How Much For Your Soul

Shen Yue watched from the crowd as Murong Yu stumbled off towards the East District, the poor bastard that had his legs broken was still screaming in pain. A compound fracture will do that, with the bone sticking out of the skin, there was no position that would lessen the pain.

While everyone was discussing who was brave enough to go against a genius from the East District, Shen Yue was wondering if he had successfully framed Long Tianming. Although he was not afraid of any retribution from Murong Yu or the Sect, it would be funny to give Long Tianming a gift of an unknown nemesis.

Not that Murong Yu was capable of causing much harm to the next Sect leader. His cultivation is far beyond all others in his age group, he was the successor of the Dragonseal Family and had a large army at his command. Not to mention the Family Elders that supported him. Murong Yu could at most be an annoyance, but it will be funny to see if his obvious misdirect was successful.

I mean, Heavenly Fate Realm experts were well aware of their hearing range, if someone went to the trouble to hide their face yet reveal their master within earshot, the information was suspicious at best. Then again, from reading the TDG novel, the different bad guy's plans were never very complicated, they were always straight forward and obvious.

The only exception was Long Tianming with his deeply hidden relationship with the Demon Beast and 'evil' Sects. But Shen Yue suspected that it was a Dragonseal Family's Elder that was pulling the strings. Every action Long Tianming took against Nie Li, or Situ Beiyan were on par with Bond villain schemes. Suffice to say that he was not dealing with any critical thinkers capable of thinking outside the box.

If by some miracle Murong Yu saw through the setup, the only facts he could assume would be that his enemy was connected to the groups he had robbed and that they hated Long Tianming. Nothing to implicate Shen Yue or his minions. Shen Yue didn't even bother to change his operation in the Ghastly Ruins. Over the next two weeks, he would send all newly promoted slaves/followers into the Ruins to farm ghouls, it was too lucrative not too!

When Hua Ling's men whipped the sh*t out of Murong Yu, the recovered soul scales were distributed evenly to all the groups as they left the testing ground. Luckily, the exit was clearly marked, and even though the ruins spanned hundreds of kilometres, everyone managed to find their way out without problems.

If Shen Yue really wanted to be an arsehole, he could have set up a bandit gang to rob everyone that was trying to leave. That way, after two days of farming, the hardworking student's soul scales would belong to someone just sitting at the only exit.

But this was a sure-fire way to make enemies and invite retaliation. There was always a chance that one of the victims was a young master in disguise, related to an influential character or was a cheating bastard like Nie Li. Or himself for that matter, with his Libary of Heaven's Path and the Immortal Jade pendant, he was perhaps even worse of a cheat existence. All he needed was time and resources, and he would be capable of crushing anyone that dared to oppose him, Nie Li included.

That was why when his minions came out of the Ghastly Ruins with an average of forty thousand soul scales (not including Muron Yu's), he was beside himself with joy. The exchange rate was one thousand soul scales for thirty spiritual stones, meaning that in two days, they had made twelve hundred spiritual stones! An unimaginable amount for newly recruited students. Shen Yue graciously let them keep a hundred for themselves and had Hua Ling hold onto the rest when he exited the Ruins two days later.

The cycle continued with newly 'persuaded' Earth Realm students given new cultivation techniques and spiritual stones, advancing to the Heavenly Fate Realm, and then hunting Ghouls to add to the growing riches in Hua Ling's interspatial ring. Since the soul scales were distributed evenly among the group (to the nearest thousand), there was not much commotion on the leaderboard rankings. Murong Yu had the first place with ninety thousand, so forty of fifty thousand was considered good, but nothing special.

"Finally, it seems that someone has grasped the meaning behind the Ghastly Ruins testing grounds." Remarked a Skysoul Elder as he watched hundreds of new students gather in small groups and work together to defeat thousands of ghouls. "Why else would we randomly teleport students into a place where the enemy gathered in the thousands? It is to promote teamwork within the Sect!" he continued to explain to one of the officials in charge of distributing the rewards.

The official nodded his head on reflex, 'how did it make sense to evenly split the soul scales if the people were weaker than you and hardly helped?' he thought to himself, totally disregarding the Elder's ramblings.

Shen Yue himself had even entered, and his group had managed to collect eighty thousand soul scales each! Of course, he quickly gave the majority to other groups of minions to hide his skill, eventually exiting the Ruins with only thirty thousand soul scales. Things were going well, there was no retribution or obstacles for his men in the Ghastly Ruins, and the Gu Clan had yet to raid his minions that held all the stolen goods.

They had moved the loot between a few different slaves to make it harder to trace unless they had an overpowered divination spell. All in all, things were looking on track for his plans. At this rate, there would be no competition in bidding for the cheat painting that could rival his wealth. All he had to do now was concentrate on building up his personal strength.

He had not been neglecting his cultivation, but his Soul Realm was truely a bottomless pit that absorbed everything without noticeable change. He had not yet condensed his second Fate Soul but had absorbed the Heavenly Energy from over five thousand spiritual stones! If Shen Yue relied on the usual way for students to gain resources, it would take him years to accumulate this many.

It would also be impossible to make it out of the Heavenly Fate Realm in his lifetime! Disregarding the mental image of likening his Soul Realm to Homer Simpson at an all you can eat buffet, he thought of how powerful cultivation techniques directly correlated with resources need to advance.

Luckily, this was not a problem for Shen Yue as he had his Ghastly Ruins setup and in the future would farm Deity's Lakes in the Myriad Miles Rivers and Mountains Painting. But the needed resources will multiply once he uses his Fate Souls to create clones! They would need their own cultivation resources to advance through the different Realms of strength, a never-ending battle between wealth and cultivating!

While taking a break from stressing over his future problems, he took a look at Gu Bei's mind for an update on their Clan's situation. Over the last two weeks, he had planned to use Gu Bei's followers to gather dragon bloodline demon spirits with ordinary growth rates.

Any unique demon beast spirits with extraordinary attributes or functions were also on the list to obtain. After all, the Shadow Devil demon spirit was only a normal demon beast spirit, but its utility was off the charts! If they could get spirits like that for a spiritual stone or two, it would be simple to turn it into a god growth rate with the Nightmare Demon Pot.

It would be easy enough to slip him some of their newly acquired wealth from the Ghastly Ruins, but then he remembered Gu Heng's faction. They were still out for blood for the theft and humiliation they received. If Gu Bei started to throw some wealth around, it would surely draw their attention.

Instead, he had to have Hua Ling split up the purchases between all the minions that returned from the Ghastly Ruins to help explain their wealth. It was a hassle being discreet, but it would save them from a lot of bullsh*t if the movers and shakers of the younger generation couldn't pinpoint a single target to attack.

If Hua Ling suddenly stepped out as a moneybags on a spending spree, he would face suppression from many 'young masters'. It was a good thing that he decided to check Gu Bei's mind, as he and everyone else in the Clan had been summoned for a Clan meeting. The first one ever in Gu Bei's lifetime according to his memories.

Thousands of Clan members from the top ranks to the bottom assembled in the Clan's martial field, the only place able to accommodate everyone. It was a mandatory summons, if anyone that was not present that didn't have special permission from the Patriarch, then they would be labelled as rogues and hunted down. It seems the poison's symptoms had finally been noticed.