Before the dorms of the sect, a small garden sat.

It was not a large one and for the most part, a field of untended grass, left to the devices of the outer disciples. The flowers that grew unperturbed, the small herbs and the few trees that stood tall, none of it had been placed by the sect initially.

Recently, however, a strange new landmark made itself known, and it was not the cluster of small saplings from the seeds Mei planted.

A massive pile of rocks, towering at the height of 5 metres was held loosely together by a formation someone scribbled at the base. After Su Qing decided to build a rock nest back then, apparently some disciples thought it was fun and decided to help him out.

Mei gave it a dubious look. Just yesterday, this monstrosity was only 3 metres tall... Was this the work of Luye?

At the rate it was going, she felt like one fine day, the formation would malfunction, and some unfortunate disciple would find themselves buried under a rockslide.

She walked gingerly to it and looked between the gaps near the base. After confirming it, she smirked. Su Qing still didn't notice the brick she snuck in.

7 days later...

Rock Nest height: 6 metres.

With her newly attained wealth, Mei had been buying the soup daily, quickly reaching the 5th level of Vital Body. By now, she could flip the mattress in her room just by giving it a hard smack. Rightfully, she should have returned the sum to Senior Han, but she didn't want to work and ended up delaying it. Body cultivation was so costly... the sum of 406 Jade had been reduced to 286, as she had been buying the soup as well now that she had more funds. The 86 pieces of white jade were rather bulky, so she ended up leaving most of it back in her room.

Just for fun, she decided to try jumping as high as she could, launching herself 3 metres into the air. She lost her balance and hit the ground facefirst... Vital Body had to correct her nose for the next few hours. Mei decided to never do that again, unless there was a lake nearby.

Right now, she was eating breakfast at the table with her friends, as usual.

"Hey, remember what day it is?" Xiuying started, a weird grin on her face. "I just had a crazy idea yesterday!"

Mei had no idea what she was talking about.

"What day is it?" Liu Qiang asked.

Once again, the chubby boy unintentionally covered for her by being just as clueless.

"It's the day of the monthly visits back home." Wang Wei said. "Didn't you notice the token glowing?"

Ah. Mei didn't notice because her bag was filled with so much clutter that the light was somehow obscured. Quite the achievement.

Liu Qiang laughed awkwardly.

"So anyway, remember how fun it was when we visited the city back then? What if we go around as a group and visit our hometowns together?" Xiuying said enthusiastically.

Huh...

"You spring this up on us now?" Yingyi frowned. "Tell us sooner!"

"Haha, sorry. I just thought of it last night." Xiuying smiled awkwardly.

"I'm fine with following you all, but I'm not bringing you guys with me." Wang Wei said.

"Me neither. Bringing us with you to meet your parents... what are we, your boyfriends?" Yingyi said, before turning to Mei. "And girlfriend."

Mei: ...

"Ehhh?" Xiuying said.

"To be honest, I'm not sure about that either." Liu Qiang said. "It's embarrassing."

"There's not a lot to see back home. It's just a small town and a lot of farmland," Mei said, nodding.

Xiuying looked rather dismayed.

"I see... well, I guess that's fine. How about visiting just my hometown then?"

To that, the friends agreed. Xiuying sighed.

It had been a while since the sect master held a lecture, so for once, all the disciples were paying attention.

Looking through the crowd of disciples, he nodded his head solemnly.

"Disciples, I am glad to see all of you have made progress in your body cultivation," he said. "I can sense that all of you are already at least at the second stage, some even at the 5th and 6th stage."

The sect master glanced at Mei and Wang Wei.

What? Wang Wei was already at the 6th stage? Urgh, it must be because of how much Jade he had. Mei had no doubts he could afford to body cultivate around the clock.

"I'll keep it short," he said.

From his storage ring, a massive jar of iridescent purple pills materialised in the air, along with a small jar of glowing white pills, both floating before him.

"These are normal foundational establishment pills." he pointed to the white ones. "As long as you are at the 1st stage of body cultivation, these will let you reach the Foundation stage.

"And these are supreme establishment pills. You will need to be at least the 8th stage of body cultivation to survive them, but they will allow you to form a flawless foundation."

Mei gulped.

"The normal ones are 200 Jade each. But the supreme ones... they are 20,000 Jade each."

WHAT?!

Mirroring how she felt, sounds of shock echoed around the hall, along with some mumbling from the discussing disciples.

"Of course, there is no way any of you would be able to afford it right now. But if you're interested, the sect can loan you the pill. We will collect the debt in 100 years, with a 20% interest." he said. "That's 36,000 days to prepare the sum of 24,000. As long as you save a single Jade every day, you'll have no trouble affording it. Pretty reasonable, isn't it?"

Huh. That was surprisingly reasonable indeed. But still... 100 years. It was a mind-boggling long period of time to her. It made her realise how much less cultivators valued time, in a sense.

To no one's surprise, all the disciples raised their hands. With how reasonable the sect master made the loan sound, who would abandon such a huge advantage? If anything, the supreme foundational pill would make them a lot stronger, likely to make them earn more in the long run!

"But sect master!" someone called out.

"Yes?"

"What do we do with the foundational pills from the tournament then?" the person continued.

Silence came over the hall.

Even Mei realised what was going on. The pills from the tournament... they were nothing but dummies!

A few gutsy disciples made booing sounds, but the sect master roared in laughter.

"Now, now! You can still give them to friends and family outside the sect!"