I Cultivate Passively

Chapter 33: Collecting Protection Fees

After returning to Bitter Bamboo Peak, Zhou Feng directly cultivated for an entire night.

To be honest, compared to other places, the only benefit of Bitter Bamboo Peak was that there were no compulsory missions.

In other places, almost all new disciples would be forced to participate in various missions.

It was the same even if you were the son of an Elder because the Tri-Gu Sect was a sect where the strong preyed on the weak.

As long as you were not strong enough, you would have to deal with a lot of things.

Using the name of an Elder to suppress an inner disciple?

That would only cause more people to ostracize you or even secretly eliminate you.

The environment in the inner sect was so intense that one moment of carelessness could result in sudden death.

Under such circumstances, who would care if you were the offspring of an Elder?

Compared to the outer sect, the inner sect did not have that much care.

Of course, having a background was also a very important thing.

After all, having a background meant that they could obtain a lot of additional resources, and their strength would increase quickly.

For example, Lin Xiaojiao and Liu Yan, who Zhou Feng had met before, had an Elder standing behind them.

It was precisely because of this that they were able to become outstanding figures in the inner sect.

“There’s definitely not enough lime! I have to concoct poisons!”

Zhou Feng was already planning to teach himself how to concoct poisons.

This was because when it involved weapons like lime powder, the stronger the opponent, the weaker the power.

Once you spread the lime, other people’s spiritual power would be able to block it all.

Moreover, some experienced people would understand what was going on with just a move of your hand.

That was why he started to teach himself how to concoct poisons.

Regarding alchemy and poison formulas, there were many books in the Scripture Pavillion on the main peak.

However, this required exchanging merit points, and the best way to obtain merit points was through sect missions. Or, he could directly use cultivation resources to exchange for sect merit points.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have any of these things.

“Looks like I can only go to the market to collect protection fees!”

Zhou Feng had previously inquired about how the Bitter Bamboo Peak disciples collected protection fees.

Actually, those who paid protection fees were people outside of the sect that came to the Tri-Gu Sect’s marketplace to do business.

If they wanted to continue doing business peacefully, they had to find people from the Tri-Gu Sect as backers.

Thus, the Shang Clan in the mountainside marketplace basically had inner disciples backing them up.

Usually, when inner disciples fought against each other, other than fighting for the management rights of the Meat Gu Cave, they would also fight for the clans’ support.

The stronger you were, the more clans would naturally take a liking to you and offer protection fees.

However, the more clans one protected, the more people would have designs on you.

Thus, in the inner sect, one’s strength depended on how many shops they had behind them.

Once your strength was insufficient or regressed, other people would take the opportunity to cause trouble and snatch the clan one was protecting.

When he learned about this, Zhou Feng immediately felt a sense of déjà vu.

Wasn’t this the same as a hooligan snatching territory and collecting insurance fees?

Zhou Feng planned to visit the mountainside market the next morning, and it just so happened that he had not visited this market before.

It was a good opportunity to see if there was anything useful in the market.

Early the next morning…

Zhou Feng left Bitter Bamboo Peak early and headed to the mountainside market.

The sky had just brightened, and there were already many people in the market.

Many people directly set up stalls by the roadside, and the stalls were basically filled with ordinary things, such as medicinal herbs, demon beast meat, and so on.

This demon beast meat actually contained a large amount of Blood Qi, and a portion of inner disciples would also eat this to replenish their Blood Qi.

Unfortunately, these demon beasts’ levels were too low, so the demon beast meat was basically used as fodder for the Meat Gu.

The qualified inner disciples consumed all kinds of medicinal pills every day. As for hunting some high-level demon beasts, they needed to leave Mount Gu.

This was because almost all the high-level demon beasts in Mount Gu had been eradicated.

The sect missions also included clearing out demon beasts above the Qi Gathering realm all year round.

As for these stalls, Zhou Feng skipped them because only those who had shops could afford the protection fee.

After walking around for a while, he suddenly found that someone was causing trouble in a shop.

“How is it? Have you considered it? Young Master Zhao Wu is about to break through to the Qi Condensation realm and will soon reach the Soul Altar realm!”

“Choosing Young Master Zhao is absolutely the right choice!”

“Jia Ju was injured two days ago. He shouldn’t be able to protect you guys!”

“…”

A few lackeys who hadn’t even reached the Qi Gathering realm started spouting nonsense at the shop entrance.

Zhao Wu again?

This was really fate!

Zhou Feng raised his eyebrows slightly when he heard the name Zhao Wu. He seemed to be quite fated with this Zhao Wu. He didn’t expect to run into his subordinates here.

Facing the threats from the people in front of him, Qian Shang had a bitter smile on his face.

It was truly a bad time. He had just moved to this market city and had encountered such a situation.

In order to avoid his enemies, Qian Shang had just moved to this Tri-Gu market city from another place. This was because he had a Gu-taming method, which could provide an endless supply of Gu.

And the Tri-Gu Sect’s Penta-Poison faction just happened to require a large number of poisonous Gu and poisons to satisfy the Penta-Poison Gu.

If the Bloodthirsty Gu needed Blood Qi, then the Penta-Poison Gu needed all kinds of deadly poisons.

Thus, Qian Shang thought that it should not be difficult for him to settle down in this Tri-Gu market.

Not long ago, Qian Shang had spent most of his wealth to rent such a shop, and at the same time, he found an inner disciple named Jia Ju to be his backer.

Unexpectedly, he had just paid the protection fee, yet Jia Ju got injured. Hence, Zhao Wu’s men targeted Qian Shang’s shop.

Jia Ju simultaneously protected several shops, so he was powerless now and couldn’t help Qian Shang at all.

“You’d better talk to Young Master Jia about this! After all, if I agree, Young Master Jia won’t be able to explain himself!”

Qian Shang still had a bitter smile on his face. He planned to directly push the problem to Jia Ju.

However, the small fries opposite him didn’t fall for this trick at all.

“It doesn’t matter! As long as you agree, even if Jia Ju has objections, Young Master Zhao will directly shoulder this burden!”

Facing these small fries’ solemn promises, Qian Shang could only continue to smile apologetically.

Qian Shang had already investigated the so-called Young Master Zhao.

This was only a newly promoted inner disciple of Purple Bamboo Peak. Although he was very talented, his battle prowess could only be put into question.

Qian Shang didn’t want to pay the protection fee, only for someone else to beat this Young Master Zhao to the ground later.

Therefore, this choice had to be made carefully.

“Boss! Is your backer gone? Why don’t you consider me!”

At that moment, Zhou Feng, who had been hiding and listening for a long time, suddenly came out.

“You?”

“You are…”

His sudden appearance instantly attracted everyone’s attention.

Qian Shang instantly looked at Zhou Feng.

“Qi Gathering realm?”

When he found out that he was only in the Qi Gathering realm, the hope in his eyes instantly disappeared.

Obviously, a mere Qi Gathering cultivator could not protect this shop at all.

One had to know that Zhao Wu and Jia Ju were at least in the Qi Induction realm. Although one’s realm did not mean everything, the strength of those in the higher strata was at least guaranteed.