Meng Hao took a deep breath as he sat there cross-legged in his residence. Although he was physically in the Fang Clan right now, he didn’t have much of a sense of belonging.

“This isn’t my home,” he murmured softly. “My dad and mom aren’t here. Since they’re on Planet South Heaven, Planet South Heaven is my home.”

At the moment, he was completely exhausted. After spending half a year in the Medicine Pavilion, and then experiencing the encounter moments ago, he was worn out mentally and in pain physically.

Then he thought again about all of the merit points he had basically lost while he was in the Medicine Pavilion. It was like a knife stabbing through his heart.

“Oh, the pain….” he thought, clenching his jaw. “Thankfully, I didn’t go all the way through. Next time I’m definitely going to arrange things ahead of time. No merit points, no watching me!” Having made this decision, he let out a long sigh and then closed his eyes and rotated his cultivation base to begin his recuperation.

Ten days later, he opened his eyes, and they shone with an energetic gleam. He took a deep breath. During the past half year, he had expended a lot of mental energy. Now that he was fully recovered, his eyes glittered. He produced the tome that had been given to him from his bag of holding.

“So, Pill Elder gave this to me….” After a moment of thought, he began to flip through the pages. The more he saw, the more brightly his eyes glowed. This was the true Cla.s.sic of Plants and Vegetation, and it was incredibly detailed. There were even medicinal plants recorded therein that he hadn’t seen in the Medicine Pavilion.

As he skimmed its contents, Meng Hao suddenly realized that his divine sense had experienced growth after his experience in the Medicine Pavilion. He sent it out into the courtyard, where he saw Fang Xi sitting there abjectly. The parrot and meat jelly were not sitting on his shoulder as usual. They were nowhere to be seen.

Meng Hao gaped for a moment. He remembered seeing Fang Xi in the group of 500,000 spectators outside of the Medicine Pavilion, but he couldn’t remember if the parrot and meat jelly had been there. He pushed open the door of his residence, and the sound caused Fang Xi to look up. His eyes were a bit blank, and when he saw Meng Hao, he sighed and rose to his feet.

Hanging his head, he bitterly said, “Coz, you need to punish me. It was all my fault. Lord Fifth and Lord Third, they… I… I….”

Apparently, he couldn’t finish his thought.

“What’s wrong?” asked Meng Hao in amazement.

“I don’t know what happened with Lord Fifth. After you came out of the Medicine Pavilion, I was going to take him and Lord Third back here. However, something happened to Lord Fifth. All of a sudden… he headed toward tier 7 alchemist Fang Shuiyan, that old woman. Lord Fifth and her peac.o.c.k started fighting….

“There was nothing I could do to stop it. Lord Fifth went crazy…. Lord Third couldn’t say anything to stop what was happening either, so he eventually just joined Lord Fifth.” Fang Xi seemed to be completely out of sorts, and wasn’t even speaking coherently.

As soon as Meng Hao heard Fang Xi’s story, he knew exactly what was going on. He remembered that peac.o.c.k, and its luxuriant coat of feathers….

“Don’t worry about it, the parrot was just having some fun with the peac.o.c.k,” Meng Hao said euphemistically.

“Having fun? Coz!” exclaimed Fang Xi in agitation. He seemed upset. “There was definitely nothing fun going on!

“You didn’t see what happened. It… it was terrifying. The peac.o.c.k’s rear end virtually exploded! It was horrific!!” Fang Xi shuddered. When he thought about what he had seen, he felt a sense of terror. Then he thought about how much time he’d spent with Lord Fifth, and how the parrot was constantly glancing behind him, and all the hair on his body stood on end.

“Coz, that bird… you need to find a place to set it free. It’s simply appalling!” Fang Xi’s breath came in ragged pants.

“You’re still young so you don’t understand,” Meng Hao said, sounding very sure of himself. “As far as the birds are concerned, it was just having fun.”

“Coz, there’s something else I didn’t mention,” Fang Xi continued, unable to hold back. “Once when I went out with Lord Fifth and Lord Third, we encountered a fierce bear, and Lord Fifth… Lord Fifth had… had some fun.”

Meng Hao patted Fang Xi on the shoulder and explained once again that it was all in good fun.

“In the end,” added Fang Xi, “Lord Fifth and Lord Third were taken away by Alchemist Fang Shuiyan….”

“Don’t worry,” said Meng Hao, waving his hand nonchalantly, “That meat jelly can’t be killed, and if the parrot dies, then the world will simply have one less scourge to worry about. Don’t pay them any more attention.” He was well aware that the two morons were incredibly tenacious, and couldn’t be hurt easily. They were virtually indestructible.

“But—”

“Really, don’t say anything more. Come on. Let’s head over to the Dao of Alchemy Division. I wasted an entire half year in the Medicine Pavilion. It’s time to go make some merit points!” Meng Hao shot out of the Immortal’s Cave and Fang Xi reluctantly followed him. The two of them sped toward the Dao of Alchemy Division as fast as possible.

Along the way, Meng Hao’s heart began to surge with excitement. He very much wanted to find out if his tactic of going to the Medicine Pavilion would solve his problem with the merit points.

“Hards.h.i.+ps prompt changes, changes bring solutions, solutions resolve hards.h.i.+ps!” Before long, the two of them reached the Dao of Alchemy Division and entered the outer mountains. Meng Hao was instantly recognized.

“It’s Fang Hao! He’s here!!”

“Could it be that he’ll go to the Medicine Pavilion again!? It’s too early, isn’t it? Wait, don’t tell me… he’s going to give a lecture on plants and alchemy!?” As soon as the nearby apprentice alchemists saw Meng Hao, they got very excited, and began to spread word to their friends in the clan.

By the time Meng Hao got to Peak #7191, he was being followed by tens of thousands of people. He stepped onto the platform, cleared his throat, and was just about to begin speaking when suddenly, numerous beams of bright light shot toward the area. In the blink of an eye, the crowd exceeded 100,000 people.

There were even alchemists who emerged from within the inner mountains to come hear Meng Hao lecture about plants and vegetation.

Meng Hao had proven to everyone how terrifyingly skilled he was with plants and vegetation. By now, most people were convinced that his skill was at least tier 8 level!!

In the entire Dao of Alchemy Division, not counting Meng Hao, there were only nineteen people who were presently at tier 8 level when it came to skill with plants and vegetation. Those were the tier 8 alchemists, also referred to as Pavilion Elders of the Pill Pavilion.

People like that would never go out and give lectures. From this, it can be imagined how enthusiastic the audience was. Before much time pa.s.sed, the audience swelled to 200,000.

Meng Hao didn’t need to say a word about the merit points. Everybody knew the rules, and immediately paid their due.

Meng Hao was also excited to note that the old woman Fang Shuiyan was no longer present on the opposite mountain peak. Without any compet.i.tion to worry about, he shelved his idea of increasing prices and proceeded to give his lecture.

Six hours later, having collected hundreds of thousands of merit points, Meng Hao gritted his teeth and decided to talk for four more hours. That pushed his profit into the 1,000,000 range, and Meng Hao went wild with joy.

With so many merit points, Meng Hao now felt much more at ease. All he had to do was give a lecture for a few hours a day, and vast amounts of merit points would come flowing in. All of a sudden, he felt a sense that the Fang Clan’s Dao of Alchemy Division was showing him quite a bit of hospitality.

Meng Hao now lived a life of extravagance. He bought vast quant.i.ties of medicinal pills and medicinal plants. He even procured plenty of Immortal jade, which, after absorbing the spiritual energy, causing his Immortal meridian to become even more solid. On one occasion, after acquiring what was essentially the clan’s entire yearly supply of Immortal jade, he was able to instantly solidify his Immortal meridian to a degree of ninety percent!

His cultivation base experienced rapid growth. He no longer had eighty percent of the power of a true Immortal, but rather, ninety percent. His battle prowess even broke past that of a stage 4 Immortal. Back in his Immortal’s cave, he produced the crocodile, and after a bit of sparring, determined that he was now comparable to a stage 5 Immortal!

He was also just barely able to detect the power of Tribulation forming. He knew that once he became one hundred percent true Immortal, the Door of Immortality would descend.

“I’ve been waiting for a long time for that day to arrive,” he thought, eyes glittering with excitement. “I’ve prepared well, so once I step into true Immortality, I’m going to absorb huge amounts of Immortal qi from the Door of Immortality. I’m going to open dozens of Immortal meridians in one shot!”

This was the same reason why the Chosen of so many sects consolidated their power and waited for true Immortal destiny before making their breakthrough. They wanted to burst into true Immortality by opening multiple Immortal meridians. There were even some Chosen who opened sixty or seventy Immortal meridians in one shot.

Such opportunities were available only when the Door of Immortality appeared. At other times, it would be impossible to experience such a wild leap in one’s cultivation base.

At the same time, Meng Hao continued to concoct Spirit Elixir with increasingly rare plants. The quality of the Spirit Elixir he was producing had reached a terrifying level.

The life force in the Nirvana Fruits was growing stronger. Of course, his spirit stones were rapidly depleted, and when he finally reached the end of his supply, he started exchanging merit points to get more spirit stones.

Unfortunately, after making a few exchanges, he was unable to acquire any more spirit stones; the number of spirit stones that could be doled out to any given person was limited.

Actually, few people were aware that such a rule existed. After all, not many people would ever spend as many merit points as Meng Hao had on spirit stones. Meng Hao was shocked by this development, and nearly went mad.

Right now, he did not lack merit points, he lacked spirit stones. He even thought about selling his merit points for spirit stones, but that was actually a violation of clan rules. Of course, violating the rules didn’t bother him, since he didn’t care much about the rules to begin with.

However, the Fang Clan was in a delicate state at the moment. Meng Hao knew that there were quite a few people who were secretly watching him, and even the slightest mistake could be turned into a major issue.

There were some areas of the ancestral mansion that Meng Hao had never visited. He had stuck to and risen to prominence in the Dao of Alchemy Division. Thanks to his fame and position there, the people who considered him a problem couldn’t make a move against him easily.

For the most part, he wasn’t very familiar with the Fang Clan. He wasn’t well acquainted with the various relatives from other branches, and didn’t even know very many people from the direct bloodline.

The people he had dealings with the most were Fang Xi and 19th Uncle. He didn’t really feel like getting very close with anyone else.

He caught sight of Fang Donghan a few times, who always seemed to be trying to avoid him. Meng Hao knew quite well that he was a Chosen, just like Fang Wei. However, he had been suppressed by Fang Wei, and was looking forward to when Meng Hao and Fang Wei finally squared off. Meng Hao understood how he felt.

As far as Fang Xiangshan went, she also avoided him. On the few occasions when they ran into each other, Meng Hao could see the fear in her eyes.

He couldn’t help but sigh at this. Was he really that scary?

Regarding the other Chosen, he didn’t know them, nor did he have any desire to get to know them.

He had no plans to stay in the Fang Clan for a long time. After all, he had only three objectives in coming here.

The first was to get his Nirvana Fruits. The Second was to excel for his dad and mom’s sake, and make all the Chosen of the Fang Clan look at him with respect.

The third was to reach true Immortal Ascension!

Once he achieved those objectives, Meng Hao would leave the Fang Clan. Then, he would use his Immortal Ancient Dao Medallion to join the Immortal Ancient Daoist Rite. There… was where he would continue practicing cultivation and truly rise to prominence.

“It’s important to have someone to rely on. I learned that when I was in the Reliance Sect. Here in the Fang Clan of Planet East Victory, the Dao of Alchemy Division is what I have to rely on.” Meng Hao took a deep breath, and his eyes glittered. Moments later, though, he grimaced.

“However, I’m out of spirit stones. What do I do about that…?”