The net had been woven. All that remained was to make it strong enough to hold.
Money was always the sharpest whip in the world — and the most effective stimulant.
Two days later. The wasteland south of the city.
When the first threads of morning light pierced through the autumn mist, the stretch of land that had been nothing but jagged rocks and waist-high weeds had undergone a transformation that could only be called miraculous.
Driven by the prospect of enormous gain, those laborers — pushed to two hundred percent of their capacity — had worked like an army of tireless, frenzied ants.
By the External Affairs Hall's original estimate, even a rough, perfunctory leveling of this wasteland would have taken at least ten to fifteen days.
Yet after a single day and night, every weed had been uprooted and burned to ash. The boulders had been crushed and cleared.
Three layers of thick, solid wooden fencing — tops sharpened to points, built to block the wind — now encircled the entire site like an iron barrel.
The efficiency was staggering.
Lin Mu stood with his hands clasped behind his back atop the tallest boulder on the site. The morning wind snapped his robes like a banner.
In his hands was a campsite blueprint he had redrawn through the night — one that completely overturned every convention the External Affairs Hall had followed in previous years.
The supervisors who had coasted through this assignment before had, for the sake of convenience, divided the space into a dull, rigid grid: a stone-gambling zone, a Gu materials zone, a common goods zone.
Neat enough, but utterly incapable of maximizing commercial value.
Lin Mu looked at the blueprint in his hands. A cold, calculating smile touched the corner of his mouth.
At the very center of his planned layout, he had carved out a wide, circular open space — the highest point on the site, its ground compacted until it was as hard as iron.
No wooden sheds. No ordinary caravan personnel.
This was the spot he had reserved, based on his deep memory of the original story, as the ultimate landing point for the Jia Clan Caravan's signature powerhouse — the Rank 3 Gu House, the Three Star Cave.
The caravan had brought with them a tree-form Gu House that could be carried anywhere, boasted unmatched defenses, and contained a vast interior space.
That Gu House was Lin Mu's greatest information advantage.
The moment the caravan made camp, the great Three Star Cave tree-Gu would take root in the earth and become a towering fortress — and the premier trading hall of the entire site.
Lin Mu understood the logic perfectly.
The value of a location comes from its proximity to the core.
His gaze swept across the open space. In his mind, a mountain of gold had already taken shape.
"The caravan's scale this time is unprecedented. They're expected to stay for at least eight days. Once the Three Star Cave takes root in that central zone, it will become the most prominent landmark in the entire southern district — the highest foot traffic, the greatest concentration of high-ranking Gu Masters, the single most lucrative point on the map."
Working from that logic, Lin Mu drew ring after ring of concentric zones outward from that reserved central plot.
"The ring closest to the Three Star Cave — I'll call it the Inner Ring."
He divided up the future profits in his mind with cold precision.
"Fewest stalls, but prime positioning. The surrounding factions and independent cultivators who want to be first in line, who want to curry favor with the Jia Clan's upper echelon, or who want to move premium black-market goods — they'll fight tooth and nail for a spot here."
"Pricing will be astronomical. Primeval Stones only. No bargaining."
Moving outward: the Middle Ring, the Outer Ring — prices dropping in tiers, each layer skimming profit from a different stratum of buyers.
In this era, Gu Masters of the Southern Border still operated on the simple commercial logic of "buy low, sell high."
Lin Mu did not even need to source or sell goods himself. He only needed to fence off the land, draw the grid, and sit back.
The moment the caravan arrived and the Three Star Cave took root, every plot he had staked out in advance would become a money tree worth its weight in gold.
All he had to do then was wait for the red-eyed factions and independent cultivators to come begging him to buy a spot.
"By my count, the show up north should be reaching its climax right about now."
Lin Mu tucked the blueprint into his robe and cast his gaze northward toward the territory just beyond Black Blood Stockade.
He knew exactly what he was doing out here in this muddy southern wasteland — avoiding Li Mang. And up north, another bloodless battle of blades had already begun.
North of the city. A reception pavilion erected specifically for the occasion, just outside Black Blood Stockade's walls.
Despite the banner of "friendship between the two stockades," the atmosphere inside was suffocating — as though the air itself had congealed.
The White Bone Stockade advance envoy delegation had formally convened for negotiations.
In the seat of honor, the newly advanced Rank 4 Patriarch Lin Cang sat with the ease of absolute authority, immovable as an iron tower.
His Primeval Essence aura — deliberately restrained, yet still crushing — draped over the entire hall like a weight.
Behind and to either side of Lin Cang stood Supreme Elder Lin Zhen, along with Lin Feng, Lin Xue, and the other young direct-line disciples who had distinguished themselves in the recent tournament.
All were dressed in fine robes, chins raised, their eyes carrying the natural condescension of those who look down from above.
On the guest side —
White Bone Stockade's Patriarch Li Mang — a peak Rank 3 strongman whose name carried weight across the region — was behaving with extraordinary restraint today. One might even call it submissive.
His gaunt, withered face was plastered with a warm, ingratiating smile. His back was slightly hunched. He exchanged pleasantries with Lin Cang in a posture of deliberate deference.
"Brother Lin's Rank 4 divine might is truly a blessing for all of us fellow cultivators of the Southern Border."
Li Mang held his teacup low, his manner humble.
"My proposal for this friendly youth tournament between our two stockades serves two purposes. First, to pay my respects to your distinguished presence."
"Second, to give the unworthy young disciples of White Bone Stockade the opportunity to learn from your stockade's finest."
"Please rest assured, Brother Lin — all venue costs and prize money for the tournament will be borne entirely by White Bone Stockade. We would not have your stockade spend a single Primeval Stone."
The words were exquisitely crafted — practically tearing off his own face and laying it on the ground for Black Blood Stockade to step on.
Yet this display of deliberate self-abasement left the young talents seated behind Li Mang seething with barely contained humiliation.
Especially the white-haired young lord, Li Huang.
He ground his teeth. His fists clenched inside his sleeves until his knuckles cracked. His eyes burned.
He could not understand it — his father commanded the Mountain Protection Formation within White Bone Mountain. Even a Rank 4 cultivator might not easily overcome it.
So why, the moment they stepped outside those walls, did his father have to grovel here like a servant, handing over money and flattering their enemies?
Were the men of White Bone Stockade truly to have no pride at all?!
Li Huang's chest was full of fury, but the weight of his father's long-established authority kept him with his head down, not daring to utter a single word.
What he did not know was that his father — the man he saw as "groveling" — had his mind on something else entirely. The pleasantries were nothing but noise.
In the gaps between the exchange of tea and laughter, Li Mang's left hand — concealed within his wide sleeve — was conducting a hidden and lethal probe.
His fingers were locked around the pale white Bone Scepter tucked inside his sleeve.
He did not dare make any large movement, for fear of alerting the Rank 4 powerhouse seated above. With painstaking care — like drawing silk from a cocoon — he channeled the faintest, near-transparent thread of Primeval Essence into the Scepter's core.
Hmmm...
A detection pulse that only Li Mang could feel — like the invisible sonar of a bat in the dark — radiated outward from him in silence, sweeping across the entire reception hall.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three breaths.
The Scepter gave no response. Dead and still as an ordinary piece of dried bone.
...Hah.
Having confirmed that no resonance from a kindred inheritance token had been detected, the enormous weight pressing down on Li Mang's heart — beneath that smile-plastered face — finally crashed to the ground and shattered.
He exhaled a long, slow breath deep within himself.
"Not on Lin Cang. Not on any of the core direct-line disciples in this hall."
Li Mang nearly wanted to burst out laughing on the spot.
"I knew it. Heaven has not abandoned me. That earth-shaking inheritance must have fallen into the hands of some low-ranking nobody or collateral branch member who stumbled into the luck of a lifetime."
"As long as it isn't Lin Cang — this game is still mine to play."
In truth, this was a perfectly symmetrical double blind spot.
Li Mang, to avoid drawing attention, had not dared to push the Scepter to full power. His detection range was severely limited.
And the one actually holding the Pitch-Black Bone Plate — Lin Mu — was at this very moment far away in the southern wasteland, mapping out his financial empire.
The sheer physical distance between them had caused Li Mang's covert radar sweep to come up completely empty.
Even so, confirming that Lin Cang was not the target was enough to settle his nerves considerably.
If the target was not among the upper echelon, then the search had to be expanded as quickly as possible — to the lower-ranking participants.
Burning with impatience, Li Mang set down his teacup and steered the conversation toward the matter at hand.
"Brother Lin, since this is a friendly tournament, the young ones are already eager to get acquainted. Why wait for a better day when today will do?"
"In this old one's humble opinion — why not have the servants begin constructing the arena tomorrow, and open the tournament the day after? What do you say?"
He was desperate to gather Black Blood Stockade's younger generation around the arena so he could scan them one by one with the Scepter.
However —
"Ha ha ha!"
Faced with Li Mang's proposal, Lin Cang suddenly let out a booming laugh from the seat of honor and raised one hand, cutting Li Mang's words off cleanly.
"Brother Li, there's no rush. No rush at all."
Lin Cang's gaze carried a thread of arrogance that brooked no argument.
He leaned forward slightly, and in the tone of someone who spoke from an unassailable position of power, he delivered a variable that Li Mang had not seen coming.
"The friendly tournament — we can hold it whenever we like. But at this moment, Black Blood Stockade has an enormous matter demanding our full attention. I'm afraid the arena matches will have to be pushed back."
"Oh?" Li Mang's heart sank. The smile on his face stiffened slightly. "And what matter might that be, Brother Lin...?"
"The Jia Clan Caravan!"
Lin Cang's voice rang like a bell.
"Just yesterday, Brother Jia Fu — who leads the caravan — sent word to me personally. Their caravan this time is of unprecedented scale, and they have been moving at remarkable speed."
"They have already entered the ten-thousand mountains three months ahead of schedule. In a matter of days, they will be making camp at Black Blood Stockade."
The words landed. The expressions in the hall shifted in every direction.
Lin Cang swept his hand out and set the tone in terms that left no room for debate.
"The caravan trade concerns our clan's material preparations for the coming year. It is our foremost priority and cannot be allowed to go wrong. So I'm afraid the friendly tournament will have to keep Brother Li and your stockade's young disciples waiting a few more days."
"Once the caravan is settled in — or better yet, once the trading winds down and everyone has a moment to breathe — we can hold the tournament then, and make it a lively affair. It won't be too late."
Lin Cang's calculations were precise.
He intended to concentrate the entire clan's energy on purchasing and absorbing resources from the Jia Clan Caravan first — let his elites grow stronger — and then take to the arena and humiliate White Bone Stockade thoroughly. Profit and prestige, both secured.
...
At that pronouncement, the corner of Li Mang's eye twitched — a sharp, involuntary spasm, quickly hidden.
The hand concealed in his sleeve clenched into a fist. His fingernails nearly broke the skin of his palm.
He had wanted to move fast — to locate the inheritance token with the speed of thunder before anyone could react, then find an opportunity to kill, seize the treasure, and slip away.
He had never anticipated that the Jia Clan Caravan would appear out of nowhere and throw his entire rhythm into chaos, forcing him to sit and stew in this enemy stronghold, surrounded by danger on all sides.
Suffocating. Utterly suffocating.
But beneath the crushing pressure of a Rank 4 powerhouse, and trapped by the high-minded pretext of the "friendly tournament" he himself had proposed, he could find no grounds whatsoever to object.
"Brother Lin is right... the caravan takes precedence. It is only proper."
Li Mang forced the mouthful of bitter blood threatening to rise up his throat back down into his stomach.
He raised his teacup with a strained smile, concealing the near-twisted malice in his eyes, and answered in a dry, hollow voice.
"Then this old one shall follow the host's lead and wait a few more days."
In the hall, the laughter continued. But beneath the surface, the undercurrent had surged to a violent extreme.