He's not exactly wealthy.
But, he snorted softly. With his fusion ability, he would never be poor again.
However, thinking about the plot of the original novel, this world was extremely dangerous.
There were many dangerous individuals and many parts of the plot were situations where survival was nearly impossible.
His future actions would need to be carefully planned.
According to the original story, at this point in time, the heroine should be taking Xiao Yi along on a mission to investigate suspected traces of demonic cultivators.
In truth, they were heading toward an opportunity that originally belonged to Xiao Shou and that is a hidden blessed land.
That place had originally been the cave dwelling of a Nascent Soul cultivator.
It was concealed by formations and contained the storage ring left behind after the cultivator's death, along with a small spirit stone mine that had accumulated extremely dense spiritual energy.
After the heroine arrived, during the mission, she encountered one of the male leads, the demonic cultivator named Jin Guangyao.
After a series of schemes and calculations, the three of them entered the cave dwelling one after another.
After dividing the items and spirit stones, they cultivated using the spiritual energy within.
Because the three of them cultivated together, the spiritual energy that would have originally been enough for Xiao Shou to advance to the Golden Core stage was only enough for each of them to advance by a single minor realm before it was exhausted.
By the time they emerged, five months had already passed.
In other words, he could remain here for these five months without having to worry about the heroine for the time being.
But what about Yu Lin?
Up until now, Xiao Shou still did not understand.
The book had stated that Yu Lin came from another world, where Xiao Ran was the protagonist of a novel.
In that case, she should also be aware of Xiao Shou's opportunity.
Since she had sought to obtain Xiao Ran's Heavenly Orb, why had she not taken Xiao Shou's opportunity as well?
Instead, she had allowed Xiao Shou to grow stronger and had even supported Xiao Ran and Xiao Yi for hundreds of years until Xiao Shou ascended to the Spirit Realm.
After thinking it over again and again, Xiao Shou could only come up with one possibility.
In the book that Yu Lin had read, Xiao Shou was merely a minor side character who appeared very rarely.
Perhaps it was only mentioned in passing, something like how Xiao Ran's clansman Xiao Shou once obtained a certain opportunity during the Qi Refining stage, with no detailed description of the plot.
With such a brief mention and with the existence of the overwhelmingly powerful Heavenly Orb nearby, it was only natural that Yu Lin would not waste her attention on Xiao Shou.
Xiao Ran had interacted frequently with Xiao Shou in her previous life and had been quite close to him, so she would certainly have shared the time and details of obtaining that opportunity with him.
That was why the opportunity that the transmigrator Yu Lin could not seize was instead taken by the reborn Xiao Ran.
Thinking about it this way felt truly strange.
In Yu Lin's world, Xiao Ran was the protagonist of a book.
After Yu Lin transmigrated, it caused Xiao Ran to be reborn filled with resentment.
In his own world, there existed the book called Longevity Love.
Then one day, would there also be a book in another world that contained his own existence?
If there was, would he be the protagonist or just a supporting character?
Most likely still a supporting character.
After all, in Yu Lin's world, Xiao Ran was the protagonist, and in his own world, Xiao Ran was still the protagonist.
How could Xiao Ran lose her status as the protagonist in another world?
At most, there would simply be an additional minor character called Xiao Shou who is a transmigrator.
This was the overwhelming fortune of a protagonist, an invincible protagonist's halo.
But so what.
Even if he became a supporting character, he would absolutely refuse to become cannon fodder.
He would become a supporting character that even the protagonist would not dare to offend.
He would never end up like the original owner and casually erased like a butterfly effect.
After making his determination once again, Xiao Shou carefully thought things through and decided to leave before they returned.
Fortunately, the marketplace of the Heavenly Void Sect was relatively safe.
With five months of focused cultivation, his strength could increase significantly, allowing him to step out of the marketplace, which was essentially a safe zone.
During this period, he could both improve his cultivation and quietly accumulate resources using his Absolute Fusion ability without attracting attention.
After having set a short-term plan for himself, Xiao Shou began a life of full-time cultivation within the Heavenly Void Sect marketplace.
Whenever he had free time, he would use his Absolute Fusion ability.
Every seven days, he would go to the shops to exchange spirit stones, purchase raw materials, order magical artifacts, and search for overlooked bargains at street stalls.
More than three months passed like this.
With an endless supply of low-grade Qi Gathering Pills and spirit stones, not only had his cultivation recovered to the sixth level of Qi Refining two months ago, it had now reached the eighth level of Qi Refining.
He had also accumulated quite a stockpile of spirit stones, various upgraded pills, and commonly used talismans and formations that had been enhanced through fusion.
His storage pouch was nearly full.
On this day, it was once again time for his routine outing every seven days.
As usual, Xiao Shou went to Nine Treasure Pavilion to exchange spirit stones, then turned toward the street of marketplace stalls.
This area was filled with independent cultivators from all over, people with little capital who did not stay in one place for long and setting up temporary stalls to sell their goods.