qi.

Ye Qin noted down every step.

He discovered that consuming one low-grade Fire Spirit Stone could roughly yield nearly a thousand strands of Red Flame. And nearly one hundred strands of Red Flame could only condense into a single strand of Azure Flame. A hundred streams of Azure Earth Fire might possibly yield one stream of Blue Earth Fire.

In other words, to finally condense a single stream of Blue Earth Fire required over a hundred low-grade spirit stones—a truly exorbitant cost.

He knew that a low-grade magical artifact only sold for a thousand low-grade spirit stones.

Ye Qin was unsure exactly how much Blue Flame was consumed in refining a low-grade artifact, but based on his experience, the required amount would certainly not be small.

Ye Qin had largely clarified the function of the Fire Source. He stored it in the Fire Mansion and would wait half a month to see if the hundred-plus streams of mid-grade Azure Earth Fire could successfully condense into a stream of high-grade Blue Earth Fire.

If nothing unexpected happened, he would likely need to rely heavily on this Fire Source in the future.

He currently possessed a purple fire-element mineral crystal, and with this potential Blue Earth Fire, he only lacked a small amount of essence to begin preparing for the refinement of the Southern Bright Vermilion Phoenix Sword.

Ye Qin set the Fire Source aside and retrieved a golden gourd from his storage pouch. The Treasure-Gathering Gourd was a top-grade wood-element artifact, left behind by the ancient cultivator Zhenren Jubao (True Man Treasure Collector), who was famously greedy. It was rumored to be capable of producing one low-grade spirit stone daily.

This was also a point of great confusion for Ye Qin. Since the Treasure-Gathering Gourd could produce spirit stones, why didn't Zhenren Jubao create more? That way, becoming the foremost wealthy figure in the Spirit Mist Cultivation World would have been simple.

Yet, in reality, Zhenren Jubao spent several decades of painstaking effort to create only this one gourd and then gave up on making more. Zhenren Jubao never publicly explained the reason; outsiders didn't know why, leading to many speculations.

Ye Qin took the golden gourd in hand to examine it.

The outer wall of the Treasure-Gathering Gourd was intricately carved with several nested, circular wood-element Spirit Gathering Arrays, clearly designed to accelerate the absorption of Wood Spiritual Qi.

This golden gourd didn't appear large, but its internal space was surprisingly vast, capable of accommodating a small mountain. Inside the gourd, a bluish-black stone, resembling a piece of dry, ugly deadwood, floated in the center.

Although this piece of cyan stone possessed Wood Spiritual Qi, it lacked the luster of ordinary wood spirit stones.

Ye Qin spent considerable effort searching through the various cultivation world manuals he carried, hoping to find out what this object truly was. After flipping through dozens of thick volumes over a day, he found a description in the Secret Canon of Spirit Stone Mineral Exploration: "Mineral Source, the origin of spirit stone lodes. When a Mineral Source touches common stone, the common stone turns into a spirit stone over time. All spirit stones in the world derive from the vicinity of a Mineral Source, without exception. Over tens of millions of years, they gather the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, gradually forming spirit stone lodes. Wood-element Mineral Source is bluish-black, resembling broken wood. Fire-element Mineral Source is reddish-brown, resembling fire glaze."

"Wood-element Mineral Source, bluish-black, resembling broken wood"—these few words closely matched the appearance of the cyan stone.

Ye Qin was stunned. Could the cyan stone inside the Treasure-Gathering Gourd actually be a Spirit Stone Mineral Source?

Given that the Treasure-Gathering Gourd itself was a wood-attribute artifact carved with wood-element Spirit Gathering Arrays, and it contained a wood-element Mineral Source, the probability was quite high.

The Treasure-Gathering Gourd, painstakingly created by Zhenren Jubao, was essentially a portable, miniature mineral lode. In that case, even without the Gourd, simply burying this Mineral Source underground would automatically grow many spirit stones over time.

Ye Qin took the cyan stone out of the Treasure-Gathering Gourd and placed it in an ordinary stone box, alongside a piece of common rock. After one day, one-tenth of the common rock had transformed into wood spirit stone.

He calculated: if the Mineral Source were buried underground, in about ten thousand years, it would become a miniature lode containing hundreds of thousands of low-grade spirit stones. For the Azure Pill Sect, a major cultivation sect with nearly ten thousand members, consuming about a hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones monthly, such a miniature lode would only last a few months' supply.

The Treasure-Gathering Gourd, the top-grade artifact that Zhenren Jubao spent his life crafting, significantly sped up the absorption of spiritual energy—by about tenfold. It could produce one low-grade spirit stone per day.

Mineral Sources were extremely rare, buried deep underground.

Even Zhenren Jubao likely couldn't find many Mineral Sources. This was probably why he couldn't manufacture Treasure-Gathering Gourds in large quantities. Without a Mineral Source, the Treasure-Gathering Gourd was just an empty vessel, unable to transmute common stone into spirit stones.

Ye Qin felt a pang of melancholy. The lifespan of an ordinary cultivator was only a mere hundred years. Even possessing a Mineral Source, the growth of spirit stones was excruciatingly slow—who could afford to wait?

For a cultivator like him, at the first layer of Foundation Establishment, the daily consumption of spirit stones for alchemy alone was several pieces, and if other various uses were added, the consumption was even greater. This Treasure-Gathering Gourd only provided a slight supplementary effect. (To be continued, for future developments, please log in to m, for more chapters, support the author, and support genuine reading!)