Chapter 137: A Bunch of Concubines, Troublesome!

Lord Daoist Jinghe’s Immortal’s Cave was called Shangqing Palace ¹ .

When Mo Tiange saw the name, she was rather surprised. She thought it might be called Wanhua Palace ² or Baixiang Palace ³ or something of the sort. She really didn’t expect it to have such a normal name.

Inside the palace, aside from Lord Daoist Jinghe, there was only her and his sixteen maids. These maids were all female Foundation Building cultivators from the school. Because their spiritual roots were ordinary and not good enough for them to be accepted by Core Formation cultivators as disciples, they voluntarily came to be maids for a Nascent Soul grandmaster with the hopes of obtaining some pointers from him.

Lord Daoist Jinghe wasn’t a stingy person. His maids indeed received pointers and rewards from him. In the beginning, perhaps these maids came simply to achieve some progress in their cultivation. However, after attending to one man—a handsome, elegant man with a high cultivation level at that—for a long time, they unconsciously started to harbor some delusions. Hence, fights and rivalry between them increased.

While Mo Tiange was in the Wenyang Pool, she already witnessed Mei, Lan, Zhu, and Ju quarreling with each other. She didn’t think much of it, but after she went to Shangqing Palace, she finally realized their quarrel that day was really nothing worth mentioning.

Of the sixteen maids, four were named after flowers: Mei, Lan, Zhu, Ju ⁴ ; four were named after the four arts: Qin, Qi, Shu, Hua ⁵ ; four were named after seasons: Chun, Xia, Qiu, Dong ⁶ ; and four others were named Yu, Xue, Feng, Shuang ⁷ . Each name was picked personally by Lord Daoist Jinghe. Each was extremely corny.

According to the expectation set by these names, the fact that this Immortal’s Cave was actually called Shangqing Palace surprised Mo Tiange.

Mo Tiange’s Mingxin Residence was rather close to where Qin, Qi, Shu, and Hua lived. Their full names were Xiuqin, Qingqi, Xianshu, and Daihua. Overall, their names could be considered a bit more elegant than the names of Mei, Lan, Zhu, and Ju. However, the way the four of them interacted with each other was much worse than how Mei, Lan, Zhu, Ju fought.

Furthermore, because her cultivation level wasn’t that different from theirs, these maids didn’t treat her sincerely. Although they called her “Martial Uncle” and never showed any intentions of going against her, the way they spoke and behaved towards her showed a loss of respect that she should’ve had.

For that reason, Mo Tiange laid a Five-Spirit Formation around her small cave. If she needed anything, she would call them by sending a Summoning Talisman from outside the formation. All in all, she tried to lessen the chance of contact with them as much as she could.

Because she blocked these maids from entering her cave and furthermore Lord Daoist Jinghe also let her fend for herself, Mo Tiange finally had the chance to enter her Virtual Sky World to proceed with her cultivation.

With Sunu Art of the Origin, her cultivation progressed very quickly. She only needed to cultivate for six hours to achieve a result equivalent to an entire day’s worth of cultivation. However, Mo Tiange wasn’t in a hurry to cultivate. Every day, she cultivated for six hours and stopped after she achieved her usual result.

She was well aware that her cultivation level was increased to the middle stage of the Foundation Building realm forcibly, so both her temperament and realm were still unsteady. If she was impatient to see results while her mind wasn’t steady enough when the time came, she would most likely fail to advance to the Core Formation realm and would have to start all over again. Therefore, it’d be better for her to take things slowly now and lay a firm foundation first.

Forcefully suppressing the speed of her cultivation also slowed down the progress of her Soul-Refining Art. Every art applicable in fights of magical powers used mental cultivation techniques as their foundation, including the Soul-Refining Art. Now, she was only in the middle stage of the Foundation Building realm; although both her primordial spirit and meridians were different from those of ordinary Foundation Building cultivators, her cultivation level mustn’t be disregarded. If her cultivation level wasn’t enough to support her Soul-Refining Art, her Soul-Refining Art might end up rebounding and hurting her.

Therefore, Mo Tiange spent around ten to twelve hours of the time she had left in the day to learn other skills.

Formations, pill-concocting, tool-refining, talisman-drawing, the art of healing, and also engineering.

Among countless types of skills, the so-called Art of Engineering was a relatively special one. According to legends, in the distant past, a clan known as Mo Clan appeared in the human world. Its founder, Mozi ⁸ , was very skillful in handicrafts. He was able to use wood logs, fine irons and the like to create extremely powerful mechanical objects. Each of his creations was powerful enough to fight against a hundred enemies and even to plunder a city.

Of course, in the cultivation world, that kind of skill was irrelevant and unworthy of mention. Nevertheless, the cultivation world also had its own Art of Engineering. All kinds of spiritual objects and spars would be used to create puppets which could also obtain power similar to human cultivators.

Unfortunately, after Mo Tiange rummaged through several books about the Art of Engineering, she realized these puppets needed spars to mobilize them. Nowadays, spars were difficult to find, so it really wasn’t surprising that the Art of Engineering also died out.

Cultivating, farming, practicing other skills… Just like that, her days passed one after another. As Mo Tiange holed up in this tiny cave of hers, she actually became increasingly obsessed with practicing and studying to the point where she even stopped seeing other people.

She didn’t know how long these alone-but-not-lonely days passed before her master in name finally remembered her.

Mo Tiange sat on a chair, putting on the appearance of an obedient disciple and calmly allowed Lord Daoist Jinghe to size her up.

After staring at her for quite a while, Lord Daoist Jinghe finally spoke: “Girl, you’re unexpectedly very smart. Instead of striving to cultivate, you actually slowed down the pace of your cultivation. En, en, you’re far smarter than that smelly brat!”

Smelly brat?  Gears were churning in Mo Tiange’s brain. Who is he referring to?

After making that comment, Lord Daoist Jinghe once again lay down. “Since you deliberately suppress the speed of your cultivation, you must be very idle every day, right?”

“…”  I’m not idle! Not in the slightest!  However, Mo Tiange didn’t have the guts to say this out loud. She only nodded and stared at him warily.

Lord Daoist Jinghe didn’t seem to care—in fact, he didn’t even look at her. He continued to peel grapes using his spiritual power. “How about Master gives you a few things to do?”

Is this considered an errand?  Mo Tiange stared at him even more warily than before.

Lord Daoist Jinghe glanced at her and chuckled. He then said very amiably, “Disciple, Master is also doing this for your own good. Take a look at yourself. You still have long years ahead of you—always shutting yourself inside your cave doesn’t seem good, don’t you think?”

“Master,” Mo Tiange said after contemplating, “Disciple feels life right now is already very good. Disciple really likes living like this.”

Lord Daoist Jinghe raised his eyebrows. “Which part of living like this is good? You don’t have to be embarrassed; Master has planned everything well in your stead! According to my estimates, the time you spend cultivating must not exceed ten hours every day, right? There are twenty-four hours in a day, so more than half remains unused. Besides, you don’t even need to sleep; what are you staying idle for? So, Master found you a solution—I’m giving you some work to do!”

“…”

Seeing as Mo Tiange didn’t object, Lord Daoist Jinghe immediately snickered. “Hey, that’s what I consider to be obedient! Do I have any reason to harm you? Let me tell you, aside from cultivating, other things are also very important. Master certainly won’t harm you…”

Mo Tiange heaved a deep sigh. “Master, if you need me to do something, please just say it.”

Lord Daoist Jinghe immediately took out a Jade Slip. He said, “You just need to act according to what is written inside every day. Finish them in the allocated time and you’re done.”

Mo Tiange suspiciously inserted her divine sense into the Jade Slip. Soon after she did, however, she almost vomited blood on the spot.

3-5 a.m. collecting dew.

5-7 a.m. tending the spiritual plants.

7-9 a.m. tending the spiritual beasts.

9-1 p.m. giving a sermon.

From the fourteen free hours she had, ten hours were used up in his arrangement. Moreover, most of these were things usually done by his maids!

What’s this master trying to do? Does he want me to be busy every day?

“Master.” Her expression darkened slightly. “These… aren’t there a bit too many?”

“Many?” Lord Daoist Jinghe said, “Back then, the things Xuanyin, Qingyuan, and those brats had to do when they first became my disciples was even more than this. What you’re going to do is really nothing compared to them!”

“I…” Fine! Disciples indeed had an obligation to wait upon their masters. However, the masters also had an obligation to teach their disciples. This master never taught her anything; what was the basis for making her carry out her obligations as a disciple?

When he saw her remaining silent, Lord Daoist Jinghe fumed with anger. “Are there any other disciples like you? I’m only telling you to do a few things, but you’re so reluctant about it! That year, Xuanyin and the others…”

“Okay, okay,” Mo Tiange helplessly said, “I’ll do everything according to what Master said.”

“That’s the right attitude…”

She braced herself to cope with the pile of work Lord Daoist Jinghe commanded her to do. In fact, not complying was also out of the question. Did she dare to disobey the commands of a Nascent Soul cultivator?

However, something that would make her even more depressed was already waiting.

She was already in a bad mood, but those maids whose tasks were taken by her unhesitatingly made their displeasure known to her.

“Here!” The maid who was previously in charge of collecting dew tossed her the jade bottle for holding dew and the jade stick for extracting dew. With an indifferent, rather disdainful expression, she said, “Grandmaster likes dew that condenses during the first three-quarters of the hour of the tiger ⁹ ; if the timing is off by even a second, he won’t want the dew. Furthermore, it has to come from fragrant and clean spiritual plants. If the dew carries any strange smells, grandmaster will absolutely be furious. You’ll figure it out yourself.”

Mo Tiange took the equipment then directly turned around and walked away as she was too lazy to thank the maid.

But she still heard the two maids behind her talking loudly.

“Mingxia, what are you going to do now that your tasks are being done by someone else?”

The maid who interacted with Mo Tiange earlier spoke in a ridiculing tone: “Grandmaster has made his orders, so what can I do? If I don’t have anything to do then I won’t have anything to do. In fact, I’ll have more time to cultivate! I’m really confused; she’s a disciple while we’re maids, so why does she have to come and rob us of the tasks we’re in charge of?”

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“Hmph! Didn’t you think about the kind of person our grandmaster is? Good or bad, he’s a middle stage Nascent Soul cultivator. Not even Core Formation cultivators who kneel and beg him are accepted as his disciples, let alone an insignificant Foundation Building cultivator! So what if she now holds the status as a disciple? She’s still treated the same way as us…”

“You’re right. I heard grandmaster accepted her as his disciple only because there was a conflict against another cultivation group—it’s nothing but a temporary measure. Someone… really shouldn’t get the delusion she’s reached the sky for real!”

“Hey, you shouldn’t talk like that! A disciple is, after all, a disciple. We’re just maids; if we offend her, grandmaster might not want to give us pointers anymore. By the way, didn’t grandmaster say he’s going to give a sermon to us today?”

“Yes, we mustn’t be late…”

Mo Tiange clenched her teeth, pretending to have heard and seen nothing.

What did gossip matter? It wouldn’t cost her even a chunk of meat! But something they said really surprised her. That master of hers unbelievably gave sermons to his maids when he didn’t give her even the slightest pointers and even forwent the master-disciple worshiping ceremony!

When the first three-quarters of the hour of the tiger were up and she finished collecting the dew, Mo Tiange rushed back to Shangqing Palace to tend the spiritual plants.

This time, the maids who passed on the task were two out of the four Yu, Xue, Feng, Shuang—Weiyu and Qingxue.

These two were comparably straightforward. They simply threw her a Jade Slip containing information about spiritual plant classifications and bluntly turned around, completely ignoring her.

Mo Tiange had to spend almost an hour to completely understand how to handle each spiritual plant. Meanwhile, those two maids watched on the sidelines, mocking and ridiculing her.

“Qingxue, your hairpin is pretty good. Is it a magic tool?”

“Grandmaster bestowed it to me a few days ago. Grandmaster said my skin is fair, so I’ll look very beautiful with this Green Snow Fragrant Hairpin. If I come across a fight of magical powers, I can also use it to protect myself.”

“I got a reward too. Take a look at this ribbon! Grandmaster said girls have to be beautiful to be pleasing to the eye and mind. Wearing dusty colored school uniforms and no hairpins or hair accessories on our heads is… too unsophisticated!”

“Who said otherwise? Last time when went to Mount Tianhuo, didn’t grandmaster bestow clothes on that Senior Martial Sister Zhan of Soul’s Retreat Peak right after he saw her? As maids, we’re always meant to serve grandmaster, so we have to dress even more beautifully than others.”

“But this is really weird. It isn’t like grandmaster has never accepted female disciples before; Martial Uncle Suxin is also an outstanding beauty… Why did he suddenly accept a completely unremarkable person now?”

“Gee, everything depends on whether the person can be dolled up or not. Think about it, with that face she has, what else could grandmaster do?”

“You’re right.” The two maids covered their mouths and giggled.

Mo Tiange apathetically finished trimming the branches, catching the insects, and watering the plants then directly left after properly setting the restriction on the medicinal garden.

The sky finally brightened as it was now 7 a.m. She went towards the back mountain behind Lord Daoist Jinghe’s Immortal’s Cave.

Wearing a dusty-colored school uniform? No hairpins or hair accessories? That kind of face?  Mo Tiange made a ‘hmph’ through her nose.

The uniform for Foundation Building cultivators was a blue robe with white sleeves. Which part of that looked dusty? Elite disciples like Han Qingyu, Luo Fengxue, and Ye Jingwen all wore this uniform. Even Senior Martial Brother Xuanyin and the others also wore this kind of uniform! Hairpins and hair accessories? Right now, she was wearing her hair in a Daoist topknot, so what would she need hairpins and hair accessories for? Senior Martial Sister Suxin also had such a simple and neat style! They also dared to say she had a certain kind of face. Mo Tiange didn’t think she had a fairy-like beauty, but she was at least still more beautiful than all of them!

She walked towards the spiritual beast compound at the back mountain in a towering rage. This time, the ones waiting for her were Qin, Qi, Shu, Hua.

Being a Nascent Soul cultivator, Lord Daoist Jinghe naturally had a lot of spiritual beasts. This compound was full of various second to sixth rank beasts. Reportedly, there were spiritual beasts in even higher ranks which were personally tended by him. Nonetheless, a fifth rank spiritual beast was already equivalent to a Core Formation cultivator. All of them were only in the Foundation Building realm, so the four of them took care of it together to prevent any incidents from occurring.

“Martial Uncle Mo, I believe grandmaster has already given you the tablet to pass through the restriction of this spiritual beast compound, so we’ll just give you the applicable methods we have as a reference,” said Xiuqin as she gave Mo Tiange a Jade Slip.

Mo Tiange’s mood somewhat improved. Finally, there was a bunch that didn’t infuriate her.

But she didn’t see Xianshu, whose eyes were shifting around, and Daihua glance at each other.

In a tacit understanding, the four maids simply watched Mo Tiange without saying anything further.

After taking the Jade Slip, Mo Tiange finished reading the contents very quickly. Spiritual beasts weren’t spiritual plants—raising them casually would suffice. Besides, there were only about a dozen spiritual beasts in this compound.

When she finished reading, she immediately prepared all kinds of feed and fodder. Soon after, she used the tablet Lord Daoist Jinghe gave her to open the restriction on the gate to the spiritual beast compound.

In there, there were three second rank spiritual beasts, three third rank spiritual beasts, one fourth rank spiritual beast, two fifth rank spiritual beasts, and one sixth rank spiritual beast.

She fed them sequentially according to their rank and finally reached the place where the fifth rank spiritual beasts were.

What she faced now was a fifth rank Sky-Treading Ox with massive horns which was reportedly powerful enough to tread the sky and crack the ground. According to what was written inside the Jade Slip, she opened the outermost restriction and laid the fodder on the ground.

Just as she was about to turn around and leave, the inner restriction suddenly glinted. All of a sudden, the Sky-Treading Ox bellowed a “moo” skyward. Its hind legs pawed the ground and the next second, it rushed and knocked against the restriction.

The restriction glinted before it completely vanished.

Mo Tiange turned around right after she heard its loud moo. However, halfway through, she saw it rushing towards her. She immediately summoned her White Silk Handkerchief, causing a brick wall to fall in front of her, completely blocking the power of its horns.

Right afterward, she reached out, grabbed the White Silk Handkerchief which had returned to its original form, and pushed herself onto it. She then fled towards the exit while glaring furiously at Qin, Qi Shu, Hua, who were standing beside the compound.

These four people didn’t waste any time to ridicule her because they long planned on giving her this kind of lesson!

But now she didn’t have time to think about this because the Sky-Treading Ox was chasing after her. It ran amok but its horns were directed towards her.

The White Silk Handkerchief displayed its maximum speed. After using it to flee from the attacks of a fifth rank demonic beast a long time ago, her control over it was even more precise and smooth. Thus, she didn’t feel anxious in the slightest now.

The power of the Sky-Treading Ox lay in its brute strength, but its speed wasn’t great. Because she was all out controlling the White Silk Handkerchief, dodging it wasn’t difficult. However, catching it and putting it back into the restriction wouldn’t be easy. Of course, she could lead this ox to the front and ask Lord Daoist Jinghe to save her life. But wouldn’t that make her look very incompetent?

Mo Tiange retreated speedily. A lantern suddenly appeared in her hand.

The lantern soared high above and emitted a bright light. Mo Tiange directed her spiritual aura into it, causing its light to shine upon the Sky-Treading Ox’s body.

Right when Sky-Treading Ox slowed down, Mo Tiange flung several formation discs and spirit stones.

Disorienting Formation!

The Enchanting Lantern she never used before accompanied the Disorienting Formation. In an instant, the Sky-Treading Ox was spellbound. Its spiritual aura was undoubtedly strong, so this Enchanting Lantern and Disorienting Formation would only be able to block him for a short while. However, this short while was enough time for Mo Tiange.

Spiritual beasts also possessed divine senses. Inside the Disorienting Formation, spiritual beasts would instinctively use their divine sense to scan their surroundings. This would be Mo Tiange’s chance!

She used the Soul-Refining Art to control her divine sense and ruthlessly lashed out.

The Sky-Treading Ox mooed loudly and made a sudden leap.

The White Silk Handkerchief once again showed its strength. This time, however, instead of protecting her, the brick wall slammed into the Sky-Treading Ox.

Seeing the Sky-Treading Ox fall, Mo Tiange finally heaved a relieved sigh. She didn’t have any magic tools with enough attack power in her possession—only the White Silk Handkerchief, which was a magic weapon, could possibly injure the Sky-Treading Ox. Coupled with the unexpected and particular attack of Soul-Refining Art, she was finally able to temporarily immobilize the Sky-Treading Ox.

After putting the Sky-Treading Ox back in its place in the spiritual beast compound, Mo Tiange opened the restriction and walked out of the compound. She looked coldly at Qin, Qi, Shu, Hua, who had watched from the sidelines from the beginning.

She saw clearly that when the Sky-Treading Ox rushed out, smiles emerged on these four people’s faces. They had obviously been prepared to scheme against her! If it wasn’t because she had the Soul-Refining Art and several kinds of treasures; if it wasn’t because this place had many restrictions that constrained the power of that Sky-Treading Ox, maybe she would’ve lost half her life already!

When these four people looked at her now, they no longer had smiles on their faces. Those smiles had been replaced by fear.

From the moment the Sky-Treading Ox broke out of the restriction until Mo Tiange knocked it out, everything took place in only a few seconds. To everyone’s surprise, a middle stage Foundation Building cultivator was actually able to subdue a fifth rank spiritual beast! Although part of the reason was because the power of the Sky-Treading Ox was constrained by the restrictions in this place, it was still enough to astonish all of them!

They simply felt dissatisfied, so they wanted to borrow the power of this fifth rank beast to teach this martial uncle a lesson. Despite also being a Foundation Building cultivator like them, she was favored by grandmaster. This place had restrictions and they were also on standby, so they didn’t think she would lose her life. But she might indeed end up severely injured. They weren’t afraid of getting grandmaster angry because of this matter since grandmaster didn’t like useless and incompetent people. As long as they maintained her life, grandmaster wouldn’t blame them. However, it never once crossed their minds that within a few seconds, a fifth rank beast could be subdued so easily.

Mo Tiange let out a cold laugh. She held the White Silk Handkerchief in one hand and the Shuttle of Flying Apsara in the other. “Since all of you seem very unconvinced, we’d better fight it out! You can come together. I’ll show all of you why I’m the disciple and you’re the maids!”

Qin, Qi, Shu, and Hua originally still had some fear etched on their faces, but after hearing her words, they looked at each other as anger sprouted in their hearts. Yes, they were unconvinced. Their natural aptitudes might be a little inferior, but their cultivation levels weren’t low. They also had a middle stage Foundation Building cultivator among them. On what basis did they have to call a cultivator from the same realm “martial uncle” and inform her about every matter at Shangqing Palace?

“Fellow Martial Sisters, since Martial Uncle has spoken, let’s play!”