The sword moved like lightning and reached Zhang Sheng’s abode in the blink of an eye. This was Wei Yuan’s first visit to his master’s residence. The courtyard looked somewhat messy, stacked with all sorts of strange tools and materials. It looked nothing like what he thought an immortal’s abode should look like, and definitely not as wealthy as Bao Yun’s.

Zhang Sheng instructed him to take a seat at the study before carrying a box from somewhere. He grew absent-minded for an instant when he opened it and saw the stacks and stacks of jade papers inside.

“It’s been ten years…” The scholar let out a sigh before covering up the box. Then, he picked up an empty piece of jade paper from the table and placed it in front of his disciple.

“Sign your name and drip three drops of blood on this,” Zhang Sheng said expressionlessly.

“What is this?” Wei Yuan felt vaguely uneasy for some reason.

“It’s the amount of cultivation resources you’ve used in the past decade. Now that you are one step away from becoming a Dao Foundation cultivator, it is time you start paying your debt. Your due as a Skyblue Hall disciple has already been deducted from it.”

Wei Yuan thought that this was a reasonable arrangement. According to the Palace’s regulations, disciples at the same cultivation stage enjoyed more or less the same benefits. Not every hall treated their disciples the exact same way, but overall, the difference was insignificant.

Generally speaking, every disciple in the Palace of Absolute Beginning received a monthly stipend. It was nothing to write home about and just enough to maintain their basic cultivation needs. If a disciple wished to progress faster, then they would need to seek help from their own families. Bao Yun and Xiao Yun, scions of aristocratic families, were two such examples.

Another method was prioritizing support for gifted disciples. Each hall would contribute a portion of their cultivation resources to these disciples. Zhang Sheng, for instance, enjoyed a monthly stipend that rivaled that of an Avatar Trueman.

All debts must be repaid—it was only natural. Although the jade paper remained blank, Wei Yuan signed his name and dripped his blood on it out of trust in Zhang Sheng. The jade paper absorbed his blood in an instant and remembered the signature of his primordial spirit. Thus, the contract was formed.

Zhang Sheng pointed at the paper, and words slowly began appearing on it. Wei Yuan nearly fainted when he saw the long, long string of numbers on the paper.

Immortal silver owed: 23,770,000 taels

The trailing zeroes were meaningless—what really mattered were the first two digits. Wei Yuan had never imagined that his debt would amount to a whopping twenty-three million taels of immortal silver! As a novice disciple, assuming he never ate or drank, it would still take him two hundred thousand years to repay it all, and that was assuming that no interest was charged. It didn’t make a difference even after he became a Dao Foundation disciple. The monthly stipend of an average Dao Foundation disciple was a hundred taels give or take. He would need to fast for twenty thousand years straight to repay everything he owed. He would be dead long before he repaid his debt, not even if he had the lifespans of ten Avatar Truemen combined.

Thank goodness Zhang Sheng added that the debt didn’t come with interest. Otherwise, there was a chance his dao heart would have crumbled on the spot.

Wei Yuan struggled to regain his composure, and no wonder—he owed Bao Yun a mere two hundred thousand taels, yet had already acted against his true nature on multiple occasions. Even a True Lord would find it difficult to remain unruffled if they were suddenly burdened with such a colossal debt.

Upon regaining his composure, Wei Yuan started reflecting on his decade of cultivation carefully. Truth be told, the cost of his pills alone was a staggering number. He just could not be bothered to keep track of it as every day he ate a pill was a day he felt like dying.

Besides that, the refinement of his foundation probably cost a lot of money as well. He only recognized some of the herbs Ji Liuli had used, but each one cost at least ten thousand immortal silver or higher. Sure, they weren’t on the level of a natural treasure, but most people used a natural treasure only once in a long while. He had used these herbs to refine his foundation once every week.

Surprisingly, Wei Yuan slowly settled down after the initial panic had passed. In the end, he felt calmer than when he only owed ten thousand taels. Back then, he was so worried that he went sleepless for many nights and felt like taking an extra bite of rice was an unforgivable sin. Multiple times, he had nearly suffered a cultivation deviation while thinking about his debt.

Suddenly, Wei Yuan recalled a saying he had heard when he was younger: A cloud of fleas won’t make you itch harder than a couple fleas; a mountain of debt won’t trouble you more than a hill of debt.

The sages were wise and truthful for sure.

After retrieving the jade paper, Zhang Sheng carefully stored it in a secret compartment in a wall and even sealed it with a couple sword qi. It was only then he went over to Wei Yuan and asked, “Do you think that my immortal swords are worth tens of millions of immortal silver?”

Wei Yuan’s first instinct was to nod his head, but he realized that the flattery would be so outlandish that it would have the opposite effect instead. Thus, he replied honestly, “No, they are not.”

Zhang Sheng rolled his eyes at him and corrected him, “They’re not worth that much now!”

“They’re not worth that much now!” Wei Yuan repeated after his master and put emphasis on the word “now”.

It was only then Zhang Sheng nodded in satisfaction and asked, “Do you think that your grandmaster’s “Heavenly Fire that Boils the Ocean” Avatar is worth tens of millions of immortal silver?”

Wei Yuan’s first instinct was to shake his head, but he changed it into a nod upon further consideration.

“No, you fool! Not even close!” Zhang Sheng corrected him again while wearing a look of frustration and exasperation. “That old… your grandmaster’s Avatar isn’t even worth as much as my immortal swords, not to mention that he had drained his purse dry a long time ago.” 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Wei Yuan was an intelligent boy to begin with, so he figured out his master’s meaning immediately. “I see. It’s the founder the debtors are giving face to…”

Setting the debt aside, securing a loan of twenty million taels of immortal silver was an accomplishment in itself. For example, Wei Yuan, with his reputation as the top scorer of the unified exam, could barely borrow one hundred thousand taels. Zhang Sheng and his collection of immortal swords wasn’t worth ten million taels, and neither was Trueman Fen Hai’s “Heavenly Fire that Boils the Ocean” Avatar.

Out of everyone in the Skyblue Hall, only the face of True Lord Xuan Yue was worth over twenty million immortal silver.

“You understand now, don’t you? If you dare form a heaven foundation[1], forget Founder Xuan Yue, I will purge you from this hall myself!”

But you said earlier that you would purge me only if my Dao Foundation is Earth-tier…. Wei Yuan complained mentally, but dared not reveal his thoughts on his face.

“Head back and pack your luggage. In three days, the sect will have a flying vessel departing for Gan Province. I will accompany you then.”

Three days later, Wei Yuan boarded the flying vessel and left the Green Cliffs That Hang Over An Empty Valley for the first time in a decade.

This flying vessel was dramatically different from the one he had ridden when he first arrived at the Palace of Absolute Beginning. For starters, it measured one hundred and fifty zhang in length and thirty zhang in height. Its deck featured a nine-story tower above, and a seven-level compartment below. Dark blue in color and crafted from ten-thousand-year-old spirit wood, the vessel was capable of carrying up to ten thousand passengers. However, only several hundred cultivators were heading to Gan Province this time, so the large majority of the below-deck compartments were used to store goods. At full capacity, the vessel was said to be capable of carrying one million shi of weight.

The giant vessel flew much slower than normal. It would take seven days for them to get to Gan Province. Wei Yuan had no qualms with this as it meant he could properly appreciate the scenery along the way. Ten years ago, the flying vessel was too fast, and he was too small. All he had managed to see outside the window was a bunch of strange lines he couldn’t make sense of.

Whenever he had the time, Wei Yuan would run up to the deck. There was nothing more he enjoyed than standing on the bow, watching the clouds soaring toward him and passing from under the ship. The sky stood above him, the world lay beneath him, and he existed between the two planes while filled with passion and excitement. There was simply nothing like it.

As he admired the world around him day after day, he felt as if his heart was slowly becoming wide enough to fit a world of his own.

One day, Wei Yuan was standing at the bow again and admiring the scenery. At some point, Zhang Sheng decided to join him. Looking at the rolling sea of clouds, he said, “We will arrive at the battlefield tomorrow. Are you not afraid?”

“Will I die?”

“This is a battlefield between humans and the foreign races. Anything can happen. This isn’t something even the charlatans in the Heavenly Mysteries Hall can divine. In other words, anyone can die. You, me, even the Three Immortals. They too had succumbed one after another after the great battle, haven’t they?”

Despite what Zhang Sheng said, Wei Yuan was a young man. Not only was he fearless, he was looking forward to the upcoming challenges. Suddenly, he asked, “Can I ask you a question?”

Zhang Sheng let out a chuckle. “A great battle lies ahead of us, and still you are thinking about random things. Fine, ask away.”

“I noticed that a lot of people in the Palace have Dao partners. What kind of Dao partner are you looking for, shifu?”

“You little…” Zhang Sheng shook his head. A question like this would usually annoy him, but strangely, not this time. Instead, he pointed toward the sea of clouds ahead of them and replied, “There exists great love between heaven and earth, human and other humans. Naturally, love too exists in my heart. However, my love is a great love for this world, and for humanity, not the romantic kind between men and women.”

1. Short form for Heaven-tier Dao Foundation, just like immortal foundation is short form for Immortal-tier Dao Foundation. ☜