Chapter 16 Family Recruitment

Spring goes and autumn comes. In a blink of an eye, Song Qingming has been in Lingyuan Mountain for two years.

Relying on the special function of the incomplete map, Song Qingming's ability to make talismans has rapidly improved. Now the success rate of making talismans has reached 50% to 60%. By selling talismans, he has saved hundreds of spiritual stones and has already paid back the spiritual stones borrowed by Uncle Thirteen and others.

With spiritual stones, Song Qingming naturally wants to upgrade his weapons and arm himself. Not only did he exchange some medium-grade talismans in the family's treasure house, he also exchanged for a medium-grade defensive magic weapon in Caolu Mountain. Now he is no longer the poor boy who was embarrassed two years ago.

Gao Yuyao did not come to Caolu Mountain often. Sometimes he would come once every few months. Fortunately, the several transactions of elixirs between them were very smooth.

Relying on the elixirs exchanged from Gao Yuyao, Song Qingming's cultivation has now been raised to the peak of the fourth level of Qi Refining. It won't be long before he is confident of breaking through to the fifth level of Qi Refining.

In the past two years, a major event has also occurred in Qinghe County. Qian Guangyao, the head of the Qian family, successfully built his foundation half a year ago and became the sixth foundation-building cultivator in Qinghe County. As a result, the Qian family rose to prominence overnight and was promoted to a foundation-building family.

After a cultivator builds his foundation, his life span will be greatly improved. After Qian Guangyao built his foundation, the Qian family has at least had two hundred years of glory.

Qinghe County originally had only three foundation-building families. Now that Qian Guangyao has successfully built his foundation, the Qian family has also successfully grown into the fourth foundation-building family in Qinghe County and has the opportunity to directly offer tribute to the Xiaoyao Sect.

Other dozens of Qi-refining families, large and small, such as the Song family, are vassal families of the four major foundation-building families on the surface. They also need to hand over a large amount of spiritual rice every year in exchange for the protection of these foundation-building families. The Song family where Song Qingming is located is a vassal Qi-refining family under the Huang family, a foundation-building family.

Among the four major foundation-building families, the Huang family is the strongest, with three foundation-building cultivators. The patriarch Huang Shengxin has a seventh-level foundation-building cultivation level and is the only late-stage foundation-building cultivator in the entire Qinghe County. The Huang family is also a long-established foundation-building family in Qinghe County. There has been a continuous foundation-building cultivator in the family for nearly a thousand years, and it is considered the undisputed overlord of Qinghe County.

The Gao family was originally about the same strength as the Huang family, but more than 20 years ago, the former patriarch of the Gao family, who was in the late-stage foundation-building cultivation level, was invited to visit the ancient cave residence and died unexpectedly, causing a great loss of strength in the Gao family. Now there is only one mid-stage foundation-building cultivator left in the family.

The Lu family is similar to the Qian family, who has just established their foundation. Both are foundation-building families that have been promoted in recent decades. In terms of family background, they are quite different from the Huang and Gao families.

There are a total of six foundation-building cultivators in the four major foundation-building families, plus a foundation-building cultivator assigned by Xiaoyao Sect to garrison and manage Qinghefang. There are a total of seven foundation-building cultivators living in Qinghe County.

When Song Qingming heard that Qian Guangyao had successfully built his foundation, his heart was also throbbing. Becoming a foundation-building cultivator not only has the ability to fly and hide, but also can enjoy twice the lifespan. This is what many cultivators dream of, including him now.

The Song family has also added a cultivator in the past two years. The eleventh in the Qing generation, Song Qingwen, has five spiritual roots and comes from a small village under Mujiao Town.

With two cultivators in two years, the Song family can be regarded as a series of happy events. The fourth elder who manages the family affairs has specially distributed some supplies to let the two villages celebrate.

For this reason, the Lingyuan Mountain mine was also shut down for two days. Hundreds of miners living here took turns to celebrate with Xiaoyu's parents.

Today, Song Qingyu's family is just like Song Qingming's family back then. One person's success brings success to the whole family. Xiaoyu's father became a miner leader in the mine last year, responsible for managing dozens of miners. He no longer needs to go to the mine himself. The family has already lived in the large house given by the clan.

One morning, Song Qingming, who was in seclusion for cultivation, suddenly received a message from the second elder of the clan, asking him to return to Funiu Mountain today.

Song Qingming did not dare to neglect it. After saying hello to his ninth uncle Song Changxin, he returned to Funiu Mountain alone.

Not long after going up the mountain, he happened to meet his thirteenth uncle Song Changxiong who was also going to the family meeting room.

"Qingming, why are you back? Are you going to the meeting room too?" Seeing Song Qingming, Song Changxiong asked with some surprise

"It was the second elder who called me back to the mountain. I don't know what it is yet," Song Qingming answered truthfully.

"Sixth brother called you back. Could it be that you are also on this mission?" Song Changxiong looked strange.

"Mission? Nephew, I don't know. The second elder didn't say it in the letter. Does Uncle Thirteen know what the mission is?"

"Oh, the clan leader accepted a job from the Liu family yesterday. Maybe you have to participate. The sixth brother may also make other arrangements with you. You will know when you get to the meeting room."

Seeing Song Qingming's face full of doubts, Song Changxiong did not say anything more, but urged him to go to the meeting room together.

On the top of Funiu Mountain, in the Song family meeting hall, more than a dozen Song family cultivators including Song Qingming were in the middle, discussing the job from the Liu family. In addition to Song Qingming, there was another person in the Qing generation, the third brother Song Qingze.

When he came to Funiu Mountain half a year ago, the third brother was only at the fifth level of Qi Refining. Unexpectedly, he had broken through to the sixth level of Qi Refining after half a year. He is indeed the most talented cultivator of the next generation of the Song family.

Like the clan leader, Song Qingze practiced the family's only foundation-building technique, "Red Flame Art". The foundation-building technique is much more powerful than the common Qi-refining techniques they practiced. Now Song Qingze's fighting skills are no less than those of the elders present. His appearance here is not unexpected by Song Qingming.

But Song Qingze was a little surprised to see Song Qingming coming here, and greeted Song Qingming with some doubts.

Standing in front of the crowd, the clan leader Song Gushan saw that everyone had arrived, waved his hand to calm the discussion, looked at everyone in the hall, and loudly stated the purpose of gathering everyone this time.

It turned out that another Qi-refining family in Qinghe County, the Jingyuanshan Liu family, issued a hiring task in Qinghefang a few days ago, secretly inviting several nearby Qi-refining families to go to the Floating Cloud Mountains to hunt a second-level inferior monster.

The Liu family, like the Song family, is a vassal family of the Huang family, which is a foundation-building family. It is considered to be a relatively old family of immortal cultivation in Qinghe County, and has been passed down for nearly 400 years. There are more than 40 cultivators in the family, and their strength is much stronger than that of the Song family, which has only been passed down for 200 years. That is why they have the confidence to fight against the second-level monster beast.

The classification of monster beast levels is the same as that of human cultivators. The second-level low-grade monster beast is equivalent to the initial foundation-building cultivator among humans, but the monster beast obviously opens its spiritual intelligence slower than humans.

The first-level monster beast basically relies on its nature to fight, and the second-level monster beast is equivalent to the spiritual intelligence of a ten-year-old human child. When fighting against human cultivators, it is often easy to be suppressed by various skills, traps, and formations. The cultivators in the Qi Refining Stage can also defeat the second-level monster beasts in the foundation-building stage by relying on the number of people to activate the second-level formation.

On the other hand, the third-level monster beasts that have reached the Jindan stage have great intelligence and can speak human language. Their intelligence is basically the same as that of ordinary people. They will no longer be easily besieged by low-level human cultivators using formations. Relying on their own powerful bodies, they have more advantages in fighting against human cultivators of the same level.

Hiring cultivators from other nearby Qi-refining families to hunt monsters together, although such hiring tasks are relatively rare, are not strange. For employers, compared with wandering cultivators, family cultivators with families and businesses are definitely more trustworthy.

Many Qi-refining families and forces in Qinghe County have issued such tasks. Just because the Liu family offered a high price for this task, the clan leader and several elders discussed it and decided to take on this hiring task.

Such a difficult mission would have high risks. Song Qingming's cultivation was not high, so the family should not have allowed him to participate. It was only because the Liu family required the families participating in this mission to send at least three formation masters, and the Song family only had a few formation masters, so they summoned Song Qingming, who was at the fourth level of Qi Refining, to make up the number.

In the meeting hall, after a discussion, the final candidates for this mission were quickly decided. The clan leader stayed in Funiu Mountain, and the first and second elders led the team to participate in this mission.

In addition to the first elder Song Gubai and the second elder Song Changfeng, there were four long-generation cultivators including the thirteenth uncle Song Changxiong, as well as Song Qingze and Song Qingming of the Qing generation. Half of the Song family's elite were dispatched for this mission, which was the largest action of the Song family in the past ten years.

Half a day later, the eight people of the Song family, led by the first elder Song Gushan, quietly left Funiu Mountain and headed west to Qinghefang.