Very quickly, Fang Shu understood.
The rogue cultivators looked at one another, then one after another headed toward the mountain where Beauty Palace stood. They bowed deeply to the two immortal elders, one male and one female, atop the mountain. "We pay our respects to the Beauty Immortal Elders."
"Thanks to the blessings of the immortal elders, we made some small gains in the Mount Lu Secret Realm this time. We ask the elders to accept them."
Smiles appeared across the faces of Beauty Palace's Earth Immortals.
The scholar-like Earth Immortal at their head nodded. "Very well."
At once, a total of eleven spirit herbs flew out from the rogue cultivators' pouches. After hovering in midair for display, they were collected into the scholar Earth Immortal's sleeve.
Having obtained this batch of spirit herbs, the smile on the Beauty Palace Earth Immortal's face grew even broader.
He looked toward the Earth Immortals of the other four sects and smiled. "Well? Including these eleven plants, Beauty Palace has obtained fifty-two spirit herbs in total this time. That should make us first in this secret realm's herb gathering, should it not?"
At those words, the Earth Immortals of the other four sects fell silent. Three Capitals of the Five Viscera Temple in particular could not help muttering curses under his breath. "Shameless!"
It turned out that in this herb-gathering venture among the Five Sects, setting aside the other three sects for now, Beauty Palace and Five Viscera Temple—perhaps because of Fang Shu—had seen the latter indeed surpass the former, collecting forty-three spirit herbs!
Yet now, once the spirit herbs from the rogue cultivators outside the mountain were counted, they had been overtaken in a flash, and by a vast margin.
Once Fang Shu and the other disciples understood what had happened, they