Cultivation Begins From The Desert

"According to the records in the Spirit Medicine Atlas, after the Purple Cloud Fruit matures, it's white for the first thirty years, green for the next thirty years, greenish-purple for the subsequent thirty years, and gradually loses all green, turning purple in the final ten years, marking its full maturity."

"If these fruits are truly Purple Cloud Fruit, then that means in about fifty to sixty years, the Purple Cloud Fruit will be fully mature for medicinal refining!"

Inside the cave, Zhouyang gazed intently at the green spirit fruits on the vine, already planning how to utilize the Purple Cloud Fruit.

The Purple Cloud Pill is a Tier Three Top-Grade Spirit Pill, requiring at least a Tier Three Top-Grade Alchemist to refine it. Currently, the highest alchemist in the Zhou Family is Xiao Ying, who has only recently advanced to a Tier Three Lower-Grade Alchemist, and it might take decades or even centuries to reach Tier Three Top-Grade Alchemist.

Moreover, even if Xiao Ying advances to a Tier Three Top-Grade Alchemist, the Zhou Family does not possess the pill formula for the Purple Cloud Pill.

Thinking of this, Zhouyang shook his head, secretly lamenting, "The Yellow Sand Sect definitely has the pill formula for the Purple Cloud Pill, but they might not have the Purple Cloud Fruit. If the Purple Cloud Fruit matures, and Ying'Er hasn't become a Tier Three Top-Grade Alchemist and grasped the formula by then, we'll have no choice but to exchange it for a finished Spirit Pill with the Yellow Sand Sect!"

Using precious raw materials sufficient to refine a batch of elixirs in exchange for a single finished spirit pill is usually the helpless choice of loose cultivators.

Loose cultivators aren't adept at alchemy, and even those who understand it struggle for mastery, so if they discover rare spiritual objects like the Yuan Condensing Fruit or Purple Cloud Fruit, the most practical method is to exchange them with alchemists for one or several finished spirit pills.

Even clans like the Zhou Family, sometimes obtaining rare spiritual objects they cannot utilize themselves, must resort to this to obtain desired items.

Everyone knows the principle of 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'

But if the Zhou Family does this, the vine nurturing the Purple Cloud Fruit will be challenging to preserve. Even if the Yellow Sand Sect doesn't forcibly occupy it, the future yields of Purple Cloud Fruit from the family will have to be exclusively supplied to the Yellow Sand Sect.

Therefore, unless absolutely necessary, Zhouyang would never choose this route.

His gaze lingered on the Purple Cloud Fruit for nearly half a moment before moving past them, reaching the deepest part of the cave.

The cave's deepest area is a semi-circular chamber, about two zhang high with a radius of six or seven zhang. The walls and ceiling are embedded with fist-sized pieces of Light Jade, casting a gentle brightness, making the chamber as bright as daylight.

Zhouyang looked down to see a clean and tidy floor, almost spotless, unlike the filthy nests of other demon beasts.

It's not surprising.

Even a regular fox cleans its dwelling, let alone a Three-tailed Demon Fox of profound intelligence.

His gaze swept across the chamber and finally settled on a stone bed at its center.

The stone bed serves as a resting place for the Three-tailed Demon Fox, covered with shed fox fur. Zhouyang analyzed the stone bed briefly before suddenly flicking his sleeve, unleashing a Flying Sword onto it.

The Sword Light danced inside the chamber, and shortly after, Zhouyang's Flying Sword had sliced the stone bed into several pieces, revealing an underground hidden compartment containing a pile of items.

Retrieving the Trois-tailed Demon Fox's treasures from the compartment, Zhouyang discovered the beast's collection was indeed varied.

The Demon Fox's trove contained its own shed teeth, minerals infused with rich Spiritual Qi, and even cultivators' Magical Artifacts and Storage Bags.

Yet, judging from the spiritual light from broken artifacts, Zhouyang knew the owners of these items were undoubtedly below the Foundation Establishment Stage when alive, thus holding no interest to him in terms of such cultivator possessions.

His genuine interest focused solely on one item: within the pile of mineral spirits, the one emitting the strongest Spiritual Qi—a palm-sized, milky white Jade Essence.

Jade Essence is an incredibly rare spiritual object, occasionally birthed within Spirit Jade Veins.

The milky white Jade Essence collected by the Three-tailed Demon Fox originated from a Light Jade Vein.

Ordinary Light Jade is just Tier One Spirit Jade used for crafting illuminating Jade Lamps and Jade Pearl Spiritual Artifacts, yet this Jade Essence qualifies as a legitimate Tier Three Spiritual Object, capable of refining Tier Three High-Grade Spiritual Artifacts.

Still, using Jade Essence for artifact refining is an extravagant waste.

The true purpose of such a treasure is to serve as a spellbinding object, enhancing the cultivation environment within a residence.

Spirit jade is inherently a gathering spirit object, and jade essence, as a spiritual item that contains the essence of an entire spirit jade vein, is akin to carrying a spirit gathering array if carried around.

If the jade essence is placed in a cave residence, the concentration of spiritual energy inside will significantly increase.

The piece of jade essence collected by the three-tailed demon fox is somewhat small, only about palm-sized. The range of its spirit gathering effect is roughly just over a dozen feet, basically only enough for one person to use for cultivation.

After Zhouyang played with this piece of jade essence for a while, he carefully placed it into a jade box.

All the harvests from the nourishment of the new oasis need to be allocated after everything ends, so although he discovered this item, he cannot directly claim it as his own.

Next, Zhouyang carefully searched the cave hall again and only left the cave after ensuring there were no overlooked treasures, heading to search other places.

With the strength of his divine sense, searching the entire spirit mountain doesn't take him long.

After searching the entire spirit mountain, Zhouyang discovered twenty to thirty Tier Two spirit elixirs, and more than a hundred Tier One elixirs. Additionally, he found three Tier Two Upper-Grade spirit woods, "Serpent Pattern Wood," and two Tier Two Middle-Grade spirit woods, "Black Gold Wood", along with four kinds of Tier One spirit woods adding up to a dozen trees.

However, the biggest discovery wasn't these. While searching the entire spirit mountain, Zhouyang's greatest find was inside the cave where the Flying Fire Bats resided, where he discovered dozens of juvenile Flying Fire Bats and four pregnant female Flying Fire Bats.

The juvenile Flying Fire Bats are all Tier One demon beasts and have a high chance of domestication. As for the four pregnant female Flying Fire Bats, once they give birth, the offspring are almost guaranteed to be successfully domesticated.

This discovery made Zhouyang extremely delighted. To prevent startling the female bats in the cave and causing them to miscarry, he didn't enter the cave to search for any treasures but instead used the "Small Five Elements Maze Array" he carried with him to seal the cave entrance, planning to discuss how to handle the Flying Fire Bats once all the Zhou Family beast tamers arrived.

Mature Flying Fire Bats have a body length of seven feet to one foot, with wingspans over three yards, making them perfectly suitable to be tamed as flying mounts.

If the Zhou Family can domesticate the Flying Fire Bats as domestic spirit beasts, in the future, the cultivators of the Zhou Family can ride these spirit beasts when leaving the family for training. This not only increases speed but is also much safer than riding the Shatuo Beast.

One must know that if a Flying Fire Bat can reach maturity, it is a Tier Two Upper-Grade demon beast whose combat power does not lose out to a late-stage Qi Cultivation cultivator.

Across the entire Boundless Sea of Sand Cultivation Realm, no family can batch domesticate Tier Two Upper-Grade flying demon beasts as traveling mounts for their disciples!

After searching the spirit mountain, Zhouyang didn't just wait idly but instead used sword control to patrol the oasis's four directions, clearing out the low-tier demon beasts on the oasis.

After dozens of Zhou Family cultivators consecutively cleared for seven or eight days, no trace of demon beasts was visible on the oasis anymore, marking the oasis as entirely occupied by the Zhou Family.

After clearing the demon beasts, it was time to count and distribute the spoils of war.

Since it was previously agreed upon that the Zhou Family would purchase the demon beasts slain by its Qi Cultivation Stage cultivators in this oasis expansion war using family contribution points, distributing the spoils was simple; it was just a matter of directly distributing family contribution points.

The final contribution point total summed up to 18,675 points. However, when spread across thirty-six Qi Cultivation Stage cultivators, each received between two to three thousand points at most, and a few hundred at least, leaving quite a gap to exchange for a Foundation Establishment Pill.

After reviewing the full reward list and leaving his magical power mark on it, Zhouyang addressed the group of Zhou Family cultivators gathered on the Tier Three Spirit Mountain, "Alright, the spoils and other items will remain here for now. Seventeenth Uncle and Fifteenth Brother, you two beast tamers stay as well. As for the remaining people, I will send you back to the family shortly."

"Remember, once you return to the family, do not reveal anything about the new oasis to anyone. Just say that we acquired a spirit vein. If I find anyone leaking information, don't blame me for invoking family rules for punishment!"

Even though the new oasis has been developed, it's too far from the Yuquan Lake Oasis. Given the current scale of the Zhou Family, it's difficult to manage both places simultaneously, so the longer the exposure is delayed, the smaller the risk.

The Zhou Family cultivators who participated in this war understood this without Zhouyang needing to say it, so none dared to ignore his warning.

Following that, Zhouyang first instructed Zhou Guangxiang and Xiao Ying to keep an eye on the subdued Wind Shadow Leopard to prevent it from escaping while the Eagle Lion Beast was absent.

Then he personally rode the Eagle Lion Beast to transport over thirty Zhou Family cultivators, including the old clan leader Zhou Minghan, back to the Yuquan Lake Oasis. He also brought back the Lu Clan father and son and their family members, who had taken residency on Jade Spring Peak, to the new oasis, settling them on one of the Tier Two Spirit Peaks, fulfilling his promise made years ago.

The Lu Clan father and son had been dreaming of this day. Seeing Zhouyang truly keeping his promise to allocate the spirit mountain and the thirty li surrounding it to their Lu Family, the father and son were moved to tears and led their entire family in kneeling on the ground, bowing several times deeply to Zhouyang in gratitude.

Zhouyang understood the emotions of the Lu Clan father and son at this moment and believed he deserved their grand thanks, so he did not refuse their actions. He merely advised them to restrain their clan members from leaving the oasis on their own before returning to the Tier Three Spirit Mountain to handle the subsequent matters.