Chapter 751: The 3 Discussions All Went Awry

Zhang Deming paused upon hearing this, unsure for a moment how to respond.

“Junior Brother Zhang, you don’t have to give me an answer right away. The doors of the Array Department will always be open for you.” With that, Fang Jixiang turned and left without a backward glance.

Zhang Deming stood there in a daze. ‘Am I being poached again? And with an offer like that! If Spirit Nurturing Peak wasn’t so good to me, I might have actually been tempted.’

‘Hmm, wait a minute! It’s just an affiliation, so maybe I can consider it?’

As Zhang Deming stood there, lost in thought, Yang Guangfu, who had led the visitor in, noticed his tempted expression and grew very serious.

He bowed to Zhang Deming and said, “If Master Zhang has no further instructions, I’ll take my leave now.”

Zhang Deming came back to his senses and nodded. “Go on. There’s nothing else.”

Yang Guangfu turned and hurried away. As soon as he was outside the range of the array, he pulled out his Identity Card and sent a message to Song Huidong: “Master Song, bad news! The Array Department has its sights set on Master Zhang.”

“What’s the big deal? Every department in the sect has its eye on our peak’s higher-ups. They’re even after Master Guk. But what position could be more comfortable than being the Peak Master of our Spirit Nurturing Peak!” Song Huidong replied.

“That’s not it. The Array Department is trying to poach him, and the Master seems very tempted,” Yang Guangfu replied.

Song Huidong’s expression tightened as he read the message. He quickly replied, “Come to my Cave Mansion. Tell me everything in detail.”

…

After Fang Jixiang and his group left, Zhang Deming spent a long time in contemplation. He then used the delivery chute to send a portion of the Spirit Nurturing Bead inventory he’d built up over the past few days to Qin Shizhong.

After opening the delivery chute, Zhang Deming—acting under the identity of Zhang Wu—switched the monthly pickup of Spirit Nurturing Beads to a full year’s supply. Qin Shizhong would no longer need to collect them from him directly; how many the others collected from Qin Shizhong was their business.

Qin Shizhong would just be in charge of distribution, while Zhang Deming would provide a year’s worth at a time. Once that was done, Zhang Deming stood up. Spiritual Light converged on his back, and a pair of wings, so magnificent they looked like something out of a dream, materialized.

Zhang Deming paused. ‘These wings are a little too flashy.’ Their base color was a fiery red, enhanced with the beauty of Phoenix Wings, the iridescent colors of a peacock, and the unique, ethereal glow of the Dream Dao. They were simply too conspicuous.

So, after a moment of consideration, Zhang Deming made the Light Wings flicker and revert to their original color. As long as he wasn’t flying at top speed, it wouldn’t make a difference.

Once the transformation was complete, Zhang Deming inspected them and nodded in satisfaction. With a slight unfurling of his wings, he left the Flying Spring Waterfall Tower and flew toward White Rock Peak, the home of the Miscellaneous Affairs Department.

He had joined the sect twelve and a half years ago and entered the Inner Sect over two years ago. Yet, of the Celestial Spirit Sect’s Fifteen Inner Sect Peaks, he had only ever properly set foot on two: the Celestial Spirit Main Peak and Spirit Nurturing Peak. As for the others, he had either flown past them in a hurry or only ever caught a fleeting glimpse. In any case, he had never gone to explore them.

The main reason was that he hadn’t been in the Inner Sect for long, plus he was always busy with his cultivation. In just over three years, his cultivation had already reached the Duality Second Transition. This rapid advancement in cultivation also made his life exceptionally busy and fulfilling.

After all, such a cultivation speed was hard to come by even for someone with an Immortal Spirit Root, let alone for someone with his type of Spirit Root.

His script’s auto-cultivation function not only allowed him to maintain the speed of a top-tier seclusion session around the clock, but it also maximized the efficiency of his current Spirit Root.

Especially during the Grand Assembly these past few days, the area around the Celestial Spirit Sect was exceptionally bustling. The twelve shops he had established, particularly the ones within the sect, were all doing incredibly well.

To generate hype, Qin Shizhong and the others had all, to some extent, dipped into their allotments for the next half-year or even full year. Amidst this sales frenzy, they also managed to sell many other products.

If Zhang Deming hadn’t strictly stipulated that each person could only draw on a maximum of one year’s worth of their shop’s supply in advance, things might have gotten even more out of hand.

This brought in a significant amount of Spirit Stone income. Combined with his existing reserves, Zhang Deming had been gaining the daily limit of one hundred thousand Experience Points for the past several days.

Of course, that was only for these few days. His normal Spirit Stone income was around three to four thousand per month. But in just the last ten days or so, he had earned about thirty thousand, on top of what he already had in stock.

He rapidly absorbed seventy to eighty thousand Spirit Stones, increasing his Experience Points by seven to eight hundred thousand. And this was without even touching the dozen or so Spirit Crystals he had left.

In addition to Experience Points, his gains in Qi Fortune and Merit were also gratifying. Of course, most of this influx of Qi Fortune and Merit was an effect of the Grand Assembly itself; most of the Spirit Nurturing Beads sold over the past few days hadn’t actually been used yet.

At least, that was the case for the beads sold to the disciples of other sects. Even so, his daily gain of Qi Fortune was still steadily increasing, from the usual two units to a regular four or five.

He believed that by the end of the Grand Assembly, his accumulated Qi Fortune would reach a new all-time high—more than he had managed to save up over the entire previous year. In any case, this Inter-realm Exchange Assembly, even at this early stage, had already completely lived up to his expectations.

…

While lost in these thoughts, Zhang Deming arrived at White Rock Peak.

As the main peak of the Miscellaneous Affairs Department, White Rock Peak was the one among the Fifteen Inner Sect Peaks that least resembled an Immortal Mountain.

Its large population meant a vast number of buildings. The peak itself was no shorter than the others, but while one could only faintly glimpse a few buildings nestled in the lush greenery of the other peaks when viewing them from a distance…

…White Rock Peak was a different story. Buildings and vegetation split the mountain half-and-half. And that was only because of the large number of Spirit Farmers, whose landscaping efforts were far better than those on other peaks. Otherwise, it might have been nothing but buildings.

What set it apart from the other peaks, however, was its slightly different architectural style. There was no single, unified theme, even though the construction teams from the Miscellaneous Affairs Department were responsible for building the vast majority of the ordinary structures on every peak.