He chatted with Bai Ling for a while, and it became clear she was a rare beauty. Not only was she devastatingly gorgeous, but her every frown and smile held an endless charm.

"Hehe, Lin Yun, I’m afraid it won’t be long before you have to start calling me your master’s wife," Bai Ling teased during their idle chat.

Hearing this, an unnatural smile spread across Lin Yun’s face. From her words, he had already guessed that this woman was probably another one of Luo Feng’s many female confidantes.

’Seriously... even rabbits don’t eat the grass near their own burrows,’ Lin Yun thought. Luo Feng’s philandering nature truly left him at a loss for words.

After chatting a little longer, Lin Yun found he couldn’t take Bai Ling’s teasing anymore. Making an excuse about needing to rest, he practically fled from the main hall.

Watching Lin Yun’s departing back, Bai Ling giggled. "This little guy... he’s quite interesting."

Just as she finished speaking, a Bai Family guard entered. The guard was a young woman about the same age as Lin Yun, but her Cultivation had already reached the Eighth Layer of the Primordial Ocean Realm.

"Patriarch, there’s news from the He Family..." the guard whispered to Bai Ling.

After hearing the guard’s report, Bai Ling’s expression remained unchanged. Having become the Patriarch of the Bai Family as a woman, she was hardly a simple person. She had already planted several spies within the He Family long ago.

According to the intelligence from her spies, the He Family was planning a major move tonight. More than ten He Family Guards had been assembled and dispatched to an unknown location.

"So, the moment Lin Yun arrives at my Bai Family, you just can’t hold yourselves back anymore?" Bai Ling smiled faintly, but it was a smile laced with chilling cold. Her sharp intellect allowed her to quickly deduce that the He Family’s target was undoubtedly Lin Yun.

Looking down at the young woman, Bai Ling chuckled. "Do you know what needs to be done tonight?"

The young woman nodded, then turned and left the main hall.

Bai Ling was one of Luo Feng’s confidantes, but she was a very intelligent woman. She never involved herself in the internal struggles of the Flawless Palace, nor did she ever try to use her relationship with Luo Feng to influence his decisions.

It had to be said, Bai Ling was truly clever. If she had tried to use her relationship with Luo Feng to help Bai Zhicheng, Luo Feng might have grown to resent her for it.

The He Family had no idea that Bai Ling had already seen through their plan, nor that she had spies planted within their own ranks. At that very moment, they were already preparing for their operation that night.

Lin Yun arrived at the accommodations Bai Ling had prepared for him. It was less a room and more a private, self-contained courtyard. The surroundings were beautiful, and the furnishings were elegant and unique.

He tossed a few Three-Stars Qi Essence Pills to Little Ape. Little Ape’s daily consumption of these pills was terrifyingly high; it needed a minimum of ten per day. Despite this, the moment Lin Yun gave it the pills, Little Ape began to complain.

"This junk again? Big Brother, this stuff tastes terrible! Can’t you give me something different for a change?" Little Ape grumbled, unsatisfactorily gulping down a Three-Stars Qi Essence Pill.

"You little rascal," Lin Yun replied helplessly. "Do you have any idea how much other people treasure these? But to you, they’re just garbage. Fine, fine, I’ll get you something else in the future. I really have no idea where all that Energy you absorb even goes."

"But they really are disgusting," Little Ape muttered, dissatisfied. "And not even nutritious."

Three-Stars Qi Essence Pills were sufficient for a Martial Artist to cultivate to the Primordial Ocean Realm. A step above them were Spiritual Essence Pills, which were used for cultivation by experts at the Celestial Spirit Realm and Spirit Realm. Each Spiritual Essence Pill was incredibly expensive.

A Three-Stars Qi Essence Pill cost ten thousand Low Grade Primordial Stones, while the price of a Spiritual Essence Pill was a full ten times higher. A single Spiritual Essence Pill cost one hundred thousand Low Grade Primordial Stones, or one thousand Middle Grade Primordial Stones. (One Middle Grade Primordial Stone is equivalent to one hundred Low Grade Primordial Stones.)

And this was just the price for low-grade Spirit Essence Pills; top-grade Spirit Essence Pills were even more expensive.

"Sigh... what am I going to do? We’re like two money-burning machines." He sighed helplessly. Both his and Little Ape’s cultivation demanded enormous amounts of resources.

It wasn’t just Little Ape who was getting tired of the Three-Stars Qi Essence Pills. Lin Yun himself could feel that they were becoming less and less effective for his own cultivation.

It was the same for both Lin Yun and Little Ape. They had started using Three-Stars Qi Essence Pills back when they were in the Qi Sea Realm. Now that they had both broken through to the Primordial Ocean Realm, it looked like they would have to start using low-grade Spirit Essence Pills.

’Money, oh, money...’ Every once in a while, Lin Yun would find himself worrying about resources again. The last time this happened, he had ended up robbing a Wind Forest Sect apothecary in the Nan Feng Kingdom for a full one million Low Grade Primordial Stones.

Yet not much time had passed, and after various expenses, his funds were hitting rock bottom again. That had been one million, not one hundred! Most Primordial Ocean Realm experts in the entire Southeast Domain would be hard-pressed to amass a net worth of one million Low Grade Primordial Stones, yet Lin Yun had nearly burned through it all in less than a year.

"Sigh... even after becoming a Core Disciple, the resources provided by the Flawless Palace will be nowhere near enough. It’s just a drop in the bucket," Lin Yun sighed.

He had made some inquiries. Core Disciples of the Flawless Palace received a monthly stipend of ten thousand Middle Grade Primordial Stones. But what good was that? It was only enough to buy ten low-grade Spirit Essence Pills.

Forget his own cultivation—that wasn’t even enough to cover Little Ape’s food expenses for a month.

There was no helping it; the resources required by Lin Yun and Little Ape together were simply immense. For anyone else, ten thousand Middle Grade Primordial Stones a month would be a fortune they could never spend.

Ten thousand Middle Grade Primordial Stones was equivalent to one million Low Grade Primordial Stones, which could buy one hundred Three-Stars Qi Essence Pills. For cultivation, that was absolutely more than enough, with plenty left over.

After all, how many people in the world were like Lin Yun and Little Ape, using Primordial Spirit Pills to cultivate while still in the Primordial Ocean Realm? Most people only just started using Three-Stars Qi Essence Pills upon reaching that realm.

Worrying about money again, Lin Yun sat helplessly in the courtyard pavilion. He propped his chin on his hand, staring listlessly at a nearby rockery and pond.

To put a positive spin on his and Little Ape’s predicament, one could say their immense Combat Power simply required far more resources than ordinary cultivators. But to put it bluntly, Lin Yun was just too damn poor.

It was a helpless situation, but Lin Yun never regretted exchanging resources for Combat Power. Besides, most people lacked the talent to make such a trade even if they had the means.

Still, being broke was a miserable feeling. Obtaining Spiritual Essence Pills was now an urgent problem he had to solve. Without them, his and Little Ape’s progress would slow to a crawl. As it was, the Three-Stars Qi Essence Pills had become almost completely ineffective for both of them.

Take himself, for instance. When he refined a Three-Stars Qi Essence Pill now, it felt like he hadn’t refined anything at all. It had virtually no effect, serving only to supply the bare minimum of Energy his body required and nothing more.

’Sigh, I’ll just have to take it slow. A solution will turn up eventually.’ He was broke, so he had no choice but to take things one step at a time. Right now, Lin Yun was actually hoping some arrogant, clueless young master would pick a fight with him. Then he could... hehe.

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