Head of the Gu Workshop

Over the next month and a half.

The Gu poisons, snake Gu, and other Gu worms that Chen Dengming and Xu Ning had agreed upon were shipped to the Golden Character Workshop one after another.

Xu Ning arranged personnel to sell them within the market of the Gathering Place.

In addition, as agreed, Xu Ning designated a few plots of land near Lingyue Lake to be turned into Gu-making grounds, handing them over specifically for Chen Dengming to refine Gu. It became a Gu-manufacturing site, with cultivators stationed to keep watch every day.

As for the once-secluded dwelling of the cultivator Old Lin near Lingyue Lake, Xu Ning also gave it a grand wave of his hand, directly assigning it to Chen Dengming as a resting place after his daily Gu-refining sessions.

One had to admit that matters in this world were truly wondrous.

Back then, the cultivator Old Lin used the excuse that Chen Dengming was snooping around his tranquil cultivation grounds over two spirit fish to try and beat him to death.

Not only was he instead killed in reverse by Chen Dengming, but now his very residence had been reduced to Chen Dengming's territory. If he knew of this down in the netherworld, he would probably tearfully slap his own face for a long time.

However, even though the Gu market was booming, the competition among the dozen or so factions within the Gathering Place was growing increasingly fierce.

The source stirring up the muddy waters of the Gathering Place was the much-talked-about, high-profile incident of the Luo family calling off their engagement with the Luo family's rival, the Luo family—specifically, the Luo family canceling their marriage with the Luo family.

Although the Luo family was not a cultivation family of the Southern Domain, they were a major family of the Eastern Domain bordering the Southern Domain, with disciples in their clan belonging to relatively famous cultivation sects.

The ancestor of the family was also a Foundation Establishment Late Stage Cultivator.

In the past, the marriage alliance between the Luo family and the Luo family had greatly boosted their momentum, and the Zhu family—which had constantly competed with the Luo family for resources near the Gathering Place—had quieted down quite a bit.

Yet now, news of the Luo family tearing up their engagement with the Luo family was spreading like wildfire, and they had even offended the Luo family as a result.

Naturally, it was impossible for the Zhu family to lie low and stay quiet any longer, and the factions they backed within the Gathering Place were the first to start causing a ruckus.

Even the appearance of Gu creatures added even more danger and malice to the recent chaos and bloodshed.

Recently, the Gu poisons sold in the market had even suffered several instances of brazen robbery. The robbing cultivators were all masked, and their identities could not be tracked down, prompting the Golden Character Workshop to dispatch some personnel to patrol the market lately.

At this time, Chen Dengming felt an increasing sense of unease, sensing that the world was about to change.

This kind of upheaval was coming even faster than he had imagined.

He had barely managed to gain a foothold in this Gathering Place.

The so-called title of "Chief Chen" had not even been called warmly by others for long, and just when he was planning to earn more spirit stone resources for his cultivation, peace seemed about to shatter.

"Chief Chen, the stone Gu in the market sold very quickly this month. Do you think we need to procure more materials to make a few more?"

At the entrance of the Gu-making grounds beside Lingyue Lake, a sturdy fellow smiled and politely consulted Chen Dengming.

This sturdy fellow was named Wu Chen—none other than the cultivator who had invited Chen Dengming to join the Golden Character Workshop back in the old shantytown.

Back then, this person even needed to use Xu Wei as a proxy to send out a low-grade spirit stone, as if afraid of soiling his own hands.

Now, however, he had been assigned as a subordinate under Chen Dengming, responsible for guarding the Gu-making grounds. His attitude had undergone a complete one-hundred-and-eighty-degree shift compared to the past.

"They are selling fast because the Gathering Place is becoming increasingly unstable. Has there been any more pillaging of the sales spots by masked cultivators in the past two days? And what about those few counterfeit small workshops—have you found out which faction they belong to?"

Chen Dengming stepped into the Gu-making grounds while frowning and questioning.

The refining process for stone Gu was not particularly difficult.

It mainly relied on site selection, controlling the duration of the refining process, and daily maintenance.

If cultivators studied it with single-minded focus, they could gradually figure out the crafting method for these mortal Gu.

With the current unrest—as the Zhu family showed strong intentions of taking back the many gathering territories previously ceded by the Luo family—the rogue cultivators within the Gathering Place grew tense and apprehensive, purchasing talismans and artifacts to save their lives.

By comparison, the selling prices of various Gu poisons and snake Gu were even cheaper than talismans.

The role they played at critical moments was even better than talismans, and they sold exceptionally hot in the market of the Gathering Place.

Innate martial artists and low-tier cultivators formed the main consumer demographic, causing Chen Dengming and Xu Ning to rake in a fortune over the past month.

Seeing how scorching hot the Gu market was, the other factions were naturally extremely envious.

Not to mention the masked robbing cultivators, even small workshops had already copied and refined pirated bamboo slice Gu. Their toxicity was much weaker, but they won on account of cheap prices, circulating in a small scope on the market and selling briskly.

At this point, Wu Chen reported, "In the past two days, the workshop master has increased the manpower guarding the sales spots, and no one dares to make a forceful grab anymore. As for those who snatched away the Gu items, the workshop master suspects they might belong to the Iron Forest Hall.

As for the small workshops, it's still hard to trace which faction is behind them—any of them are possible.

Therefore, Workshop Master Xu has decided to cooperate with the Merchant Alliance to sell the next batch of Gu cargo over at Jingxiu Workshop, opening up the market there. The market there is much more stable and safe. By joining hands with the Merchant Alliance, we can jointly blockade fake goods in the markets on both sides and achieve a complete monopoly.

It's just that."

Chen Dengming raised an eyebrow slightly. "Just what?"

"It's just that the workshop master still suggests that you need to personally accompany this batch of goods, as she fears the Merchant Alliance might pull some tricks. After all, when it comes to Gu, you are the expert."

"Hmm, I will discuss this matter further with the workshop master."

Chen Dengming paused his steps and turned his head to look at Wu Chen. "Anything else?"

Wu Chen was startled, then immediately bowed with a smile. "Nothing else, this subordinate will not disturb you any further, Chief."

"Hmm!"

After Wu Chen walked away, Chen Dengming's brows furrowed. He looked at the stone forest nearby, which was littered with stone lumps and gloomy, rotting spirit soil, and then glanced at the two cultivators guarding the entrance, pondering inwardly.

"Only one month of profits, and it's just the first batch of goods—is Xu Ning losing her patience this quickly? Or am I overthinking things?"

Over the past month, relying on the Gu market, Chen Dengming obtained over thirty low-grade spirit stones from the Golden Character Workshop's revenue split.

To Chen Dengming, thirty-odd low-grade spirit stones were a lot, but to Xu Ning, they ought not to count as a huge source of income.

However, one had to bear in mind that this income was distributed fifty-fifty only after deducting Xu Ning's so-called site fees, routine personnel expenses, and so-called 'grease' fees.

Among them, the site fees and routine personnel expenses at least had reasonable itemized accounts.

Yet the so-called 'grease' fees involved the high-ranking person behind Xu Ning, bearing no ledger records whatsoever—or if they did, they would never be shown to Chen Dengming.

Therefore, Xu Ning only needed to fiddle slightly with the 'grease' fees to easily swallow an extra sixty or seventy low-grade spirit stones without having to report to Chen Dengming. That was where the real bulk lay.

For Xu Ning, earning a hundred low-grade spirit stones a month was already a very lucrative business.

To this, Chen Dengming turned a blind eye.

He had always subscribed to the motto of eating bowls sized to one's capacity.

Even if three hundred low-grade spirit stones were distributed to him a month, with his current strength, he simply couldn't guard them. Thirty was enough as long as it sufficed.

Besides, clear water breeds no fish.

The problem now, however, was that Xu Ning was dissatisfied with the unstable and overly small market here in the Gathering Place and intended to ally with the Merchant Alliance to jointly develop the territory around Brocade Workshop, insisting that he personally accompany the Merchant Alliance's caravan to Brocade Workshop.

This in itself was a reasonable demand.

After all, Chen Dengming was now the main person in charge of the Gu market and held the title of Gu Workshop Chief of the Golden Character Workshop.

Opening up a new market with him personally anchoring the rear was naturally foolproof.

Yet at present, a dozen factions within the Gathering Place had already set their sights on the Gu-refining technique in his hands—a Gu-refining technique that could practically be called alchemy.

Now that the times were unstable once more, the Iron Forest Hall and Flower Rain Gate backed by the Zhu family were extremely interested in the profits from Gu creatures.

Someone as shrewd as Xu Ning could not possibly be unaware of this.

At a time like this, was her insistence on sending him to accompany the caravan to Brocade Workshop overly rash?

True, he had also secretly leaked the news that the eldest miss of the Luo family would not allow a third person in the Gathering Place to master the Gu-refining technique.

Yet threats of this sort were only good for bluffing people on the surface.

When profits grew to the present scale, there were plenty of low-tier cultivators willing to take risks.

Especially the factions backed by the Zhu family; they would care about such a thing even less.

"I must accelerate my cultivation. The cultivation environment in the Gathering Place is no longer stable either. If push comes to shove, I will have no choice but to abandon the hard-won industry I've built right now and head outside to lie low for a while.

Spirit stones are temporarily sufficient, and making money cannot be rushed. Safety comes first..."

Chen Dengming walked slowly along the cobblestone path with his hands behind his back, feeling somewhat emotional. Plans could never keep up with rapid changes.

He always put safety first and money second.

Unless he was completely out of money and hindered in his cultivation, he would never take risks.

Spirit stones were still fairly adequate for now, and he had finally managed to plant his feet firmly, yet the cultivation environment had suddenly turned adverse again.

Various interests and trivial matters also brought him trouble.

The Zhu family and the Luo family were about to go to war at any moment.

The thought of escaping to a quiet and comfortable zone to hunker down and cultivate grew increasingly intense.

After strolling around the Gu-making grounds for a bit, Chen Dengming instructed the few stationed Qi Refining First Layer cultivators to look after the defensive formation.

Without delay, he arrived at the tranquil dwelling by the lake.

He formed hand seals to urge spiritual energy into motion.

In an instant, inside the tree-house-like dwelling, a series of spirit stones on the ground lit up with brilliant radiance, and misty spiritual energy was born.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—

strands of formation flags began to flutter and spread without wind.

The Spirit Seizing Array Disk located at the center radiated spiritual light, activating itself.

Chen Dengming placed himself within the Spirit Seizing Formation and began to cultivate the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique.

Yet he saw that many spiritual energies perceptible to the spirit—cyan, black, red, yellow, and so on—drifted harmlessly in the air.

Only a large mass of white spiritual energy brimming with sharp aura rapidly swarmed toward the top of Chen Dengming's head, instantly hacking and slashing a small amount of cyan aura into oblivion before pouring directly into Chen Dengming's crown.

The Spirit Seizing Formation activated, and Chen Dengming directly used the array to seize a large quantity of metal-attribute spiritual energy for cultivation first. Once the surrounding metal-attribute spiritual energy was consumed to near exhaustion, he would then seize wood-attribute spiritual energy.

Through this back-and-forth process, the suppression and interference between the two types of spiritual energy were drastically reduced. His cultivation efficiency was at least improved by about fifty percent compared to the past, achieving quite remarkable results even out in the wilds.

The only drawback, however, was that it required hitting and running, necessitating frequent changes of cultivation locations.

Chen Dengming generally activated the Spirit Seizing Formation in his tranquil dwelling once every three days.

Three days was roughly enough for the depleted spiritual energy to gradually recover.

He had recently commissioned Jiang Qiang to make two sets of this Spirit Seizing Formation.

One set was deployed within his courtyard in the Gathering Place, and the other right here in this tranquil dwelling.

As early as a month ago, when he had just returned to the Gathering Place, he had already successfully broken through to the realm of Qi Cultivation Third Level, thereby extending his lifespan by another fifteen years.

A month passed, and utilizing the Spirit Seizing Formation along with Pure Spirit Pill, his cultivation speed was not considered slow.

Every four times he practiced the Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique, he could accumulate one point of technique proficiency.

Yet compared to when he was at the Luo family estate, it still lagged behind by about thirty percent.

As Chen Dengming focused his mind, the panel surfaced in his consciousness.

Qi Cultivation Third Level Cultivator [Chen Dengming]
Lifespan: 163/222
Spiritual Roots: Metal, Wood (Medium-grade 50/100)
Martial Arts: Chen Family Martial Arts General Outline (Consummated 99/100)
Daoist Techniques: Gu Refining Chapter (Master 25/100), Three Yuan Spirit Gathering Technique (Tier 3 118/300), Life-Damaging Seedling Pulling Technique (Tier 1 37/100), Great Fireball Technique (Proficient 11/100), Artifact Control Art (Proficient 11/100), Wood Escape Technique (Proficient 3/100), Golden Spear Technique (Proficient 9/100), Divine Speed Technique (Initiate 10/100)

I will soon merge the Daoist techniques within the panel to avoid taking up too much space in the future, and it won't pad out the word count once serialized either. It will be handled smoothly without affecting the reading experience.

Additionally, a long epic focuses on the story—I have been very clear on this from start to finish, so readers who worry about me playing memes and going off track need not worry. I will focus on the story itself and run an exciting, independent plot. After all, in web literature, appropriate memes can increase chapter comments and fun without being too dull. Of course, they won't be excessive; too many become cloying. In short, continue reading the updates; the coming week is quite important, and current results remain good.