Fairness

The bright pill room was suddenly lit by a surge of flames.

The next moment, a plume of black smoke rose from the pill furnace before Ye Jingcheng.

A faint stench began to spread. Even beneath the scorching flames, it remained unpleasant.

The temperature had been too high. The pill refinement had failed!

And it had been the Spirit Feeding Pill he was most proficient at refining.

Yet Ye Jingcheng did not look gloomy. Instead, his eyes gleamed with excitement and anticipation.

Because within his body, an incomparably ancient-looking book had finally lit up and taken form on its first page.

Ye Jingcheng was a transmigrator. He had crossed into the Ye Family more than ten years ago, going from having no one to rely on to becoming one of the Ye Family's lofty immortal masters, only to learn that he possessed merely Four Spiritual Roots and cultivated at an agonizingly slow pace.

The hardships along the way had been even more turbulent than the ups and downs of his previous life.

This was a world of cultivators. Great cultivators could summon wind and rain, capable of anything; if one cultivated to the very end, one could even live as long as heaven and earth! His only support, and his greatest secret, was the Yellow-Covered Ancient Book within his body, inlaid with unknown Spirit Patterns.

Just moments ago, the Ancient Book had glowed and radiated spiritual haze, drawing all of his attention and causing him to make a mistake in the pill refinement he had once known like the back of his hand.

Half a day's work had gone up in smoke.

Faint Spirit Patterns were traced across the Ancient Book, resembling strange and exotic Exotic Beasts, while every page differed from the next.

It was extraordinarily detailed. He had tested the spiritual light from the Illustrated Handbook before, and it was immensely helpful for healing and raising poultry. He had even tried saving dying birds.

But it consumed an enormous amount of spiritual light.

Fortunately, it could slowly recover, though it had never fully recovered. Today was the first time it had emitted radiant haze.

It was just a pity that although Ye Jingcheng was part of a Beast Taming Family, he had yet to obtain a truly promising Monster Beast cub.

Ye Jingcheng pondered for a long while, until a series of bell chimes rang out.

Ye Jingcheng formed a hand seal, and the Object Manipulation Technique descended. He deftly removed the pill furnace, then took out Cold Silkworm Cloth and carefully wrapped it around the furnace's large, scorching handles.

Only then did he pour the remaining pill liquid inside the furnace into a wooden box he had prepared.

After putting it into his Storage Bag, he used a special furnace-cleaning brush to scrub the inner walls of the pill furnace spotless.

Only after he could no longer see the slightest flaw with the naked eye—

Did Ye Jingcheng stroke the furnace handle, which was still somewhat hot, and let out a sigh.

"I wonder when I'll be able to own a pill furnace of my own!"

This pill furnace belonged to the Ye Family. As a Ye Family disciple, he could borrow it, but any spirit pills refined with it had to be sold to the Ye Family at half their normal price.

But if he had his own pill furnace, he could sell them to the Lineage at eighty percent of the normal price.

The bells outside rang again.

"Coming!" Ye Jingcheng called back, then hurriedly swept the area with the special broom beside him.

He looked around. Only after confirming that the pill room was exactly as it had been before did he step outside.

The hall outside was exceptionally spacious. Moreover, due to the cultivation formations, it was not unbearably hot at all, utterly different from the world inside.

An old man in a grayish-white Daoist robe was tapping the bell outside Ye Jingcheng's pill room.

Behind the elder stood three or four Ye Family clansmen dressed like Ye Jingcheng.

Those people had clearly waited for quite some time. Their faces looked somewhat dark, as though they had been baked by the heat for too long.

Ye Jingcheng gave a wry smile. He knew that Ninth Grandfather Ye Haitian, who guarded the Alchemy Pavilion, had secretly given him extra time again.

The old man walked over to the table in the hall, took out brush and ink, and began recording everything one by one.

"Alright, come over quickly. Count up your gains; the next group will be coming in soon!"

"Jing Yun, refined thirty Spirit Feeding Pills. Used the family pill furnace, discounted at 1 Contribution Point per pill, thirty Contribution Points in total. Three days' rent, six Contribution Points. Remaining: twenty-four Contribution Points!"

Very soon, it was Ye Jingcheng's turn.

As usual, he took out five palm-sized pill bottles and placed them before the old man.

Every bottle was filled to the brim, and they all gave off a faint pill fragrance.

The old man raised his head. Rather than praising him, he gave Ye Jingcheng a surprised glance. "Buying a spirit beast?"

In the past, Ye Jingcheng could refine seven batches within three days. Spirit Feeding Pills were high-volume pills like Grain Avoidance Pills; every batch produced at least ten, while some produced as many as fifteen or sixteen.

Thus, in his view, Ye Jingcheng had kept some for himself.

The Ye Family was a Beast Taming Family. Unlike other families, which only looked at one's Spirit Root, the Ye Family also valued the quality of one's spirit beasts.

It could even be said that if one's spirit beast was raised well, the Ye Family would prioritize nurturing that person even if he had Five Spiritual Roots.

"Ninth Grandfather, you truly saw through everything!" Ye Jingcheng scratched his head, nodded, and smiled, revealing a rare trace of his usual simple honesty.

"Let's calculate your Contribution Points!" Ye Haitian took Ye Jingcheng's Family Token and began the routine process. "Jingcheng, refined fifty Spirit Feeding Pills. Used the family pill furnace, discounted at 1 Contribution Point per pill, fifty Contribution Points in total. In addition, the Spirit Feeding Pills have pill fragrance, so there is an extra reward of thirty Contribution Points. Three days' rent, six Contribution Points. Remaining: seventy-four Contribution Points!"

Ye Haitian spoke evenly.

Ye Jingcheng's face filled with shock. Spirit Feeding Pills with pill fragrance were indeed somewhat better, but they absolutely did not warrant a reward.

The Ye Family had no such rule. Ye Haitian was secretly subsidizing him.

"Ninth Grandfather..."

"Jingcheng, remember this: in the Cultivation World, absolute fairness is precisely unfairness. The Ye Family is no exception!" Ye Haitian offered no further explanation and merely told Ye Jingcheng to leave.

He continued sorting through the scrolls recording Contribution Points.

Clutching his Family Token, Ye Jingcheng gave a deep bow.

The Ye Family's exchange rate was one Contribution Point for one Low-Grade Spirit Stone.

But in truth, Contribution Points were more valuable than Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

Some family treasures and certain spirit beast cubs could only be exchanged for with Contribution Points.

Though the Ye Family was not a large clan and could only be considered somewhat notable among Foundation Establishment Families, it ranked among the best throughout Mount Taihang when it came to spirit beasts.

Ye Jingcheng had Four Spiritual Roots—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, lacking only metal. He had gone up the mountain at eleven, and now, at twenty-one, he was at Qi Training Stage 4. This was already the result of his diligent effort and of understanding the value of cultivation more than others his age! Yet even so, he still lagged far behind his peers with Three Spiritual Roots.

That was why he had diligently practiced Alchemy and saved Contribution Points for the past three years: to exchange them for a good spirit beast.

At present, his Family Token held exactly four hundred Contribution Points.

But four hundred was not a small amount. One had to know that a mid-stage Qi Training cultivator in the Ye Family received an annual stipend of only five Low-Grade Spirit Stones. Even as an Alchemist, he only received two extra stones a year.

The fact that he had managed to save four hundred while cultivating was because he possessed some talent in Alchemy.

Furthermore, he could not spend it all on a spirit beast cub. His own cultivation required Contribution Points, buying pill materials required Contribution Points, and the future food for a spirit beast cub would require Contribution Points...

His only hope was that the Jade Book within him was useful for more than merely healing spirit beast cubs! Ye Jingcheng's head began to ache again.

As he strolled onward, Ye Jingcheng soon arrived at the family's Demon Hunting Hall.

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