Not long after, Zhou Qi had left the Moon Illumination Sect estate.
After leaving the Moon Illumination Sect estate, Zhou Qi also left the coverage of the Flight Prohibiting Formation. After he soared up to the sky and flew a distance away, he came to a halt and turned to look at the monastery gates of the Moon Illumination Sect estate in the distance with the help of the moonlight as he muttered to himself, "Goodbye, Moon Illumination Sect. Maybe I'll come back again after I, Zhou Qi, make a breakthrough to the Saint Stage! By that time, I must ask Liu Huan personally whether he regrets the decision that he made today."
"I can tell you now that I don't regret, and I never will!" Almost at the same time that Zhou Qi's words left his mouth and he was about to depart, a wispy ghost-like sound resonated by his ears, causing him to turn pale right away.
The scene in front of him flashed and Zhou Qi could see a man appearing in front of him in the sky.
"M-Master!" Upon seeing this person who appeared, Zhou Qi was so shocked that the color drained from his face right away. "W-Why are you here?"
"If I didn't come, wouldn't I just be letting you, ungrateful fellow, slip away?" The person who appeared was none other than Liu Huan who sneered at him.
Taking a deep breath, Zhou Qi suppressed the terror in his heart and asked, "Did you follow me?"
Right then, Zhou Qi also realized that the words that he spoke just now had all been picked up by Liu Huan. For this reason, he no longer uttered anything more for there was no use even if he continued. He knew that with Liu Huan's temper, he would definitely never let him go.
However, the moment he recalled how Liu Huan followed him, he could not help but be infuriated with rage right away. It turned out that Liu Huan did not trust him at all!
"I wasn't following. Instead, I just want to see whether you'll pay attention to the things that I asked you to do. Right now, it seems like you've disappointed me," Liu Huan replied nonchalantly.
"Disappointed?" Zhou Qi also knew that he would definitely end up dead today. In that case, he no longer bothered about having any restraint. With nothing to fear, he mocked, "Just because I refuse to use my own life in exchange for the life of the person that you want to kill, I've disappointed you? Is my life so low in your eyes?"
"Being able to die together with Duan Ling Tian, that Martial Dao genius shouldn't be a disgrace to you." Liu Huan's tone remained calm. "Unfortunately, you don't treasure this opportunity… So, the outcome of not treasuring this opportunity would be being killed by me personally! In your next life, remember to never disobey your Master's words anymore no matter what your Master asks you to do."
The moment Liu Huan's words left his mouth, he immediately made his move without even waiting for Zhou Qi to respond.
In front of Liu Huan, Zhou Qi was completely powerless. In just the blink of an eye, he was executed straightaway.
His entire being exploded and transformed into a blood mist that blotted the entire sky as he died a horrible death.
Duan Ling Tian never expected that the moment Zhou Qi left the Moon Illumination Sect, he would already be killed by Liu Huan.
Right now, Duan Ling Tian was in the Seven Treasures Exquisite Pagoda, recovering his Spiritual Energy. The exhaustion from the Spiritual Energy knocked him into a deep slumber and only after two days, he finally woke up feeling fresh. His Spiritual Energy had already recovered by 70% to 80%.
Of course, the two days in that context was the time spent in the second level of the Seven Treasures Exquisite Pagoda.
Only one night and one morning had gone by outside.
After leaving the Seven Treasures Exquisite Pagoda, Duan Ling Tian left his little courtyard and went to the training field once again.
There was already a group of people waiting for him on the training field.
They were the outer court deacons and disciples who had placed their bets in the gamble that he had set up. Upon seeing him making his appearance, each of them appeared thrilled like hunters who had just seen their prey.
After Duan Ling Tian had reached the training field, he told the crowd, "Please queue up, everyone. Take the written pledge that I've given to you the last time and come to take your Merit Points from me one by one."
More than an hour passed. Duan Ling Tian finally managed to return half of the Merit Points to everybody who had placed their bets.
After returning their Merit Points, Duan Ling Tian asked for directions and headed straight to the Moon Illumination Sect's Merit Pavilion.
Just like the Moon Illumination Sect in the City Governor's Estate of Mound Hill City, the Merit Pavilion in the Moon Illumination Sect allowed one to use his Merit Points in exchange for a variety of items such as the Saint Grade Martial Tactic, Saint Weapons, Pills and so on. Basically, one could get everything that one desired.
Other than that, it also had Dao Talismans and Saint Weapons that were inscribed with Saint Inscriptions.
In the Moon Illumination Sect's Merit Pavilion, as long as one had enough Merit Points, one could exchange all of the items there. Besides that, one could even exchange and take back the Saint Grade Martial Tactic other than the Human Rank Prominent Saint Grade Martial Tactic if one had enough Merit Points.
Only the Human Rank Prominent Saint Grade Martial Tactic was not allowed to be taken back and could only be loaned to read.
One would need to spend 30,000 Merit Points to loan and read it every time.
"1.75 million Merit Points… That should be enough for me to spend lavishly already." Not long after that, Duan Ling Tian arrived at the Moon Illumination Sect's Merit Pavilion. The geographical location of the pavilion was very strategic. It was situated right at the juncture between the outer and inner court district and was very convenient for the outer and inner court disciples.
"It looks like the Merit Pavilion in the City Governor's Estate of Mound Hill City was built based on this Moon Illumination Sect's Merit Pavilion," muttered Duan Ling Tian as he came to a halt and narrowed his eyes at the pavilion in front of him.
Other than its size, the Merit Pavilion in the Moon Illumination Sect and the one in the City Governor's Estate of Mound Hill City looked exactly identical, including the small details.
However, after Duan Ling Tian walked into the Merit Pavilion, he also noticed that contrary to the Merit Pavilion in the City Governor's Estate of Mound Hill City, the interior inside the Moon Illumination Sect's Merit Pavilion had a huge difference.
The Moon Illumination Sect's Merit Pavilion was separated into five levels. The first level was where the sect disciples made their trades. The disciples could use items to exchange for Merit Points with the other disciples. Alternatively, they could also use their Merit Points to buy what they wanted.
In casual terms, the first level of the Moon Illumination Sect's Merit Pavilion was basically a mini market.
However, the moment Duan Ling Tian entered, he noticed that most of the sect disciples who were in the first level of the Moon Illumination Sect's Merit Pavilion were all inner court disciples.
This could be perceived from the Order Tokens that were hanging from their waists.
It was precisely because of this that when Duan Ling Tian entered this place, nobody could recognize him at all.
When he had battled it out with Feng Fan, not many inner court disciples had come to watch the battle. Therefore, even though his name had spread out to the inner court district, most of the outer court disciples had never seen him before, so they had no idea how he looked like.
"I'll just walk around the first level of this Merit Pavilion and see whether there's any good item here," thought Duan Ling Tian to himself.
Of course, it was mostly because he found how the sect disciples carried out trades using the Merit Points a new experience.
"The value of the Merit Points in the Moon Illumination Sect is much higher than the Saint Stones. In the Moon Illumination Sect, other than the Human Rank Prominent Saint Grade Martial Tactic, there's almost nothing that the Merit Points can't buy. A disciple in the Moon Illumination Sect can only use Saint Stones during cultivation on the other hand." Duan Ling Tian knew this very well too.
Standing at the first level of the Merit Pavilion, Duan Ling Tian looked around and did not attract anybody's attention.
Casting a glance, Duan Ling Tian could see many inner court disciples had simply set up a tiny small stall by the corner of the first level of the Merit Pavilion. There were many peculiar items on display at these small stalls.
They themselves had no idea what many of these items were either.
The reason they had placed these items out was mainly that they wanted to see if there was any disciple from the same sect who knew about the goods and was willing to buy them using Merit Points.
"Elder Huo." Duan Ling Tian contacted the Elder Huo who was inside the Seven Treasures Exquisite Pagoda. "Please take a look whether there're any materials here that could be used to repair the third level of the Seven Treasures Exquisite Pagoda. If there is, I'll buy it straight away."
At first, although Elder Huo had already told him about the materials that could be used to repair the Seven Treasures Exquisite Pagoda before, they were only some of the materials that Elder Huo felt were simple to get.
There were many other materials that he had not told him about before, including the dragon orb of the Five-clawed Divine Dragon, and that material that he had managed to bid for in Mound Hill City's Rare Treasure Pavilion that repaired the third level of the Seven Treasures Exquisite Pagoda by 10%.
Upon hearing Elder Huo's response, Duan Ling Tian began to walk around at the first level of the Merit Pavilion.
Boy, was he in luck!
In just one round, Elder Huo did indeed find several items that could be used to repair the third level of the Seven Treasures Exquisite Pagoda. On top of that, they were all high-grade materials. There was even an item that Elder Huo pronounced was even better than the Five-clawed Divine Dragon's orb.
"Although I have no idea why this would be here, I'm pretty sure that this is the Nuwa Stone fragment," Elder Huo told Duan Ling Tian.
The Nuwa Stone!
Just now, Duan Ling Tian had only heard Elder Huo mention that there was an item in the first level of the Merit Pavilion that was even better than the Five-clawed Divine Dragon's orb. As for what it was exactly, he had no idea at all.
Now that he heard about the name of the item from Elder Huo, he was completely dumbfounded.
What was the Nuwa Stone?
It was an item from the ancient mythology of his past life!
The Nuwa Stone was the stone that the Ancient Goddess Nuwa had used to repair the Heavens.
Apart from that, there was also a legend saying that Sun Wu Kong, the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, was actually born out of the Nuwa Stone.
Despite Elder Huo saying that it was only a fragment of the Nuwa Stone, it was already more than enough to send Duan Ling Tian into bafflement.
Under Elder Huo's guidance, Duan Ling Tian's gaze landed on a small stall that had a skinny inner court disciple standing behind it. He looked like an astute person and his gleaming eyes gave the fact that he was actually an unscrupulous trader away.
"Junior Brother, you have quite excellent judgment! All of these here are treasures y'know!" Seeing how Duan Ling Tian was looking his way, this inner court disciple's eyes lit up right away as he quickly greeted him.
"Treasures? Really?" Duan Ling Tian took this opportunity to walk to the stall and squatted down. His gaze, however, shifted away from the Nuwa Stone.
The Nuwa Stone looked just like an ordinary stone fragment. Appearing very crude, it was placed at an inconspicuous corner.
If Elder Huo had not told him about it, Duan Ling Tian would have never noticed its existence because its sense of existence was just extremely weak.
"Senior Brother, are these are called treasures too? I just entered the sect not long ago. Don't deceive me please," said Duan Ling Tian with a vigilant expression as he looked at the inner court disciple who was behind the stall seriously.
"You've just entered the sect?" Upon hearing Duan Ling Tian's words, the inner court disciple glanced at Duan Ling Tian's waist. By the time he saw the Order Token that represented his identity as an outer court disciple, an obvious disappointment crept into his eyes right away.