The First Immortal of Destiny

"Senior Sister Chen, let's be clear about this!" Shen Mo stated, full of righteous confidence. "Did I not save their lives? For such a great favor, asking for a few Spirit Stones and soul cores isn't excessive at all, is it? Once they pay the life-saving money, the debt is cleared, and no one owes anyone anything. As for the Elixir, that was just a minor favor. A minor favor is one thing, but not repaying a life-saving one can lead to troublesome entanglements with Cause and Effect..."

Upon hearing this, Chen Mengze nodded thoughtfully. Indeed. In the cultivation world, enmities are hard to resolve, and favors are difficult to erase! The human heart and the ways of Heaven are both unpredictable. Minor grievances can escalate into life-and-death feuds, and a life-saving favor could potentially evolve into a fatal tribulation for oneself.

"It seems you've matured quite a bit..." Chen Mengze remarked. She hadn't forgotten how he had previously assisted Senior Brother Guo for a mere pittance.

Shen Mo shifted uncomfortably, not knowing how to reply. He couldn't very well tell Chen Mengze that he had only saved Li Sanming and his group because he had his eyes on their Spirit Stones and soul cores. Not charging a fee for saving lives would make him feel like he'd taken a loss! As for the Healing Pills he had generously given them, in his view, they were just materials worth two Spirit Stones, and refining them wasn't much effort.

Lazybones, get up and get to work, Shen Mo thought, opening the Spirit Pet Bag.

A crimson figure darted out.

"EEK! EEK!"

The Spirit Storage Rat scrambled up Shen Mo's robes and onto his shoulder. The dense, cold ghostly qi within the Ghost Nation Ruins made the little creature somewhat uncomfortable. Through its Divine Sense, it expressed its desire to return to the bag and sleep. Shen Mo promptly stuffed a piece of dried meat into its mouth.

With its strength as an intermediate Class II demonic beast, it could almost ignore the erosion of the ghostly qi. Besides, it had also obtained the Barbarian Bull Venerable's "Savage Demon Body" technique. Even if the ghostly qi were as dense as water, it could swim hundreds of laps in it without even panting.

Wanting to make a fortune in the Ghost Nation Ruins couldn't realistically be achieved by solely relying on the common information jade slips found in the Market. Now was the time for this little creature to showcase its abilities.

"You actually made it your Spirit Pet?" Chen Mengze asked, somewhat astonished upon seeing the Spirit Storage Rat.

Back in the Dark Crystal Mine area, she had seen Shen Mo feeding this plump rat and later taking it with him when he left. Afterwards, she had casually mentioned the Spirit Pet Contract. She hadn't expected Shen Mo to actually establish a master-servant bond with this portly rat, which seemed to have little potential.

Sensing Chen Mengze's disdain, the Spirit Storage Rat looked at her blankly for a moment, then rubbed against Shen Mo's cheek with a somewhat aggrieved air.

"Well then, you'd better put on a good show," Shen Mo said, poking its plump belly.

Motivated by the promise of dried meat and a bit of goading, the Spirit Storage Rat, as soon as it finished gnawing on the jerky in its paws, began to energetically sniff for the aura of treasures.

"Treasure, about five li to the north," the Spirit Storage Rat communicated.

Shen Mo then called over a bewildered Chen Mengze, and they flew north on his sword.

Flying due north meant heading deeper into the ruins. This was not surprising; the outer areas were relatively safe, so any valuable treasures there had long been snatched up by swarms of treasure hunting cultivators. The deeper one ventured, the more treasures there were to be found.

Along the way, they encountered numerous corpulent Hungry Ghosts, as well as Drowned Ghosts and Hanged Ghosts of comparable strength. Shen Mo did not hold back his Mana, sending them all to meet Yama. As for the lesser, more numerous minor ghosts, killing them yielded no soul cores, so neither Shen Mo nor Chen Mengze showed much interest.

Before long, in the location indicated by the Spirit Storage Rat, the two of them unearthed an ore unique to the Ghost Zone: Ghost Tear, worth approximately twenty low-grade Spirit Stones.

"To be able to seek out treasures, it's no ordinary Gold-devouring Rat!" After witnessing the Spirit Storage Rat's formidable talent, Chen Mengze couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy.

"SQUEAK! SQUEAK!" The little creature put its paws on its hips, puffed out its chest, and looked utterly pleased with itself.

「The next day.」

Guided by the Spirit Storage Rat, the duo began their search. Compared to the Riverside Sect's Mountain River Realm, the Ghost Nation Ruins were not rich in spiritual medicines like herbs and Spirit Fruits. After all, the land here was barren and teemed with numerous Hungry Ghosts and other ghosts, big and small. Any wild spiritual medicines would have long been devoured by them.

However, ores unique to the Ghost Zone were extremely plentiful. Even though the emergence of the Ghost Nation Ruins would cause the price of these types of spiritual materials to drop for a period, their substantial haul still represented a considerable income. Shen Mo calculated that their earnings for the day were worth about three hundred Spirit Stones.

Shen Mo's Spirit Pet, the Spirit Storage Rat, had contributed immensely. Therefore, Chen Mengze did not agree to an equal split of the income, taking only thirty percent and leaving the remaining seventy percent to Shen Mo.

This was naturally a far cry from their gains in the Mountain River Realm. However, it was still significantly more than what he earned from tirelessly making talismans and practicing Alchemy for Spirit Stones day and night. With Shen Mo's current skill in Alchemy and talisman making, after deducting material costs, he could net a profit of about seventy to eighty Spirit Stones a day.

However, one shouldn't forget the large number of soul cores acquired in the Ghost Nation Ruins. He was cultivating the "Dragon Elephant Blood Fiend Body" and had no intention of selling these soul cores. In fact, he even spent Spirit Stones to purchase the soul cores Chen Mengze obtained from slaying ghosts.

As a result, Chen Mengze's daily earnings reached around one hundred and fifty Spirit Stones. This was no small sum; the previous mission to guard the Dark Crystal Mine paid only one hundred Spirit Stones per month, and even that was considered a generous reward for a mission.

Of course, guard duty was relatively safe and also offered spare time for cultivation, unlike treasure hunting in the ruins. Here, not only were ghosts lurking everywhere, but one also had to be wary of other cultivators. They had to be extremely cautious at all times, making it impossible to cultivate peacefully in such an environment.

In short, for Chen Mengze, the gains were substantial. She had initially invited Shen Mo to give him a hand, as a way of repaying him for refining the Thunder Transforming Pill for her father. Who would have thought? After entering the Ghost Nation Ruins, she had instead become the one being assisted. This filled Chen Mengze with rather complicated emotions.

Shen Mo, however, didn't feel that Chen Mengze was taking advantage. After the Spirit Storage Rat informed them of a treasure's location, they often split up to gather valuable ores with maximum efficiency. If he were alone, his harvest certainly wouldn't be as plentiful. Moreover, he needed as many soul cores from Soul Ghosts as possible, and Chen Mengze's help in collecting them greatly accelerated his cultivation of the "Dragon Elephant Blood Fiend Body."

The sky above the Ghost Nation Ruins was perpetually shrouded in ghostly mist, a hazy gray expanse with no distinction between day and night. Nevertheless, Shen Mo and Chen Mengze still took turns standing guard and resting at intervals to recover their energy. During these breaks, Shen Mo refined all the acquired soul cores using the "Dragon Elephant Blood Fiend Body" technique, and the experience bar on his panel rose by a few points.

Just as he finished cultivating, the Spirit Storage Rat climbed onto his shoulder. "Master, about seven li to the north, there's a very valuable treasure."

It wasn't that the Spirit Storage Rat had suddenly changed its disposition. Rather, Shen Mo had motivated it to work harder by promising it even more delicious "pies in the sky." He took out the jade slip map and checked: the location it mentioned was indeed the dangerous area Li Sanming had warned them about, marked on the map with words indicating peril.