Chapter 7: Property

Chapter 7: Property

"As expected of Second Senior Brother, your exam papers really sold for almost as much as a Foundation-building Pill."

Mo Xi said in a cute voice, his round cat-like eyes sparkling.

Qu Qianxing said coldly, his face dark, "Don't play cute with me! If Master hadn't approved, I wouldn't have given you the exam papers."

Mo Xi stuck out his tongue.

Master didn't approve—he just turned a blind eye to me selling the papers.

But Second Senior Brother was easy to coax; as long as he brought up Master's name, he'd agree to anything.

Of course, Mo Xi wouldn't say that out loud.

Not only would he not say it, but he also put on a helpless expression: "There's no helping it—Master's standards are too high, and my abilities are truly insufficient... Second Senior Brother, do you think Master really acted on a whim?"

"You haven't just met Master today—you should know! Given how meticulous our Master is, even a whim wouldn't be treated lightly." Qu Qianxing said proudly.

Mo Xi knew that in his Second Senior Brother's eyes, there was nothing imperfect about Master.

But at this moment, Qu Qianxing paused, a strange look on his face as he said, "However, these really don't seem like something whipped up on a whim."

As he spoke, he looked ahead.

Before Qu Qianxing and Mo Xi was a shimmering light screen, showing lush mountains and clear waters, with floating pavilions in the sky—it was clearly a panoramic view of the Celestial Spirit Sect.

But it wasn't just a map. When Mo Xi reached out and placed his hand on the screen, a small building on a hill in the lower-left corner lit up, and a new screen popped up, filled with dense text:

"Main Quest: Hold a sect-wide exam"

"Quest Requirements: The disciples of the Celestial Spirit Sect are at all different stages of cultivation. Your master wants to see their real skill level. Based on the principles of fairness, impartiality, and transparency, hold a sect-wide exam!"

"Note: Based on exam preparation, examinee performance, and completion of side quests, there are four grades—A, B, C, D. Do what you can."

Where there's a main quest, there are naturally side quests too:

"Side Quest One: Expand the Silent Word Palace (Phase 1)"

"Quest Requirements: The Silent Word Palace needs an examination hall big enough to fit all the sect's disciples."

"Side Quest Two: Set Up the Exam Proctoring Array"

"Quest Requirements: With the entire sect taking exams simultaneously, there are bound to be some who try to cheat. To avoid any unfortunate incidents, set up the following arrays (see appendix) in advance to rule out any chance of cheating."

"Side Quest Three: Construct a sundial clock"

"Quest Requirements: Both exams and classes need more accurate timekeeping. Design and build a sundial clock that divides one shichen (two hours) into one hundred and twenty parts."

"Side Quest Four: Update the Disciple Registry"

"Quest Requirements: ..."

Mo Xi looked at these tasks and let out a genuine sigh: "Judging by these arrangements, Master seems to be planning more than just one exam. If I didn't know the whole 'Heavenly Secrets exam paper' thing was just a rumor, I might almost believe it too."

"Heavenly Secrets in the exam paper?" Qu Qianxing asked curiously.

"Second Senior Brother, you don't know?" Mo Xi looked at Qu Qianxing with a strange expression. "Some outer sect disciple—whether by luck or something else—actually formed his foundation after finishing Master's exam paper. Those outer sect disciples started a rumor that Master had grasped the Heavenly Secrets during his last tribulation and hid them in the exam papers to test us, to see if there was a chosen one among us."

Qu Qianxing listened, frowning.

He obviously knew about this rumor—he'd even been part of the whole thing:

—Zhou Hui hadn't wanted to make a big deal out of Gan Tang's exam paper at all, but Qu Qianxing wouldn't let it drop. He felt he hadn't kept the inner disciples in line, which led to the papers leaking out and him losing face in front of Master. He insisted on investigating, and it eventually led right back to his own lazy little junior brother.

In the process, Qu Qianxing saw firsthand how a rumor gets started.

Qu Qianxing had always figured people were fools and hadn't taken it to heart, but now, facing Master's task panel and hearing this rumor again, a lightbulb went off in his head: "Wait, say that again?"

"A chosen one?"

"No, the part before that!"

"Testing us? Or comprehending the Heavenly Secrets during the tribulation?"

"That's the one!" Qu Qianxing said, his eyes lighting up. "Of course, I'm not saying there's any Heavenly Secrets in the exam papers! But don't you think Master's been acting a little weird since the tribulation? He must have realized something during it—that's why he didn't go into seclusion, and even gave up the Ascension Platform, and instead focused on building up the whole sect, boosting its strength, and prepping for the next Tribulation Transcendence."

"That actually makes sense..." Mo Xi nodded, looking dazed.

At least this sounded a lot more reasonable than Zhou Hui's own claim—"I'm never going through a tribulation again."

Yeah, Mo Xi didn't believe for a second that his Master would stop going through tribulations.

Even though he'd been with Master the shortest amount of time, he knew how obsessed Master was with cultivation. The idea that he'd give up tribulation and ditch Ascension was just impossible.

Besides, Zhou Hui had never been into renovating the Celestial Spirit Sect before.

Don't let the name "Silent Word Palace" fool you—it was just a tradition in the cultivation world. Cultivators figured that once they set foot on the path of immortality, they were nobler than mortal emperors, so they loved naming their cave dwellings things like "Palace" or "Hall." Zhou Hui had always been too lazy to bother with that kind of thing and just went along with the convention—in reality, the Silent Word Palace was just a big room that could fit the inner sect disciples. The rest of the Celestial Spirit Sect's buildings were much the same, so much so that every guest who visited the sect would praise the Tireless Immortal Venerable for being "frugal," "steadfast," "true to his heart," and "back to basics."

And now, Master was actually willing to expand the Silent Word Palace.

Even if it was only for an exam!

Thinking of this, Mo Xi's mismatched eyes darted around.

Unlike Qu Qianxing, he'd also noticed Master's "weird behavior," but he had no interest in digging into it. He was only thinking about how to make the most of the situation.

Mo Xi played along with Qu Qianxing and asked with a grin, "Since this exam is part of Master's plan, I want to do it as flawlessly as possible. The spirit stones to expand the Silent Word Palace—"

"Don't forget—this is Master's punishment for you." Qu Qianxing's face went cold instantly.

All the spirit stones in the Celestial Spirit Sect belonged to Master. Even his most beloved junior brother couldn't just dip into them.

Qu Qianxing handled the sect's finances, and on this one matter, there was no negotiating.

"Master let you sell his exam papers—hasn't he already given you a way out?" Qu Qianxing said, as if it were obvious. "You should be going all out to make it perfect."

No! I only sold the exam papers because you never gave me a reason to ask for funds, so I had to make my own money!

Mo Xi thought to himself.

But he couldn't say that out loud.

Just then, the screen went "ding," and the words 【Spirit Stones +1080】 popped up at the bottom. No doubt about it—Xiang Yi had sold another set of exam papers.

"See? Soon you'll have saved up enough spirit stones to finish the task." Qu Qianxing said, sounding satisfied.

Mo Xi suddenly felt those spirit stones weren't so appealing anymore.

*

"Spirit Stones +1080"

Meanwhile, Zhou Hui was also watching the light screen.

Of course, this income of spirit stones meant little to Zhou Hui at his current stage.

He was long past the days of scrounging for a few spirit stones back in the Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, and Golden Core stages. As a big shot at the Tribulation Transcendence Stage, aside from the Heavenly Dao being able to rein him in a bit, there were few left in this world who could hold him back. If he wanted, he could just claim land left and right, or even unite the world and become the Human Emperor—but Zhou Hui simply had no interest in that.

But when it came to spirit stones and cultivation, Zhou Hui didn't play nice.

Sure, the Celestial Spirit Sect's cave dwellings were shabby and its disciples few, making it look like a third-rate sect, but the Celestial Spirit Mountain area was a real paradise. Beneath it alone sat three major spirit veins, plus countless spirit mines ripe for the digging, the biggest of which could keep a major sect supplied for a thousand years.

Yet Zhou Hui had barely touched these veins.

Zhou Hui wasn't into the high life either. He'd picked this rich spiritual land mostly because he'd been dirt poor in his early years and had developed a hoarder's habit. He wouldn't touch these resources unless absolutely necessary—in fact, even at this "critical moment" of being badly hurt by the Heavenly Tribulation, he still hadn't used them, instead handing them over to Qu Qianxing to manage, planning to pass them down to the Celestial Spirit Sect's disciples as the sect's bedrock.

With Zhou Hui feeling that way, Qu Qianxing naturally followed his master's lead.

Qu Qianxing had always been careful about mining the spirit veins. Every year, he'd draw up a plan based on the sect's needs, extract only a set amount of spirit stones, and double-check the miners to make sure nobody smuggled out more than they were allowed.

Too bad even that couldn't stop certain cheaters.

According to the "novel," the Heavenly Dao's chosen protagonist, after some incident, got punished by the sect's steward and sent to mine spirit stones in the quarry—even for cultivators, that was back-breaking work. But that protagonist went into the spirit mine like a mouse into a rice sack, splitting into clones to fool the overseers, burning through spirit stones left and right to patch up his so-so spiritual roots, and finally breaking through to Foundation Establishment right there in the mine. That triggered the whole "expelled from the sect" event, and in his rage, he even did a destructive dig on the way out, wrecking the spirit veins below and draining the mine dry.

Zhou Hui hadn't paid much attention to this "little thing," but seeing Mo Xi's haul from reselling exam papers jogged his memory.

"Right, since it's gonna go to waste anyway, instead of letting someone wreck it, why not blow it myself?"

Zhou Hui muttered.

He raised his hand and made a motion like plucking a zither, and pearly white ripples shimmered in the air at his fingertips, condensing into a—

Keyboard.

No helping it—Zhou Hui was used to using one in the other world, and whipping up something else on the fly just wouldn't feel right.

Zhou Hui tapped away on the conjured keyboard, fed the spirit mine's data into the light screen, and showed the most dazzling parts of the mine to the two disciples behind him:

"This way, you won't have to worry about the library's budget. As long as the design makes sense, you can throw the whole spirit mine at it, not just the Ascension Platform."

If Zhou Hui had said this to his youngest disciple Mo Xi, Mo Xi would've been so thrilled he might've ascended on the spot. But the two disciples Zhou Hui had called over—his third disciple Ran Deng and fourth disciple Guan Ye—couldn't have cared less.

"Master, I think the old library was already good enough," Ran Deng said, sounding all sincere, but the tiredness in her eyes gave away that she just wanted to slack off. "When I was a kid and visited the Great Sects with my dad, none of them had a book tower as fancy as ours. No need to waste spirit stones—wouldn't it be better to just leave those pretty stones in the veins?"

Meanwhile, the Fourth Disciple Guan Ye was staring at the light screen, eyes shining.

What concerned him, however, was not the massive chunks of top-grade spirit stones, but the light screen itself.

"This light screen looks super handy, Master," Guan Ye asked, curious. "Is this a new magic treasure you made?"

"Mhm." Zhou Hui replied with a headache.

He temporarily ignored Ran Deng and only answered Guan Ye: "This is a 'system' I created."