As the sun bleeds red at the horizon, the elder reads out names for the academy’s weekly allowance, one by one. When he calls Fang Yuan, Fang Yuan rises from the last row’s window seat and collects two bags: three stones of clan subsidy and ten of prize money. “Work hard,” the elder tells him with a long look, since two straight wins have begun to draw the attention of elders once disappointed in him. Mo Bei fumes that Fang Yuan has won again, and Chi Cheng, like many other students, cannot stop turning over the same question of whether those two neck shots were luck or real skill. ch. 26
As the day ends, the elder announces the next lesson: warming and nourishing the aperture to advance a Gu Master’s cultivation realm. The higher the realm, the more concentrated the primeval essence: ten portions of green copper equal one of red iron, and ten of red iron equal one of white silver. He reminds them that Gu are only tools and cultivation is the true foundation, then sets the incentive: thirty stones and first pick of the second Gu for whoever is first to reach rank one middle stage within three months. After that, the class will elect a monitor and two deputies by result: the monitor draws a ten stone subsidy and each deputy an allowance of five. The news sets the room buzzing, since status, not money, is what draws Mo Bei and Chi Cheng: a class monitor is bowed to by every ordinary student. ch. 26
Fang Zheng vows that becoming monitor will finally make his brother bow to him. He turns, but Fang Yuan’s seat already sits empty. Outside, Mo Bei wants to confront Fang Yuan over the win but finds he has already slipped away. Chi Cheng privately admits his own B grade standing is only an illusion built on cheating over a true C grade talent, and that this cultivation test, unlike a lucky Gu pick, rewards talent alone. Leaning at the academy gate, Fang Yuan sneers at how badly a mere monitor’s title excites his classmates, calling it the smallest carrot dangled to lure people up a chain of command that only serves those above. In his previous life he founded the Bloodwing Demon Sect and ranked his followers as demon soldiers, generals, and sages. From that he reasons that every organization, clan or sect alike, runs on one resource in the end, and for a Gu Master that resource is primeval stones. As the first students file out through the gate, Fang Yuan steps into their path and announces that he is plundering: everyone must surrender a primeval stone before they may leave. ch. 26
