Where is your belt

But now he was actively running up the mountain.

He couldn't help it; with his comprehensively enhanced constitution, his eyesight was truly excellent. Even in the dead of night, he could see his surroundings with crystal clarity.

As soon as he reached the halfway point up the mountain, Lin Xiao saw Little Luan taking care of its major life business in the spirit field beside the thatched shed.

Lin Xiao and Little Luan, who was currently sticking its butt in the air and working hard by the spirit field, stared at each other in wide-eyed silence.

The scene was silent for a moment.

"Ahem." Lin Xiao put a fist to his mouth and let out two fake coughs.

As if startled by Lin Xiao's cough, two clumps of indescribable matter plopped down from Little Luan's raised rear end.

Lin Xiao felt a bit awkward, but still remembering his purpose for coming, he cut straight to the chase:

"Little Luan, do you need money?"

"Money?" Little Luan tilted its head. Then, recalling that money was the very thing Aunt Sun had used to trade it away to someone else, it immediately shook its head like a rattle-drum,

"No, no, no! Cluck cluck cluck, I don't want that unlucky stuff!"

Lin Xiao rubbed his nose:

"Alright then, what do you want?"

Little Luan tilted its head again. Suddenly, it thought of something, and its two beady little eyes lit up!

"Cluck! I want bugs! Delicious!"

Lin Xiao felt a headache coming on. In the middle of the night, where was he supposed to find bugs for it?

But he really wanted to complete that salary quest right now!

Suddenly, Lin Xiao remembered something!

He took out a spirit stone from his personal vault, held it out to Little Luan, and asked:

"Do you like this?"

Feeling the rich spiritual energy radiating from the spirit stone, Little Luan couldn't help but take a deep breath, and then immediately began nodding its chicken head so fast it became a blur,

"Want, want, want! This! I like it!"

Lin Xiao casually stuffed the spirit stone into Little Luan's opening and closing beak, letting it hold it,

"Then it's yours!"

Little Luan was overjoyed, spinning in circles on the spot with the spirit stone in its beak:

"Cluck cluck cluck! This stone is enough for me to absorb for three months!"

Hearing this, Lin Xiao was very surprised:

"You're saying this single spirit stone is enough for you to absorb for three months?"

Little Luan stopped spinning and said:

"That's right, cluck cluck cluck. I'm only at the first layer of Spirit Opening, so this stone is enough for me to absorb for three months!"

Lin Xiao suddenly thought of the spirit stones that were consumed by his idle cultivation function at a rate of one per day.

What should he do now that he suddenly felt it wasn't such a good deal?

But on second thought, although the idle cultivation function cost a lot, the effects were truly excellent!

It had only been a few days, and he was already at the fourth layer of Qi Refining!

If he had to cultivate on his own, his speed definitely wouldn't be able to compare!

Furthermore, it saved him a lot of time and spared him the troubles of cultivation!

Thinking about it this way, Lin Xiao felt balanced again.

And only now did he realize that the value of these spirit stones was actually quite high.

Little Luan was at the first layer of Spirit Opening, which was equivalent to a human's first layer of Qi Refining, yet a single spirit stone could allow a first-layer Qi Refining cultivator to absorb for three months!

Lin Xiao opened his personal vault and looked at the piece of Tier-1 Spirit Vein Fragment lying quietly inside, unable to help but look forward to the day when the fragments were fully assembled.

Putting away his daydreams, Lin Xiao looked down and said to Little Luan:

"Little Luan, this spirit stone is your salary as a member of our sect. From now on, work hard to fertilize the fields and guard our sect well. After you finish absorbing this spirit stone, I'll issue you another one!"

Hearing this, Little Luan immediately became so excited that it flapped its wings, flying and jumping around in circles.

At that moment, Lin Xiao finally heard the system notification sound ring out in his mind.

[Ding— The quest 'Sect Member Salary' has been completed. The quest rewards have been issued. Host, please check them.]

With the quest completed, Lin Xiao cheerfully bid farewell to Little Luan and went down the mountain.

He sprinted back home at top speed, sneaked into his room, and began to check his rewards.

In his personal vault, the number of spirit stones had gone from 84 to 104, so it seemed the reward was 20 spirit stones.

As for other items, there were two new additions.

One was the "Sect Basic Uniform Recipe", and the other was [Spirit Plant Growth Bone Meal x50].

In Lin Xiao's eyes, both of these were excellent items!

Since the Sect Basic Uniform had the word 'Basic' in it, did that mean this uniform was some sort of magical artifact?

And the other item, Spirit Plant Growth Bone Meal!

Just looking at the literal meaning of the words, one would know what it was used for!

To accelerate the growth of spirit plants!

Suppressing his urge to run back up the mountain, Lin Xiao first opened the "Sect Basic Uniform Recipe".

He saw that there were only three things written on the recipe.

[Spirit Silkworm Silk x10] + [Spirit Stone x5] + [Cotton 1 catty] = [Sect Basic Uniform x10]

(Note: The style of the Sect Basic Uniform can be envisioned in your mind when throwing the required materials into the [Item Synthesizer]. There is a 30-second window for conceptualizing.)

With this recipe, Lin Xiao wouldn't need to fumble around to figure out how to use the [Item Synthesizer]. Instead, he could use it directly according to the recipe to accurately get exactly what he wanted!

Lin Xiao desperately wanted to try it out immediately.

However, the moon was already high in the midnight sky.

If he didn't sleep now, his dad would yank him out of bed tomorrow morning and give him an upside-down hair wash.

Thus, he had no choice but to suppress his inner desire to experiment and temporarily roll into the embrace of the Duke of Zhou.

But he never expected that before dawn the next day, he would still be yanked out of bed by his dad.

"Let me ask you, where is your new belt?"

Lin Xiao, who was still groggy from sleep, glanced at the sky outside. Seeing that it was still almost entirely dark, he mumbled in a daze:

"What belt... Dad, let me sleep a bit more..."

Lin Dayou completely ignored his plea for sleep. Instead, he shook him forcefully a couple of times to wake him up and asked again in a gruff voice:

"I'm asking you! Where is your belt! The new one I bought for you last year!"

At this point, Lin Xiao finally snapped out of it and realized what his dad was talking about.

He swallowed hard and tried his best to pacify his dad:

"Dad, don't rush, don't rush, the belt is right here..."

"Where is it! In the pile of clothes you changed out of the day before yesterday, there was only a grass rope!"

With trembling hands, Lin Xiao fished out a storage bag from his chest and handed it to Lin Dayou, saying:

"The belt is right here..."

When Lin Dayou saw the tattered pouch Lin Xiao had taken out to hold money in town yesterday, he didn't know whether to be angry or not for a moment.

No wonder he thought the color of this tattered pouch looked somewhat familiar yesterday.

It turned out he had made it out of his belt!

A belt was quite expensive. For such a large piece of fabric, even a poor-quality one would cost over a dozen copper coins!

The little money the family earned yesterday had almost all been spent on oil and salt. If they wanted to buy him a new belt, they would have to dip into the family's savings.

Lin Dayou suddenly remembered the money this kid had earned himself yesterday.

So he let go of Lin Xiao, tossed him back onto the bed, gave a cold snort, and said to him:

"The family doesn't have the money to buy you a new belt anyway. Either you keep tying your pants with a grass rope, or you go buy one yourself!"

After saying that, he turned around, picked up a basin full of clothes, and went out into the courtyard to continue doing the laundry.

Lin Xiao... Lin Xiao went back to his bed, closed his eyelids, and fell asleep again.