Chapter 6: Turning Scrap into Treasure!
Fang Yuan sat behind the workbench in the rear hall, watching the front hall through the surveillance Magic Artifact.
Within his Meridians, streams of Spiritual Power were circulating on their own, driven by instinct.
This was the effect of the Completion Stage Mingqi Art — it could cultivate like a reflex, never breaking off as long as he avoided strenuous movement. It was twice as slow as full-effort cultivation, but it consumed far less Spiritual Sense and allowed him to cultivate for far longer stretches.
In the front hall, a few disciples had already arrived, each making their way into the Selection Room to choose their items before heading to the Exchange Room to complete their trades.
What happened inside those two rooms was beyond his ability to monitor — the sect's privacy protections around Contribution Point exchanges appeared to be extremely strict.
At that moment, Xiaobao's luminous figure materialized out of thin air. "Fang Yuan, heads up — disciples from the Artifact Hall are on their way!"
Fang Yuan startled and looked toward the entrance.
A short while later, the rear door of the back hall swung open.
A group of disciples filed in.
When they spotted Fang Yuan, they all froze.
"Where's Lao Li?" one of them asked.
"My name is Fang Yuan. I officially became a Treasure Pavilion disciple today — Senior Brother Li has retired," Fang Yuan said. "From now on, I'll be managing things here."
"That's so sudden." The disciple blinked in surprise, then continued, "I'm Xu Yan, the squad leader in charge of goods delivery for the Artifact Hall."
"Good to meet you, Senior Brother Xu!" Fang Yuan said with a smile.
"The Artifact Hall has already sent the manifest to Xiaobao. Go ahead and verify it."
Only then did Fang Yuan notice a glowing screen hovering before him, displaying the manifest.
[Artifact Hall — Ten-Day Production Intake Manifest (Tier One):]
[Tier One, Supreme Grade Magic Artifacts: 3 items]
[Tier One, Upper Grade Magic Artifacts: 15 items]
[Tier One, Mid Grade Magic Artifacts: 52 items]
[Tier One, Lower Grade Magic Artifacts: 250 items]
[Scrap Material: 23,289 lbs]
Xu Yan held out a Storage Bag. "It's all in there."
Fang Yuan took it and extended his Spiritual Sense inside. Sure enough, he found over three hundred Magic Artifacts and a heap of scrap material.
His eyes burned with envy. A single lower-grade Magic Artifact alone was worth several hundred Spirit Stones — the combined value of all these items was staggering.
This was an enormous fortune.
Xiaobao said, "Fang Yuan, once you've verified the count, just place everything on the transfer platform in the designated room. I'll verify the exact quantities and quality, then automatically settle the Contribution Points for the Artifact Hall."
"Got it!"
After confirming the count was roughly correct, Fang Yuan carried the Storage Bag into the room marked [Magic Artifacts].
Inside, there was indeed a large circular transfer platform.
He removed the Magic Artifacts one by one from the Storage Bag and set them onto the platform. Each item vanished in a flash of white light, whisked away to some unknown destination.
Once all the transfers were complete, Fang Yuan walked back out and entered the [Scrap Material] room, dumping the entire pile of scrap onto the transfer platform.
Another burst of light swept through, and everything on the platform disappeared.
Fang Yuan then returned the Storage Bag to Xu Yan and retrieved from beneath the counter a handover receipt that Xiaobao had just generated, passing both over together.
Xu Yan glanced over the receipt and grinned. "All done. Junior Brother Fang Yuan, I'll be heading off — let's catch up when there's time!"
With a wave of his hand, he departed with his two Artifact Hall disciples.
The whole process had been quick and efficient.
Throughout it all, Fang Yuan had found absolutely no opportunity to skim anything off the top.
After sitting back down, he opened a mirror on the Treasure Hall counter. A glowing screen appeared on its surface, displaying information about all the treasures currently held in the Treasure Hall.
[Clear Water Sword — Supreme Grade Magic Artifact. Intake Contribution Points: 8,000. Exchange Contribution Points: 10,000. Stock: 3.]
[Barrier-Breaking Pill — Late Qi Refining Stage Pill, upper grade quality. Increases breakthrough success rate to the late stage by thirty percent. Intake Contribution Points: 5,000. Exchange Contribution Points: 6,000. Stock: 23.]
Item after item scrolled past, dazzling Fang Yuan.
Unfortunately, he couldn't exchange for any of them.
He flipped the sort order to show the lowest Contribution Point costs first.
What appeared before him were the cheap items.
[Lower-Grade Magic Artifact Fragment — Completeness below one percent; value nearly nil. Intake Contribution Points: 0. Exchange Contribution Points: 1 point per 100 items. Stock: 5,308,493.]
[Inferior Magic Artifact — Magic Artifact of poor quality; extremely low practical value. Intake Contribution Points: 0.8. Exchange Contribution Points: 1. Stock: 99,239.]
[Inferior Pill — Extremely high Pill Toxin content; near-zero medicinal effect. Intake Contribution Points: 1 point per 10 pills. Exchange Contribution Points: 1 point per 9 pills. Stock: 13,235,238.]
"Xiaobao," Fang Yuan suddenly said, "can you look up the exchange records of individual disciples?"
Xiaobao popped into view and shook her head. "Of course not. That's disciples' private information — I'm not allowed to access it."
Fang Yuan pointed at the items on the screen. "You know the stock numbers up there. A disciple comes in, exchanges an item, and the stock drops by one — you'd immediately know who took it."
Xiaobao giggled. "You're so clever, Fang Yuan. But that loophole has already been patched. I automatically delete previous stock records and disciple exchange records. The data can be restored, but only if the Elders vote to approve it."
Fang Yuan frowned. "That's not right — there's still another loophole. I, as the managing disciple, can see it too."
"So what if you see it? If you expose anything, just wait for the law enforcement team to come haul you away. Besides, knowing doesn't do you any good." Xiaobao stuck her tongue out at him.
Fang Yuan narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Oh right — I've finished tallying this batch of scrap. There are 7,830 lbs of scrap left with no value whatsoever. Go take care of it," Xiaobao added suddenly.
Fang Yuan blinked, nodded, and headed toward the [Scrap Material] room. Sure enough, a fresh pile of scrap had reappeared on the transfer platform — chunks of ore that looked like charcoal, completely ruined Magic Artifacts, and the like.
Fang Yuan took out the Treasure Pavilion's dedicated Storage Bag and collected all the scrap inside. The bag was enormous — large enough to hold an entire great hall — a perk of being an official disciple. It couldn't be taken out of the sect, but could be used freely within its grounds.
Xiaobao said offhandedly, "Deal with it however you like. You can dump it behind the back mountain, or destroy it yourself. Of course, if you have some way to make use of the scrap, more power to you."
Fang Yuan nodded noncommittally.
He continued browsing the treasures in the vault and asked, "What happens if an ordinary disciple wants to contribute a treasure?"
Xiaobao said, "Simple — they just go into the Exchange Room and leave the item there. I can appraise most items directly and settle the Contribution Points automatically."
"Is that record confidential too?" Fang Yuan asked.
"Yes, I automatically delete intake records as well," Xiaobao said.
"Hm."
Fang Yuan clicked his tongue. No wonder the Luoyun Sect was a major sect — with a system like this, both exchanging and contributing treasures was incredibly smooth for disciples. There was no need to worry about anyone watching. Privacy was deeply respected. In smaller sects, even if a disciple had a treasure they wanted to liquidate, they'd be afraid to — the moment they brought it out, higher-ups within the sect would be watching, and outside the sect it was even more dangerous.
Even if the Treasure Hall intake prices were discounted, the key advantage was safety.
Fang Yuan worked until dusk, then bid farewell to Xiaobao and left. The rear hall doors closed, while the front hall remained open, running automatically around the clock.
Fang Yuan wandered around Treasure Peak and soon set his sights on an unclaimed Cave Dwelling.
He inserted his identity token into the slot beside the Cave Dwelling's entrance.
The Cave Dwelling's Formation activated, indicating it had been claimed.
The door opened automatically, and Fang Yuan stepped inside with curiosity.
Within were a Practice Courtyard, a small Spirit Field, an Artifact Forging Chamber, an Alchemy Chamber, a study, a Meditation Chamber, and more — every kind of facility was present.
"Not bad at all," Fang Yuan remarked with admiration.
This was the treatment afforded to official disciples: a private Cave Dwelling with an exceptionally high concentration of Spiritual Energy.
Fang Yuan made his way to the Artifact Forging Chamber, checked to confirm there were no surveillance devices, and then retrieved the pile of scrap from the Storage Bag.
7,830 lbs of scrap piled up into a small mound about a meter high.
Fang Yuan pressed a finger against one of the charred black stones.
"Decompose!"
In the next instant, the charred black stone split apart into four distinct materials of different colors.
[Refined Iron] + [Spirit Sand Gold] + [Black Forged Stone] + [Spirit Soil]
Fang Yuan stared at the four materials, his breathing growing heavy.
It had truly turned a piece of scrap into four valuable raw materials!
And the purity of these materials was extraordinarily high — Fang Yuan even suspected they had reached one hundred percent purity.
Materials of such high purity would yield excellent results in Artifact Forging.
The Spirit Soil could be sold for money too, though not a great deal.
This was truly turning trash into treasure!
"Refined Iron goes for one Spirit Stone per pound on the market. This chunk alone weighs fifteen pounds — that's fifteen Spirit Stones. The other materials together are worth another twenty Spirit Stones. Thirty-five Spirit Stones total — hiss!"
He looked at the entire pile of scrap. The total value had to be worth several thousand Spirit Stones!
Right now he only had a few dozen Low-Grade Spirit Stones left in his pocket — this was practically getting rich overnight!
The decomposition talent was truly extraordinary.