Beast Taming: I Have an Immortal Mansion

Furthermore, he heard that many more Cultivators and mortals were going to migrate over. It seemed Chunyu Hua wouldn’t rest until he achieved his goal.

With so many people, the White Mountain Beast Taming Sect certainly couldn’t house them all. So, Chunyu Hua approached Lechuan and requested a temporary Spiritual Land in Moyun Valley to build a provisional palace.

For a time, Moyun Valley was filled with beast convoys transporting spiritual materials. Compared to the White Mountain Beast Taming Sect, which was on the verge of bankruptcy after a major war, Chunyu Hua, a direct descendant of a Divinity Transformation lineage, was the epitome of wealth and power. The temporary palace he was building looked even more exquisite than the headquarters of the White Mountain Beast Taming Sect.

While the major powers in the White Mountain Territory were locked in a chaotic war, beating each other’s brains out, the lands controlled by the Beast Taming Sect in Moyun Valley were a scene of bustling construction.

This grand spectacle also attracted numerous Loose Cultivators who didn’t want to get involved in the White Mountain conflict. Other than leaving White Mountain entirely and wandering far from home, their remaining option was to turn their gazes toward Moyun Valley.

It was safe, there were wages to be earned, and it wasn’t far from home. In an instant, Moyun Valley became a paradise that countless Loose Cultivators swarmed to.

Inside the Immortal Mansion, Fang Qingyuan looked at the dispirited Nanli and sighed inwardly. After Lechuan’s advice, he had given up on the idea of assassinating Hao Shi, which meant that for the time being, there was no way to avenge the Great White Bear.

Fang Qingyuan hadn’t been particularly close to the Great White Bear, but Nanli had spent many years with it. When Nanli was young, the Great White Bear had taken great care of her.

"Nanli, if you want revenge, you’re actually the more suitable one to get it."

Upon hearing this, Nanli lifted her head. Her red, swollen eyes stared fixedly at Fang Qingyuan.

Fang Qingyuan didn’t want to see Nanli so depressed, so he spoke up to give her a reason to hope and be motivated. Nanli had been in the Early-stage Foundation Establishment for a long time, but she had always been lazy. Perhaps today’s shock would push her to break through to the Mid-stage Foundation Establishment.

Although the gap between Mid-stage Foundation Establishment and Eighth-Layer Golden Core seemed enormous, as his own Companion Beast, Fang Qingyuan was confident he could raise her to that level.

In terms of pedigree, Nanli was not lacking. Her mother was a Golden Core Realm Nanming Firebird, and some of her ancestors had even reached the Nascent Soul Realm. Compared to Yinbao and the Bee Queen, Nanli’s natural talent was far superior, second only to Jinbao.

Fang Qingyuan believed that with the abundant resources of the Immortal Mansion for her cultivation, as long as Nanli had the drive, he would definitely see the day she defeated Hao Shi in a fair and open fight.

Of course, that was assuming Hao Shi could even live long enough for Nanli to reach that point.

Regardless, Fang Qingyuan’s words seemed to awaken Nanli. She was no longer sullen. Ignoring Jinbao’s silly antics, she ran to a distant lava pool and dove straight in.

Watching Jinbao trying so hard to cheer Nanli up, Fang Qingyuan nodded in gratification. ’You were the one bullying her relentlessly at first, and now you’re the one whose heart aches for her. Jinbao, you’ve grown up.’

After he reached the Fourth-Layer Golden Core, the area of the Immortal Mansion increased, but not as dramatically as the expansion it underwent when it absorbed Spiritual Qi from a thousand li during his Core Formation.

It had only grown from a circular land with a fifty-li radius to one with a fifty-five-li radius.

But because the area was circular, the increase in total land was still quite substantial. Fang Qingyuan felt that he couldn’t just keep planting Spirit Rice on this new land.

The Spirit Rice currently produced by the Immortal Mansion was probably enough to feed a third of all the Cultivators in the White Mountain Territory. Fang Qingyuan couldn’t sell such a massive output.

This was because, on the surface, the Qingyuan Sect didn’t possess Spirit Fields on such a large scale. If he suddenly produced so much Spirit Rice, even a fool would know something was amiss.

For this reason, Fang Qingyuan would secretly sell a portion in the Black Market, smuggle another portion to the Pill Alliance, and after setting aside some for the Qingyuan Sect’s own consumption, use the rest to brew wine.

But the Spirit Wine business couldn’t be fully rolled out overnight; all of this would take time.

As for the new land, Fang Qingyuan planned to transform it. He converted a portion into Spirit Fields, but reclaimed another section of land, combining it to form a huge pasture of a hundred-odd square kilometers. He planned to raise some Wild Oxen.

Beyond Awakening Lion Valley lay the Barbaric Wilderness, which contained the Wild Ox Plateau, a place teeming with various types of Wild Oxen. Some bold Cultivators had managed to cross Awakening Lion Valley and reach this land.

Compared to the dangers within Awakening Lion Valley, the Demon Beast communities on the Wild Ox Plateau seemed relatively simple-minded.

Some adventurers brought back meat from the Wild Oxen and were surprised to find that not only was it delicious, but it also contained abundant blood qi that could greatly nourish the physical body.

Someone had calculated that a pound of meat from a Qi Cultivation Realm Wild Ox was equivalent to ten pounds of Spirit Rice. And on the Wild Ox Plateau, there were hundreds of thousands of these beasts.

The Wild Ox meat was delicious, but difficult to transport. To bring it back, one had to carefully pass through Awakening Lion Valley, and within its long, narrow ravines lay the territories of no fewer than five Nascent Soul Ancient Beasts.

As a result, a single pound of Wild Ox meat was comparable in price to several dozen pounds of Spirit Rice, and even then, demand on the market far outstripped supply.

Seeing this opportunity to earn Spirit Stones, Fang Qingyuan prepared to raise some of these wild beasts in captivity.

Well, "raising them in captivity" would be more accurate. He made two-pronged preparations. On one hand, he would offer a high price to purchase Wild Ox calves and try to raise them himself.

On the other hand, if there weren’t enough calves, he would find a way to personally go to the Wild Ox Plateau, locate a whole tribe of them, and move them all into his Immortal Mansion. It would be a business with minimal investment and colossal returns.

After all, besides growing Spiritual Objects, the greatest value of the Immortal Mansion was its potential for smuggling.

Other Cultivators might use a valuable Spatial Magical Artifact to painstakingly transport a mere hundred or so cubic meters of goods, whereas Fang Qingyuan just had to show up and could transport things by the hundred-thousand-cubic-meter.

Just imagine, a single tribe of Wild Oxen could have hundreds or even thousands of head. Each one was worth several Top-grade Spirit Stones, and a Foundation Establishment Wild Ox was worth over a hundred. Fang Qingyuan figured that one trip could earn him at least ten thousand Top-grade Spirit Stones.

In order to form the alliance, the Qingyuan Sect had spent lavishly to win over smaller sects, and had even shared its Spirit Wine business so everyone could profit together. As a result, the Qingyuan Sect’s Spirit Stone reserves had now reached a dangerously low level.

It wasn’t just the Qingyuan Sect; the White Mountain Beast Taming Sect was in the same boat. After three continuous years of war, they now had to build a new sect headquarters on a Fourth-rank Spiritual Land. Lechuan was under even greater pressure than he was.

Although the Spirit Wood Alliance and Li Huo Alliance had provided some twenty thousand Top-grade Spirit Stones to purchase the land, this money could only solve Lechuan’s most pressing problems.

To truly build the sect headquarters he envisioned, Lechuan would need to spend no less than fifty or sixty thousand Top-grade Spirit Stones.

Then there was the Marketplace that Lechuan was always dreaming about, which also lacked a great deal of Spirit Stones. Without Spirit Stones, he couldn’t even purchase the materials for the initial construction phase.

Was Lechuan really expected to use nothing but a front gate to swindle the other Sub-Sect Leaders into investing? Lechuan wasn’t that shameless.

In the days that followed, Fang Qingyuan busied himself with these matters: brewing and selling wine, growing and selling rice, conducting martial drills for the alliance, and, well, placating Bear Wind.

For this last task, Fang Qingyuan chose to send Jinbao. For one, he had been too busy lately, and for another, he was too ashamed to face Bear Wind himself.

He had promised Bear Wind he would kill Hao Shi, but it was a promise made in a moment of desperation. Fang Qingyuan regretted it. ’I knew I shouldn’t have been so absolute with my words.’

With no other choice, he left Jinbao with Bear Wind as collateral for the time being. ’When the time is right, Jinbao, I promise I’ll come back to get you!’ he howled internally.

At the Spring Equinox, the Qingyuan Sect, along with numerous other sects from the Far East Territory, officially formed the Qingyuan Alliance. With the Qingyuan Sect as the leader, five medium-sized sects as the backbone, and fifteen small sects or clans selected as the base, a rudimentary organization was thus established.

The alliance operated on a council system. The Qingyuan Sect held five votes and a single veto, the five medium-sized sects each had three votes, and the fifteen small Foundation Establishment sects each possessed one vote.

The remaining Qi Cultivation Clans and sects held no votes unless they advanced to become a Foundation Establishment Clan.

Ostensibly, everything was to be decided through discussion, but everyone knew in their hearts that when it came to critical issues, the Qingyuan Sect had the final say.

On the day the alliance was formed, Fang Qingyuan invited Lechuan and representatives from the various major powers to bear witness. Then, the Qingyuan Sect brought out its Tuoyao Rays, which carried a thousand or so Qi Cultivation Cultivators in a loose, sloppy formation on a flight around the entire Far East Territory. And with that, the ceremony was complete.

By the time these matters were settled, it was the middle of the year. It was then that Nangong Zhi’s party, whom Chu Hongshang had mentioned, finally made their belated appearance. They immediately headed for the vicinity of Awakening Lion Valley and began acting mysteriously, their purpose unknown.

It looked like they were searching for someone, but who could possibly be important enough to warrant a Mid-stage Nascent Soul Cultivator personally taking to the field?