Chapter 161

Not everyone from Fang Yuan’s class is at the banquet; those with strong backgrounds, among them Mo Bei and Chi Cheng, stay away. When Fang Yuan rises to leave, calling the gathering well organised, Gu Yue Ding Zong jumps up first with a bag of primeval stones as a gift of gratitude. Others follow at once, bag after bag. Fang Yuan accepts every one, and in only a short while he gains almost ten thousand primeval stones, more than his servants can carry unaided. He closes with a toast to their classmate bond before he leaves. ^{ch. 161}

To himself, he weighs the difference: extorting a handful of stones once brought him public outcry, while today the same people compete to give him bags of a hundred stones or more without being asked. The difference, he thinks, is the system. Once outside the clan’s hierarchy, he was resented for taking; now inside its higher ranks, he is bribed willingly, through connections and through women seeking closeness to him. He reasons that bribery is itself a form of deprivation, since primeval stones spent currying favour are stones not spent on the giver’s own cultivation, and time spent running errands for a superior’s attention is time not spent training. He thinks of Gu Yue Qing Shu, a B grade talent kept at rank two while lesser cultivators like himself rise, and reasons the clan elders keep him busy on purpose, unwilling to let a useful subordinate reach their own rank and their own authority. Had that time been his own, Fang Yuan thinks, Qing Shu might have broken through to rank three and turned the Wood Charm Gu against Bai Ning Bing. All of this passes through his mind in a single breath of real time. ^{ch. 161}

Fang Yuan is given a new bamboo building after his promotion, with a study and a private cultivation room, though he has no servants of his own. Alone there, he calls the Tusita flower off his tongue, and red light draws every primeval stone from the bags into the Gu. The Tusita flower can hold a max of thirty thousand primeval stones, but between the other things he needs it for, the most he expects to keep is around fifteen thousand. That, on top of three thousand stones already borrowed from Chi Lian, means he need not worry over money for a while, though a travelling Gu Master normally needs at least ten thousand primeval stones just to cover the basics, so fifteen thousand is not much of a margin. ^{ch. 161}

Counting off his six needs, Fang Yuan now has the Blood Moon Gu for attack, the Sky Canopy Gu for defense, the Thunderwings Gu for movement, the Tusita flower for storage, and the Earth Communication Ear Grass for recon. Only healing is still open, since the Nine Leaf Vitality Grass he traded away for the Tusita flower was never strong at it. Three rank three healing Gu appeal to him: the Endless Vitality Gu for its low essence cost, the Undying Grass for saving him with a single breath left, and the Self-reliance Gu, which heals faster the stronger its holder grows. None sit in the clan’s cave or on its resource board. His only hope is the Flower Wine Monk’s inheritance, though he expects it is nearly spent and holds little confidence he will find one there. Still, he resolves to finish exploring the inheritance ground, if only to subdue the Chainsaw Golden Centipede. ^{ch. 161}