Chapter 339: Rewards

Translator: Truth

Editor: Dhael Ligerkeys

“If you’re not in a hurry, can I ask you a couple of things before you leave? It’s not every day you visit the sect.”

Li Baxian smiled and tapped a finger on his Battlefield Imprint. “You can just message me, no?”

“Sister Shui has cooked a feast.”

“It’s been a long time since I last saw the old man. I should pay him a visit at the very least.”

He then started walking toward the Sanctum of Providence.

Lu Ye shot Hua Ci a meaningful look. The girl immediately followed behind Li Baxian with Yi Yi and Ju Jia.

A while later, they had all teleported back to the headquarters using the Divine Opportunity Column.

Lu Ye did not follow them. Instead, he pressed a hand on the Divine Opportunity Column.

For the past month or two, he was either fighting or plundering the Blessings of the Outposts of the Thousand Demon Ridge. It was finally time to reap the rewards.

Plundered Blessings could be converted into an equal amount of Sect Contribution Points through his sect’s Divine Opportunity Column only. He had already done this once after returning from the Chess Sea, so the routine was not unfamiliar to him.

First, he used his privilege as the Legate to check the current balance of Sect Contribution Points in the Divine Opportunity Column. There were only two thousand plus Contribution Points.

As of now, their Divine Opportunity Column only had one type of Blessing, and it was the type that increased the concentration of the Outpost’s World Spiritual Qi. There were nineteen such Blessings in total, and each Blessing improved the Outpost’s World Spirit Qi by ten percent. The Divine Opportunity Column itself already improved the World Spiritual Qi by ten percent, so in total the Outpost’s World Spiritual Qi was two hundred percent richer than the wilderness.

If the Spiritual Qi concentration of the wilderness was valued at one, then the Crimson Blood Sect Outpost’s was two.

He used to think that their Outpost’s World Spiritual Qi was pretty rich, but he changed his opinion after visiting various major sects’ Outposts.

With a thought, the plundered Blessings in his Battlefield Imprint shattered into tiny motes of light and sank into the Divine Opportunity Column. For a moment, it looked like the column was surrounded by a sea of fireflies. They looked extremely pretty.

The number indicating the amount of Sect Contribution Point in the Divine Opportunity Column started climbing at a ridiculous rate.

Fifty thousand, a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, one million, two million, three million…

Lu Ye did not know if there existed another Divine Opportunity Column with such a ridiculous amount of Sect Contribution Points in the Spirit Creek Battlefield—perhaps in the Core Circle—but he was certain that theirs was the only one in the Outer or Inner Circles.

How much was three million Contribution Points? One ordinary Ninth-Order Realm cultivator was worth nine points at his current cultivation level, so he would have to kill thirty three thousand, three hundred and thirty three people to reach that number…

To say it was a ridiculous number would be the understatement of the century. Lu Ye had stacked up quite the body count at this point, but he was still many zeroes away from reaching that number.

Of course, slaying enemy cultivators was hardly the only way to accrue Contribution Points. Handling insectoid attacks, selling stuff in the Vault of Providence and more were ways to earn Contribution Points as well. It was just that slaying enemy cultivators was the most common way to the masses.

When the number finally came to a stop, it showed three million and one hundred thousand plus Sect Contribution Points.

It seemed like an impossible number, but Lu Ye and the first invasion force had conquered at least a hundred Thousand Demon Ridge Outposts before they were stopped at Weishui. He did not touch the first three sects because of favors due to the Heavenly Derivative Sect, but the rest were fair game.

He was the one who created the invasion force, so his share was much bigger than everyone else’s. At best, he got ten percent of the Contribution Points. At worst, he still got five percent.

The sects in the Inner Circle had been developing their Outposts for many years. Even five percent of the Blessings in the Divine Opportunity Columns was a lot.

The second invasion force’s success was comparatively smaller, but they had still conquered twenty to thirty Outposts in total.

This was especially true for the last Outpost he conquered, the Tower of Morning. In this case, he was able to monopolize every Blessing in the Divine Opportunity Column.

As the saying went, many little drops make an ocean.

The reason he toiled so hard and so long—going so far as to teleport to another location to restart his conquest after learning that the Divine Ocean Realm cultivators had begun their negotiation—was for this moment.

It was enough for what he had in mind. In fact, there would be plenty of Contribution Points left for himself.

Lu Ye did not rush to increase his sect’s world Spiritual Qi. First things first, he paid himself a salary.

In the past, he thought that a salary was fixed at ten percent of the total Sect Contribution Points. Later, he learned that personal contribution was factored into the equation as well. Assuming that his contribution to the sect was lacking, he would not be able to pay himself anything substantial even if he was the Legate.

That was why he was able to pay himself and Hua Ci their salary without a hitch after returning from the Chess Sea. They had earned every point with their blood, sweat and tears.

The Divine Opportunity Column currently had over three million and one hundred thousand Contribution Points, so the most he could pay himself was thirty one thousand Contribution Points. A thought later, the Battlefield Imprint on the back of his hand immediately burned like someone had stuck a red hot branding iron to it. Thankfully, the feeling went away as quickly as it came.

After confirming that the balance was transferred successfully, he finally began improving the Outpost’s World Spiritual Qi.

The purchase price of the Blessing was incremental. To be specific, each Blessing cost five hundred Contribution Points more than the last. At the beginning, one Blessing only cost five hundred Contribution Points, but now the latest price was ten thousand.

Every new Blessing increased the concentration of World Spiritual Qi in the Outpost by ten percent and ten percent only. It was why it cost a ridiculous amount of Contribution Points to improve it during the latter half of the Outpost’s development. One could even say that the development of the Outpost itself was a maw that could consume it all no matter how many points you sank into it.

Lu Ye paid the new price no heed, however. As he made the purchases, the remaining two million, seven hundred and ninety thousand Sect Contribution Points started decreasing at a visible rate. The Divine Opportunity Column itself kept twisting and changing and making all sorts of clicking noises.

At the Outpost, the Crimson Blood Sect disciples were celebrating Lu Ye’s triumphant return when suddenly, the world changed. The World Spiritual Qi in the Outpost had suddenly become extremely abnormal, and before the cultivators could investigate the anomaly, large patches of dark clouds started forming above the Outpost.

The clouds were so thick that even the sun had been completely blotted. It was like a massive, end-of-the-world creature that was bearing down on them.

It was impossible not to panic at this. What scared the Crimson Blood Sect disciples even more was the fact that the already dense clouds were still growing thicker by the second.

The prolegate, Gu Yang hurried out of his residence and looked up. Seeing that things were not looking good, he hurriedly messaged Lu Ye and removed the grand ward using the Control Gem at the same time.

No matter what these dark clouds were, he did not want the grand ward to be up when it bore down on them. It would probably shatter upon contact.

A moment later, he rushed into the Sanctum of Providence and said in a hurry, “It’s bad, Brother Lu. You need to come out and check this out as soon as possible!”

Lu Ye was losing his patience because the Blessings could not be purchased in one go. He turned around and asked, “What?”

“There’s something strange going on in the sky right now.”

Lu Ye frowned and dashed out of the Sanctum of Providence. After observing the sky for a moment, he waved his hand and said, “It’s nothing.”

He then went back into the Sanctum of Providence and resumed the tedious process of purchasing the remaining Blessings.

Right now, Gu Yang was feeling rather dumbfounded by how careless his fifth senior brother was acting. It looked like the end of the world up there, so how could it possibly be “nothing”?

[Still, if Brother Lu said it’s nothing, then it’s probably nothing… right?]

After consoling the nearest disciples and walking back into the Sanctum of Providence, he immediately heard a rapid series of clicking noises coming from the Divine Opportunity Column.

He slowly walked up to Lu Ye while voicing his doubts, “What are you doing, Brother Lu?”

He used to be an independent cultivator, and he had only replaced Hua Ci as the prolegate a while ago. Naturally, he had never learned to purchase a Blessing.

“Now that I think about it, you haven’t done this before, have you? That’s perfect. Take my place and familiarize yourself with the process,” Lu Ye said while beckoning Lu Ye to his position.

Gu Yang did as Lu Ye had instructed him to. His eyeballs nearly fell out of his eye sockets when he saw the number indicating the Sect Contribution Points. Unable to believe his eyes, he rubbed his eyes but could not see any change in the number. Finally, he looked at Lu Ye as if to confirm that it was real.

“Buy it!”

“Right, right.” Gu Yang hurriedly went to work.

Clack click clack…

The Divine Opportunity Column began making clicking noises once more.

While this was going on, Lu Ye pressed his hand on the Divine Opportunity Column again and connected to the Vault of Providence with a thought. He quickly found what he was looking for.

It was an item that could only be purchased in the Vault of Providence, and it was so rare that even the Divine Trade Association was out of stock. Its price was a ludicrous one hundred and fifty thousand Contribution Points!

The item was a Spirit Pill of sorts. When he first saw it at the Vault of Providence, he had been absolutely flabbergasted by its ludicrous price. He had thought it would take him a very long time to accrue the Contribution Points necessary to purchase it, but as it turned out, he managed to do it before he even entered the Core Circle.

‘My heartfelt thanks to all the Thousand Demon Ridge sects who so kindly donated their Contribution Points to the Grand Sky Coalition!’’

There were only eight of these Spirit Pills in the Vault of Providence. Back when his second senior sister was still in the Spirit Creek Battlefield, there were still over thirty of the Spirit Pills. However, it decreased to just eight over time.

No one knew where the Spirit Pills came from. There was no one in the entire Jiu Zhou who was capable of refining them.

There existed a good number of rare items that could not be obtained or refined with current knowledge in the Vault of Providence. Some people deduced that it was the remnants of the previous Cultivation World, which was why the number of these items never increased with time, only the opposite.

Just one of these Spirit Pills cost a hundred and fifty thousand Contribution Points, but Lu Ye purchased two without so much as batting an eyelid.

As a result, he went from being wealthy enough to rival a country to broke. Still, he? had over ten thousand leftover Contribution Points.

He withdrew his mind and looked down at his hands. He was now holding two ancient-looking wooden boxes. After inspecting their contents and confirming that the Spirit Pills weren’t damaged in any way, he finally put them safely inside his Storage Bag.

“I can’t buy any more, Brother Lu,” Gu Yang’s voice came from the side.

Lu Ye pressed his hand on the Divine Opportunity Column once more. What was two million, seven hundred and ninety thousand Contribution Points at the beginning had dwindled to just four hundred thousand.

There were also ninety-nine Blessings on the Divine Opportunity Column now!

Lu Ye tried to purchase more, but as Gu Yang had told him just now, he couldn’t.

“So, ninety-nine Blessings really is the limit,” Lu Ye said, raising his eyebrows. He had heard from Li Baxian that a Divine Opportunity Column in the Outer Circle could not carry more than ninety-nine Blessings, but for obvious reasons, no Outer Circle sects had ever been able to purchase this many Blessings. That was why no one knew if it was the truth or just hearsay until now.