Chapter 161 - 122: Silk Road
But that wasn’t important.
The cost for him to create one Skeleton Horse was only 100 Ghost Stones.
That meant a profit margin of 2,900 Ghost Stones.
He’d sell them to other powers for 1,500 Ghost Stones apiece, letting them flood the markets in Jiangnan and beyond. He would be content to make just 1,400 Ghost Stones per horse. He was easily satisfied, not greedy.
The rest would be profit for those powers.
If he just sold 1,000 of them...
That would be...
A profit of 1,400,000 Ghost Stones!!!
With so many factions in Jiangnan, absorbing 1,000 Skeleton Horses would be no problem at all. With that many Ghost Stones, he could turn all of Jiangbei into a Ghost Object forbidden zone!
What’s more,
besides the Skeleton Horses, he had many other wonderful and inexpensive treasures.
When he had destroyed the Pill Sect, he hadn’t seized that many Ghost Stones. For one, a faction’s liquid assets never accounted for much of its total wealth. Many of their other assets, like medicinal herbs, Elixirs, and Martial Arts, were either not intended for sale or were difficult to liquidate. Then there were the Pill Sect’s shops in other cities.
He hadn’t gone to any of them.
As a result, his gains hadn’t been that great.
But if this plan succeeded, a steady stream of Ghost Stones would flow into Jiangbei from all directions.
He named this plan.
The "Silk Road."
"Heh heh..."
As this thought crossed his mind, Chen Fan, leaning on his Jade Staff, gazed at the distant cliff face and drifted off, a chuckle escaping his lips. He could already picture the scene: having more Ghost Stones than he could ever spend, fortifying all of Jiangbei, and happily staying within its borders to count his endless pile of Ghost Stones.
’What a happy thought.’
"Domain Lord?"
"Domain Lord...?"
Just then—
Lame Monkey’s soft calls reached his ears. Chen Fan snapped out of it, looking at Zhou Mo and the others standing behind him, and then at the several hundred people gathered in the clearing before him.
The candidates had been selected.
Everyone had been assigned a suitable position.
Now it was his turn to give a speech.
"*Ahem*."
Having collected himself, Chen Fan stood his ground, leaning on his Jade Staff, and addressed the crowd in a low voice, "Today is your first official day as members of the Mortal Realm."
"The Mortal Realm is a new power, and many of its rules have yet to be established."
"But one thing is certain."
"In the future, the Mortal Realm will undoubtedly dominate Jiangbei, and even Jiangnan. As long as you all work diligently, the Mortal Realm will not treat you unfairly."
"Next."
"Find your respective Pavilion Masters. They will assign you your tasks."
"That is all. Dismissed."
He kept his speech short and said nothing more, leaving the rest to the various Pavilion Masters.
But he had noticed something over the past few days.
’This world is really just a slapdash operation.’
Take Xiaoyu.
He used to be just a station master’s attendant. To put it bluntly, he wasn’t someone of any standing.
But...
after becoming the Pavilion Master of the Logistics Pavilion, he really looked the part. It made Chen Fan feel that as long as a person occupied a certain position, they would automatically start to look like they belonged there. The real difficulty was getting into that position in the first place.
In other words,
it wasn’t that people sat in a position because they were exceptionally capable; it was more like they became exceptionally capable after sitting in that position.
He shook his head.
After clearing the jumble of thoughts from his mind,
he walked over to Hey Hey, patted its head gently, and gestured toward the center of the Celestial Pit. "Down there, underground, there might be ’Earth Gold.’ It’s a type of Heavenly and Earthly Treasure that looks black and gold and is extremely hard."
"Can you help me dig it out?"
Hey Hey watched Chen Fan’s gestures intently, thought for a moment, then nodded firmly. It scrambled to the center of the Celestial Pit and began to dig.
The ground here was extremely hard.
Even cannon fire would struggle to blast a hole in it, but the tough earth broke apart easily under Hey Hey’s forepaws.
He recalled what his stepmother had told him that day.
That person who had smashed a mountain with a hammer to create the Celestial Pit had compressed a huge amount of rock. After so many years, it might have formed the Heavenly and Earthly Treasure, ’Earth Gold’.
He didn’t know what Earth Gold was.
But he knew it was a valuable treasure.
’I definitely have to dig it up.’
"Young Master."
Just then—
Lame Monkey limped over, stood beside Chen Fan, and remarked with sudden emotion, "Shao Qiu, the Pavilion Master of the newly established Dark Pavilion, is an orphan who grew up without parents."
"I used to always say that most of us in this group are parentless."
"You were the only one who had a father, Young Master."
"But after today,"
"you’ve become a parentless orphan too, Young Master."
"..."
Chen Fan turned his head and looked at Lame Monkey, his expression blank. "Have you run out of crap to spew?"
"If you have nothing to say, don’t force a conversation."
"No..."
Lame Monkey, realizing he’d misspoken, ducked his head and mumbled, "I was just trying to say that we’re all family to each other... trying to express a warm sentiment, you know?"
The excavation continued.
Chen Fan was in no hurry.
He simply moved a table and chair over, sat down to leisurely bask in the sun, and supervised the work.
...
"You seventeen were handpicked by me from a group of 237. You will be the first seed of the Mortal Realm Dark Pavilion, and its future backbone."
Inside the Yunling Pavilion.
Shao Qiu stood before seventeen naked men and women, pacing back and forth as he spoke, his voice filled with an icy chill, enunciating every word.
"The Mortal Realm originally had no plans to create a Dark Pavilion."
"I was the one who convinced the Domain Lord to establish it. I do not wish to disappoint the Domain Lord, and I expect you not to disappoint me."
"This place is the Yunling Pavilion."
"Most of you came from the Wild Wolf Gang. All you need to know is that a power ten times stronger than your Wild Wolf Gang wouldn’t have a Yunling Pavilion. But the Mortal Realm does. It is your good fortune to be able to practice your Cultivation here."
"When you leave Jiangbei in the future,"
"you will understand just how precious the Yunling Pavilion is."
"My name is Shao Qiu."
"You can call me Young Pavilion Master... Er, call me Pavilion Master Qiu."
Shao Qiu paused for a moment before continuing, "You are all Level 1 Cultivators. There were others with higher Cultivation than you, but I chose you specifically because your foundations are clean."
"The highest-grade Mental Method in the Mortal Realm is currently Green Level."
"The Mental Method I will be teaching you, however,"
"is the Yellow Level Mental Method, the ’Shadow Killing Seven Orifice Technique’!"
"Training in the Dark Pavilion is brutal."
"It will test your character and resolve to the extreme."
"Of the seventeen of you, I will only keep ten in the end. But for those who remain in the Dark Pavilion, I can promise you this: you will become famous throughout the world. People will tremble in fear at the mere mention of your names."
"After one month of training, I will select ten of you and personally grant you a codename."
"Do you all understand?"
"Understood!"
The seventeen naked men and women standing in the Yunling Pavilion shouted their reply, their voices a mixture of apprehension and anticipation.
They were naturally excited to join the Mortal Realm Dark Pavilion.
They were all young.
Who among them didn’t want to become famous? Who didn’t want their name to be known throughout the world?
It was just...
’Why did we have to take our clothes off?’
Of the 17 people standing here, fourteen were men and three were women.
Being stark naked was somewhat... inconvenient.
Especially for hot-blooded youths.
...
"Perhaps you’re wondering why you had to take off your clothes."
"First,"
"The Cultivation of the Shadow Killing Seven Orifice Technique must be done without a single stitch of clothing."
"Second,"
"As an Assassin, you must abandon all distracting thoughts about men and women. This is especially true for female Assassins. Most of the time, your targets will be lecherous old men. You must strike the fatal blow at the very moment your target is about to pounce, when their lust is at its peak."
"Shedding your sense of shame is a necessary first step."
"Next—"
"I will recite the Shadow Killing Seven Orifice Technique for you. Memorize the Mental Method and feel for that faint, mysterious sensation."
"This is not just a Mental Method for raising your Cultivation. Once you comprehend it, learning other assassination and Stealth Martial Techniques will be twice as effective!"
After a brief pause, Shao Qiu’s voice, light and ethereal, slowly echoed through the Yunling Pavilion.
"The first part of the Shadow Killing Seven Orifice Technique."
"The Invisibility Chapter."
"See with dead eyes, hear with the wind."
"Sense with your breath, tongue to your palate."
"Body like stone, mind like the void."
"Tread on shadows, follow the yin trail."
"’See with dead eyes’ means to lower your gaze and let your focus blur, to see the living as if they were dead stone. When you are observing your target, do not stare directly at them. There are many experts out in the world; a direct stare will give you away."