After I Became a Divine Monarch, the Sect Wants Me to Marry In
Chapter 91: Withholding Half a Month’s Spirit Stones

Chapter 91: Chapter 91: Withholding Half a Month’s Spirit Stones

That very night.

Gu An arrived at the appointed place and was met by Yu Tu and Zeng Lan.

"Senior Brother Gu," Zeng Lan said with a smile:

"Have you completed your task?"

"Yes," Gu An nodded and spoke softly:

"How have the past couple of days been for you?"

"Very smooth," Zeng Lan said with a bit of helplessness:

"But some people always feel it’s different from before. In the past, Spirit Stones were given out upfront, but now it has changed to after the work is done."

Gu An nodded.

He felt that something might happen later on.

After all, delaying the distribution of Spirit Stones wasn’t a solution.

The accounts wouldn’t balance.

"What, what kinds of tasks are there for the Sect?" Yu Tu asked curiously.

"It involves going out with some powerful Senior Brothers and Senior Sisters. It might be to capture people or to capture Demon Beasts," Gu An said casually.

Afterward, they arrived at the logging area.

Gu An went to the Shocking God Wood area.

And began logging.

To advance to Foundation Establishment, he needed to test the effects of Shocking God Wood.

The first chop was still very light.

There wasn’t any notable sensation.

Although there was still a sting, it was much better than before...

The Innate Longevity Technique made both his spirit and Spiritual Energy more resilient.

Besides not being that strong in bursts, it was actually quite suitable for cultivating one’s character and temperament.

"Foundation Establishment really is different."

Not just the spiritual sting was imperceptible, but so was the extraction of Spiritual Energy.

However, this was just light logging. A heavier chop should yield a more noticeable feeling.

Afterward, Gu An increased his effort, and sure enough, the sensation became more pronounced.

He then found a suitable rhythm and immersed himself entirely in logging.

The appearance of a Warm Current was slow, but Gu An wasn’t in a hurry.

It took a long while before the Warm Current finally began to emerge.

But it wasn’t Hard Cultivation.

[Magic: 50/50]

After calculating the time, Gu An felt there was no change in his Magic.

But the continuous absence of Hard Cultivation was giving Gu An a headache.

The Spiritual Energy and age of Shocking God Wood should be sufficient.

Continue logging.

Until midnight had passed.

Only then did Gu An feel a new Warm Current.

[Hard Cultivation: 1/100]

Thus, Gu An breathed a sigh of relief, now that there was one, it meant that there might be three to five in a day.

This wouldn’t be too difficult.

Only when the sky began to brighten did Gu An finally stop logging.

The last Hard Cultivation value was at three.

Which meant he only got three to four points throughout the night.

It would take more than a month.

"It’s three times slower, but not too bad, I suppose."

The higher the upgrade, the better the spirit wood needed.

Not only does it have to be rich in Spiritual Energy, but it also has to be old enough.

Which means he needs to improve his cultivation swiftly to get access to better spirit wood.

If one day all these woods were no longer effective, he would have to seek the legendary divine wood.

But...

Can divine wood even be cut?

Gu An dared not think further.

After that was returning with the others.

Gu An remembered his tasks, but for now, he couldn’t do anything about it.

Just wait and see.

An Xinru certainly had other methods.

Additionally, he also needed to advance his cultivation; collapsing too quickly here wouldn’t do him any good.

As for why someone higher up would be interested in the profits here, he had no idea. Was it really that profitable?

This kind of gray market wasn’t large in scale.

It would probably be quite troublesome if discovered.

But Gu An didn’t care about the specifics.

He didn’t understand these people’s power struggles.

And there was no need to.

He needed to focus on improving his cultivation first.

In the next month, everything went very smoothly for Gu An.

During this period, Gu An improved his Magic twice, once through the Qi Breathing Chapter, and another time through the Planting Beans into Soldiers technique.

The Qi Breathing Chapter allowed him to better control Spiritual Energy and become more sensitive to it.

He could now also finely control his own strength.

The process of tempering the red beans became increasingly smooth.

By now, his Planting Beans into Soldiers technique had reached Great Success.

Besides the tempering becoming purer, the human-shaped patterns were also perfected.

Only the final step of Painting God was left.

However, that was also when the progression of learning magic techniques slowed by half.

By the end of this month, he may not even gain fifty magic techniques.

This indicated that these techniques were not easy to learn.

The only consolation was that the nine red beans could now exhibit the strength of the Ninth Level of Qi Refining.

That was somewhat useful.

But he had yet to acquire what he desired.

Firstly, a combat technique to replace Mountain Opening Fist, and secondly, Qi Sea Sky Gang.

End of the month.

Gu An felt that his numerical values were almost full.

But today was the day for distributing Spirit Stones.

As dawn broke, everyone was waiting.

They had toiled for a whole month just for a few Spirit Stones.

An Xinru did indeed come, and she did distribute the Spirit Stones.

But...

Gu An counted the Spirit Stones in his hand: a total of four.

Everyone else got three.

Instantly, there was a hubbub of voices.

"Why is it half less?"

Someone immediately spoke up to ask.

"Yeah, we were promised six, why is there only half now?"

"We’ve been toiling away at logging, all for Spirit Stones, how can it be halved just like that?"

Everyone’s comments were filled with indignation.

The Spirit Stones that were rightfully theirs had suddenly disappeared.

How could they stay calm?

At this time, An Xinru stood aloft, disdain in her eyes, then she circulated her Qi and scolded angrily: "Shut up."

The pressure surpassing Qi Refining made the crowd unable to withstand it for a moment.

She reached Foundation Establishment?

Gu An was extremely surprised.

She was at the ninth layer of Qi Refining just a few months ago, and now she had achieved Foundation Establishment?

That was a fast pace.

But when someone gets greedy, they could skim one or two thousand Spirit Stones at a time; and this time, she skimmed half of them.

Several thousand Spirit Stones might indeed enable someone to reach Foundation Establishment.

Not to mention she was just one step away from it.

"Since I’ve issued half less, naturally, there is a reason," An Xinru declared coldly.

"Then, Senior Sister, could you possibly share the reason?" someone braved to ask.

At that moment, An Xinru looked over, then pointed her finger.

A bolt of lightning emerged from her hand.

Boom!

It struck the person, flinging him away, while her contemptuous voice further reached everyone’s ears:

"How so? Do I, someone at Foundation Establishment, need to explain myself to you, a mere Qi Refiner?"

Gazing at the horrified faces below, An Xinru then continued:

"When you log, there are always accidents that make our people have to do extra work to clean up.

To ensure you work properly.

We’ve withheld half a month’s Spirit Stones and will distribute the full amount next month.

If you leave, make sure it’s a proper handover; leaving without permission affects our normal logging operations.

The withheld half month of Spirit Stones will not be distributed."

With her words falling, An Xinru leaped away.

She arrived where the man she had just struck down was.

Gu An looked over and recognized that the man was around forty or fifty years old.

He was even older than himself.

That was unexpected.

To see someone older than himself here.

The man wasn’t tall, and as he stood up, he was hunched over with his head lowered.

He looked quite disheveled.

"It seems you have a lot of complaints against me," An Xinru said coldly.

"No, I dare not," the man could only shake his head in fear.

"Since you have so many complaints, then get lost, we don’t need you here," An Xinru said contemptuously.

Hearing this, the man’s face was filled with fear, and then he knelt down and said:

"Sen, Senior, I have no complaints, I still need to stay here for logging."

An Xinru kicked out.

The man was sent flying with her kick: "I’ll give you one more chance, if you don’t work properly, don’t blame me for being heartless."