Cultivation Begins From The Desert-Chapter 56: Suffering Loss is a Blessing

"I know you’re probably wondering why I hinted at you to proactively do a favor for Chen Pingzhi."

"But Xiao Jiu, let me tell you today that suffering a loss isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, a temporary setback is to gain a greater benefit!"

"As for Chen Pingzhi, I’ve known him for decades. Though he seems easygoing and plain on the outside, deep down, he’s extremely proud and greedy. Today, you’ve successfully established your foundation using his cave mansion, and no matter how many benefits I’ve given him before, he’ll definitely think it’s not enough."

"So if you don’t do him a favor today, in the future when the Chen Family needs to make decisions affecting the interests of our Zhou Family, he might secretly play some tricks."

"Conversely, if you do him a favor today, whether he feels you’re worth associating with or he wants to benefit later, when the Chen Family makes decisions related to our Zhou Family, as long as his own interests are not involved, he will certainly be willing to speak a few good words for us."

"Lastly, although Chen Pingzhi might not amount to much, his half-brother Chen Ping’an is definitely worth our Zhou Family’s efforts to forge a strong relationship with."

"Chen Ping’an has a great chance to open the Purple Mansion. If our Zhou Family can establish a relationship with him before he opens it, we’ll not be marginalized or squeezed out of the Chen Family alliance circle when Ancestor Chen Yaohui passes away and he takes over the Chen Family."

In the quiet room on Jingming Peak, the old clan leader Zhou Minghan and Zhouyang were sitting cross-legged facing each other, discussing the matters that happened earlier on White Camel Peak.

"Hearing Great-grandfather say this, I understand. On the surface, I owe Chen Pingzhi a favor, but in reality, having this favor means I have value in his eyes, and we have become interest associates."

"Since we are interest associates, as long as I don’t become an enemy with Chen Pingzhi, with this favor, he becomes my reliable ally and informant in the Chen Family, and before the favor is used, he is certainly the last person in the Chen Family who wants me dead!"

Zhouyang looked at the old clan leader sitting across from him, his eyes filled with admiration.

Indeed, wisdom comes with age. Compared to the clan leader who has managed the family for over a hundred years and is a seasoned Foundation Establishment Cultivator, Zhouyang realized he still had a long way to go.

"Interest associates? That’s quite an apt description! It seems Xiao Jiu, you’ve truly understood."

Light flashed in Zhou Minghan’s eyes, feeling quite gratified that Zhouyang understood his words so quickly, silently praising himself for not choosing the wrong person.

However, he didn’t call Zhouyang to the quiet room only for this matter.

With a flash of sharp light in his eyes, Zhou Minghan looked intensely at Zhouyang and asked, "Earlier on White Camel Peak, there was something I was not in a position to ask, but now, Xiao Jiu, can you tell me, after establishing your foundation, did you awaken any Treasure Body Divine Techniques?"

Zhouyang had anticipated that the old clan leader would ask this, so without speaking, he directly extended his hand, a ball of faint golden True Flame appearing on his palm.

"Is this... could it be?"

Zhou Minghan’s gaze suddenly focused, staring in shock at the faint golden True Flame in Zhouyang’s hand.

The faint golden True Flame was only the size of a fist, yet with his Seventh-Layer Foundation Establishment cultivation, Zhou Minghan felt a faint sense of threat upon seeing the flame.

"Great-grandfather guessed right, this is indeed the ’Qianyang True Flame’!" Zhouyang nodded slightly, helping Zhou Minghan express the unsaid words.

"No wonder, no wonder, no wonder your artifact refining talent is so outstanding! So you possess the ’Qianyang Treasure Body’ constitution!" Zhou Minghan muttered to himself in a daze, his eyes filled with an enlightened look.

’Qianyang True Flame’ is one of the best True Flames for artifact refining. People with the ’Qianyang Treasure Body’ are naturally excellent artifact refiners, a fact known to those with some understanding of divine bodies in the cultivation realm.

However, Treasure Bodies are extremely rare, and cultivators with Treasure Bodies, unlike those with Spirit Bodies, are not guaranteed to establish a foundation or form a core. Hence, most cultivators rarely encounter a Treasure Body Cultivator who has mastered divine techniques.

It was only because ’Qianyang True Flame’ had once made a great name for itself in the Boundless Sea of Sand Cultivation Realm that allowed the old clan leader Zhou Minghan to make the connection at first sight, otherwise, without Zhouyang telling, he might not have realized the true origin of the faint golden flame.

"Good, good! What a ’Qianyang Treasure Body’, our Zhou Family will flourish, our Zhou Family will flourish indeed!"

Zhou Minghan snapped out of it, immediately exclaiming in excitement, his face full of elation, even more excited than Zhouyang was when he discovered his ’Qianyang Treasure Body.’

"’Qianyang Treasure Body’ is a Supreme Yang Body, not inferior at all to the ’Profound Sun Spirit Body’ among Spirit Bodies, and fortunately, in the family’s collection of Foundation Establishment Techniques, there is a scroll of the ’Golden Radiant Sun Technique’ suitable for your cultivation."

"Although this technique is an incomplete scroll, it is still a high-level technique that can be cultivated up to the Golden Core Stage, particularly suitable for cultivators with spiritual root attributes leaning towards gold and fire. As long as Xiao Jiu masters this technique, your combat ability in magical combat will surely surpass your peers."

He looked at Zhouyang with excitement, having already arranged all the cultivation techniques for Zhouyang’s future.

Judging by his excited demeanor, if he had the cultivation technique jade scroll with him, he would likely have taken it out and handed it directly to Zhouyang.

Zhouyang was somewhat helpless upon seeing this. The "Qianyang Immortal Scripture" was of great importance, and even though he trusted the old Clan Leader wouldn’t harm him, it was still inconvenient to reveal it.

So for now, he could only withdraw the True Flame in his hand and vaguely respond, "What you say, Great-Grandfather, I will follow your arrangements."

After all, unless someone was particularly familiar with a cultivation technique, they couldn’t easily discern what a cultivator was practicing. Since the "Golden Radiant Sun Technique" also cultivates both gold and fire magical power, it could conveniently help him conceal the existence of the "Qianyang Immortal Scripture."

Zhou Minghan, seeing that he didn’t object, looked even more pleased and couldn’t help but say with a smile, "Alright, the matter of cultivation techniques is settled. Now, let’s discuss your foster mother."

Speaking of Zhouyang’s foster mother, Zhou Xuan Yu, Zhou Minghan’s smile faded, and with a heavy expression, he spread his hand and produced a flying sword fragment two fingers wide, tossing it to Zhouyang.

"This fragment was found by Xuantai and others while searching for the missing Yu’er and others at a site of magical combat. The aura on it was left by Yu’er."

What!

Zhouyang’s face changed drastically as he took the flying sword fragment and examined it carefully before falling silent for a long time.

The old Clan Leader wasn’t lying; the aura on the flying sword fragment was indeed left by his foster mother, Zhou Xuan Yu.

Perhaps just a flying sword fragment bearing Zhou Xuan Yu’s aura couldn’t prove much, but given even a Tier Two High-grade Flying Sword was shattered, it was evident her disappearance was likely met with danger.

Regarding this outcome, Zhouyang wasn’t actually surprised. Since waiting for a long time at Golden Dawn Mountain without Zhou Xuan Yu coming to reunite with him, he had already prepared himself for this.

Yet not being surprised didn’t mean he wasn’t hurt upon learning this result.

Counting the entire Zhou Family, apart from his parents, it was his foster mother Zhou Xuan Yu who was the best and closest to him. Her affection for him even surpassed that of her own children; his success in defeating sand bandits several times was largely thanks to the spirit talismans she gave him.

Now, upon seeing his foster mother’s memento from the old Clan Leader, even though he had succeeded in Foundation Establishment and had begun the path to something extraordinary and unworldly, sorrow welled up in his heart, making him unable to stop his tears from falling.

Cultivators are still human, and humans have emotions. In this world, those who can achieve "Supreme Forgetting Emotions" as cultivators are very few indeed.

Zhouyang didn’t think there was anything wrong with a dignified Foundation Establishment Cultivator like himself crying. He cultivated for immortality, sure, but if achieving immortality meant erasing humanity, forsaking human relations, and voiding all emotions, then immortality wasn’t something he desired!

"Great-Grandfather, if the Chen Family ever finds those sand bandits’ lair, please don’t stop me. I must personally avenge my foster mother!"

He looked at the old Clan Leader Zhou Minghan with bloodshot eyes, full of hatred.

"Alright, I promise you, and when the time comes, I’ll go with you. Yu’er is not just your foster mother; she is also my own granddaughter!"

Zhou Minghan nodded heavily with a grave expression, his eyes reflecting both relief and hatred.

The relief was naturally because of Zhouyang’s gratitude and desire for revenge, while the hatred was aimed at those sand bandits. As Zhou Xuan Yu’s biological grandfather, he wanted nothing more than to kill those sand bandits for his granddaughter’s vengeance.

Unfortunately, those sand bandits came and went without a trace; even if they wanted revenge, for now, there was no one to exact it on.

During Zhouyang’s month of seclusion for Foundation Establishment, the Chen Family Ancestor had mobilized all available forces of the Chen Family to track down traces of those attacking sand bandits, scouring the entire Baisha River Oasis and the surrounding Desert Sea thoroughly.

However, it was as if the sand bandits had vanished from the world, no matter how the Chen Family cultivators searched, they couldn’t find a single trace of them.

Unable to find any trace of the sand bandits, the Chen Family Ancestor had to suppress his immense anger and focus on handling the aftermath.

Though Zhou Family and other small clans suffered considerable losses from this sand bandit attack, the ones who suffered the most were undoubtedly the Chen Family and the cultivation clans depending on them in the Baisha River Oasis.

Originally, of the four Foundation Establishment clans and dozens of Qi Cultivation small clans under the Chen Family’s protection in the Baisha River Oasis, only two Foundation Establishment clans managed to escape with some clan elites by abandoning their Spiritual Mountains in time. The remaining two Foundation Establishment clans and the majority of Qi Cultivation clans were completely wiped out by the sand bandits!

These exterminated clans were somewhat related to the Chen Family, either by blood or by strong alliances, being Chen Family’s most reliable allies.

Now, with these clans either exterminated or heavily hit, the Chen Family, as the sect leader’s clan, was obliged by both sentiment and justice to avenge them and provide resources to rebuild those clans. freeweɓnovel.cѳm

Moreover, the destroyed Jinsha Marketplace needed to be rebuilt elsewhere, as the surrounding loose cultivators relying on the marketplace for their livelihoods might cause trouble if there was no market to provide trade opportunities long term.

Handling each of these matters required a massive amount of spirit stones and resources. Had it not been for the recent sale of Foundation Establishment Pills earning them eighty to ninety thousand spirit stones, the Chen Family Ancestor might have had to swallow his pride and borrow from other clans.