More Brutal Inner Sect Struggles

Zhou Feng quickly returned to the courtyard.

He packed up his few personal belongings, the most important of which were the food supplies.

To be honest, apart from food, he did not have much else.

It was worth mentioning that when he returned to the courtyard this time,

he found that there were fewer and fewer people. The courtyard he lived in had originally housed dozens of people.

But now, only a dozen or so remained.

A large portion had died for various reasons, while a small portion had attached themselves to quite a few Inner Sect disciples.

Especially those with handsome or pretty faces; almost all of them had chosen to attach themselves to Inner Sect disciples.

Those left now were either relatively talented or simply waiting to die.

How long had it been? Just a few months, and it had already become like this.

Zhou Feng felt an even greater sense of urgency.

"No! I have to become an Inner Sect disciple first! At the very least, Inner Sect disciples have some measure of safety!"

The key to becoming an Inner Sect disciple lay with Zhao Jun.

He had to obtain enough resources from Zhao Jun

to advance quickly and reach the Qi Induction Realm.

The Qi Induction Realm was actually fairly simple.

As for information about cultivation realms, the Outer Sect had not revealed much either.

Zhou Feng had done his best to gather some intelligence.

At present, he only knew of two realms: the Body Tempering Realm and the Qi Induction Realm.

As the name implied, the Body Tempering Realm was about tempering the body and laying a foundation.

In this realm, the only thing one had to do was raise one's physical strength as much as possible.

Raise it until one could withstand the violent spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

The Qi Induction Realm, on the other hand, involved drawing a thread of heaven-and-earth spiritual energy into the body and turning it into spiritual power.

Even if one had not reached the ninth level of Body Tempering, as long as one could draw spiritual energy into the body and form spiritual power,

one counted as being in the Qi Induction Realm. After all, once one possessed spiritual power, many methods could be used.

He had gone to enormous lengths to obtain all that information.

So when necessary, Zhou Feng planned to forcibly draw heaven-and-earth spiritual energy into his body.

He had great confidence in his physical strength.

Because once his hand recovered, the Passive Skill Old Skin would raise his defensive power.

And that increase in defense covered every aspect; it was an overall improvement to his physical constitution.

Compared with an ordinary person, his body was already far stronger.

If circumstances had allowed it, he would even have wanted to keep injuring himself and recovering, grinding out his Passive Skill.

But under the current circumstances, it was better not to do something so suicidal.

Because Old Skin had a threshold for injuries.

The injury had to reach a certain degree before it could be successfully triggered.

Minor scrapes and bumps, for example, did not count.

Gluttony provided extra vitality, Old Skin enhanced his overall defense, and Self-Healing Physique accelerated injury recovery.

Then there was Combat Instinct, a combat-type Passive Skill.

The Passive Skills Zhou Feng possessed directly formed a skill cycle.

They complemented one another and continuously increased his strength.

"Once it gets dark, I'll go scout the area."

To intercept Zhao Jun precisely, he planned to scout the area that night.

He would first investigate the possible routes Zhao Jun could use to escape.

What Zhou Feng did not know was that this advance scouting would lead him to run into Zhao Jun just as he was planning to flee overnight.

It also laid the groundwork for Zhou Feng's future promotion into the Inner Sect.

Night fell quietly.

The bright sun slowly sank in the west, and Gu Mountain grew quiet as well.

After working hard throughout the morning,

Zhao Jun had finally exchanged all the resources he had gathered for Blood Pills and Origin Blood Pills.

Zhao Jun had spent quite a long time in the Outer Sect, so in order to exchange them for Blood Pills and Origin Blood Pills,

he had sold quite a few things at dirt-cheap prices!

But even so, Zhao Jun still had no shortage of resources on him.

That was because Zhao Jun had also ruthlessly plundered other Meat Gu Caves.

That was right! Zhao Jun had previously served as a manager in other Meat Gu Caves as well.

And these were opportunities that Zhao Wu, an Inner Sect disciple, had won for him.

The managers of these low-level Outer Sect Meat Gu Caves were not appointed by the sect.

Instead, they were won through contests among the Inner Sect disciples themselves.

To appoint a manager, Inner Sect disciples would fight. The victor would gain the right to manage a Meat Gu Cave.

After obtaining management rights over a Meat Gu Cave, one only had a three-day protection period.

After three days, others could challenge you directly, and you could not refuse.

It was precisely because of this that Zhao Jun had served as manager of multiple Meat Gu Caves.

All of this was simply because the sect practiced the Gu Raising Policy.

Every Inner Sect disciple needed resources to cultivate, and managing a Meat Gu Cave was the most convenient way to seize resources.

If one wanted to improve, one had to obtain the right to manage several Meat Gu Caves.

Otherwise, one could only muddle along and wait to die, be surpassed by one's peers, and eventually die here.

The words "Gu Raising" running through the entire Three Gu Sect were no joke.

The struggles among Inner Sect disciples were even more terrifying.

And because Zhao Wu had only recently become an Inner Sect disciple, despite his astonishing talent,

when faced with such intense competition for Meat Gu Cave management rights, he could only hold on to the rights for one Meat Gu Cave each time.

Thus, wherever Zhao Jun went, he would plunder it like a swarm of locusts.

Once the protection period ended, Zhao Wu would win the management rights to another Meat Gu Cave, allowing Zhao Jun to continue plundering.

The profits from every Meat Gu Cave were divided into three portions, shared among the stationed disciples, the sect, and the manager.

The sect took the largest share, the stationed disciples came next, and the manager received the least.

Naturally, Zhao Jun could not afford to provoke the sect or the stationed disciples, so he could only target Outer Sect disciples who had no ability to resist.

By withholding wages, embezzling feed, monopolizing feed sales, and selling the right to feed Flesh Gu, he amassed vast resources.

Every Meat Gu Cave did not contain just one Flesh Gu, after all.

The daily wages alone amounted to quite a lot.

But the price of doing this was that while Zhao Jun gained enormous resources, countless Outer Sect disciples died miserable deaths.

Even more terrifying was that such horrific conduct was tacitly approved by the sect, perhaps even deliberately encouraged.

To the sect, Outer Sect disciples were merely feed for others. If there were not enough, they could simply recruit another batch of Outer Sect disciples.

Though the environment of the Southern Border was harsh, many people lived there.

The territory occupied by the Three Gu Sect alone encompassed thirty-six large Stockades and several hundred small Stockades.

Any Stockade that could be called large had to contain at least twenty or thirty thousand people.

Only the cruelest environment could cultivate the finest Gu insects.

That was also one of the Three Gu Sect's principles.

They were merely sacrificing some feed. It was nothing worth caring about.

If nothing unexpected happened, Zhao Jun should have done as he had before.

After plundering ruthlessly, he would dump the mess onto someone else.

And the next manager certainly would not take over such a mess.

In the end, the Outer Sect disciples responsible for that Meat Gu Cave would have no choice but to bear the burden together.

How many people would die then was impossible to say. In any case, it had already become customary.

But unfortunately, Zhao Jun encountered Zhou Feng this time.

He had kicked an iron plate.