Repaying the Lineage

Zhou Yang had practically fled Drunken Immortal Restaurant in disgrace.

His glorious image had completely shattered before his elder and younger sisters once they learned that it was his crooked scheme that had made them sacrifice their charms to bring in revenue for the restaurant.

In truth, he also knew that if Zhou Yuanzhen and the others had been unwilling, his little crooked ideas would never have worked.

After all, while the Lineage could assign them work at the restaurant, it could not force them to sacrifice their charms to generate income for the Lineage. Doing so would not only invite ridicule from other Lineages, but also wound the hearts of every clansman.

The reason Zhou Yuanzhen and the others had been willing to follow his crooked ideas, aside from earning commission income, was because they possessed sufficient awareness themselves. They knew how hard-won the Lineage's cultivation resources were and did not wish to become people useless to the Lineage.

To help the Lineage earn spirit stones, the male cultivators of the Lineage had to tirelessly follow caravans through the desert for months, fighting for their lives against desert bandits and demonic beasts.

Now, they only needed to sacrifice a little of their charm to help the Lineage generate income. What reason did they have to refuse?

As Family Cultivators, they could not merely enjoy the Lineage's benefits. They also had to share its responsibilities.

Without the Lineage's protection, female cultivators of such poor aptitude would find surviving in the Cultivation World far harder than merely sacrificing a little charm as they did now!

But though that was true, making the Lineage's female cultivators sacrifice their charms for income was hardly something honorable. As a man, Zhou Yang still felt ashamed and awkward whenever he faced these elder and younger sisters.

Compared to these brothers and sisters who silently gave so much for the Lineage, he seemed rather like a rice grub.

Though from a practical perspective, merely his achievement in discovering Haoyang Cave and the Crimson Flame Iron Ore Vein outweighed the combined contributions of every cultivator in the "Yuan" generation to the Lineage.

"I had no choice before. But now that I've come to the market, let me repay the Lineage with my own Artifact Forging Art!"

As Zhou Yang walked along the market streets, watching the many cultivators coming and going, he silently made a certain resolution.

The next day, all three attendants of Jade Spring Tower were dispatched. They went to several of the market's busiest spots and loudly called out the words Zhou Yang had taught them.

"Come, come, fellow Daoists, look over here! Jade Spring Tower celebrates its two hundred and thirtieth year in business with a grand promotion! Starting today, anyone who spends over three hundred spirit stones at Jade Spring Tower will receive a free chance to have a Second-tier High-grade Artifact Forger refine a Tier 2 Low-grade Artifact! Those who spend over five hundred spirit stones will receive one free chance to refine a Tier 2 Mid-grade Artifact! Those who spend one thousand spirit stones will receive one free chance to refine a Tier 2 High-grade Artifact! If any artifact forging fails, compensation will be paid at seventy percent of the original price!"

"Jade Spring Tower celebrates its two hundred and thirtieth year in business with a grand promotion! All custom artifact services are thirty percent off! We accept the forging of all artifacts below the third tier! If forging fails, seventy percent of the material cost is guaranteed! Don't miss it as you pass by!"

After Zhou Yang's Artifact Forging Art had reached the Second-tier High-grade, his success rate in forging Tier 2 High-grade Artifacts was around thirty percent, while his success rate for Tier 2 Mid-grade Artifacts exceeded sixty percent.

Artifact forging was unlike pill refinement. So long as the materials were salvaged in time after a forging failure, they would not be completely ruined; their grade would merely drop. That was also what gave him the confidence to take on orders so boldly.

Furthermore, for an Artifact Forger to raise both their Artifact Forging Art level and their success rate, the most direct method was to forge more artifacts. The more artifacts one forged, the higher the success rate would naturally become.

Zhou Yang's father, Zhou Xuanhao, was likewise a Tier 2 High-grade pill refiner, yet his success rate in refining Tier 2 High-grade Spirit Pills was as high as fifty percent, surpassing most Tier 2 pill refiners in Golden Sand Market.

The reason was that he had been a Tier 2 High-grade pill refiner for many years and had opened his furnace to refine Tier 2 Spirit Pills several hundred times.

Jade Spring Tower had previously accepted custom artifact orders as well, but it had only accepted commissions for Tier 3 Low-grade Artifacts. Whenever it took an order, it would invite the Old Clan Leader, Zhou Minghan, to personally forge it.

However, Old Clan Leader Zhou Minghan could not easily leave the Lineage, and not just anyone could produce the materials needed for third-tier artifacts. On average, they might not receive even one custom artifact commission in ten years.

But things were different now. With Zhou Yang, a Second-tier High-grade Artifact Forger, stationed at Jade Spring Tower, all the custom second-tier artifact jobs that Old Clan Leader Zhou Minghan had previously disdained or lacked time to forge could be handed over to him.

His prices were also very fair. For every artifact successfully forged, he charged only thirty percent of the artifact's value. To those Rogue Cultivators, the appeal was enormous.

Take a Tier 2 High-grade Artifact, for example. A shop would purchase it for at least five hundred low-grade spirit stones, yet the value of its raw materials would be fortunate to reach one hundred low-grade spirit stones.

After obtaining raw materials, many Rogue Cultivators, unable to forge artifacts themselves, could only sell those materials cheaply to shops, then spend five or ten times the price to buy the artifact forged from those very materials.

But things were different now. So long as they brought the materials to Zhou Yang for forging, even if it failed, they would lose fewer than thirty low-grade spirit stones. Yet if it succeeded, they would effectively earn at least two or three hundred low-grade spirit stones!

Onefold investment, tenfold return!

Where else could one find such a good thing?

For a time, Jade Spring Tower, once neither high nor low among the market's shops, suddenly became the liveliest place in the market. Many Rogue Cultivators who heard the news came over to inquire whether it was true.

And after these people entered the shop and saw it filled with pills, artifacts, and spirit talismans, naturally some could not resist buying things they needed, directly driving Jade Spring Tower's sales sharply upward.

Zhou Yang played a little trick at this point. When he had people register those who came to commission artifacts, he deliberately placed the Tier 2 High-grade Artifact orders later in the queue. This allowed him to first forge Tier 2 Low-grade Artifacts and Tier 2 Mid-grade Artifacts to improve his success rate and minimize losses from failures.

With Jade Spring Tower packed with customers, the shopkeepers of other market stores naturally grew envious, jealous, and dissatisfied. Many Artifact Forgers from other Lineages were also waiting to see Zhou Yang make a fool of himself.

Custom artifact services had actually always existed in shops whose main business was artifacts, but the common understanding was that one must never accept orders of the same grade as one's own Artifact Forging Art. Moreover, if forging failed, at most half the material cost would be returned, while successful forging required a fee equal to fifty percent of the purchase price of an equivalent artifact.

Only by doing this could they ensure a profit. Otherwise, they would be working for those Rogue Cultivators for nothing.

After all, they controlled the Artifact Forging Art. Once Rogue Cultivators obtained materials, whether willing or not, they could ultimately only sell them cheaply to these people.

Therefore, in the eyes of these Artifact Forgers, Zhou Yang's current approach would surely leave him so broke he would not even have trousers left. Who did he think he was? A Third-Rank Artifact Forger?

In fact, it was not only those Artifact Forgers who thought so. Even Zhou Xuanlin, who was still in the market purchasing spiritual items needed for Zhou Xuanhao's Foundation Establishment Celebration, had thought the same upon hearing Zhou Yang's plan and had earnestly tried to persuade him to give up with the manner of an experienced elder.

But after Zhou Yang calculated an account for him, he said nothing more and peacefully went about his own business.

Zhou Yang did not care how outsiders viewed him. After settling matters within the clan, he rented an Artifact Forging Room in the Underground Fire Cavern operated by the Chen family on Golden Mist Mountain, preparing to stay there for an extended period.

In any case, he had already arranged everything at Jade Spring Tower. Aside from Zhou Ping, who would return to the Lineage with Zhou Xuanlin, Zhou Yu and Zhou Xiong, who remained behind, only needed to handle matters according to his instructions to maintain Jade Spring Tower's normal operations. Even if something required his attention, they could notify him with a Sound Transmission Talisman.

As for Drunken Immortal Restaurant, because the Foundation Establishment Celebration back at the Lineage also needed to entertain certain honored guests, Old Clan Leader Zhou Minghan had long since ordered Zhou Yuanchun and the others to return to the Lineage first to help. Drunken Immortal Restaurant would temporarily close for a time.

Underground fire was a kind of high-temperature flame originating from subterranean magma. Its temperature was far higher than the Foundation Establishment true fire of Foundation Establishment Cultivators, and using it required no expenditure of a cultivator's mana, so there was never any need to worry about it running dry.

Because of these advantages, ever since cultivators discovered the uses of underground fire, pill refiners and Artifact Forgers below the Nascent Soul Realm had all abandoned true fire in favor of underground fire when refining pills and forging artifacts.

After all, pill refinement and artifact forging were both extremely draining tasks. If one also had to expend mana to sustain true fire during the process, insufficient mana supply could easily lead to failure.

This was especially true for certain high-grade pills and artifacts, whose refinement time was exceedingly long, often lasting several days or even dozens of days. Over such a long stretch, even Golden Core Stage Cultivators would suffer a great depletion of vitality.

Yet though underground fire was excellent, not just anyone could make use of it.

First, drawing underground fire up from beneath the earth required cultivators of at least the Purple Mansion Stage to act personally. Then, Formation Masters of at least the third tier had to be hired to lay down suppression formations and seal away the violent, ferocious underground fire. Finally, Artifact Forgers of at least the third tier had to be hired to forge special purification artifacts that could cleanse the Poison Fire Malevolent Qi contained within the underground fire.

Without any one of these steps, underground fire could not be turned into something practical.

Thus, though everyone knew the benefits of underground fire, only major sects and great Lineages with Purple Mansion Stage cultivators or stronger stationed within them could truly establish Underground Fire Rooms and utilize it.

For cultivators from small Lineages like Zhou Yang, if they wished to use underground fire for artifact forging or pill refinement, they could only obediently pay spirit stones like Rogue Cultivators and rent the Underground Fire Rooms opened by the Chen family in cultivator markets such as Golden Sand Market.

The Chen family had built thirteen Underground Fire Rooms within Golden Sand Market's Underground Fire Cave, charging spirit stones according to the three grades of A, B, and C. The sole Class A Underground Fire Room cost ten low-grade spirit stones per day, the four Class B Underground Fire Rooms cost three low-grade spirit stones per day, and the remaining Class C Underground Fire Rooms cost only one low-grade spirit stone per day.

Since Zhou Yang was only forging second-tier artifacts, renting a Class C Underground Fire Room was more than sufficient.