Cultivating in Online Games

Chapter 82 - Buying the Sect’s Gate

Ye Zhou, still dazed, followed Dugu Zhuo to Beining City. After landing, noticing that Ye Zhou still looked absentminded, Dugu Zhuo reached out to gently touch his hair and softly said, “You don’t have to overthink it. Just go with the flow.”

Accepting someone filled with secrets is a difficult thing, especially when Ye Zhou himself didn’t know how long he could live. They had met in the game, and could part ways at any time. Talking about love now seemed a bit premature.

Dugu Zhuo stood in front of Ye Zhou as if he would continue looking at him until Ye Zhou took the initiative to approach.

This kind of gesture reassured Ye Zhou, and he decided to take things naturally, as Dugu Zhuo suggested, allowing this budding affection to grow slowly.

If one day those feelings did indeed take root, even if they could only maintain this relationship within the game, Ye Zhou would firmly walk that path.

The two entered Tingyu Pavilion’s teahouse. It was still early, and Ye Jian hadn’t logged in yet.

Since Ye Jian was the financial backer of their sect, establishing it required his presence. So, instead of rushing to gather information, they ordered two cups of tea and quietly sipped, occasionally glancing at each other, with light, fleeting touches between them.

Watching Dugu Zhuo drink tea gracefully, his Adam’s apple moving slightly as he swallowed, Ye Zhou gulped down his own water and privately messaged, “You… if everything you said is true, how do you eat?”

Dugu Zhuo smiled, “I don’t need to eat.”

When he first arrived in this game, he had to consume food within it, but now he was entirely sustained by absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, which fulfilled his daily energy needs.

“What about sleeping?” Ye Zhou asked again.

Dugu Zhuo replied, “I meditate for one to two hours daily.”

Ye Zhou propped his arm on the table, drinking tea while watching Dugu Zhuo sideways. He thought Dugu Zhuo looked so elegant, with a handsome face, long fingers, and even long eyelashes. He was like a fairy who only drank dew!

Though, the fairy was taller than him.

Ye Jian logged into the game right at Ye Zhou’s usual time, precisely at 9 a.m. As soon as he entered the teahouse, he saw Ye Zhou leaning half over the table, staring unblinkingly at Dugu Zhuo’s face.

Dugu Zhuo, on the other hand, appeared oblivious to Ye Zhou’s gaze, focused on his now-empty teacup. He looked flawless, not even a strand of hair out of place.

Ye Jian, seeing this picturesque scene, felt a rush of irritation. He could tell his cousin was falling hard. Due to his health, Ye Zhou rarely interacted with others and had a simple nature. If he fell in love, it would likely be intense and unstoppable.

Stopping him might backfire, so Ye Jian thought it best to observe for now. As long as this stayed within the game, it was fine. But if Ye Zhou wanted to pursue a relationship outside the game, then he’d need to investigate Dugu Zhuo’s romantic history.

While Ye Jian often dragged his feet during dungeons and indulged himself in the game, he was incredibly patient with important matters. Pretending not to notice the atmosphere between the two, he burst into the teahouse in a flurry, sitting between them and pouring himself a cup of tea. After downing it in one gulp, he said, “You guys got here early, huh? Have you been waiting long?”

“Not really, it hasn’t been that long,” Ye Zhou replied, sitting up straight while sneaking a glance at Dugu Zhuo.

“It’s only been a cup of tea’s time,” Dugu Zhuo calmly added, gently adjusting his sleeve to reveal his slender, strong wrist. Following down from the wrist, one could see his long, distinct fingers holding a delicate white jade teacup, making both the hand and the cup look like a painting. It was hard to tell if the hand or the teacup was more beautiful.

Ye Jian slammed his teacup down on the table, shattering the serene scene, and casually asked, “Did you ask the NPCs for information yet?”

“Not yet,” Dugu Zhuo replied calmly, his tone revealing no emotion.

“Perfect, let’s go ask then,” Ye Jian stood up. Seeing neither of them moving, he grabbed Ye Zhou and yanked him to his feet. “Come on, time to establish the sect!”

Only then did Dugu Zhuo and Ye Zhou stand up and follow Ye Jian to gather information.

Ye Jian approached the task strategically. Instead of directly asking the Tingyu Pavilion disciples about Tiger Roar Mountain’s jurisdiction, he inquired about how much it cost to post tasks at the pavilion.

The disciples responded truthfully, explaining that they would take 1% of the task’s reward as a fee, and that task posters were also required to pay an upfront cost. Tasks posted at Tingyu Pavilion could be accessed by players across the entire server, and if the reward was high enough, even NPCs could take the tasks. It was a flexible system, but ultimately another way for the game to collect money.

“What about inquiring about in-game matters?” Ye Jian asked, “Excluding settings that can be searched on the official website.”

The disciple replied, “You can buy information from Tingyu Pavilion as well. Here’s a list of types of information available. You can select your question and pay the required price. If your question isn’t listed, you can manually input it, and Tingyu Pavilion will find the correct answer for you.”

This was the so-called all-knowing and all-powerful Tingyu Pavilion.

The disciple handed them a jade slip, which worked like a searchable menu. There were various categories and subcategories. Ye Jian clicked around and eventually found the question he needed under the menu for “Geographical Knowledge – Dungeon Geography – Yao Ling Tiger Fang Dungeon – Dungeon Region Jurisdiction.”

Instead of paying money for the answer, the price was a task: go to Jiuchuan City’s Spirit Plant Garden to harvest 20 kilograms of catnip and deliver it to the tigers in Xishan.

“A task for an answer—how interesting,” Ye Jian remarked. “But what does this have to do with the jurisdiction of Tiger Roar Mountain?”

Dugu Zhuo responded, “Perhaps the tiger demon’s maternal clan comes from the Xishan tiger group. I remember there was a landslide in Xishan not long ago, killing many plants. It will take some time for them to grow back.”

The recent Xishan landslide… The system occasionally released messages like, “Jiuchuan City experiences a locust plague, reducing farmers’ harvests,” or “A minor earthquake occurs in Beining City, with no casualties,” akin to weather forecasts.

Ye Jian opened the system’s history and found a message from half a month ago: “A landslide in Xishan leaves the tigers without their next meal of catnip.”

He had always wondered why the game released such messages. Now it seemed that each one might be tied to a small task or story.

“This really feels like a little world of its own,” Ye Jian remarked, finding it quite amusing.

He accepted the task, paid the deposit at Tingyu Pavilion, borrowed three sickles, and set off to harvest catnip.

Dugu Zhuo didn’t follow right away. He took the jade slip and browsed through the “Sects,” “Factions,” and “Organizations” menus. Not finding what he was looking for, he typed “Fushen Temple” into the search bar.

A message appeared: “Your level is too low to access information on Fushen Temple.”

The jade slip displayed the following line of text: 

“It’s not an invalid search, but a lack of access rights. So, Fushen Temple does exist in the game.”

Fushen Temple was a sect of demonic cultivators in the cultivation world, but it had always been shrouded in mystery. Especially after the fusion of the Nine Heavens into one realm, the organization seemed to have disappeared. For the past ten years, Dugu Zhuo hadn’t heard any news about it.

After escaping from the painting, Dugu Zhuo had secretly gone to Tan Ye Temple one night while Ye Zhou was offline and brought Master Tanji into this world again.

Dugu Zhuo inquired about Fushen Temple, but Master Tanji said that since the collapse of the Heavenly Pillar, he had been wandering the human world to accumulate virtue and hadn’t been paying attention to the cultivation world. He didn’t know if Fushen Temple had shown any signs of activity but agreed to help Dugu Zhuo investigate.

After the painting incident, the Yao Ling Tiger Fang dungeon also mentioned this organization, prompting Dugu Zhuo to look it up. Unexpectedly, he was met with the “insufficient level” restriction.

He temporarily set the matter aside and flew to Jiuchuan City with Ye Jian, who couldn’t use true energy. Ye Jian arrived at the Spirit Plant Garden and eagerly started cutting catnip. After about ten minutes of hard work, he looked back to see Dugu Zhuo and Ye Zhou standing still, watching him silently.

“What are you looking at?” Ye Jian huffed. “Get to work!”

Dugu Zhuo lightly tapped his fingers, and his sword flew out, automatically cutting the grass in the field with precision and speed.

Ye Zhou, feeling sympathetic, glanced at Ye Jian and summoned his own flying sword, controlling it with a spirit technique to automate the grass cutting as well.

Ye Jian: “…”

To make work easier, he had even rolled up his sleeves, tied his cuffs, and wrapped a floral handkerchief around his head, making him look both rustic and ridiculous.

He ripped off the handkerchief and threw it into the grass, grumbling, “Why didn’t you say earlier that you could use flying swords to cut grass?”

Dugu Zhuo smiled faintly. “You seemed so enthusiastic. I thought you enjoyed this style of play, so I left some fun for you.”

Ye Zhou added awkwardly, “I also thought you were really into it…”

Unlike Dugu Zhuo, Ye Zhou wasn’t as sly. He blushed and quickly realized he couldn’t continue his excuse after a few words.

While Ye Jian stormed off into the catnip patch, Dugu Zhuo privately messaged Ye Zhou: “The scenery here is nice. Want to leave Brother Yuanhang to work while we take a stroll?”

Ye Zhou admitted that he had been swayed by Dugu Zhuo’s tone and smile at that moment. Moreover, his cousin had been a bit of a third wheel at the teahouse earlier, so he quietly slipped away with Dugu Zhuo for a walk. When his cousin finally noticed, they acted as if nothing had happened and helped finish the grass cutting.

With two flying swords assisting, they soon gathered enough catnip. The manager of the Spirit Plant Garden symbolically charged them 10 low-grade spirit stones, which was about 1 yuan in real-world currency.

Dugu Zhuo stored the catnip in a magical storage item and delivered it to the tiger clan in Xishan.

Most of these tigers hadn’t developed spiritual intelligence yet, although one or two showed traces of demonic energy, but they weren’t very powerful. They hadn’t gained full sentience.

Dugu Zhuo carried the scent of a white tiger, and these tigers, intimidated by the aura of a Nascent Soul-stage tiger demon, all lay flat on the ground, not daring to move. Dugu Zhuo casually tossed the catnip onto the mountain and used his true energy to urge the tigers to eat. A particularly bold young tiger took the first bite, and on Ye Jian’s side, the task completion notice appeared.

The three returned to Tingyu Pavilion, where they found the answer in the jade slip: Tiger Roar Mountain belonged to Beining City. The answer even thoughtfully provided a map, guiding them to the local government office.

The trio arrived at the government office, and upon hearing that they wanted to purchase Tiger Roar Mountain, the Beining City governor immediately ordered the clerks to prepare the contract, offering a price of 20 million taels of silver.

“Twenty million?” Even the usually composed Dugu Zhuo was startled by the amount. “Why is it so expensive? The system clearly said it would only cost 10 million.”

The governor explained, “Tiger Roar Mountain covers a large area, so naturally, it’s more expensive. The 10 million price is for the land but requires annual production taxes. The 20 million price gives you full ownership with no further taxes. Which would you prefer?”

With that in mind, the 20 million option was clearly better, but did they have that much money?

Dugu Zhuo and Ye Zhou turned expectantly toward Ye Jian.

Straightening his back, Ye Jian cleared his throat and put on a confident expression. “A single Beauty-Preserving Pill can sell for tens of thousands of taels. How many did you refine? Especially since the Beining City map opened, I’ve even set up shop here. How much money do you think we have?”

Dugu Zhuo had long lost track of how many batches of pills he’d refined. According to the old monk at Tan Ye Temple, it was “one batch after another.” He had been refining pills every night, and the output rate was very high.

“I’m not sure. Please enlighten me, Brother Yuanhang,” Dugu Zhuo humbly said.

Ye Jian rolled his eyes—*So it’s ‘Brother Yuanhang’ when there’s something you want, but otherwise I’m just in the way, huh?*

“The account has over 30 million taels of silver. Buying this land is no problem at all.” Ye Jian boasted proudly.

He immediately pulled out the silver notes, handed them over to the governor, and signed the land deed. After going through the paperwork with the clerk and paying an additional 10,000 spirit stones as a handling fee, Tiger Roar Mountain was officially theirs.