Robbery in broad daylight

Entering the pill pavillion, Fang Qiu was instantly amazed by how popular this place was. He saw plenty of cultivators walking around with their core spirits by their side. Some had animals and others had weapons. One of them even had a large green top hat for a core spirit which was by far the weirdest one in the room. All core spirits are easy to recognise because they carry the same aura as the cultivator. And since cultivators always have their core spirit with them it's easy to match the spirit to the cultivator even if they are separated by a small distance.

Though nobody would be stupid enough to leave their spirit unattended. It takes just one evil cultivator to destroy the spirit thus damaging your core, and repairing your core in order to resummon your spirit isn't easy. Especially since losing your core spirit means losing your spirit ability and elemental powers until your core is fully healed.

Yet even though this was the case, Fang Qiu still saw some spirits running around freely in the building which could easily be explained by the auras. All those auras belonged to people whose strength Fang Qiu couldn't even estimate, which means they were foundation realm cultivators.

So who would dare attack their spirits in this place, let alone they probably wouldn't even get halfway before being splattered on a wall quite literally.

Trying to ignore the incredible sight of hundreds of core spirits and powerful cultivators, Fang Qiu made his way over to one of the counters. Inside the displays he saw many beautiful natural treasures that practically overflowed with qi. Not that he could identify any of them. The old man who raised him never taught him anything about alchemy or refinement.

He mainly learned how to survive, deal with other humans and how to make use of his mind to overcome obstacles.

After all, humans were selfish and human nature is never to be underestimated. All he learned about alchemy was a crash course in plants since the forest was full of them and Fang Qiu needed them to survive. The old man knew a lot about any type of plant in the forest and taught Fang Qiu all that he needed to know. Nothing more, nothing less.

So over the last few years after the old man left he mainly survived using his growing knowledge of plants and his combat skills. Otherwise eating one wrong plant or getting bit by a poisonous animal could easily mean death for an unknowing mortal individual.

"Hi there, can I help you with anything?" He heard a sweet voice coming from behind the counter.

"Yes actually, I was wondering where I could sell some plants I picked up in the forest"

Not hearing a reply instantly Fang Qiu looked up.

Noticing the girl had already walked away upon hearing he just casually picked up some plants trying to sell them.

But he really did just casually pick them up, after all if you live the majority of your life in a forest struggling to survive most of the time, you easily learn how to discern most plants and herbs and where to find them. So Fang Qiu really was not lying, but to a clerk of the big pill pavillion this just sounded like an arrogant naive youngster of the first level of qi refining trying to make some easy money. So why would she keep spending time on this nobody?

Seeing how he was ignored things already didn't bode well for the cute but mean clerk, Fang Qiu was even tempted to take out another drumstick but decided against that idea. Instead he took out a handful of the many herbs he had stashed in his void storage and started nibbling on it. Seeing how a young cultivator started eating grass and flowers in the middle of the revered pill pavillion made many turn their heads. "Did that boy get hit on the head somehow?" Why is he eating grass like he's been starving for days. Is he trying to pity us into giving him pills? Even the most basic qi gathering pill this pavillion sells is worth upwards of 5 silver, let alone rare herbs and pills". Some of the spectators thought to themselves, yet one of them suddenly had his eyes bulging out. "Wait! Isn't that purple stalk he's eating purple heaven grass? It's said that a single stalk could add a year of longevity to a cultivator below the foundation realm." To many this could give them a second chance at reaching foundation realm before their lifespan ran out. Yet this kid was straight up eating it like candy? It wouldn't even add any longevity if not made into a pill! This kid was just throwing away very rare grasses that increase lifespan which was the rarest kind.

Hearing the man shout out loud made many people take a closer look and realise the weird kid really was eating nearly a dozen rare herbs as if they were random snacks he found on the side of the road. Who wouldn't be infuriated at that sight.

The green top hat man reacted the fastest reaching Fang Qiu before he noticed what happened, snatching the remaining herbs out of his hands. But before the green top hat man could take his leave he suddenly stopped in place, seemingly frozen.

Fang Qiu was stunned suddenly seeing the herbs disappear from his hands in a green blur. Following the blur with his eyes he noticed the man with the green hat right before the exit frozen with everyone staying as far away as possible.

Noticing the man stole his herbs Fang Qiu walked up to him and stated: "Dear sir cuckold*"

Just from that sentence the man had the urge to puke a liter of blood. "Don't you see I'm already screwed at this point. Is cursing me really needed?" He thought to himself.

Just when Fang Qiu wanted to continue his sentence he noticed some happy laughter like bells coming from all around, not even a second after he saw a woman on a white deer entering the building. She must be the space element user that froze the man in place just like the old man always did to him in the forest.

In the past the old man explained to him that all cultivators cultivate skills to combine their element and their cultivation. Higher elemental comprehension allows you to create skills that are more powerful and more suited to your needs and style. And high cultivation allows you to execute said skills and get the maximum use out of them, which was why cultivators always had higher cultivation than elemental comprehension. If your elemental comprehension is high you can create powerful skills but without equally powerful cultivation your elemental comprehension is useless since you can't cast said skills.

It's like giving a baby the best fighting skills in the world. No matter how high its skills are it needs a strong enough body and endurance to fight and it was the same with cultivation. Elemental comprehension allow the skills to be created and comprehended and the cultivation allows you to use the skills to their fullest in battle.

The skill the woman cast just now was one of the most basic space element skills but that didn't mean it was bad, it was one of the most useful skills to space cultivators called "space lock". It allowed a cultivator to lock anyone within range in place as long as their cultivation is lower, of course many elements have skills that allow you to escape this situation but the green hat man didn't appear to have one. Or maybe their gap in cultivation was just too big so any skills the man had up his sleeves were useless.

"green hat Dongkun, eighth tier qi refining wind cultivator, well known for escaping a foundation realm expert once using his green blur ability that makes him as fast as a third tier foundation cultivator" hearing the lady on the white deer talk about the green hat cuckold *cough* green hat man, Fang Qiu was soon impressed and also understood why green hat Dongkun tried stealing his herbs.

Every herb and pill on display was locked inside special glass cases so stealing those is near impossible without being caught, and seeing Fang Qiu take out some near extinct herbs just to eat them made green hat Dongkun unable to hold back, his heart was aching just seeing The kid eat them like candy, in fact many other patrons were tempted but they didn't have the speed nor confidence to get away unscathed.

"You! Tell me what happened here" pointing at the shivering worker the woman seemed furious noticing she had something to do with all this. Turns out she approached Fang Qiu but ignored him after he came to sell some herbs he casually picked up, which broke one of the rules of the pill pavillion that no guests should be looked down upon. Otherwise where would they run to if they offended some major character that didn't like to show off.

What the woman still didn't understand though was how this seemingly unimportant youth could incite the green blur into stealing right in the middle of the pavillion.

After asking him about it Fang Qiu simply responded with "I don't know either, I came here to sell some herbs but seeing that the clerk apparently didn't want them I just decided to eat them as snacks, they don't taste bad after all and I can't snack on meat every time since that's bad for my health."

"Snacks?" The woman was even more confused now but looking at the clerk that was close to crying it should be what really happened.

"Could you show me some of your so called snacks?" The woman asked in a more kind manner this time.

"No need to look very far, the cuckold *cough* green hat Dongkun should have a handful of them in his bag"

With that the woman just casually snatched the storage bag of the still frozen green hat Dongkun. Looking inside she found a large collection of pills and herbs, as a pavillion lord she could instantly recognise all the different herbs and pills: seven soul grass, qi gathering pill, vitality pill, small blood pill,.... wait...purple heaven grass? Red blood grass? Yellow earth grass? These are all practically extinct grasses in these regions. This seems like the only items that could incite someone like the green blur to steal in broad daylight in a protected location.

Only, how did that qi gathering kid manage to obtain all these near extinct grasses?!

After she took care of green hat Dongkun she took Fang Qiu to a private room on the second floor which was for important business deals, so she could finally ask the questions that had been plaguing her for the last few minutes without any other bystanders.

"How did you obtain all these rare grasses? Do you have more? And are you willing to sell them to the pill pavillion?" She asked Fang Qiu with a burning gaze as if she couldn't wait to know everything about the kid in front of her

Sensing her burning gaze Fang Qiu quickly replied "lady, are you what they call a reverse pedophile?" With that Fang Qiu instantly felt the burning gaze turn into a formless lethal pressure as if to suffocate him just through the difference in cultivation alone. Yet he pretended as if he didn't notice a thing and continued "the old man always told me all the ladies would want a piece of me, i can't stop you since you are so powerful so please be gentle, it's my first time."

just when he finished saying that the table he was leaning on got pulverised as if it was never there, looking up he noticed that the female pavilion lord was really debating wether to kill him now so he quickly went back to the topic at hand upon which the female pavillion lord calmed down.

Fang qiu continued: "To respond to your second and third question: yes and yes." With that she instantly turned ecstatic. These herbs would allow her to try out some near extinct recipes and maybe allow her to raise her skills by another notch.

"And the first question?" She asked with much interest even leaning a bit closer over the now nonexistent table.

"Thats a long story, it all started with me wanting to eat a three meters tall chicken when I had just awakened my powers..."

________