Lin Feng hefted the five top-grade spirit jade blanks he had just obtained, a hint of smugness showing on his face.
Face? Could face be spent like spirit stones?
This Perfected Daoxuan cared about face. That was a good thing.
Top-grade spirit jade blanks averaged over two hundred mid-grade spirit stones apiece in other Sect Worlds, with the higher prices reaching seven or eight hundred. Prices were often even higher in newly opened Sect Worlds like theirs.
Now he had purchased eleven top-grade spirit jade blanks in total at below-average prices. He was practically drowning in wins.
He had now collected twenty-one top-grade spirit jade blanks, leaving him just fifteen short of a complete set. He had a very good chance of building the Ancient Spirit-Guiding Platform before this week's competition ended.
Lin Feng guessed that the top ten sects had all received at least a few top-grade spirit jade blanks among their first-week competition rewards.
It was just that none of these people were particularly willing to sell them yet.
Meanwhile, as Perfected Daoxuan fell silent in the world channel, quite a few people began sending him private messages.
[Private message from the Supreme Purity Sect Master: Brother Daoxuan, what price did you sell your top-grade spirit jade blanks to Tiancan Tudou of the Evergreen Sect for?] [Private message from the Dao Inquiry Sect Master: ...] [Private message from the Limitless Sect Master: ...]
Basically every sect holding top-grade spirit jade blanks sent Perfected Daoxuan a private message at that moment, wanting to know what price he had sold them for.
Perfected Daoxuan thought it over. He could not be the only one getting fleeced.
So he replied to them one by one:
[Perfected Daoxuan: I sold all five top-grade spirit jade blanks I had to Tiancan Tudou at the friendship price of 50 mid-grade spirit stones apiece.]
At the same time, Perfected Daoxuan took the moral high ground and spoke with earnest gravity:
[Perfected Daoxuan: The Evergreen Sect is quite strong. If it ranks too low in this week's competition, its future development will suffer. When the Sect Worlds merge, our Sect World 999 might end up weaker than the other Sect Worlds. Taking a little loss for everyone's sake is nothing.] [Supreme Purity Sect Master: ?] [Dao Inquiry Sect Master: ?] [Limitless Sect Master: ?]
At that moment, every one of the top ten sect masters was inwardly cursing Perfected Daoxuan up and down.
You're so great, so noble! Your Daoxuan Sect ranked second in the first week, so you're not short of money, but what about us?
Yet they could only curse Perfected Daoxuan inwardly while asking one another how he had replied to everyone else and whether he had deceived them.
Although Perfected Daoxuan's words made a teeny bit of sense, their own sects needed to develop too. They were desperately short of spirit stones, and fifty mid-grade spirit stones per top-grade spirit jade blank was far beyond the price they had expected.
They decided to wait a little longer.
If, on the final day of the second week's competition, the Evergreen Sect was still a little short of the top thirty or top ten in points, they could offer a suitable price for their top-grade spirit jade blanks then and earn a favor along the way.
Just then, the world announcement marking the start of the second week's competition was officially issued.
[Sect World 999 announcement: The second week's competition has officially begun. Rankings will be determined by sect spiritual energy concentration. The Myriad Spirits Secret Realm has opened simultaneously. Please enter the secret realm as soon as possible to slay spirit demons, occupy strongholds, and gather materials to exchange for items that increase your sect's spiritual energy concentration and improve its ranking.]
As soon as this announcement appeared, the weekly competition rankings appeared alongside it.
On the initial rankings, first place for sect cultivation environment was clearly the Azure Luan Sect.
Second place went to the Daoxuan Sect.
Third place went to the Supreme Purity Sect.
The top ten on the initial sect cultivation environment rankings largely overlapped with the top ten from the first week's competition.
Only the Evergreen Sect was nowhere to be seen even in the top hundred.
Lin Feng looked at the Evergreen Sect's ranking: top 30%!
It was considerably higher than its initial ranking in the first week.
The Evergreen Sect's current spiritual energy concentration was: 5% base spiritual energy concentration + 30% from the low-grade spirit vein + 5% from the spirit spring source + 10% from the Low-Grade Yellow-Rank Spirit Gathering Array, totaling just 50%.
It had only reached this position thanks to the E-grade spirit spring source and low-grade spirit vein he had obtained during the first week's competition, along with the Low-Grade Yellow-Rank Spirit Gathering Array he had set up.
With only the sect's base spiritual energy concentration, he would undoubtedly still have been outside the top 80%.
But Lin Feng was not discouraged. The Evergreen Sect's disciples were now far ahead in strength and could head into the [Myriad Spirits Secret Realm] to collect all kinds of materials that increased the sect's spiritual energy concentration.
Lin Feng was confident he could make a push for first place in this week's sect cultivation environment competition!
The instant the [Myriad Spirits Secret Realm] opened, nearly half the sects entered it and began hunting spirit demons to accumulate points.
But Lin Feng did not choose to lead his disciples into the Myriad Spirits Secret Realm immediately.
He planned to first use the bonus reward he had obtained in the first week's competition: one targeted random entry draw from the advanced entry pool.
The advanced entry pool contained purple, pink, and gold entries.
Even if his luck was poor, the lowest he could draw was a purple entry.
For this targeted random entry draw, Lin Feng once again chose to draw from the spiritual energy concentration entries under the sect category.
[You are about to use one targeted random draw from the advanced entry pool to draw an advanced entry. Confirm?]
Hearing the Entry System's prompt, Lin Feng confirmed without hesitation.
[Congratulations, host! You have drawn the pink sect entry: Myriad Convergences of the Spirit Ruins!] [Myriad Convergences of the Spirit Ruins (pink): Permanently increases spiritual energy concentration throughout the sect's entire territory by 50%, drawing spiritual currents from the earth veins within a hundred-li radius to converge. Disciples' cultivation speed increases in tandem, and spiritual energy condensation efficiency improves greatly.]
It was actually not the guaranteed purple entry, but a pink entry that could directly grant a permanent 50% increase in spiritual energy concentration throughout the sect's entire territory!
Lin Feng was quite pleasantly surprised.
Even if I didn't get gold, pink is acceptable!
The Evergreen Sect had long since advanced to a Qi Refining Sect, and its number of equippable entries had increased from the initial one to two.
Without hesitation, Lin Feng immediately equipped this pink entry.
In an instant, spiritual winds surged through the sect. Spiritual currents from the earth veins within a hundred-li radius began converging on the Evergreen Sect, and the sect's spiritual energy concentration visibly multiplied several times over!
The Evergreen Sect's overall spiritual energy concentration had reached 100%!
Its ranking in the second week's competition also leaped straight from the top 30% into the top hundred!
It was tied somewhere in the seventies with over a dozen other sects.
This time, however, the change in the Evergreen Sect's ranking did not spark as widespread a discussion as before.
Quite a few sects merely marveled that an E-grade sect's foundations were truly terrifying.
The masters of the top ten sects, meanwhile, began speculating about what reserves the Evergreen Sect had tapped into this time.
Even so, the gap between it and them remained fairly large, so they did not concern themselves with the Evergreen Sect for the time being.
The sects currently in the top ten on the rankings basically all had more than twice the Evergreen Sect's spiritual energy concentration. Catching up within a short time would be extremely difficult.
At that moment, Lin Feng also began deploying his disciples, preparing to officially enter the Myriad Spirits Secret Realm.