Chapter 866: The Art of Bullying Juniors (Patreon)

The first one to recover from what I had announced was Elder Hou.

“Did this old one hear that right?” he laughed, slapping his palm against the table as he looked around at the other elders. “The boy wants to buy something from the esteemed Elder Gong Ru of all people?”

“Elder Ke,” Elder Bai added. “If this old man’s memory isn’t failing him, didn’t you tell the council that you didn’t have anything to trade?”

Well, that wasn’t true, I had simply stayed silent, and they had decided to infer whatever they willed.

“Maybe the boy wants to pay with that legacy robe of his,” Duan Hui snorted.

That elicited a wide roar of laughter from the table. Elder Gong Ru didn’t stop it this time, but he also didn’t join in, clearly, he was still wary of the sleeping elder. However, not all of the elders were enjoying this.

“Lad, listen to me,” Ma Gang leaned over, whispering, though with a chest that big, everyone in the hall heard him regardless. “I’ve been going back and forth with that old fart for the last few centuries, and let me tell you this. There isn’t a soul in this room more stingy than him, if he doesn’t sell cheap to his followers, he certainly won’t sell cheap to someone who has just embarrassed him.”

“This is one of the rare times our Elder Ma is correct,” Qiao Feiyan said, which got a pleased nod from the elder, who didn’t seem to comprehend the true meaning behind her words. “But if Elder Ke is struggling to find something to trade with, then know that the Hall of Accounts would be happy to lend him whatever he needs. The hall’s terms would be very reasonable, a small favour or two, properly recorded, of course.”

“Master,” Azure warned. “Don’t fall for her games.”

Even before waking up in a Cultivation World, I knew better than to trust a beautiful woman, never mind a jade beauty. Someone like this would come to collect the favour at the worst possible moment, and it would arrive with its own strings attached that he had never expected.

So instead, I just gave her a polite smile and a small shake of my head.

The lady responded with a sigh that communicated that she thought I would come to her sooner or later.

The truth was they were all underestimating me in their own ways. Some of them by laughing, some of them by feeling sorry for me, while others tried to take advantage of my weakness to trap me in a deal.

I didn’t blame them for this because it was only logical that a young man who hadn’t even lived through a single century and had broken through only a few weeks ago without even leaving the sect wouldn’t have anything that would interest someone approaching their first millennium of life.

However, I was far from a normal Stellar Realm cultivator.

While the elders had been busy bickering over small jars of lake mud and things like it over the past few centuries, I had already incorporated multiple suns, a Blood Moon, a crimson lake with a Leviathan sleeping at the bottom, mountains full of Lithari digging for spiritual iron, and a garden where a sentient pill was learning to say hello to the dirt, all into my inner world.

If any of the elders got a whiff of any of it, their reactions would do a complete one-eighty.

But the question was what could I actually offer the old man?

At least I knew what I couldn’t offer him – anything related to the Two Suns World, whether it be runes or energy samples, it didn’t matter. The moment I revealed something from a world almost equivalent to the Cultivation World, the questions would begin brewing in their minds. And it would only be a matter of time before the news reached someone with the power to demand answers. Sect Master Yuan was powerful, but he wasn’t omnipresent. With how deep these elders could scheme, I didn’t want to give them motivation to practise their skills on me.

The other thing that I couldn’t trade was anything that would reveal my strong ties to blood cultivation. The obvious reason was Heaven’s Mandate. It would be very petty, but easy for one of the elders to report me. What better way to get rid of a problem than letting someone else deal with it?

And the final thing that I definitely wouldn’t swap was the living beings in my inner world, whether it be one of the Stellar Realm souls, the Lithari, the Stone Emperor, Little Bloom, or even the Dawn Fish, they all trusted me to take care of them. I wouldn’t betray them by exchanging them as though they were mere resources.

So, what did that leave me?

I doubted that the elder would be interested in the ores that the Lithari were mining. It was only now that it dawned on me that I either had things that were too valuable to reveal, or they weren’t worth more than dog shit.

However, just because I didn’t have anything to offer, it didn’t mean that one of the souls in my inner world didn’t have anything that the elder would be interested in, especially the Stellar Realm souls.

For over a thousand years, Ru Jian had been an alchemist of the Fractured Sky Sect, Wen Suli had trained at the Ashen Meridian School, Dao Renqiu had become a blacksmith in the White Pillar Sect, and Sun Li Hua had been refined in the furnaces of the Heavenly Pill Sect. If the Masked One saw value in enslaving them, then they definitely weren’t simple. In fact, I would be shocked if between the four of them, they didn’t have at least one technique that wouldn’t raise a nine-hundred-year-old elder’s eyebrows.

With how surprisingly easy-going they had been so far, I could probably work out a deal with one of them. Actually, Ru Jian would probably agree on the spot, since his entire dao revolved around balanced exchanges. And if they all didn’t have anything valuable to offer, then there was my final option, which was Ke Jun.

The former Civilisation Realm cultivator, having been a demonic cultivator, had likely ‘collected’ more Stellar Realm techniques than this entire council put together. Even if most of them were blood element techniques, there were bound to be a dozen or so that would be relevant for my situation here.

However, Ke Jun wasn’t the type to hand anything over without a hidden reason behind it. And now that he was a mortal soul who was desperately searching for a method to regain his lost cultivation, the price wouldn’t be light.

Seeing the elders continue their snide comments, I knew that I had enough time to enter my inner world and see what Ru Jian had in store for me, but before I could sink my spiritual sense inwards, a dry voice interrupted everyone.

“Elder Ke.”

It was Gong Ru; the old man had stopped stroking his beard and was now smiling at me.

“This old one has walked this world for around nine centuries and has explored ruins far older than this sect,” he continued. “So, you must forgive me if I find it difficult to believe that a young man who reached the Stellar Realm a few weeks ago is carrying anything in his sleeves that could interest me.”

A few of the elders chuckled.

“However,” he continued, raising a single finger, “it would be a shame for the sect’s brightest talent to be turned away at his first council meeting, so I have a proposal.”

Curious to see what the old man had in mind, I raised my eyebrows to signal him to continue.

“What I want is very simple. A duel. As a senior of this sect, it is only right that I give our young genius a few pointers, so that he can learn from the peak of the Stellar Realm.” His smile widened. “And if Elder Ke manages to win, the Primordial Dao Tree Scripture is his. I do not require anything more than that.”

A few pointers?

That nearly made me laugh out loud.

In how many webnovels did a senior offer their junior ‘pointers’ when what they truly wanted was a legitimate excuse to beat the poor newcomer senseless?

After being humiliated by Lin Youran in front of the council, the old man wanted to take out his frustrations on someone who couldn’t fight back, and what better punching bag than a newly broken through Stellar Realm cultivator who had no chance against someone at the peak of the realm?

Against a Peak Stellar Realm cultivator, who was able to use all those celestial bodies in his inner world as a source of power to draw on in a fight, the smart move on my part would be to refuse.

However, if I refused, not only would the show of weakness encourage every fame-seeking elder in the Outer Sect to come and test me, but I would lose my opportunity to acquire this godly technique. This guy clearly wouldn’t accept anything I had to offer him. All he wanted to do was humiliate me in front of the entire sect. That mattered more to him than cultivation resources, so it came as no surprise that he had been stuck at a bottleneck for years.

On the other hand, if I accepted, I would be standing across from a man who had been cultivating for nine hundred years, and even if my Golden Sun cultivation could deal with most Stellar Realm cultivators if I used the full power of my avatar, a Peak Stellar Realm cultivator wasn’t simple.

Unless I used the comprehension that the Two Suns World had gifted me and broke through to the equivalent of Life Realm, I wasn’t fully confident of winning a duel like this. I couldn’t underestimate someone who had centuries of combat experience, especially when my avatar didn’t have the endurance that I needed it to have.

My hesitation must have shown on my face because his smile softened.

“Ah, how thoughtless of me,” the old man said, shaking his head. “It would be unfair to ask such a young elder to fight today. You can have a week, or even two, to prepare yourself. Let no one say that this old man is unreasonable.”

“The boy can spend the first week preparing,” Elder Hou snorted. “And the second week writing his will.”

For most cultivators at our level, two weeks wasn’t enough to polish a single technique, but for me, who could world walk to a realm where time passed faster, it was a different matter entirely.

It was enough for a complete training montage, but before I could open my mouth, the cloud beside me shifted.

“Accept.”

Every head at the table turned towards the end of the hall in surprise.

Elder Lin Youran’s head hadn’t moved an inch from his pillow, but his eyes were now open and fixed on me, and for the first time since meeting him, they didn’t have a tired look on them, they were fully focused.

I gave him a questioning look.

“I know you don’t know me,” Lin Youran said, his voice low enough that only I could hear it. “But trust me this one time.”

I didn’t know if this was some hidden scheme, but I had to give it to him, he had stood up for me when nobody else at this table dared to, and he had done it at the cost of his own peace and quiet, which seemed to be what he valued most.

And I didn’t know what he had planned, but if anyone here understood how to beat the old man, it was the person who had almost put him to sleep with his aura. Also, even if Lin Youran didn’t help me, I still had two weeks that could turn into months, which was enough to figure something out.

“Okay,” I said, turning back to the head of the table. “Elder Gong, I accept your duel.”

Hearing my decision, Elder Pan Shu looked like he was going to faint.

“Ha!” Elder Hou slapped his palm against the table. “The boy actually agreed!”

“Bold,” Duan Hui said, grinning wide enough to show his teeth. “Foolish, but bold. Elder Gong, try not to break too many of his bones. I would hate for the Sect Master to come asking questions.”

“Heavens above.” Ma Gang dragged a large hand down his face. “I have never seen a junior agree to one of Gong Ru’s ‘pointers’ so quickly.”

“Then let it be recorded.” Qiao Feiyan sighed, which showed what she thought about my decision. “A duel between Elder Gong Ru and Elder Ke Yin will take place two weeks from today. If Elder Ke prevails, the Primordial Dao Tree Scripture passes to him.” She raised a carefully manicured eyebrow at Elder Gong Ru. “And if he were to lose?”

“Then he loses nothing but a little pride,” he said with a satisfied smile. “Two weeks from today, at noon, on the Martial Stage. Let the disciples come and watch. It will do them good to see what the difference between a junior and a senior is.”

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