After the breakthrough in his Qi Cultivation, Fang Hao stored the wind wolves carcasses in one of the storage pouches he had used as a prop. He then proceed to unceremoniously loot all the inner disciples and burnt their corpses to ash. He then traveled to a nearby Sect Outpost and returned to the Sect's safe zone. When the inner disciple manning the desk for ingredient missions saw him, he had a difficult-to-read expression on his face.

The desk-manning inner disciple sighed, gave a knowing look to his colleague and walked to a nearby door. Fatty naturally following him, as if the sequence of events was well rehearsed. Once they were through the door, the inner disciple made a casual incantation gesture and an opaque energy curtain formed on the door. They were in a large vacant room and the inner disciple spoke in a dry voice.

“How many carcasses this time fellow apprentice brother? And more importantly how many of them are intact?”

Fatty Hao who had three storage pouches with him, just lazily opened one storage pouch and causally dumped roughly three dozen corpses in the room. Only around a third of the carcasses were intact, and roughly half of all the carcasses were of wind wolves. He also retrieved around half a dozen dull wooden boxes on a corner.

“See for yourself, fellow apprentice brother.” said Fang Hao in a lazy tone.

The inner disciple sorted through the corpses and arranged them by their type and condition. He then looked through the wooden boxes opening each one for a brief look before moving on the next. While he was sorting through Fang Hao's inventory, he held a dull gray-green jade slip in one of his hands which was glowing faintly.

“The spirit beast carcasses are worth 7250 contribution points and the spirit herbs are worth 2650 points for a total of 9900 points. As usual 10% of the points are taken by me for handling and arranging everything satisfactorily. And since you are a regular, I will knock off 90 points from my cut netting you 9000 points. Deal?” the inner disciple said in a mildly irritated voice.

Fang Hao had an understanding and benevolent looking smile as he said “Of course fellow apprentice brother. Sorry for the trouble.”, before handing over his inner disciple token to the inner disciple. The inner disciple received Fang Hao's token as he snorted at the look on Fang Hao's face and touched the token to the dull gray-green jade slip before returning the token to the fatty. He then made an incantation gesture and the opaque barrier dissipated and Fang Hao left through the door after checking his contribution point total.

Fang Hao then paid some contribution points for transportation to the market. 'The sect is such a money-sink. 100 contribution points for having me fly with a group of inner disciples to my destination bah. Just 5 trips and the contribution point of 1 intact wind wolf is spent. Oh well, still better than waiting for days when I was an outer disciple.' thought Fang Hao as he went to the inner disciple section and met the inner disciple who had sold him the Armadillo-hide glove magic tool to him.

“Fellow Apprentice-Brother intends to buy or--” Before he could complete his query, Fang Hao passed a storage pouch to him and grunted,

“Sell. Pay me in spirit stones as usual.”

The inner disciple scanned the contents of the storage pouch for a few breaths, and took another storage pouch in which he kept six low grade spirit stones, before handing it to Fang Hao. Fang Hao had a frown on his face as he accepted the storage pouch, checked its contents and left the shop.

'I hate that fencing magic tools gets me only 10% of the treasure's contribution points value. Those piles of generic magic tools are worth more that 30,000 points and I get low grade spirit stones worth a measly 3,000 contribution points. Oh well at least the talismans, pills and beads I can keep and use without wastage. Apparently the system is in place so that hunting colleagues isn't too lucrative.' thought Fang Hao as he returned to his residence.

It had been almost a year since Fang Hao was farming aggressive inner disciples and spirit beasts for xp. Staying in the safe zone of the sect he could make around 60,000 xp per year and roughly 12,000 contribution points per year. Murdering and Hunting as grinding was much more profitable. His new regime of grinding had granted him more than 300,000 xp in a year! Five times the xp grinding speed was super amazing, especially since he could shift the xp towards leveling up Divine Vajra Body Scripture.

Due to the resale value of artifacts and the fact that he didn't exchange consumables for contribution points along with his regular restock of consumables, he was able to save around 2/3rd of what he earned. It didn't help that some of the inner disciples were piss poor, not even redeeming the cost of talismans and beads he used to kill them. Despite this he had around 50 low grade spirit stones and saved around 70,000 contribution points. Since each low grade spirit stone was worth 500 contribution points, his liquid net worth was almost 100k contribution points! As for the weekly quota of spirit wine? He drank most of it for the refreshing state of inebriation it bought it him. After all murdering in the woods for xp was hard work!

Fang Hao well understood that the strong preyed on the weak and survival as a cultivator would require him get used to killing, and perhaps genocide. If he had let the aggressors from his feint go away after defeating them, he would create all sorts of future troubles. They could decide to gang up and ambush him for revenge when he least expected it, and he couldn't definitely carry out his scheme so long without discovery and stiff opposition. And it would be such a shame to lose a nice stream of xp!

'I encountered around 70 groups of inner disciples outside the safe zone of the sect the past year in my “helpless” state. Each group had around 4 inner disciples on an average. Out of 70 groups, only 4 groups didn't try to kill me. Three of the groups just ran away being too cautious and only 1 group gave me healing pills and escorted me back to the sect. I, being the magnanimous person I am, let these 4 groups go and even rewarded the group “saving” me with contribution points. Let me just recap my progress then.'

STATUS SCREEN

Name:

Fang Hao

Race:

Human

Gender:

Male

Age:

21 years

Titles:

Lord Lard

Class:

Cultivator

Unused Skill Points:

135

Realm:

Qi Condensation Realm

Level:

7 (7)

Current Experience:

224384 (222867)

Level Up at Experience:

280557

Active Effects:

Stats

Physique:

20

Finesse:

17.8

Spirit:

20.3

Qi

56.8/56.8

Traits

Calm

Lucky

Primal Instinct

?? Immortal Monk's Prospective Disciple ??

1st Seal - Primordial Marrow

Manuals and Scriptures

Sublime Qi Manual (1st Realm, 10th Layer)

Divine Vajra Body Scripture (1 seals, 7 moves)

Aura Fist Manual (+) (4th Layer)

Spells and Techniques

Aura Infusion (Perfection)

Fire Serpent (Expert)

Wind Blade (Expert)

Elementary Qi Barrier (Expert)

Frost Chains (Expert)

Aura Fist (Master)

Phantom Aura Steps (Master)

Concealing Mist (Expert)

Minor Illusion (Expert)

Telekinetic Hand (Expert)

Call Clouds (Expert)

Static Web (Expert)

Acid Splash (Expert)

Lion's Roar (Expert)

Floating Leaves Step (Master)

Aura Blast (Basic)

'Looks decent for one year worth of grinding. The practice speed of the Divine Vajra Body Scripture the legit way is too slow, and the wine isn't helping as much as it used to. Well to be fair, Qi Cultivation proceeds at extremely shitty speed the legit way too. The Qi Condensation pills also don't help much in cultivation and are just good to restore Qi in battle. Clearly I will soon need higher tier resources.'