Chapter 27: Twenty-Three Spirit Stones
The group finally stopped after entering the main city.
All twenty-nine of them were stunned. All except Wujin Shi.
Everyone had heard the rapid succession of Firebomb Talisman explosions earlier. In YY, Qingtian Wai had already voiced what everyone was thinking: "Holy shit! How many spirit stones did that burn through?!"
The man who had just blown up several million spirit stones acted as if nothing had happened. Meanwhile, the raid chat had exploded.
[Raid] Lu Ren: Turns out the gap between me and a top player isn't just skill—it's also the cold, hard amount of money we have...
[Raid] Ruan Ruan Da: Xiao Chi! We need a highlight video! Please edit together Wujin Shi's epic moments from just now! It'll definitely look amazing if you do it!
[Raid] Fan Xing: Nothing else going on, right? If not, I'm leaving to do my dailies. Anyone want to party up?
[Raid] Feng Cheng: Me.
[Raid] Qingzhou Yiguo: Ah, thank you, everyone. Seriously, thank you all so much.
[Raid] Floating: I'm off to do dailies too. Xiao Chi, please turn your stream audio back on! My favorite pastime is doing dailies while listening to your stream!
[Raid] Ruan Ruan Da: If you really want to thank us, release tonight's highlight compilation ASAP!
One by one, the players who had been dragged over by viewers left the raid. The remaining viewers excitedly wanted screenshots with Wujin Shi and Qingzhou Yiguo, gathering at the city gate and taking pictures for quite a while.
Chi Zhen thanked each of them individually and saw the righteous bystanders off.
Eventually, only Wujin Shi, Qingtian Wai, Qian Yu, and himself remained in both the raid and YY.
Qingtian Wai and Qian Yu were discussing gear and skill builds. Wujin Shi stood motionless at the city gate, apparently AFK while people took screenshots around him. No one knew whether the person behind the keyboard was even still there.
"Um..." Chi Zhen finally spoke, asking the question the stream chat had been spamming all this time. "You guys quit the guild. What are your plans now? Which guild are you going to join? Is Wujin Shi planning to start his own guild?"
"Huh? No idea," Qingtian Wai replied. "I saw this guy quit, so I quit too."
Qian Yu followed with complete sincerity: "The reason is exactly what I told Guild Leader Han earlier. Wherever Wujin Shi-ge goes, I'll go."
Wujin Shi still didn't seem to be back at his computer. No response came.
The stream chat scrolled rapidly.
[Wait, don't you have your own guild? You're literally the guild leader. Why aren't you inviting them?]
[They basically turned against Way of Heaven because of you, and you're still not inviting them?]
[Maybe our Xiao Chi is too socially anxious to know how to bring it up.]
[Xiao Chi's farming guild probably only has one active member—himself. Not to be rude, but if Wujin Shi joined, they still couldn't even form a full five-man team for battlegrounds.]
[Uh... Wujin Shi is loyal and all, but the number-one player on the server should join a major guild with resources and rankings.]
And that was exactly why Chi Zhen couldn't bring himself to say anything.
His farming guild had never been developed. It contained nothing except farmland.
The size and development level of a guild affected almost every aspect of a player's experience.
In Wendao Qingtian, after a guild sanctuary was established, members had to work together to develop it. Guild buildings required the Construction profession, gathering wood, stone, and other materials little by little. Farmland, rivers, and ponds had to be reclaimed and dug out collectively. The guild kitchen's level increased only through continuously cooking food.
As a result, larger guilds naturally developed much faster and better.
The size of a guild sanctuary directly affected players' stamina. The larger the sanctuary, the greater the stamina bonus and the longer the stamina bar. And stamina was the foundation of all life skills. A longer stamina bar meant being able to craft more items.
The higher the guild kitchen's level, the greater the chance of producing food with enhanced effects.
Once a guild sanctuary reached certain milestones, NPCs who sold hidden weapons and rare equipment components would appear. In large guild sanctuaries, players could spend spirit points earned from daily activities to purchase rare equipment fragments.
The attraction for ordinary players was enormous.
That was why the overwhelming majority of players preferred large guilds.
For elite players, the benefits were even greater. Guild resources, stockpiled materials, and high-level equipment drops from guild raids were all prioritized for top players.
Not to mention that many small guilds couldn't even organize thirty-player raids and had to rely on pickup groups. Pickup groups consisted of strangers. Coordination was weaker. Mistakes happened more often. Efficiency was lower.
In short, from the moment Wujin Shi quit Way of Heaven, all the disadvantages of small guilds had flooded through Chi Zhen's mind. There was no way he could bring himself to invite the three of them into his little farming guild.
Qingtian Wai and Qian Yu had already gone off to the warehouse to examine Qingtian Wai's pitifully small collection of equipment. Meanwhile, Chi Zhen remained standing at the city gate. He lingered beside Wujin Shi. Spacing out. Pacing back and forth. Sighing.
[What are you doing? Can't bear to leave?]
Chi Zhen explained: "Wujin Shi hasn't come back yet. I'd feel bad just leaving."
[???]
[This isn't visiting someone's house. It's a game. You're both still in the same YY channel.]
[My gaming partner and I are like that, too. If one of us goes AFK, the other waits nearby. #Doge]
[No, no, everyone. Think about it. Wujin Shi was that cool just now. If it were you, could you calmly walk away from him right now? Wouldn't your heart be racing so hard you'd want to confess on the spot?]
[Alright then, sending a Fruit Bomb gift in support.]
[Throwing in a Fruit Can.]
[For the newlyweds. Go enjoy your honeymoon.]
[Is Xiao Chi trying to work up the courage to invite Wujin Shi into his guild? #Doge]
"Exactly! Xiao Chi! Why aren't you inviting us into your guild?!" Qingtian Wai's booming voice suddenly rang out in YY, startling Chi Zhen so badly that his hand slipped and accidentally pressed his forward-roll skill.
So when Wujin Shi returned to his computer, the first thing he saw was Qingzhou Yiguo suddenly perform a forward roll and slam directly into the city wall.
[Party] Wujin Shi: ?
[Party] Qingzhou Yiguo: Misclick...
[Party] Wujin Shi: Is your guild recruiting?
Chi Zhen looked around. Then he carefully checked the party members. Was that directed at him? Or had he missed some prior conversation, and Wujin Shi was actually asking Qingtian Wai or someone else?
[Party] Qingtian Wai: Please take us in, Guild Leader Chi.
[Party] Qingzhou Yiguo: Me? My guild?
Xiao Chi furiously started typing: "My guild is recruiting! If you want to join, you're absolutely welcome, really welcome! But my guild is tiny. I created it for farming, so nothing's developed, nothing's unlocked, we don't even have the NPC that sells hidden weapons—" Before he could finish—
[Party] Wujin Shi: Please take us in, Guild Leader Chi.
Quietly, Chi Zhen stopped typing. Then he clicked the guild invitations for all three of them.
They accepted immediately.
And so Chi Zhen watched the tall, cold, handsome Blade Cultivator before him. The text above his head changed from: [Wujin Shi] to [Wujin Shi] [Xiao Cai Guild]
[Party] Qingtian Wai: [Qingtian Wai] [Xiao Cai Guild]
[Party] Qingtian Wai: When Xiao Chi had this guild name over his head, it actually seemed kind of cute. But now that I'm the one wearing it...A bald Buddhist cultivator already looks poor enough. Adding "Xiao Cai Guild" somehow makes me look even more pathetic.
The stream chat burst into hysterical laughter. Chi Zhen was mortified.
If he could go back to the day he founded the guild— And if he had known that one day the number-one player on the server, Wujin Shi, would join it— Then he definitely would have chosen a lofty, heroic, poetic, immortal-sounding guild name.
Instead of casually naming it Xiao Cai Guild because he wanted a place to grow vegetables.
[Wujin Shi] [Way of Heaven] — perfectly reasonable.
[Wujin Shi] [Dominating the Firmament] — also fitting.
[Wujin Shi] [Xiao Cai Guild] — impossible to look at directly.
For a moment, Chi Zhen desperately wished the cash shop sold guild-name change tokens. No matter how much they cost, he would have paid immediately.
Unfortunately, in Wendao Qingtian, once a guild name was set, it could never be changed.
For a brief instant, Chi Zhen even considered abandoning the guild entirely and creating a new one.
[Party] Wujin Shi: It's pretty good.
[Party] Wujin Shi: I'll learn how to get rich farming vegetables from the guild leader.
[Party] Wujin Shi: Qingtian Wai, lend me 1,000 spirit stones for dailies.
[Party] Qingtian Wai: ?
[Party] Wujin Shi: Spent all my savings on Firebomb Talismans.
[Party] Qingtian Wai: You didn't leave yourself a single coin?!
[Party] Wujin Shi: I still have 23 spirit stones.
[Party] Qingzhou Yiguo: ...
That very night, Chi Zhen mailed Wujin Shi two million spirit stones. Then he planted crops in every field within the guild sanctuary. He loosened the soil around every fruit tree. He bought fish feed and scattered it into the pond. He fed the chickens and ducks. After finishing all the farm work, he carefully checked the next day's in-game weather forecast to see whether conditions would be favorable for crop growth. Then he went to the marketplace to research which agricultural products were currently selling at good prices. Only after doing all that did he finally log off.
After washing up and lying in bed, his mind was filled with only one thing: Making money.
No more fighting. No more PvP. Apart from burning money, PvP earned nothing.
Starting tomorrow, he would face the fields. Grow vegetables. Raise chickens. Feed fish. And devote himself wholeheartedly to being a life-skills player again.
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