Chapter 88: (2): Meeting the Ancestor of the Long Clan
Half a day later, Long Xuan emerged from the attic, now with a dragon on his right arm. The dragon coiled around his arm, its head extending across his chest—a formidable and imposing dragon.
However, this dragon is usually invisible, only appearing when he engages in battle and sweats profusely.
The tattoo is black in color, but if his body is injured and bleeds, the tattoo turns red, making it look even more terrifying and slightly enhancing his combat power.
This is a mystical tattoo technique. Initially, Long Xuan wasn’t particularly interested in tattoos and even considered removing it when he had the time. But now, he had grown fond of the tattoo and decided there was no harm in keeping it.
With a massive fortune of 100 million contribution points, Long Xuan left the attic and immediately rushed to the Long Clan’s Treasure Pavilion, where he exchanged that bottle of Golden Crow's Blood as quickly as possible.
He also exchanged many items he needed from the Treasure Pavilion, and in just one day, his 100 million contribution points drastically shrank. It wasn’t until he had spent all but 20 million that he finally stopped, somewhat reluctantly.
The treasure he was most satisfied with was the space ring. The space ring is a spiritual tool with far more storage capacity than a storage pouch, and it is much smaller in size. It can be worn on the finger or discreetly as a necklace around the neck, making it very convenient to carry.
From now on, he no longer needed to carry around large, unsightly pouches on his waist when he went out. However, while the space ring is excellent, it is also expensive, and very few people can afford it. Most people in this world use storage pouches to store items.
The space ring on Long Xuan's hand was valued at 10 million contribution points in the Long Clan—a price that could kill. What it would cost in the outside world is unknown.
But it would undoubtedly be even more expensive. Unless you are extremely wealthy, there’s no need to buy a space ring.Otherwise, you might discover a grim fact: the total value of everything stored in the space ring is less than the cost of the ring itself, which would be quite sad.
Of course, all of Long Xuan's transactions were conducted in the Treasure Pavilion’s VIP room, in secret. In the Long Clan, VIPs with more than 10 million contribution points are eligible to trade in the VIP room, with a dedicated steward overseeing the process.
This rule was naturally established to prevent murders for treasures and infighting among the clan, and it is a reasonable regulation.
So, almost no one knew who had taken the Golden Crow's Blood, which theoretically made Long Xuan very safe.
Not only was no one aware that he had taken the Golden Crow's Blood, but only the clan's high-ranking members knew that he had created the Earth Master Gu recipe. Otherwise, Long Qilin wouldn’t have shown off in front of him.
Long Xuan preferred to keep a low profile and was unlikely to publicize this matter. The clan, out of its desire to protect a genius, naturally wouldn’t make it public either.
So, Long Xuan’s life remained peaceful, allowing him to continue living his comfortable, farming-style life in some quiet corner.
With three books in hand, Long Xuan thought for a moment before deciding to head to the shabby hut where Elder Long resided.
He felt it was necessary to inform Elder Long about this matter, so that in the future, when he used the divine dragon Form or some of the Long Clan’s unique abilities, he would have a reasonable explanation and wouldn’t have to be as cautious as before, like when he carefully probed Long Qilin for a method to condense the Dharma image.
Additionally, although he had previously learned many things from Elder Long through eavesdropping, whether it was techniques or spiritual arts, he had always relied on self-study and figured things out on his own. To this day, there were still many things he didn’t understand.
Therefore, he also planned to use the words of the Long Clan's ancestor as a command to ask about all the things he hadn’t understood before, all at once.
Since he had already called him Master, there was no way he would do so in vain, right? He had spent this time working for Elder Long, yet he hadn’t learned anything—how could that be acceptable? This time, he was determined to give him some trouble.
With this mindset, Long Xuan eagerly sought out Elder Long, his mind already filled with a list of questions.
However, when he expressed his intentions, before he could even ask the first question, Elder Long said, “I don’t have time. Go ask your senior sister,” and then slammed the door shut, returning to his seclusion to refine pills. Long Xuan was left standing there, stunned.
Senior sister? He actually had a senior sister? How come he didn’t know about this? All these years, he had never seen any female Gu cultivator come to Great Stone Village to seek out Elder Long.
And who exactly was this senior sister? He didn’t even know her name, let alone what she looked like.
Where was he supposed to find her?
Elder Long hadn’t explained anything clearly, and seeing his impatient expression, Long Xuan didn’t want to disturb him further.
Helpless, Long Xuan could only use his Eye Of Heavenly secret to quickly locate Long Qilin, planning to ask him for help.
Under the Eye Of Heavenly secret’s scan, Long Xuan quickly spotted Long Qilin in a distant location in the back mountain, where he was watching the Earth Master push a ball of dirt, observing with great interest. It was hard to understand why Earth Master pushing a dirt ball would be so fascinating—was it really that interesting?
Moreover, there were quite a few others who shared his hobby. Many people had brought their own Earth Master to that spot to play the ball-pushing game and even held competitions to see who could push the biggest and roundest ball.
A large crowd had gathered to watch, all seemingly engrossed, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle. These people really had too much free time.
How childish and boring.
Although he couldn’t understand their behavior, Long Xuan had no choice but to head towards Long Qilin's location to ask about his mysterious senior sister.
He quickly reached the back mountain and saw that Long Qilin was still there, watching the Earth Master push dirt balls with great interest, even commenting on each Earth Master.
Long Xuan was speechless. He patted Long Qilin on the shoulder and, puzzled, asked, "Is this really interesting? What’s so fascinating about a bunch of dung beetles pushing dirt balls?"
He had completely forgotten how he had been equally interested in watching dung beetles push balls when researching the Earth Master Gu recipe.
Hearing the familiar voice behind him, Long Qilin finally shifted his gaze and looked back at Long Xuan, saying, "You probably don’t know, but the clan is about to hold a new competition, and the rewards are especially generous."
"The competition is all about the Earth Master. There's the Strongman Gold Cup, where the Earth Master compete in various strength-based events, with the winner determined by points."
"There’s also the Dirt Ball Pushing Contest, where the Earth Master compete to see who can push the biggest and roundest dirt ball."
"And there's the Earth Master Tug-of-War, a team event where each side sends ten Earth Master to compete in a tug-of-war, without any involvement from the Gu cultivators. This competition is also quite interesting."
"My Earth Master was among the first batch to emerge, so their maturity is definitely higher than all the others. Once they participate in these competitions, they’ll have a huge advantage. How could I not take this seriously?"
"I'm currently putting my Earth Master through rigorous training, aiming to win all three events. The combined prize for winning all three competitions is eight million contribution points, which is more than enough to entice me. How could I not take it seriously?"
Long Qilin spoke with a very serious expression.
Upon hearing this, Long Xuan was stunned. The Long Clan was actually going to hold so many competitions related to the Earth Master. What was going on?
From his observations over the past few months, Long Xuan had noticed that the Long Clan had a unique trait—they held a lot of competitions.
There were spiritual herb planting contests to see who could grow the best herbs.
There were spirit beast breeding contests to see who could raise the fattest beasts.
There were Gu battles, fish farming contests, fishing contests, arena battles, brain-teaser competitions, physical training contests, beauty contests…
There were so many contests that it was hard to keep track. If you could think of it, they probably had it. Every few days, there was a new competition, leaving little time for rest. The Long Clan’s entertainment life was truly abundant.
And now, they were adding three more competitions. He was really baffled—why did the Long Clan come up with so many competitions, and it seemed like every winner received a substantial reward in contribution points.
“Can you tell me what the point is of the clan holding these three competitions?” Long Xuan couldn’t contain his curiosity and asked.
Long Qilin turned to look at him again and said, “Of course, it’s very meaningful. This shows that the clan is preparing to officially promote the Earth Master throughout the entire clan.”
“How do you get all the clan members to start refining the Earth Master? Holding a competition with high rewards is undoubtedly the best way. The impressive rewards are enough to encourage a large number of clan members to refine the Earth Master.”
“The clan launching three competitions in a row with such high rewards clearly indicates that they want to popularize the Earth Master among the entire clan as quickly as possible.”
Hearing this from Long Qilin, Long Xuan immediately felt that these competitions were indeed very meaningful.
If such competitions were held every year with generous rewards, it would be enough to force those unwilling to practice Earth Master to start doing so.
For example, the female Gu cultivators, who are selective about the Gu they refine, preferring the cute and beautiful ones. Earth Master, which likes to dig in filth, would never be favored by these female Gu cultivators.
As for whether Long Xuan himself would participate in this competition, he felt that just joining in the fun would be enough. He had no intention of competing for first place—that would be too high-profile.