Wei Tianchong was still a student of Basking Moon and had yet to go through the full ten years. He could not possibly spend the long term at Yan Changfeng’s side, so the conditions were quite normal. Moreover, while Wei Tianchong had matured, he still lacked experience, so Tang Jie did not dare to leave him at Sunwatch Peak for too long.
But…
Tang Jie looked at Nan Baicheng. “Shouldn’t you tell this directly to Wei Tianchong? Why tell it to me?”
Nan Baicheng replied, “Because my master wishes to ask you: are you interested in becoming his ninth inheriting disciple?”
“What?” Tang Jie was dumbfounded by this question.
He stared at Nan Baicheng for quite a while before finally saying, “Master Nan must be making a joke. A True Person taking a disciple must do so through a test. How could he…”
Nan Baicheng impatiently cut him off. “Who made it a rule that there needs to be a test? The test is merely a way to select for talented individuals. If there is no need to select, why test? Everyone saw how you performed in this struggle for the True Inheritance. My master cannot go back on his word and refuse to take Wei Tianchong as his disciple, but do you think he cannot take another? How he will take a disciple is my master’s business. You only need to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.”
“This…” Tang Jie was immediately put in a difficult spot.
It wasn’t a bad thing to be Yan Changfeng’s disciple. The problem was that Tang Jie had set off on a different path from others when he had started cultivating the Parting Classic, and he was now different from other students in many ways. At school, most of the teachers were at the Mortal Shedding Realm and had limited insight. While Xie Fengtang was at the Celestial Heart Realm, there were more than ten thousand students. No matter how attentive Xie Fengtang was, he couldn’t keep watch on Tang Jie every waking moment.
But Sunwatch Peak was different. Yan Changfeng had only so many disciples, and he only needed a minor nudge to put Tang Jie under close observation. And once Tang Jie was being watched, it would be difficult for him to do anything in secret.
This was the main reason Tang Jie wasn’t willing to be a True Inheritor. The other reason was that Yan Changfeng was part of the radicals, and Tang Jie ideologically disagreed with his way of doing things.
But to refuse him and humiliate a True Person would bring its own problems.
Tang Jie could only say, “Master Nan, please let me think about it.”
Nan Baicheng frowned. “‘Think about it’? You still need to think about something like this?”
He could understand it when Tang Jie was fighting to get the True Inheritance for Wei Tianchong, but he couldn’t understand how he could refuse an opportunity that was delivered straight to his door. Only now did he realize that Yan Changfeng’s words had not been entirely unreasonable. He had managed to guess that Tang Jie might refuse.
“This is an important matter, so I have to think it over,” Tang Jie calmly replied. After his initial shock, he had managed to compose himself. In any case, he had already offended Nan Baicheng once, so he was more relaxed about it now. And his tone clearly indicated that he wasn’t very willing.
Nan Baicheng was furious, so he could only say, “Master also said that if you are willing to become his disciple, he can pass onto you the Nine Coronal Transformations and the Mind Parting Heart Anchor Art.”
These two arts could be considered secret arts that Yan Changfeng was famous for. They were so profound that even Xiao Biehan had praised Yan Changfeng as a genius after experiencing them. Among Yan Changfeng’s seven disciples, it was said that only the first disciple had inherited these two arts, with the others being less lucky. In Nan Baicheng’s view, if Tang Jie still refused after getting these conditions, then he had truly lost his mind.
But Tang Jie was unmoved and seemed to still be thinking about it.
Nan Baicheng felt like he was about to go insane.
This was an opportunity that would have anyone else ecstatic, so why was this bastard completely unmoved?
He wanted nothing more than to pick this guy up and give him a good beating.
But he had already messed things up with Wei Tianchong, so he couldn’t mess up again. He could only suppress his anger and say, “I don’t understand what you need to think about, but I must remind you before you make your decision that Wei Tianchong is about to become my master’s disciple.”
“Oh?” Tang Jie shot Nan Baicheng a profound look as he calmly asked, “Did True Person Changfeng have you say this?”
“And what about it?” Nan Baicheng’s face darkened.
“If that’s the case, I understand what the True Person is thinking.” Tang Jie nodded. “Let’s do this. I must trouble Master Nan to return and speak with the True Person. I am naturally happy to take the True Person as my master, but I hope that the True Person can agree to three of my conditions.”
“What?” Nan Baicheng stood up, not daring to believe his ears.
Tang Jie continued, “The first condition is that while I will come under his wing, I must be allowed to maintain my freedom and be granted the right to refuse arrangements that I don’t think make sense.”
Coming under a renowned master was great, but masters normally didn’t take disciples for free. Those lacking talent but who came from powerful families had to offer large presents to their master every year, and the talented from poor families had to carry out tasks for their master. As the saying went, the disciple should labor for their senior.
The 19 Celestial Chief were lofty individuals, so they naturally weren’t impressed by presents or gifts. But this meant that they sought greater ability from their disciples and often sent their disciples to do many things without reward—the master is making you do work because he thinks highly of you.
This was the case for Nan Baicheng.
Tang Jie’s first condition to refuse any arrangements made by his master was essentially saying that he wasn’t going to do anything for free, nor would he work if the pay was poor.
Nan Baicheng hadn’t expected this condition from Tang Jie, and he became so angry that he shook all over as he shouted, “I didn’t ask you if you had conditions!”
Tang Jie ignored him and went on, “The second condition is that I have the authority to do anything so long as it doesn’t go against the rules of the Basking Moon Sect.”
The first condition was the right to refuse anything, and the second condition was the right to do anything. When put together, they stated that he would do anything he wanted, with no one able to meddle in his business.
“And for the third condition, I need two hundred thousand coins to support my cultivation.”
Nan Baicheng was so enraged that he towered over Tang Jie, pointed at him, and yelled, “Arrogant! Audacious! Not knowing your place! Master cherishes talent and gave you a chance, yet you dare to demand a sky-high price. You don’t know when to stop…”
Tang Jie smiled. “You have to ask the True Person before you can know that.”
“Nonsense! Master will never agree!”
“You are not the True Person. You have no say in this matter.”
“……”
Nan Baicheng almost threw up blood. He glared at Tang Jie before saying, “Alright, I’ll convey your words to my master!”
He stormed off.
As Tang Jie watched him leave, his smile slowly faded. Massaging his temples, he sighed, “I still ended up being suspected, ugh.”
For Yan Changfeng to want to take him as his disciple was problematic enough, but he was even offering bribes with one hand and threats with the other. It was clear that Yan Changfeng suspected him.
The problem was that he didn’t know deep this suspicion went, so he used these three conditions to try and test Yan Changfeng.
Someone of Yan Changfeng’s personality would never take such a demanding and arrogant person as his disciple.
In a situation where he couldn’t refuse Yan Changfeng, his only method was to kick the ball back to Yan Changfeng. At least this couldn’t be considered as Tang Jie refusing Yan Changfeng, but rather that he was so arrogant that Yan Changfeng had no choice but to give up.
It was better to damage his own reputation than not give the True Person a way to save face.
If he even agreed to these conditions, then Tang Jie probably needed to run away as far as he could as quickly as he could.
Three days later, when Nan Baicheng returned to Basking Moon Academy and did not bring up Tang Jie becoming a disciple, Tang Jie sighed in relief, knowing that he had passed this trial.
The chill autumn rain seeped into the soil beneath his feet.
The Jade Fruits in the yard were growing greener and exuded the aroma they had when they were ripe, and the spirit grains planted throughout the rest of the yard turned the Carefree House into a golden sea.
Plucking a Jade Fruit, Tang Jie took a fragrant bite and nodded. “Not bad. It can be considered a regular three-year spirit fruit.”
After two years of work, it was finally harvesting season, and Tang Jie was overjoyed.
Over the last two years, besides cultivating, he had also put some effort every day into taking care of these spirit plants.
Without the bitter competition, without the spying of others, and without the crazy risks, there was only calm and simple cultivation.
Simple days meant smaller harvests. Fortunately, the poor had their own ways of cultivating, and self-sustenance was Tang Jie’s best choice.
Though that was what was claimed, planting high-quality spirit plants on such a large scale required a significant investment.
Spirit grains were fine, but the seeds of those other spirit plants didn’t come easy and had a high price. Buying the fruits alone had cost him several thousand coins, and raising them afterward had taken so much money that Tang Jie had almost spent all of the money he had gained after winning the True Inheritor struggle.
He had also used Yiyi’s urine and a spirit-gathering formation to collect spiritual energy. He had invested too much effort into these spirit plants.
“Can we use them now?” Yiyi excitedly asked. In these last two years, she had clearly grown much taller.
“No rush.” Tang Jie gave Yiyi a flick. “Select some for replanting, harvest some of them, and let the rest keep growing.”
“Like the thousand-year fields of the Basking Moon Sect?” Yiyi asked.
“A thousand-year field is impossible, but an eight-year field can work,” Tang Jie chuckled. “Once I have my own mountain and can cultivate every day, I might even be able to get a hundred-year field.”
Yiyi sighed. “That’s still only one hundred years, and you still have to wait for ages.”
“What else can I do? Any place a human can go in this world has already been scoured clean. Let alone ten-thousand-year, even a hundred-year plant is extremely rare,” Tang Jie replied.
“Ugh! If only we could go to the Celestial Mountains. The Returned Remnants of the Martial Lord must have lots and lots of ten-thousand-year spirit plants!” Yiyi longingly said.
“I also want to go, but unfortunately, we can’t go now. Even if we could, it’s too far away. Rather than think about that, we should focus on the present,” Tang Jie said as he began to reap the spirit plants.
After harvesting the spirit plants, Tang Jie didn’t use them for refinement with the Parting Classic. Instead, he went off to Spirit Platform Pavilion, intending to trade these materials for medicines.
Tang Jie’s most urgent task wasn’t to keep improving his constitution, but to increase his cultivation level as quickly as possible.
Since there hadn’t been any additional sources of revenue over these last years, and because he had put the money he had received into planting spirit fields, his cultivation progress had noticeably slowed. Meanwhile, other people had made huge leaps.
Half a year ago, Qi Shaoming had successfully entered the Spirit Sea Tier. And a few days ago, he had received word that Cai Junyang and Li Yunfan had also broken through. But Tang Jie was still at peak Spirit Lake. He had tried to get into Spirit Sea several times, but he was always one step away from succeeding. Even Wei Tianchong had caught up. After coming under Yan Changfeng’s wing, Wei Tianchong had been able to richly benefit from the minor blessed ground at the base of Sunwatch Peak.
The difference in talent started to become obvious.
Some people were already mocking Tang Jie, saying that the strength he had gotten through deception was finally being exposed, and the former gap was shrinking. They said that it probably wouldn’t be long before that Fierce Tiger Tang Jie, who had held the pass all by himself, became Trash Tang Jie.
Tang Jie had never imagined that a day would come where he was written off as trash, and he was rendered speechless.
But he knew that cultivation level was his greatest weakness, and he planned to fill this gap.
With this medicine, Spirit Sea would no longer be a problem, and if his luck was good, he might even be able to go a little further beyond that threshold.
When he arrived at Spirit Platform Pavilion, Madam Shui saw him and smiled. “So you still know to come and see me sometimes?”