That night, a thin crescent moon hung behind dark clouds over Cloud-Mist Town.
Inside the basement chamber of Myriad-Pill Hall, Elder Dan had finally changed out of his ripped silver robe into a fresh purple gown, though he was still sitting on an ice-jade cushion because his backside was sore from his explosive midday breakthrough.
Even though his cultivation had smoothly jumped to Rank 5 Mid Foundation Establishment thanks to Pei Xuan’s strawberry gummy bears—and his floating Loyalty bar was secretly sitting at 48/100 whenever he thought about how clean his meridians felt—his pride as Vice-Pavilion Master could not bear the humiliation of being laughed at by fifty border towns!
Worse yet, if Pavilion Master Yao back at the main mountain headquarters found out that Elder Dan had lost 100% of the southern border market in forty-eight hours to a two-copper candy shop, Pavilion Master Yao would strip off his Grandmaster robe and throw him into the sect’s Ten-Thousand Snake Pit!
“Destroy it! You must burn that cursed pill factory to ashes before sunrise!”
Elder Dan slammed a heavy iron box filled with 300,000 Low-Grade Spirit Stones onto the stone table in front of thirty figures dressed from head to toe in tight black night-suits.
