Chapter 135: The Difficulty of Breathing
On the pedestrian path of the highway.
Two figures, one in front of the other, kicked up gusts of wind as they sped all the way towards the spiritual energy reserve.
It was Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen.
However, at this moment, besides Zhang Yu using his Sports Car Legs to travel at high speed.
Flashes of electricity sparked around Bai Zhenzhen’s body from time to time as she used her newly learned Electric Light Step to keep up with Zhang Yu.
Unlike Zhang Yu, who focused on improving his physical strength, Bai Zhenzhen, because she was participating in the martial arts track, had spent more of her energy during this period on practicing martial cultivation techniques, in addition to improving her Dao heart, magic power, and physical strength.
This Electric Light Step was a combat cultivation technique that allowed Bai Zhenzhen to move at high speed over short distances in battle. It was more agile than Sports Car Legs, more adaptable, and more explosive, making the technique more suitable for combat. At this moment, she was simply using it to travel and practice at the same time.
And under the sunlight, Bai Zhenzhen could feel a faint warm current flowing continuously within her body; that was the True Spiritual Root absorbing the spiritual energy from the light.
However, the True Spiritual Root had now gradually adapted to light and dark adjustments and could understand Bai Zhenzhen’s intentions, so it wouldn’t make her skin dark.
Under the sunlight, Zhang Yu, on the other hand, felt as if molten lava was flowing throughout his body as he frantically absorbed the spiritual energy from the solar radiance descending from the sky.
At the same time, he was doing some calculations in his head.
This trip to the spiritual energy reserve was to see if he could rent a spot on a spirit vein for a cheaper price through Xiong Wenwu’s connections to practice his breathing exercises.
After all, these past few days… although his physical strength had increased rapidly, relying solely on cultivation techniques to improve his Dao heart and magic power was still too slow for Zhang Yu.
And it was said that not only was the spiritual energy in a spirit vein dense, which could greatly improve the efficiency of magic power refinement, but staying there for a long time could also improve one’s constitution and prolong life, offering countless benefits.
“Renting an entire spirit vein is definitely out of the question. With the money I have on hand, I’ll see if I can rent a spot, just enough for Zhen and me to practice our breathing exercises inside the spirit vein.”
Although he had income from the dark world of tutoring, Le Mulan, Yu Xinghan, and Song Hailong during this period, and had also received the first 200,000 in endorsement fees.
However, Zhang Yu’s expenses were also considerable. For example, a Crimson Marrow Primordial Pill every three days cost 24,000, and each set of Nine Dragons Acupuncture cost another 10,500. Also, because he had been focusing on body tempering recently, his physical strength was constantly improving, and his food expenses had now reached 1,500 a day. By the beginning of May, he had also paid another 15,000 in loan interest…
Zhang Yu glanced at his account balance again; he still had 570,000.
He thought to himself, Renting a spot on a spirit vein shouldn’t be a problem, right?
The two continued to speed along, and gradually more and more factories appeared around them, with plumes of white smoke continuously pouring out of huge chimneys. They could also see the signs of Red Pagoda Husbandry on some of the factories.
Just as Zhang Yu’s gaze swept over this row of factories, he was suddenly startled. “What is that?”
On the land that was supposed to be a factory, there was now only a field of ruins, with broken walls and rubble everywhere, as if it had gone through a great battle.
There was even a palm print several hundred meters wide on the hillside not far behind, and the hillside was still littered with fragments of various tall towers, walls, and machinery.
Layers of light curtains enveloped the ruins, and various warning signs floated on the light curtains, like the police tape at a murder scene.
Zhang Yu said, “Was there a war?”
Bai Zhenzhen glanced at it and said, “You don’t know about this? It was quite a hot topic online six months ago. A factory was investigated for tax evasion.”
“The tax evader resisted on the spot, using all sorts of flying swords and magical treasures, and killed more than half of the tax inspectors who came to investigate.”
Zhang Yu was shocked. Tax evaders in Kunxu are this fierce?
Bai Zhenzhen continued, “Then the tax inspector summoned the divine power of the Tribute Supervising Heavenly God. With a single palm strike, the entire factory was obliterated, and the souls of most of the criminals were torn out.”
“Most?” Zhang Yu was amazed. “What about the ones whose souls weren’t torn out? Did they die or escape?”
“Those were the ones who committed suicide the moment they saw the Tribute Supervising Heavenly God descend.”
Zhang Yu swallowed, once again glad that he hadn’t evaded taxes in Kunxu.
The two continued to speed along, and soon they saw a huge arc appear on the distant horizon.
It was their destination.
It was said that a long, long time ago, this spiritual energy reserve was once the territory of demonic beasts, and there were several powerful great demons among them.
The so-called great demons were powerful monsters. Nowadays, monsters are called demon-kin.
Unlike demonic beasts, which were regarded as animals, demon-kin often possessed true intelligence and could integrate into society to live and work.
But later, the great demons here were defeated by the company’s security forces. After the reserve changed hands several times, it was finally bought by Red Pagoda Husbandry and has been managed by them ever since.
It was said that it still retained its various natural landscapes and the various demonic beasts that originally lived there. Of course… all of these had also become the assets of Red Pagoda Husbandry.
As Zhang Yu looked closely now, he could see what looked like an incredibly huge glass dome, covering the continuous mountain ranges and hills within.
As the two of them got closer, they could also see dense runes appearing on the glass dome from time to time; that was the power of a formation array separating the inner and outer worlds.
In addition, Zhang Yu could also see many red warning signs on it.
They were all things like ‘Red Pagoda Husbandry Private Property, Please Purchase a Ticket and Enter Through the Main Entrance’.
Bai Zhenzhen looked at it and cursed, “So stingy. Are they unwilling to let out even a little bit of the air from the reserve?”
She had originally thought that she might be able to leech some of the spiritual energy and air coming from inside by staying near the border of the reserve, but now it seemed that they had long since taken precautions against this.
The two continued forward and arrived at the ticket office at the main entrance of the spiritual energy reserve.
When they saw that the ticket price was only 5 yuan, both Bai Zhenzhen and Zhang Yu were stunned. What was the difference between this and free? Was Red Pagoda Husbandry doing charity?
Bai Zhenzhen immediately retracted her earlier comment about them being stingy; how was Red Pagoda Husbandry stingy? They were incredibly generous.
The two opened their phones, looking to see if there were any discounts, and were shocked to find that the reserve’s rating was only a 1.3.
But after the ticket seller attached the reserve’s air meter, spiritual energy monitor, and body weight monitor… to their bodies, they understood why the tickets seemed to be free, and why the rating was so low.
The ticket seller said, “The air inside the reserve is priced at 1,999 yuan per cubic meter, water is 2,888 yuan per liter, and spiritual energy is 3,999 yuan per unit.”
“A price list for all the plants and animals, and even the soil, stones, and other materials in the reserve is in the user manual. I’ll send it to you, please accept it…”
Zhang Yu looked at the dense list of charges in the user manual and was speechless.
Everything in this spiritual energy reserve, whether it was air, water, food, or anything else, cost money. An ordinary person could bankrupt themselves by just picking up a few stones.
Bai Zhenzhen said nervously, “Yu-boy, breathe less when we go in later. This is too expensive.”
After buying their tickets, the two first entered a sealed cabin. As the rear cabin door closed, they were completely cut off from the outside world.
Then, as the front cabin door opened, Zhang Yu felt a wave of incredibly fresh air rush towards him.
Just by taking a deep breath, Zhang Yu felt a sense of comfort throughout his body, and the flesh and blood of his entire body seemed to relax.
“This is… air?”
Then what have I been breathing before?
He felt that the air he normally breathed was like car exhaust in comparison.
So I’ve been in such a terrible air environment all this time? I’ve just gotten used to it?
Zhang Yu walked out of the sealed cabin and completely immersed himself in the reserve’s environment.
Taking a deep breath, Zhang Yu felt as if his entire body had been cleansed, and the qi, blood, and magic power within him became more active.
Even at this peripheral location, Zhang Yu could feel that the concentration of spiritual energy in the air was already comparable to the spirit-gathering quiet rooms in Songyang High School.
As the two of them walked quickly along the sightseeing path, the spiritual energy in the air became more and more dense. Bai Zhenzhen’s spiritual energy charge had even risen to over 500, which scared her so much that she quickly suppressed her True Spiritual Root, telling it not to absorb spiritual energy for the time being.
Zhang Yu also felt that the spiritual energy absorbed by his Great Sun Qi Sea from the light was more concentrated. Practicing breathing exercises here for one day was probably equivalent to several days of practice outside.
Bai Zhenzhen, on the other hand, patted her chest in fear and said, “This damn place makes it too easy to go bankrupt. Let’s meet Xiong Wenwu and get out of here quickly.”
Zhang Yu nodded. Staying in this spiritual energy reserve felt more dangerous to him than being in the middle of a gang fight.
Just breathing and practicing at the outer areas is this expensive. How much would it cost to go to a real spirit vein?
At this moment, he felt doubtful about whether he could rent a spot on a spirit vein this time.
Especially when he opened the map, he saw that there were a total of three spirit veins in this reserve, running through 7 large areas and more than twenty mountains, but they were all inaccessible to tourists. They were either private territories that had been leased out for a long time, or various pastures, factories, and plantations…
It could be said that all the areas accessible to tourists were on the periphery of the spirit veins.
However, Zhang Yu couldn’t even afford the price of long-term breathing and practice in this peripheral area.
“Sigh, ordinary tourists can only enter the reserve and leech off the periphery of the spirit veins to practice their breathing. There’s no way to even get in.”
At this point, Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen were no longer hoping to rent a spot on a spirit vein. He would be satisfied if he could find a way to leech off the air from the periphery of the spirit vein for a cheaper price.
“Let’s go see Xiong Wenwu first and see what he has to say.”
The place where Xiong Wenwu had arranged to meet them was the breeding base, a remote place located at the edge of the reserve.
The two of them followed the map all the way. As they passed each mountain peak, they could feel waves of spiritual energy shooting up into the sky from the peaks, which were blocked by layers of light curtains and formation arrays. The spiritual energy was so dense that it looked like it was about to rain spiritual energy.
In fact, Bai Zhenzhen and Zhang Yu did see a light rain falling from time to time on the mountain, and the spiritual energy in the rainwater was steaming, which made them secretly click their tongues in amazement.
These mountain peaks were the true locations of the spirit veins.
Unlike the tourist area where Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen were currently walking, which was just the peripheral area of the spirit veins, where they could absorb a little of the air and spiritual energy leaking from above.
Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen couldn’t imagine what the people on the mountain were doing, that they needed to absorb such a huge amount of spiritual energy, and how much money they were spending every second.
And below the mountain peak, on the side of the tourist area, outside the light curtain that separated the tourists.
Zhang Yu would occasionally see all sorts of poor people carrying oxygen tanks and water bottles, clinging to the foot of the mountain like small fish attached to a whale, absorbing the spiritual energy overflowing from the spirit veins to achieve a cultivation efficiency far exceeding that of the outside world.
No… Zhang Yu denied the thought that had just popped into his head.
These are not poor people at all. To be able to leech off the foot of the mountain and practice, according to the charges here… they are all rich people to us.
There are so many damn rich people in Kunxu.
Bai Zhenzhen at the side said, “We should have brought oxygen tanks too. Breathing here is too uneconomical.”
Zhang Yu nodded in deep agreement.
Ten minutes later, the two finally arrived at the so-called breeding base.
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