Preparing to Make a Fortune!

The gloomy figure of Steward Wang vanished into the night, and the suffocating pressure that had filled the air dissipated along with him.

The surrounding servant disciples, seeing that the show was over, all prepared to retreat back to their own dog kennels.

Zhou Xuan watched this group of people who had been enjoying the spectacle just moments ago, and forced himself to crawl up from the ground.

With a look of lingering fear still plastered on his face, he called out in a weak voice, "Fellow senior brothers, wait a moment!"

The group, who were just about to leave, paused and looked back at him, their eyes filled with impatience and confusion.

"Something the matter?" a servant standing nearby asked with a frown.

Zhou Xuan forced a smile onto his face that looked worse than crying, pointing first to his wooden hut, which had been reduced to broken walls and rubble, and then to the shocking mess of flesh and blood on the ground.

He said feebly, "Fellow senior brothers, as you can see, I'm quite badly injured, and my house has collapsed."

"During the day, I helped everyone out quite a bit, dealing with so many dangerous scraps. Could you all lend a hand and help me clean this up a little?"

His voice was filled with pleading, and his eyes were full of weakness, pity, and helplessness.

However, upon hearing this, the expressions on the faces of the dozen or so servant disciples present turned strange in an instant.

They looked at each other as if they were staring at a fool.

"Help you clean up? Did the explosion scramble your brains?"

"Exactly. Don't you see what's on the ground? It's bad luck—whoever touches it will be cursed!"

"You were the one who wanted to help during the day; who asked you to? Besides, was that even helping? You were just rushing to your death!"

One voice said with biting sarcasm.

"Let's go. This place is cursed; who knows if there are other waste pills that might explode."

The group of servant disciples couldn't even be bothered to roll their eyes at him. They avoided him as if he and the ruins were the source of a plague.

They turned around and left without looking back, moving with such speed that they vanished into the darkness faster than rabbits.

In the blink of an eye, the area in front of the dilapidated hut, which had been crowded with people, was left with only Zhou Xuan, standing alone in the evening breeze.

"Heh."

The terror and helplessness on Zhou Xuan's face vanished without a trace, replaced by a cold, mocking sneer.

He silently raised his middle finger in the direction the group had left.

"A bunch of idiots, ungrateful wolves!"

He cursed under his breath.

Expecting any shred of humanity from these people, who were struggling in despair and numbness, was nothing short of a fantasy.

It was a blessing enough that they hadn't kicked him while he was down.

But this was fine; it saved him from having to worry about being seen while he cleaned up.

Zhou Xuan ignored them and turned to walk into the ruins.

He didn't rush to tidy up the broken wooden planks, but instead walked straight to the center of the explosion, squatted down, and expressionlessly examined the mess of flesh and blood on the ground that was now impossible to distinguish.

The charred, bloody stench permeating the air was thick enough to make one retch.

He reached out his finger, picked a small piece of bone that hadn't been completely carbonized from a pile of black ash, and held it up to his eyes.

"One Mid-grade Spirit Stone."

Zhou Xuan's eyes were deep as he muttered to himself.

"My life is actually worth one Mid-grade Spirit Stone?"

He couldn't help but let out a scoff.

A single Mid-grade Spirit Stone was worth one hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones!

In the Spirit Sword Pavilion, even for an ordinary inner sect disciple, the monthly sect allowance was only five to ten Low-grade Spirit Stones, plus a few bottles of bottom-tier pills.

One hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones was, for them, a massive fortune that would make anyone's eyes turn red with greed!

"That idiot Zhao Long, to kill me, he was actually willing to pay such a high price?"

Zhou Xuan's brows furrowed slightly, then smoothed out, a trace of disdain appearing on his face.

"No."

He shook his head and muttered to himself, "With Zhao Long's greedy and self-proclaimed clever personality, how could he be willing to part with so many spirit stones?"

"This is more like a hollow promise, a pie in the sky, specifically used to trick a poor, desperate fool like Li San into risking his life for him."

"Poor guy, used as a tool, dying without even knowing he was just a disposable pawn."

Zhou Xuan tossed the bone fragment aside, his murderous intent toward Zhao Long growing even heavier.

However, he soon thought of another layer.

"I've heard that the true geniuses in the sect, the personal disciples, have treatment that is on a completely different level."

He scratched his head; he could only look up at that level of the world from where he stood.

Servant, outer sect, inner sect, personal disciple.

The gap between them is wider than a chasm.

It is said that every peak master and elder of the various halls only has three quotas to take in true disciples in their entire lifetime.

Those people are the true foundation of the sect's future, enjoying resources that ordinary disciples wouldn't even dare to imagine.

"Forget it, why think about all that."

Zhou Xuan shook his head, casting these distracting thoughts to the back of his mind.

"Anyway, for me, spirit stones are nowhere near as useful as demon cores!"

In his eyes, the flame known as making money was reignited.

No matter how pure the spiritual energy contained in a spirit stone is, to the system, it is only calculated as Gold Touch Value based on the total amount.

And demon cores, those are the kings of cost-effectiveness!

The night passed without incident.

Or rather, Zhou Xuan didn't sleep at all.

He spent most of the night roughly clearing away the remains of the wooden hut, gathering up all the bone fragments of Li San, and throwing them into the distant Incineration Pit to destroy the evidence.

As for himself, he found a relatively intact wooden board in the ruins and made do for the night leaning against the corner of a wall.

The next morning, when the first ray of gray sunlight shone into this lifeless mountain hollow, Zhou Xuan climbed up from the ground.

He brushed the dust off his body, showing no trace of fatigue on his face; instead, he was full of vigor, his eyes shining with a frightening intensity.

Today is the once-a-month day off for the chore servants of the Miscellaneous Affairs Department.

He greeted the steward in charge of record-keeping, saying that his hut had collapsed and he needed to go down the mountain to buy some wood for repairs.

The steward, who had witnessed the whole process yesterday, waved his hand with a look of annoyance, wishing he would get lost as soon as possible.

Zhou Xuan took his leave, without the slightest hesitation, and headed straight down the mountain.

As he went down, the stench and poisonous mist that lingered year-round in the air gradually faded, and the fresh scent of grass and trees rushed to meet him.

Although the concentration of spiritual energy was far inferior to Pill Peak, it was still a hundred times better than that godforsaken place where the Miscellaneous Affairs Department was located.

Zhou Xuan took a deep breath, feeling every one of his thirty-six thousand pores expand.

At the foot of the sect's mountain, there is a marketplace specifically set up for sect disciples.

Before coming here, Zhou Xuan had heard the old-timers in the Chore Servant Courtyard mention it.

It is said to be one of the liveliest and most lucrative places in the entire Spirit Sword Pavilion.

The sect not only does not reject this, but actively supports it.

Because for every transaction here, no matter how large or small, the Deacon Hall that manages the market extracts ten percent of the profit as a management fee.

For many disciples, this is also a good place to go.

What if the tasks issued by the sect are too difficult to complete?

Come to the market and buy them!

What if you lack pills for cultivation and have no spirit stones?

Come to the market and sell the things you don't need in exchange!

While walking, Zhou Xuan calculated his grand plan for getting rich in his heart.

The refurbished goods in his Universe Bag, although they are all low-tier magical artifacts, have the advantage of being numerous.

Selling a Green Edge Sword for three to five Low-grade Spirit Stones, a Sharp Metal Talisman for one or two, and that Black Iron Shield should fetch at least seven or eight.

Adding it all up, scraping together twenty or thirty Low-grade Spirit Stones shouldn't be a problem!

This is his first pot of gold!

With this money, he can go and purchase demon cores, and by using the system's information gap, he can frantically farm Gold Touch Value!

"Hehehe."

Thinking of the wonderful prospects, the corners of Zhou Xuan's mouth curled up involuntarily, and he let out a laugh of unknown meaning.

This drew looks of disdain from several outer sect disciples passing by.