Chapter 82: The Phoenix Hairpin

How hard is cultivation?

In the long history of cultivation, ancestors in the high level have summarized some key points of cultivation from their life experience for the younger generation.

Talent, spell, Reiki elixir, magic weapon and money — none of the five key points is dispensable if you want to stick to the path of cultivation.

There is no need to say much about talent. Without the Taoist root, one can never set foot on the path of cultivation even he is rich beyond comparison. Also, the quality of one’s Taoist root determines whether he can make it to the higher levels.

One in a million people may have the Taoist root. Back in the good days of cultivation, people in the level of Training Qi would not even be considered as cultivators. The gap between the level of Training Qi and Laying Foundation excluded those trainers with four or five natures out of the real world of cultivation if they didn’t have some good luck.

Except for core zones where Reiki is abundant, mountains which most cultivators live in have similar thickness of Reiki. However, if you own a high-level spell book, the time of refining Reiki would be halved or shortened even more… As time passes, two persons with similar talent will grow apart.

Reiki elixir can serve as an impetus to help you break through the bottleneck. It can shorten the time needed for cultivation or improve the result, which is necessary for cultivators.

A powerful magic weapon can protect cultivators on the long road of cultivation — as long as mortals don’t die out, there will always be new cultivators. However, most magic restoratives need thousands of years to grow, and supply always falls short of demand. Disputes over several-hundred-year-old magic herb happen more often than not. A powerful magic weapon may save your life in the disputes and even help you win the magic restoratives. It certainly can serve a double purpose.

Money is absolutely important. Though cultivators can live longer than normal people, they can’t stand the bother of going to find materials for refining works every time — the State of Huaxia owns a vast territory and abundant resources, and it will be a waste of time to do so. At this point, the importance of money is highlighted. If you are wealthy enough, you can just stay at home and wait for cultivators who need money to come and deal or exchange with you.

Of course, “money” mentioned here is nothing like the paper currency we use today!

After having the thought that her quality may be bad, Lin Luoran is no longer in the mood of practicing the Fire Ball spell. She returns to the guest room and doesn’t feel like trying to refine weapons.

The phoenix hairpin she buys with 50,000 Yuan is lying on the table. Its unique shape is attractive.

Dragon and phoenix are both traditional totems of the State of Huaxia, which can be seen everywhere in the modern time, let alone back in ancient times. In some dynasties, dragon and phoenix were exclusively for imperial use. Normal people were not allowed to use items with the two totems.

Still, bans couldn’t stop women from loving beauty. Since gold wares were too showy, they chose to use silver or pearls to make jewelry, sometimes inevitably in the shape of a phoenix.

The “antique” that Lin Luoran has bought, which looks very much like a fake, has a unique design on the top. It is a phoenix with two heads — maybe one of them is male and the other is female? Lin Luoran can’t tell the gender of the two phoenixes so she puts the idea behind her.

The clerk of the jade store was kind enough to alert her, but Lin Luoran didn’t buy the hairpin because she sympathized with the old lady.

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Unlike jade, pearls are not easy to hand down for generations. The more pearls are worn, the shinier they will become. Therefore, antiques made of pearls are hard to judge — except for the crowns of emperors and queens, even the most well-read collector may have a hard time figuring out the origin of a single pearl.

Generally, jewelry made of pearls will only be marked by the store because there is no proof of their origins.

The hairpin Lin Luoran has bought is in good condition. There is not even a little trace of decay on it. It is so new that on the first sight, most people will think it was made last year.

What’s more important is that the pearls are blue — come on! Does natural blue pearl really exist?

No matter what, Lin Luoran has bought it. She didn’t simply believe the old lady’s words that the hairpin was an antique. The reason was that she sensed a faint stream of Reiki in it — though she is a rookie, she is certain that jewelry with Reiki are always good!

So, she has bought something that is worthy of more than its price, right?

Lin Luoran’s gloomy mood finally gets better when she realizes that she has bought something from the cultivational world using paper currency of the state.

However, what on earth is this double-headed phoenix hairpin made of blue pearls?

Lin Luoran stares at it and she can’t see anything special. Is there a chance that the hairpin used to belong to a female cultivator so that it has absorbed a bit of Reiki?

Lin Luoran overrules this idea immediately. Let alone the fact that female cultivators never wear jewelry made by the mortals, ordinary materials don’t have the ability to contain Reiki.

What is it?

Can it be something like the jade pendant…? Lin Luoran decides to try. She directs some Reiki inside of her and infuses them into the hairpin. She has instinctively avoided using those red fire Reiki because the pearls on the hairpin are blue and watery, which may resist the fire Reiki.

Reiki flows into the phoenix hairpin. As the blue glow becomes brighter, something amazing happens to the hairpin!

First, the two phoenix heads split up. Then the body of the hairpin starts to rip right in the middle. If the breaches on the phoenix heads and the body of the hairpin are not so neat, Lin Luoran may think that she has broken it — the hairpin is not just splitting, it is also growing bigger!

Lin Luoran frowns. She is not sure whether she should keep infusing Reiki in it. She is concerned that the hairpin may be an extremely dangerous one-off bomb and the way to ignite it is to infuse it with Reiki… she can’t be this unlucky, right?

Lin Luoran stares at the double-headed phoenix hairpin… No, it has already split into two single-headed phoenix hairpins. Lin Luoran looks around the elegant Qin’s villa and thinks, “If it is a bomb, there is nowhere that I can throw it away to!”

Lin Luoran thinks it over and decides to try again in the open field. She draws back the Reiki. Both of the two phoenix heads jump up and down like they are letting off the steam, then they reluctantly close up and return to the double-headed hairpin made of blue pearls. The craft is so wonderful that it excels the nature.