Aspiring to the Immortal Path
Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 622: Butterfly

"No one has ever taught you before?"

At the threshing ground, Tang Jie helped Er Hu up while looking at him in surprise.

Charging through the Jade Gate without anyone's help was possible, but how had he formed his Spiritual Space?

Yet Er Hu confirmed that no one had ever taught him before.

Daoxiang Village was just an ordinary village, and few cultivators passed through the air. The closest contact the villagers had with a cultivator was spotting one soaring through the skies some distance away.

In such circumstances, there was naturally no cultivator who could come to teach Er Hu how to cultivate.

"Then how did you open your Spiritual Space?" Tang Jie asked.

"'Spiritual Space'? What is that?" Er Hu was baffled by the question.

He concluded that Tang Jie was a cultivator because Tang Jie had said that his cultivation method was too crude. As for terms like "Jade Gate" and "Spiritual Space", he didn't understand them at all.

Seeing this, Tang Jie could only have him sit down so that he could slowly question him.

Since Er Hu didn't understand these things, Tang Jie simply asked him if he had ever had any sort of special feeling, like energy traveling through his body or the sensation of his head almost exploding.

Sure enough, he got an answer.

Daoxiang Village was a small village near the border of Fengshan. The mountains Tang Jie had seen earlier were the two mountain ranges that separated Fengshan from the fiends: the Saint Court Mountains and the Pegasus Mountains. Still, quite a few fiends crossed the mountains every year, and humans would also seek their livelihoods in the mountains, so there was the occasional encounter.

Three years ago, Er Hu had gone into the mountains with his father to hunt, but they had run into a fiend. After a fierce battle, while the fiend had been killed, the villagers had suffered heavy losses, with Er Hu's father being one of the deaths. Er Hu himself had been heavily injured, but strangely, in the battle, he had felt a strange energy surging through his body, almost making him faint. But in the middle of that intense battle, he had clenched his teeth and endured it. From then on, Er Hu felt himself getting stronger by the day, and even the heavy injuries he had sustained in that battle had gradually healed.

"A Jade Gate Heaven Charge…" Tang Jie muttered.

What Er Hu had experienced was definitely the Jade Gate Heaven Charge. Once the Jade Gate was opened, one could harness spiritual energy, which was naturally a huge boost for a mortal. Thus, it wasn't strange for the body to be enhanced.

Tang Jie extended his senses into Er Hu's body and found that he had a five-cycle Jade Gate. Given that no one had been there to help him, such a high number of cycles was rather shocking.

This might have been because the Verdant Cloud Domain was richer in spiritual energy than the Rosecloud Domain. This wasn't because the Verdant Cloud Domain had more resources than the Rosecloud Domain, but because it lacked artificial blessed lands and paradises like the Water Moon Paradise.

But while a Jade Gate Heaven Charge could be experienced naturally, opening a Spiritual Space required the circulation of a mantra. Tang Jie knew just how much time he had needed to open up his own Spiritual Space, so how had this young man managed to open his Spirit Eye while completely clueless? Right now, just by breathing, he was condensing drops of spiritual liquid, and he was already at the Spirit Spring Tier. It was just that he lacked a mantra, so the only thing he could use his spiritual energy on was swinging around that millstone every day, which made him very strong.

Through Tang Jie's repeated questioning, Er Hu finally remembered that when he had been fighting that fiend, he had become so desperate that he had started biting at the fiend and had seemingly swallowed something. At first, he didn't feel anything, but at certain intervals, it would feel like his stomach was on fire. It only stopped after around a year, but ever since, he felt like there was something in his abdomen. There was no way of confirming it, but every time he breathed in, he felt like power would go in there, yet he had no means of using it.

The only way he could use that power was through massive physical exertion, which was why he had been training hard every day since then.

And though he didn't know about Jade Gates or Spiritual Spaces, there were folk tales about how cultivation required passing some threshold. He guessed that he had inadvertently crossed this threshold, but because he had no master to instruct him, he couldn't cultivate.

Tang Jie couldn't help but sigh.

If his guess was right, Er Hu had probably eaten that fiend's pellet.

A fiend that could be killed by a group of villagers couldn't be some high-class fiend. It was rare for such a fiend to produce a fiend pellet, let alone one that could open a Spiritual Space. Even Tang Jie had never heard of a fiend pellet doing such a thing.

This Er Hu had basically experienced a miracle.

But even stranger was that, according to Er Hu, this wasn't actually all that rare in the Verdant Cloud Domain. He had heard of many similar stories, and while those people had all been through different experiences, they all grew much stronger in the aftermath, their strength growing as they trained until some Immortal master finally took them away as their disciple.

Thus, Er Hu had always been looking forward to this—he had already accomplished the first half, so he was just waiting for the second half to arrive.

Tang Jie was dumbfounded by these folk tales.

While folk tales usually weren't reliable, they had to have cropped up for a reason. According to Er Hu, this was rather common in the Verdant Cloud Domain. Didn't this mean that there were some special circumstances in the Verdant Cloud Domain that made it easier for mortals to become Spirit Disciples?

Although Tang Jie wasn't personally interested in this, from a broader perspective, this was of great importance to the cosmos.

Each world had its own unique attributes. Just like how he had used the Martial Lord's hidden realm as a relay station, if possible, Tang Jie wanted to find a way he could use this world as well.

Er Hu excitedly wanted to take Tang Jie as his master.

He was sure that Tang Jie was a cultivator.

Tang Jie saw that this youth was determined to make this happen, so he finally agreed to pass on to him a basic cultivation mantra.

Having been part of several factions by now, he knew far more than just the Basking Moon Sect's mantras by now. Putting aside everything else, he had looted countless cultivation manuals from the Celestial Flame Pagoda, so he could take out any sort of cultivation manual he wanted.

After observing Er Hu's condition, he found that Er Hu had a strong and healthy body, and while he was five-cycle, he had tough and broad meridians, making him rather naturally gifted. He found him a suitable mantra and also passed a few spell arts on to him, warning him that he shouldn't use them lightly.

Er Hu cultivated the mantra and found that he really could control the spiritual energy in his body. Elated, he immediately prostrated and proclaimed Tang Jie as his master. But Tang Jie was unwilling to take him as his disciple. Since ancient times, there had always been certain customs to follow when taking a disciple, and if one took a disciple, one would have to see the whole process through to the very end. But he was only passing by, so how could he be willing to take a disciple? He made the excuse that his own knowledge was lacking before leaving. Er Hu was disappointed, but he could only gloomily go back. Fortunately, the door to cultivation had been opened for him, and he would no longer be futilely wasting his time.

Upon returning to his room, Tang Jie saw that Yiyi was still playing with the children.

They were playing a game that involved throwing rocks, with the winner being whoever had the best aim. There was also a wager on the line, with the loser having to serve as a horse for the winner.

Yiyi's aim was extremely sharp, and the children were basically taking turns serving as her horse. One unlucky boy was almost on the verge of tears. The children saw how formidable Yiyi was and stopped wanting to play with her.

Yiyi hadn't played much in her life, so she had been having a grand time. When she saw the children about to disperse, she frantically shouted, "Can't you stay? Let's play a little longer."

The children all shook their heads.

Yiyi cocked her head and began to think. "Then why don't we do this! If you guys play with me, I'll give you this."

She took out a butterfly of red jade and threw it into the air, upon which the butterfly flapped its wings and took flight.

The children found it very fun and shouted together, "I want it! I want it!"

What Yiyi had taken out was a low-grade tracking art relic. Its greatest function was to sprinkle pollen that could mark a target, after which the butterfly could follow them, tracking them down wherever they were so long as it was within a range of five hundred kilometers. Even better was that it didn't require spiritual power to function, making it a treasure that anyone could use without regard for cultivation level.

Tang Jie's group had nothing if not an alarming number of treasures. Even after selecting the best to be put in the Treasure Cosmos Formation, he still had a pile that he had no use for.

Considering that he needed money in a new world, Tang Jie didn't turn them all into golden grains. Yiyi was now using one of them to bribe small children, flaunting her ostentatious wealth.

The children of the village didn't know about how valuable the treasures were, only that the butterfly was cool. But the oldest child wasn't dumb, snorting and saying, "There are so many of us, but only one butterfly. Who are you giving it to?"

Yiyi realized that this was true, so she took out more low-grade treasures, most of them rather useless and not needing the support of spiritual energy. "Is one per person fine?"

"Oh!" The children shouted in delight.

Tang Jie slightly frowned at this. "Children obsessed with money are liable to get in trouble. Don't give these things to them. Take them back after they play with them for a while."

Yiyi could only nod.

The children didn't understand his kind intentions and rolled their eyes at him, thinking that he was being petty.

Tang Jie ignored them and entered his room.

Since everyone saw that they weren't getting any treasure, they lost interest in playing with Yiyi.

Yiyi was put in a rather awkward spot. After all, she had promised the children a treasure earlier and now had to eat her words. Thus, after some thought, she gave the butterfly to the oldest child and said, "Big Brother didn't want me to give you the treasures for your own sakes. This is for you. Just don't let anyone know."

This child's name was Er Shouzi. Taking the butterfly, he happily ran off, followed by a pack of children who wanted to take it from him.

Yiyi returned to the room and saw Tang Jie sitting down and thinking over something. Since he was so deep in thought, he probably didn't know she had gifted the butterfly to someone, so she breathed a sigh of relief.

A few moments later, Tang Jie came to his senses and said, "Yiyi, let's go."

"To where?"

"To the mountains to take a look."