Chapter 262 Stealing Ashes

After releasing the soul crows, Yuan Ming walked back to the room, closed the door, and closed his eyes to meditate.

Through the perspective of the four soul crows, he looked down at the whole picture of the Zhenling Sect as if he was flying in the sky.

Yuan Ming did this not on a whim, but had planned it long ago.

When Gu Qiuming invited him to his sect, Yuan Ming had already set his sights on the incense offerings from their ancestral hall, which was in short supply at the moment.

The Zhenling Sect was different from the Xuanhua Temple, which was short of talents. Although it was not a powerful large sect, it had an orderly inheritance and was mainly based on the clan. It was expected that their incense offerings would be more pure.

The only trouble was that the cultivator with the highest cultivation level in the Zhenling Sect was about the late stage of Jindan. Yuan Ming had already found out. If he made a move here, he would have the cloak given by Xiying. As long as he was careful, the risk was still within the controllable range.

After all, incense ash was actually garbage for ordinary cultivators. I'm afraid it would take some manpower to clean it up every once in a while.

On the way to here, Yuan Ming and Gu Qiuming didn't talk much, but they asked a few questions in a roundabout way and roughly determined the scope of the Zhenling Sect's ancestral hall.

So it didn't take much effort for Yuan Ming to find the location of the ancestral hall.

Like most sects, Zhenling Sect also placed the ancestral hall in the highest place in the entire sect, but the overall terrain of their sect is not high, so it is only on a small hill southeast of the sect.

And the regulations of their ancestral hall are also very similar to the ancestral halls of many clans in the south of Dajin, with white walls and black tiles, high wind and fire walls, and various beautiful sculptures with beautiful meanings carved on them.

Yuan Ming controlled the soul crow to get closer to observe the ancestral hall, but before he could land, a white light shot like a flying blade and almost cut the soul crow in two.

Frightened, Yuan Ming quickly controlled the soul crow to flap its wings and fly up in a panic.

At this time, he saw a middle-aged man in a green robe in the courtyard of the ancestral hall, sweeping the ground with a broom and cursing "bad luck" in the direction of the soul crow.

"There is actually a late-stage foundation-building cultivator in charge, this is troublesome." Yuan Ming could easily judge the cultivation level of the middle-aged man from the attack just now, and felt that it was a bit difficult to deal with.

With his current cultivation level, it is really difficult to summon a soul crow to steal incense ash under the nose of a late-stage foundation-building cultivator.

"Anyway, we have to stay for a while, so we must not alert the enemy, so we should take a long-term plan." Yuan Ming said in his heart.

With a plan in mind, he did not let the soul crows approach rashly, but took back all the soul crows that were released, then took out a pill and swallowed it, and then closed his eyes to practice the "Nine Yuan Jue" technique.

...

The night was getting deeper, and the sound of insects began.

The crescent moon outside the house had obviously set in the west, and the time had come to the second half of the night.

Yuan Ming was sitting by the window practicing the "Underworld Moon Art" when suddenly there were shadows outside his window and a rustling sound.

He frowned slightly, opened his eyes, and looked in the direction of the sound.

He saw that a small tree had grown outside the window at some point, and a fresh branch poked out from the window, with a purple-black enchanting vine flower on the top.

"Flower branch..."

Yuan Ming whispered to the purple-black vine flower, and the branch with the flower also shook up and down from time to time, as if nodding in agreement.

After a while, the small branch slowly retreated from the window, and the whole sapling shrank into the ground together.

Yuan Ming waited for a while, and estimated that the time was about right, so he put on the gray cloak that Xiying gave him, stood up and flipped out of the window.

He released four soul crows to patrol in the sky to help him check whether there were guards patrolling around. He easily avoided everyone along the way and successfully came to the hill near the Zhenling Sect's ancestral hall.

After arriving here, he did not let the Soul Crow approach the ancestral hall again, but carefully restrained his breath and found a hidden place nearby to hide.

Then, Yuan Ming took out the Heaven Stealing Cauldron, inserted a piece of incense, twisted the incense head with two fingers, and lit it.

Then, Yuan Ming immediately used the object-driving technique to control the incense burner and made it fly slowly towards the ancestral hall.

The Heaven Stealing Cauldron flew out, like a flame hanging in the air half a foot above the ground, and soon arrived near the door of the ancestral hall.

At this time, Yuan Ming, through the sight of a Soul Crow in the sky, was surprised to find that compared to the daytime, there was an extra beast that looked like a hunting dog, but with unusually large ears at the gate of the Zhenling Sect's ancestral hall.

This guy squatted between the two stone lions outside the door, and his ears trembled, and he immediately found the sneaky and elusive incense burner.

The big-eared beast's eyes glowed red, and he was about to open his mouth to warn.

However, at this time, Yuan Ming had already controlled the incense smoke with his mind and quickly drilled into its nasal cavity.

The big-eared beast stopped making a sound before it started, rolled its eyes, and fainted directly.

In the ancestral hall, the middle-aged man in green shirt who was sitting cross-legged in meditation suddenly opened his eyes. He felt something strange and planned to get up and go out to see.

However, as soon as he got up, he felt a strong drowsiness coming, and then he fell asleep like the big-eared hound.

A moment later, under an old pine tree in the courtyard of the ancestral hall, the soil arched outward, and a branch slowly stretched out, then stretched and expanded, and more and more branches were separated.

These branches gathered little by little outside and finally turned into a tree man with dense branches.

Of course it was Huazhi. If you didn't pay attention, it would look like there was such a tree here.

Huazhi held a clay jar in her arms and looked towards the main hall of the Patriarch's Hall. The monk had already fallen asleep. She shook off the dirt on her feet and tiptoed slowly towards the inside.

When she arrived at the Patriarch's Hall, the floor tiles and wall materials in the hall were the same as those of Yuan Ming's rental house. Huazhi walked around the middle-aged man and saw an extremely large incense table and the ancestral tablets piled up like a small mountain behind it.

On the left and right sides of the main hall, there were two rows of long-burning lamps of different heights. I don't know what kind of oil was burning inside. The flames were extremely stable and exuded a faint fragrance.

Huazhi just glanced at it and immediately retracted her sight. She narrowed her eyes and focused her attention on the altar.

There were three exquisite three-legged incense burners with gold inlays and carvings, which were full of incense ashes that had accumulated for who knows how many years.

Huazhi did not forget his mission, and immediately stepped forward and placed the earthenware pot on the table.

Then he stretched out his branch palm, transformed into a shovel, and shoveled through the incense burners one by one, storing all the incense ashes in a storage bag hanging around his waist.

Then, he opened the earthenware pot again and poured the ordinary incense ashes that he had collected from other places into the three incense burners on the table.

After doing all this, Huazhi retreated to the outside of the ancestral hall.

When he walked into the yard, he did not forget to stretch out his hand to form a broom made of thin branches, and swept the soil he brought back to the old pine tree.

Then, he shrank back into the ground and disappeared.

After a long time, the middle-aged man in green shirt woke up slowly. When he found that he had somehow fallen asleep, he shuddered and all his sleepiness disappeared.

He stood up immediately, released his spiritual consciousness, and quickly scanned the surroundings. At the same time, his eyes also looked around, but he did not find anything unusual.

Then, he got up and searched carefully inside and outside the hall, but still found nothing.

He knew the furnishings in the ancestral hall with his eyes closed. Not to mention what was missing or what was extra, he could easily find out if something had moved.

But incense ash, which he thought was really useless, was not worth paying attention to at all.

The middle-aged man really didn't find anything unusual, so he got up and came to the outside of the ancestral hall.

When he opened the door, he found that the alarm beast was also lying on the ground, snoring.

He frowned immediately, leaned over and slapped it in the face.

The alarm beast was shocked by the slap and woke up suddenly, but there was still a confused look in its eyes.

Seeing its appearance, the middle-aged man could only sigh and go back to check it carefully. Naturally, he still found nothing and had to give up.

…

On the other side, Yuan Ming, who had returned to the house, was in a good mood when he looked at the newly obtained incense ash on the table.

"Well, it's finally replenished. It's enough for a while."

The incense ash from Xuanhua Temple has been used up during this period, and even the black incense made from this incense ash has been used up. There are only a few black incense made from Jiuli Temple incense ash left.

These incense sticks not only have a shorter possession time, but also have no psychological induction effect. They are the kind that can only be watched but can't do anything. Therefore, the incense ash obtained this time can be regarded as a solution to Yuan Ming's urgent needs.

Next, as long as he returns to Xiaohu City Market and buys some spiritual wood materials, he can make another batch of black incense. With the foundation of Zhenling Sect, it is expected that the effect will definitely be stronger than the incense of Xuanhua Temple, and even better than Liuxin Sect, right?

Yuan Ming is full of expectations for this.

…

Two days later, at noon, Yuan Ming was planning to continue practicing the Nine Yuan Jue. Suddenly, he was thinking about something and lit a black incense. His mind was possessed by Guoguo, and he naturally saw Xiying again.

At this time, Xiying was sitting at a desk in an elegantly decorated boudoir, with one hand supporting her chin and the other holding a brush. She was thinking about something, wrinkling her nose from time to time, and looked very cute.

Guoguo squatted on the stool beside her obediently, squinting her eyes and dozing off, occasionally looking up at her.

After Yuan Ming's soul was possessed, he wanted to urge Guoguo to open her eyes and get up to tease Xiying, but the incense in the Jiuli Temple was limited in effect. Guoguo could not sense his hint at all and was still half-awake.

Yuan Ming was anxious and annoyed, but he could do nothing.

"Knock knock knock"

At this time, there was a knock on the door outside, and Xiying turned her head to look.

"Didn't I tell you not to disturb me unless necessary?" Xiying frowned and asked. She was obviously quite annoyed that her thoughts were interrupted.