Day after day passed as Li Mo carried out his gatekeeper page duties.
In the blink of an eye, Li Mo had been at the Advanced Study Hall for more than half a month.
Over the past half month,
whenever Aunt Chen Rong of the Alchemy Hall came to the Advanced Study Hall to give a lecture, Li Mo would make sure to attend. He had gained a basic understanding of the fundamentals of alchemy and the sect benefits available to those who became alchemists.
Within the Da Gan Kingdom, alchemists were not a rare profession.
At least in Muzhou, a vast, sparsely populated region rich in spirit herbs, they were not rare. It was simply that most of the precious spirit herbs were bought up by cultivators from the wealthy prefectures.
The disciples of the Lingmu Sect used their Spirit Eyes to comprehend the way of all living things—in other words, the way of human supremacy. They could study and learn any means or tools that benefited their own growth, and alchemy was among them.
But for most disciples at the Advanced Study Hall, learning various spells was the first choice.
It was instinctive.
As for the benefits of becoming an alchemist, after passing the graduation assessment, one could enter the Alchemy Hall in the Inner Sect directly and take up a position there. One could also apply to the sect for a private spirit field, provided one paid the fees on time.
The spiritual energy on Qingming Mountain was abundant.
According to Chen Rong, under the alchemists' careful cultivation, spirit herbs grown in these fields often matured in one year as much as herbs in the outside world did in two.
This was due not only to the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, but also in large part to the alchemists, who served a role much like that of a companion beast or guardian beast.
That was also why precious spirit herbs in the wild were always guarded by vicious creatures.
The meticulous care these fierce creatures provided also helped the spirit herbs grow. It seemed to involve a deeper convergence of the order of heaven and earth, with yin and yang complementing each other, allowing the herbs' guardians to benefit endlessly over time as well.
And for this very reason, there was even a sect in a small country bordering the Gan Kingdom whose main cultivation method was devoted to nurturing spirit herbs and accelerating their growth.
As a result,
many so-called thousand-year spirit herbs could mature in just four or five hundred years in the public spirit fields of some great sects. For Nascent Soul Cultivators, who had lifespans of a thousand years, that was hardly an unreachable span of time.
For this reason,
many alchemists of ordinary talent and low success rates would often turn to tending the sect's public spirit fields after becoming alchemists, as well as carefully looking after their own private fields. All they had to do was pay the sect's fees regularly.
But this hard, farmer-like work held little appeal for many disciples of Aristocratic Clans.
If those disciples truly wanted to make pills, they only had to go to the Alchemy Hall, spend some Spirit Stones, and commission a professional alchemist. They could focus on cultivation and studying the fields that genuinely interested them.
Some unattached disciples who had once been full of anticipation showed their disappointment after learning this.
Because Li Mo had once been a Traveling Doctor with Jimin Hall, Master Zhang Dongliang had regretfully urged him to persist. His mother, Zhou Mei, had died of illness, and he deeply regretted it. Naturally, he would not give up in the face of the hardships before him. He was determined to become a true alchemist.
Unfortunately, Aunt Chen Rong only came to the Advanced Study Hall to lecture once every three or four days.
That was nowhere near enough to satisfy Li Mo's thirst for knowledge.
But in another sense, that was a good thing. Otherwise, his ten free auditing sessions would soon be used up.
Meanwhile,
after working hard for over half a month, Li Mo had finally learned to circulate the Lesser Celestial Circuit while standing!
After Wang Zhu and he finished sweeping the fallen leaves from the road outside the Gathering Treasure Hall, they had to stand quietly before its gate and keep watch. It was common for them not to see a single person for three hours, so they naturally had to find some way to dispel the boredom.
Ever since Li Mo had learned to circulate the Lesser Celestial Circuit while standing, the hours on gate duty no longer felt so arduous.
Though this method of cultivation was far less efficient than usual, the process always made him lose himself in it.
Wang Zhu, meanwhile, had taken up sculpting clay figures. Whenever he had nothing to do, he would find a lump of mud and roll it around in his palms. Li Mo guessed he had found inspiration in the Great Dao of Nose Picking. He would occasionally invite Li Mo to play his so-called Beast Chess, but Li Mo was not interested.
One day,
someone came to the Gathering Treasure Hall late at night.
The visitor was in a great hurry, a man dusty from the road. He showed Li Mo and Wang Zhu the waist token in his hand. The two dared not stop him and let him leave.
"He's from Anbei Prefecture. He's in such a hurry—do you think he found some kind of treasure?"
Wang Zhu's words made Li Mo's expression shift.
But even if the man had found some treasure, it had nothing to do with two gatekeeper pages like them. Li Mo shook his head and continued circulating the Lesser Celestial Circuit.
Just a moment later,
a female cultivator emerged from deep within the Gathering Treasure Hall.
When Li Mo and Wang Zhu saw her, they did not dare so much as breathe loudly. They stood respectfully on either side of the gate.
They thought the woman would leave at once, but she took out a voice transmission talisman and said something into it. Then she smiled and looked at Wang Zhu.
"Take this voice transmission talisman to Hall Master Qian of the Talisman Creation Hall at once. Tell him I have questions about my cultivation and would like to ask him for guidance. Have him come here quickly."
"Yes."
Wang Zhu took the talisman and hurried toward the Talisman Creation Hall.
Only after the woman in white returned to the Gathering Treasure Hall did Li Mo let out a breath. She was Qin Yue, the deputy hall master of the Gathering Treasure Hall, a genuine Golden Core Stage cultivator.
When the area before the gate had grown quiet again, Li Mo began to sense that something was amiss.
By rights, as an Outer Sect hall, the Gathering Treasure Hall ranked below the Talisman Creation Hall. If an Outer Sect deputy hall master ran into difficulties in her cultivation, she ought to go ask an Inner Sect hall master for guidance herself, rather than summon him over. It seemed rather improper.
Besides, weren't voice transmission talismans able to fly by themselves toward a friend's spiritual energy within a short range?
There was something strange about the whole affair.
"Could it have something to do with that man who hurried back from Anbei Prefecture earlier? Did they really find some kind of treasure?"
Li Mo was puzzled, but there was no one who could answer him.
Fortunately, Wang Zhu soon came back, and nothing had happened. Just as Li Mo thought the night would pass without further incident, an old man arrived, and the two of them instantly became alert!
The man had an otherworldly bearing and long white eyebrows.
When he reached the gate, he stopped and looked at Li Mo and Wang Zhu, his expression gentle.
"Heh, I am Sima Fu, a True Disciple of the Ancestor Hall and acting sect master of our sect. I've come to visit Hall Master Lü Ci. Go in and inform him."
Li Mo and Wang Zhu were stunned.
What did the acting sect master mean by telling the two of them to go in and inform someone?
By now, their understanding of the Lingmu Sect was nothing like it had been when they first entered the Enlightenment Hall half a month earlier. Thirty years ago, a large number of the sect's elite disciples, led by Quanzhi Zhenren, had died in the war with Lu Country. The sect's strength had been in steep decline ever since.
The vast Lingmu Sect was held together by the bitter efforts of a single Nascent Soul Cultivator: the sect master, Qingling Zhenren.
But it was said that the sect master had little of his lifespan left. The sect urgently needed to cultivate someone from among the Golden Core Stage cultivators below him who could shoulder the sect's great responsibilities. In the end, they had chosen two True Disciples in the late Golden Core Stage.
These two True Disciples were Chen Shouyi, an old ancestor of the Chen Family, one of the four great clans, and Sima Fu, a widely respected unaffiliated cultivator in the late Golden Core Stage.
The Lingmu Sect was sparing no expense to help them advance to the Nascent Soul Realm.
When sect master Qingling Zhenren went into seclusion, Chen Shouyi and Sima Fu became the Lingmu Sect's acting sect masters.
Yet now, this acting sect master, Sima Fu, was asking two gatekeeper boys to go in and announce his arrival instead of entering the Gathering Treasure Hall directly. It was decidedly out of the ordinary.
"Yes."
But he was the acting sect master, after all. Li Mo did not dare say anything. He replied dutifully, then hurried into the Gathering Treasure Hall to report Sima Fu's visit to its hall master, Lü Ci.
"What!"
Lü Ci was greatly startled.
He was a short-haired old man with a brisk, forceful manner. His forehead and cheeks were covered in scars. He strode out of the hall and demanded, "Why would he come here?"
Li Mo looked bewildered.
"This disciple doesn't know."
"Hmph!"
Lü Ci snorted coldly. After hesitating briefly, he strode out with a disciple. Li Mo hurried after them. When the three reached the gate of the Gathering Treasure Hall, Lü Ci spoke with Sima Fu for a moment, then led him into the inner hall.
But the Foundation Establishment disciple who had followed Lü Ci stopped behind.
Once Sima Fu and Lü Ci had gone, the disciple looked at Li Mo and Wang Zhu with a dark expression.
"What just happened? Tell me every last detail. Don't leave anything out."
"Yes."
The two hurriedly explained that Qin Yue, the deputy hall master of the Gathering Treasure Hall, had asked Wang Zhu to deliver a voice transmission talisman. The man's expression grew even darker as he listened, and he turned to Wang Zhu.
"You were the one who delivered the talisman?"
"Yes," Wang Zhu replied softly.
The man's face darkened, and a hint of violence appeared in his eyes.
"Hand over your waist token. As a gatekeeper, you're dressed improperly. Your Spirit Stone wages for this month are docked!"
Wang Zhu stared at him blankly, tears welling in his eyes.
But his martial uncle showed not the slightest sympathy.
"And what happened to your hands? Why are they so dirty? You've disgraced the Gathering Treasure Hall. Your sect contributions for this month are cut in half!"
Wang Zhu bit his lower lip, doing his best to control his emotions.
"You're crying now? That's disrespectful to your sect elders. I'm docking the rest of your sect contributions, too! Just wait until Uncle Chen gets back. You'll see!"
Once the Foundation Establishment martial uncle had left, Wang Zhu could no longer hold back his fear and grievance. He burst into tears.
He did not understand what he had done wrong.
Li Mo felt his pain and was upset as well, so he tried to comfort him.
But they were only two gatekeeper boys. How could they possibly argue with that Foundation Establishment martial uncle?
"Li Mo, he must've seen we're both unaffiliated disciples with no one in the sect to back us up, so he bullied us. I heard long ago that those clan disciples look down on us unaffiliated disciples. Boo-hoo."
Wang Zhu's clothes were disheveled because he had run to deliver the voice transmission talisman.
His hands were dirty from sculpting clay figures.
But they both knew this was simply a case of bad luck.
The punishment had been set in stone the moment Wang Zhu delivered the voice transmission talisman for Deputy Hall Master Qin Yue. Even if his clothes had been neat and his hands clean, the man could have found a hundred excuses to punish him. Those things were not the real reason.
In other words,
if Li Mo had delivered the talisman instead, he would not have escaped this either.
"Looks like we've been dragged into the struggle between the clan disciples and unaffiliated disciples."
Li Mo had heard about the conflict between the Lingmu Sect's clan disciples and unaffiliated disciples from Jade Fox Wang Ying. It was ultimately a dispute over how the sect's cultivation resources were allocated.
But from what Li Mo had learned since entering the sect, the conflict was still limited to the mid- and upper-level Foundation Establishment and Golden Core cultivators. Newly admitted Qi Refining Stage disciples like him had not yet been drawn into the distribution of sect resources, so he had not felt much about it.
Now that they had experienced its cruelty firsthand, they felt unbearably aggrieved.
A good while later,
Wang Zhu wiped away his tears and clenched his fists.
"When my cultivation is strong enough, I'll unite the other unaffiliated disciples. I won't let those clan disciples bully us anymore. They're all bad people!"
The disciples at the Advanced Study Hall were mostly at the age when they had just undergone the Hair-Binding Rite. Their youthful temperaments were changing rapidly, and their personalities could be dramatically altered by everyday events—just like Li Mo's had been two years earlier.
Li Mo sighed and nodded.
They stood watch until Xushi. Once their shift ended and nothing else had happened, they left the Gathering Treasure Hall and returned to their dormitory to rest.
Three days later,
Wang Zhu learned that the disciple who always followed Lü Ci was named Lü Song, a grandnephew of Lü Ci.
Lü Song had decent comprehension, so Lü Ci had accepted him as a formal disciple. In the Gathering Treasure Hall, apart from the two Golden Core Stage hall masters, Lü Song and his family held all the power.
Wang Zhu now held a grudge against Lü Song.
But he had not yet thought of a way to get back at him.
One day,
Lü Song brought an old man to the gate of the Gathering Treasure Hall. He pointed at Wang Zhu and indicated him to the old man.
"Uncle Chen, this is the duty disciple who secretly tipped off that old thief Sima. Otherwise, if you'd obtained that thousand-year spirit herb and refined it with the other herbs into a pill, you might soon have overpowered that old thief Sima Fu and become the sect's second Nascent Soul Cultivator."
Wang Zhu turned deathly pale.
He did not need to guess who the old man was. It was Chen Shouyi, the other late Golden Core Stage True Disciple of the Ancestor Hall and one of the two acting sect masters.
Li Mo hurriedly lowered his head as well, feeling a trace of fear.
The area before the gate fell deathly quiet.
Li Mo and Wang Zhu could almost hear their own heartbeats.
After a long while,
Chen Shouyi said in a low voice, "He's only a Qi Refining Stage disciple. We agreed long ago that the conflict wouldn't spread to disciples like him. There's no need to make things difficult for him. Deputy Hall Master Qin is the one who matters. Back then, I couldn't understand why they spared no expense to arrange for her to compete for the deputy hall master position. I never expected them to have such a clever plan. As expected of Sima Fu."
Though the acting sect master was quite angry at having missed an opportunity during his brief trip away, he had not lost his reason.
A thousand-year spirit herb alone could not reverse one's fate.
For advancing to the Nascent Soul Realm, the herb could at most serve as a supporting ingredient. And he had gained something from his own trip as well, so that roughly balanced out the loss of the herb.
The spirit fields of the Lingmu Sect contained quite a few thousand-year spirit herbs, but they were all grown in large plots of a single variety.
Some of the rare thousand-year herbs required by elixir recipes had to be found by cultivators venturing outside the sect.
"Yes," Lü Song replied, then followed Chen Shouyi into the Gathering Treasure Hall.
Only then did Wang Zhu and Li Mo relax. They exchanged a glance, still shaken, and both began hoping their gatekeeper page duties would end soon, so they could avoid Lü Song.
A few more days passed.
Their daily gatekeeper page rotation was due to end tomorrow.
Just as they thought the trouble was over and Wang Zhu was preparing to accept his bad luck, Deputy Hall Master Qin Yue of the Gathering Treasure Hall appeared at the gate once again.
She was still dressed all in white as she looked at the two gatekeepers.
Wang Zhu and Li Mo could not help feeling on edge, afraid they might once again be caught in the crossfire.
"These past few days, you were punished by the Lü Family because of me, weren't you?"
Li Mo looked a little awkward. He had only been on edge; nothing had actually happened to him.
Wang Zhu, on the other hand, immediately began crying in grievance, tears and snot streaming down his face. He hated Lü Song to the bone.
"Here are twenty Spirit Stones. Split them between the two of you. Consider them compensation from me. If anything comes up in the future, you can come find me."
With that,
Deputy Hall Master Qin Yue left the Spirit Stones and walked away, leaving Li Mo and Wang Zhu standing before the gate, looking utterly incredulous.
Wang Zhu wiped away his tears, apparently no longer feeling wronged, and looked at Li Mo.
"We'll each take ten Spirit Stones and split them up."
"Uh, well, you suffered a much greater loss. How about you keep them? I'm fine."
Though Li Mo felt reluctant to part with the Spirit Stones, he still spoke with a good deal of loyalty.
Although he coveted these Spirit Stones, at market prices, ten Spirit Stones were worth a full ten taels of gold, one hundred taels of silver, or a hundred thousand copper coins. But this time, he truly hadn't lost anything.
Wang Zhu, on the other hand, had suffered a real loss. Li Mo felt a little awkward accepting the Spirit Stones.
It was worth noting that the exchange rate between Spirit Stones and silver was calculated according to the relative value of Silver Essence and Spirit Stones, not set by the Gan Kingdom.
To cultivators, silver was a commodity.
To mortals, Spirit Stones were a luxury. They could even be made into ornaments such as jade pendants, seals, hanging decorations, and hairpins.
"Don't say anything more."
Wang Zhu wiped away his tears. He seemed to have matured a great deal.
"Li Mo, I've made up my mind. From now on, I'll be at odds with those Aristocratic Clans! It's been so many days, and I can tell you're a man with great ambitions too. I hope we'll have a chance to work together in the future!"
In the end, when the mission was over, the two split this unexpected windfall evenly.
Li Mo could see it.
Wang Zhu had been thoroughly swept into the maelstrom now. He would definitely go find Hall Master Qin.
As for me, I'd better not. With the Mystic Dream's help, it's best to stay as far as possible from the maelstrom of their conflict and focus on cultivating quietly and steadily. Besides, my goal is to become an inspector for Heaven's Mandate Bureau, to uphold justice, roam the land as a hero, and save people—not to sit here cultivating amid the power struggles of the aristocratic clans.
With that thought, Li Mo had already reached the vicinity of the dormitory. He waved goodbye to Wang Zhu.
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