Decaying World Chapter 232

Chapter 232

It was early January, and more than ten days had passed since the Clear Wind Dao arrived in Black Cloud. That evening, the disciples who had gone to sea trickled back one by one, gathering at Lin Hui's residence in Xinque Town to report their haul.

"The voyage turned a solid profit—over a hundred sea pearls and more than ten thousand jin of third-grade sea fish. We also picked up a sea Relic: a blue conch, common enough, used for reading wind direction. Total revenue is sowhere between six and eight million qian," Su Yaping summarized.

"With Senior Su's strength, the haul was always going to be impressive. The rest of us were just along for the ride," Wang Hongshi said with a wry smile.

"With profits this size, all of you should be careful. Wealth invites envy—it will draw attention you don't want," Lin Hui warned.

"Master, why don't you join us? The martial academy only pays so much a month. It's hardly worth it," Xia Si suggested.

"No need," Lin Hui said with a smile. "Money can always be made. What matters is having the strength and backing to hold on to it."

"You are right, which is why I've already paid my respects to the relevant local bosses. Half the money has already been distributed and sent over," Wang Hongshi said in a low voice.

"Good. Things on my end are also on track. The next step is to work my way up steadily. The martial academy has a high ceiling and trendous room for growth, but we can't rush it." Over the past few days, Lin Hui had thoroughly inquired about the academy's promotion ladder.

He currently held an auxiliary teaching position. Above that ca the class teacher, the head class teacher, and finally the Vice Dean and Dean.

Once one reached the level of head class teacher, inco from external study halls was staggering. A single student's annual tuition stood at one million qian—and the head class teacher of the Fifth Branch maintained a full fifty or sixty students in their external study hall. This was entirely contingent on the strength of the students' assessnt results.

In Black Cloud, teacher-student bonds reached into every corner of society, effectively forming networks of interlocking academic factions.

"Our goal is financial self-sufficiency and a stable environnt for cultivation. Everything else serves that end," Lin Hui said.

He looked up at the hazy full moon. "No matter where everyone is, from now on we will gather at fixed intervals. The Clear Wind Dao will temporarily halt recruitnt, keeping only the current sixty-six people as the core."

"Does the Dao Master an we should go underground—shifting from an open organization to sothing more covert?" Su Yaping asked quietly. He had adapted to his new role with remarkable speed; even before learning the sect's legacy arts, he already counted himself a true mber of the Clear Wind Dao.

"Yes. Operating openly brings too many unnecessary entanglents and makes us a target. Better to work in the shadows," Lin Hui said.

"Then—what about operational expenses?" Wang Hongshi hesitated.

"We each cover our own. With no headquarters, no idle hands, and no social obligations to maintain, our periodic gatherings will cost almost nothing. I'll cover that much," Lin Hui said with a laugh.

"How could we allow that? We'll handle it—we wouldn't dream of letting the Dao Master pay," Wang Hongshi said quickly.

The others hurried to voice their agreent.

"Everyone, rember: your commitnt to the Clear Wind Dao and your loyalty to the sect are what keep the Law Seals you received in effect. At every gathering, I will verify that the seals remain intact," Lin Hui said.

"We will obey the Dao Master's orders to the letter," Wang Hongshi replied.

The others followed suit.

"Then it's settled. From now on, we gather once a year at this ti." Lin Hui turned around. "If there's nothing else, you're dismissed."

After confirming the schedule, the disciples took their leave one by one.

Left alone, Lin Hui stood in the courtyard with his eyes closed, taking stock of his remaining precious dicines.

Without a faction's pill-refining supply chain behind him, his stock of Black Emperor Pills had run dry on the voyage. The Blood Seal's accelerated evolution window—one month equal to eight—was gone; he would have to endure real ti again. It had reverted to a snail's pace. The sheer drop in progress sat uneasily with him.

I must increase profits and rebuild the supply chain for dicine—purchasing and refining both. I have the formulas; I can refine the pills myself. The bottlenecks are profit, channels, procurent, equipnt, and a venue. At this rate, my savings won't outlast my consumption of Black Emperor Pills and everything else. A lean, workable plan was already forming in his mind.

With his Concordance pill-refining special effect, making money would actually be straightforward.

[Special Effect: Concordance (When refining dicinal pills, your success rate will increase by 30%.)]

He had evolved this effect back during his early dicine-refining days. Now it would earn its keep.

But he wanted more than just money. Back in his room, Lin Hui inventoried his remaining precious dicines. He still had fourteen stalks of Purple Cloud Reishi and twenty-one stalks of Spirit-Enriching Reishi. The dicine garden at the maze ruins had only just been established—normal growth would take at least five years, yielding a harvest of sixty stalks. That tiline already reflected the Blood Seal's evolution, which had cost him quite a few stalks of Purple Cloud Reishi to achieve.

Sure enough, growing them myself can't compete with buying or taking them. With a quiet sigh, Lin Hui gave up on the farming plan entirely.

After so thought, he settled on his next priority: continuing to evolve conceptual constructs on the order of the Law Seals. Everything he had evolved so far had confird that only these types of abilities were truly unrestricted—traveling with him freely, bound by neither location nor circumstance.

I already have Law Seals for strength enhancent. Pushing that further is pointless and might kill the sect mbers' initiative. Better to develop other dinsions: auxiliary abilities, or a secret art for long-distance communication.

Internal Force sound transmission was useful at close range, but utterly ineffective over any real distance. An ultra-long-range communication art exclusive to the Clear Wind Dao would change that entirely.

Once that was done, it would also be ti to evolve the Star Breath Sword Canon again.

…

A year slipped past.

By the ti it had gone, the Typhoon Sword Technique's Body Tempering had reached the upper limit of the Nine Ranks, and the special effect Micro-Flash had been quietly acquired in the process. Lin Hui himself barely noticed the change—having it active or dormant seed to make no discernible difference. Its purpose, for now, remained unclear.

In addition, the Blood Seal had evolved a communication secret art for the Clear Wind Dao—a group special effect, to be precise. Woven from Wind Disaster Force, Lin Hui nad it Wind Chi. When invoked, it automatically conjured a translucent, illusory wind chi from Internal Force, sounding with a clean, crisp ring.

After distributing the secret art to all core mbers, Lin Hui settled back into the sa dull, steady rhythm he had kept in Tuyue—teaching, cultivating, buying dicine, refining pills, day after day in an unbroken cycle.

Under that repetition, a network belonging to the Clear Wind Dao quietly took root and spread across Xinque Town. Many disciples made connections of their own and integrated smoothly into the local community. They didn't follow his instructions to the letter, either—they still voluntarily set aside a portion of their monthly earnings as operational funds for the sect, no matter how many tis he told them not to bother.

Over the year, Lin Hui worked his way through the Inner City's dicine procurent channels, learned the processes, and settled into a stable rhythm. The Body Tempering breakthrough of the Typhoon Sword Technique had substantially deepened and strengthened his mind-spirit; a faint, iridescent light had begun surfacing at his glabella.

While everything moved forward smoothly, the opportunity Lin Hui had long been waiting for finally arrived.

…

Fifth Branch of the Taisu Martial Academy.

Lin Hui gathered his teaching docunts, left the office, and made his way down the third-floor corridor. Most of the colleagues he passed offered a slight nod in greeting. Over the past year, he had grown familiar with nearly every teacher in the branch.

Having confird that the Inner City of Black Cloud was relatively stable, he had decided the ti was right to move on his next plan.

He walked at an unhurried pace, expression calm, returning each nod and brief smile as he went.

Whether it's access to precious dicine, protection for the sect mbers' businesses, or the quiet stability my own cultivation requires—I need a powerful faction behind . I have the strength. What I need is a faction to ensure that eliminating an opponent won't draw the wrath of sothing larger. Building one from scratch would take too long. Better to borrow one outright.

The question is how.

Lin Hui let his gaze drift down to the drill grounds below, where three young students stood watching the others run through the standard Seven Smoke-Cloud Forms under the head class teacher's guidance.

These three were the trainees with the strongest backgrounds in the Fifth Branch—two girls and a boy, all around fifteen or sixteen. At that age, still without Internal Force, they were either poorly gifted or simply hadn't tried at all.

"Dao Master, the investigation is complete." Li Yuanyuan, princess of the Shadowhound Clan, appeared silently at Lin Hui's shoulder and transmitted her report through Wind Chi.

"Let's hear it." Lin Hui stopped, leaning against the third-floor railing as though admiring the view below.

"The three are Xie Rongsheng, Fan Lingxi, and Zhu Fei. All co from Trueblood Noble families, though none has amounted to much. Xie Rongsheng is unmotivated, indolent, entirely pleasure-driven, and not particularly bright. His aptitude is average."

"And the other two?"

"Fan Lingxi was born with plain features and congenital deformities that are difficult to correct. Combined with poor aptitude, she was cast off by her family and deposited in this fringe martial academy to fend for herself."

"Zhu Fei is a different case. It's said she indulged too freely in the Moon Tower, provoking several Trueblood youths to fight over her out of jealousy. She severely injured multiple people and had more than one unwanted pregnancy. Her family couldn't manage the fallout and sent her here."

Li Yuanyuan had clearly mastered the art of intelligence-gathering. From the mont Lin Hui gave the order to the mont she delivered a detailed report, a single month had passed.

"Well done. How verified is this?" Lin Hui asked through voice transmission.

"At least sixty percent confird," Li Yuanyuan said seriously.

She hesitated, studying his back.

"Dao Master, these three are essentially discarded pieces—too far gone for anyone to invest in. They bully other students and have poor character. Isn't this choice rather reckless? Xie Rongsheng especially—he has no desire to advance at all. Even if opportunity were forced into his hands, he couldn't hold on to it."

"Let correct one thing: any person can be motivated to advance, without exception." A hint of a smile passed through Lin Hui's eyes.

"The reason he lacks motivation now is simply that he hasn't yet suffered a sufficiently devastating blow."

"Do you an we should engineer a crisis first, then appear at the right mont?" Li Yuanyuan guessed.

"Appear to rescue them? That's unnecessary. A little hope is enough. Their gratitude isn't my concern—I only need their obedience."

"This disciple doesn't understand," Li Yuanyuan said, lowering her head.

"Having been abandoned, each of them carries a suppressed fire—a hunger to rise. I only need to make each one feel like the protagonist of their own story. They'll convince themselves that the strength and power they failed to grasp before was only because their mont had not yet co..."

Lin Hui paused, the corners of his lips curving slightly.

"And right now, I am that mont."

These three were the disposable pawns he was cultivating. He would use them when the ti ca, and when they had served their purpose, cut them loose. The plan required nothing more than quiet, anonymous contact—no identity exposed, no direct involvent. By letting all three display a asure of capability, he could channel their influence and the resources they accumulated toward his own ends.

With the Law Seals, all of this was straightforward. And should the day co when he no longer needed them, he could simply retract the seals and drop each of them back to nothing in an instant.

Of course, if one of the three genuinely turned things around and proved themselves, Lin Hui wouldn't be opposed to taking them into the sect in earnest.