Soon, some sharp-eyed cultivators noticed something. Even though they were both mysterious-rank low-grade Return-to-Spring Pills meant for early Foundation Establishment stage cultivators, why did Gu Ningyun's Return-to-Spring Pills heal wounds so much faster?
After running into Wen Xuan coming to fish people off the fighting platforms a few more times, their fellow disciples had a sudden realization.
While her fellow disciples had figured it out, Wen Xuan found it baffling.
Did these Foundation Establishment stage disciples have something wrong with their heads? Instead of going to Alchemy Peak to buy pills, they were squatting on Fighting Peak waiting for her.
Not only did they wait around for her, but they were also willing to pay thirty percent above the market price in spirit stones.
After selling for two days, Wen Xuan's inventory was severely depleted.
She found a fighting platform, leaped up, and slammed her two-meter-long mace onto the stage, her tone crisp and decisive. “You want to buy pills? Fine, but only after you beat me.”
Thus, following Gu Ningyun, a second rumor began to circulate among the Foundation Establishment stage disciples on Fighting Peak:
There is a body cultivator in the Foundation Establishment stage on Fighting Peak whose pills are near-impossible to obtain.
When the newcomers to Fighting Peak heard this: “?”
When the alchemy cultivators of Alchemy Peak heard this: “??”
When the body cultivators who specialized in body refining heard this: “???”
Gu Ningyun retorted with a laugh, “A body cultivator who can't refine pills isn't a good mace cultivator.”
Aside from Gu Ningyun and Wen Xuan, Jiang Yao and the others had also benefited immensely from their sparring matches over the past six months.
The improvement in combat experience and strength was one of the three birds killed with one stone that Jiang Yao had mentioned.
Over the past half year, aside from sparring, Gu Ningyun also frequently kept an eye on news from the other pavilions of the Outer Peaks.
When she discovered that a dozen or so new pavilion masters had gone to challenge the veteran pavilion masters to duels, Gu Ningyun began paying close attention to the movements in the Mission Hall.
The Xiaoyao Outer Sect had a tradition of holding an Outer Pavilion Competition every five years.
Apart from the corresponding rewards, the rankings of the competition also determined another crucial matter: the distribution of tasks in the External Sect's Mission Hall.
In the External Sect's Mission Hall, most missions were public, and any disciple could accept them as long as their strength was sufficient.
Only a small portion of high-quality missions existed—for instance, those with higher difficulty but far more generous rewards.
Or missions like being drafted from the Outer Peaks or the Inner Sect to work as handyman disciples, which allowed them to leech off the dense spirit energy of the floating peaks without any danger. If they did a good job, they might even receive extra rewards from sect seniors.
For missions like these, the Mission Hall would set acceptance conditions based on the specific content, restricting them so that only disciples from pavilions within a certain ranking range in the competition could take them.
In many veteran pavilion masters' hands, there were quite a few of these high-quality missions.
What Gu Ningyun had her eyes on were the large-scale missions among these high-quality tasks—the kind that a single pavilion could not handle alone and required cooperation with other pavilions.
For these cross-pavilion cooperative missions, as long as the primary pavilion taking the task met the restrictions, the remaining partners were decided by the primary taker, free from the constraints of the Mission Hall.
This right of decision was a benefit granted by the sect to outstanding outer pavilions. It was also intended to ensure that cooperative missions went more smoothly and to reduce conflicts caused by external restrictions.
When rumors of the new pavilion masters provoking the veteran pavilion masters began to spread everywhere, Gu Ningyun did two things.
First, she informed Mu Chenze and the others in their five-person group chat to keep an eye on the large-scale missions of the veteran pavilion masters, warning them that there might be complications in those collaborations and telling them to find an opportunity to step in.
Jiang Yao initially found it hard to understand. “We've already offended the veteran pavilion masters on our end. Why would they agree to cooperate with us?”
Before Gu Ningyun could explain, Mu Chenze immediately realized the key point. “After the transition between the old and new outer pavilion masters, the new pavilion masters will need a transition period, whether it's to familiarize themselves with sect affairs or to train the disciples under their pavilion.
“Due to the delays of this transition period, during the first quinquennial Outer Pavilion Competition, our side's strength will most likely be weaker than that of the veteran pavilion masters.
“On the Outer Peaks, whether they are new or veteran, every pavilion is a competitor.
“To those veteran pavilion masters, rather than giving high-quality cooperative missions to the strong—making them even stronger and harder to defeat—it's actually better to give them to us, who appear weaker.”
“However, there is one problem with doing this.”
Mu Chenze added at the end, “Rationally, this is the best choice, but humans are emotional creatures.
“How can we guarantee that after the new pavilion masters have thoroughly offended the veteran ones, those veterans can still suppress their anger, choose reason over impulse, and give the cooperative slots to us?”
“That brings me to the second thing I need to do: separate the general group of new pavilion masters from those dozen or so blockheads.”
The second thing was to dispel the rumors.
As the conflict between the new and veteran pavilion masters intensified on the Forum and rumors flew everywhere, Gu Ningyun went to find Qin Xiaosheng.
Qin Xiaosheng frequently advertised and traded information on the Forum, so he was widely known.
If he was the one to post the rumor-dispelling message, it would reach a much broader audience.
Once Gu Ningyun analyzed the conflict between the new and veteran pavilion masters and its impact on daily pavilion affairs and the Outer Pavilion Competition, Qin Xiaosheng immediately understood the stakes and agreed to cooperate by posting the clarification.
As a reward, Gu Ningyun also gave Qin Xiaosheng a heads-up about keeping an eye on the Mission Hall.
Once the rumor-dispelling post was published, it indeed attracted massive attention.
Although some remained skeptical, most people were persuaded by the clear, logical, and well-reasoned arguments in the message, changing their views on the new pavilion masters.
Just as the clarification post went viral, cracks also began to appear in the cooperative agreements for the high-quality missions.
The five of them, representing three pavilions, pre-negotiated in their small group chat which missions they wanted to claim to avoid overlapping targets.
One after another, the veteran pavilion masters terminated their cooperative contracts. The moment a mission's contract was terminated, one of their three pavilions would arrive instantly to secure it.
To increase their success rate in securing the missions, Mu Chenze even bought character analysis jade slips of the outer pavilions' Head and Deputy Pavilion Masters from Qin Xiaosheng.
By the time the matter of the provocation between the new and old pavilion masters died down and everyone finally realized what had happened, their three pavilions had already secured three high-quality missions each.
These were large-scale, high-quality missions. Upon completion, not only would the pavilion disciples sent to do the tasks receive more spirit stones and sect points, but organizers like the pavilion masters and Abode Masters would also receive corresponding mission rewards.
This wave of securing missions not only secured welfare for the disciples under their pavilions—indirectly boosting their pavilions' strength—but also guaranteed an extra source of income for themselves once the missions were completed, killing two birds with one stone.
In the short term, securing the missions and dispelling the rumors would increase their pavilions' revenue and boost their overall strength.
In the long term, it would eliminate unnecessary disputes in daily affairs and prevent the new pavilion masters from being targeted during the Outer Pavilion Competition five years down the road.
These short-term and long-term benefits were the remaining two birds killed with one stone that Jiang Yao had mentioned.
However, what Gu Ningyun had not expected was that aside from herself, Ling Hanbai had also approached Qin Xiaosheng to discuss dispelling the rumors.
Upon seeing Qin Xiaosheng's disclosure in the Class 11,680 massive group chat and learning about this, Gu Ningyun looked back at Ling Hanbai's movements.
From the moment cracks appeared in the high-quality mission cooperations to the time their three pavilions finished securing three tasks each and backed off, Ling Hanbai and the other pavilion masters had only then belatedly arrived to compete for the remaining cooperative tasks.
Ling Hanbai had dispelled the rumors not out of self-interest, but for the greater good.
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