Li Fan made discreet inquiries and confirmed that Yin Yuzhen had not lied about the Dust-Transcending Pill.
Thus, three days later, he met with her once more and agreed to her request.
The two sides agreed that prior to the opening of the Purifying Spirit Pool, Li Fan would help Tianbao Pavilion gather a set amount of treasure at regular intervals.
When the spirit pool finally opened, Yin Yuzhen would hand over the Dust-Transcending Pill to Li Fan.
Naturally, as a show of good faith, Yin Yuzhen brought out the deed to Tingyou Building once more.
Now that they had come to terms, Li Fan saw no reason to stand on ceremony and pocketed it.
And so, Li Fan moved once again.
Tingyou Building was situated in the heart of Liuli Island, surrounded by bustling, lively streets.
Yet through clever architectural design and lush plantings of trees and flora, it completely shut out the clamor outside.
Though set in the middle of a noisy market district, living there felt akin to residing deep in secluded mountains.
Finding tranquility amidst motion—hence its name, "Listening to Seclusion."
Tingyou Building spanned several times the size of Li Fan's previous courtyard, with ornamental rockeries, a garden pond, flowers, and trees all requiring care.
Declining once more the maidservants Tianbao Pavilion offered to send over, Li Fan hired several laborers from the island himself, instructing them only to come by once every three days to clean.
Yin Yuzhen felt helpless in the face of Li Fan's caution.
Fortunately, Li Fan did not cut corners regarding what they had agreed upon.
During his year at Tingyou Building, Li Fan first completed three official voyages organized by Liuli Island, bringing back several chests of treasure each time. While shocking the entire island, these successes also secured a dedicated fleet quota for Tianbao Pavilion.
Afterward, whenever Tianbao Pavilion's fleet sailed out to sea, Li Fan would accompany them.
Over the course of that year, Tianbao Pavilion made money hand over fist, nearly equaling their total profits from the previous five years combined.
Li Fan also established immense prestige among the people of Tianbao Pavilion; anyone who saw him felt both respect and awe.
To them, this Elder Li not only possessed astounding capability—leading everyone to find treasure on every single voyage—but was also meticulously calculating, decisive, and ruthless.
Once, during a voyage of the Tianbao Pavilion fleet, several crewmen grew covetous over the dredged-up treasures and harbored wicked thoughts, plotting to band together to murder and seize the goods.
Little did they expect that Elder Li had long since detected their unusual behavior. Before they could even make their move, he struck preemptively and decapitated every last one of them.
He threw their corpses into the sea and strung their heads together to deter the rest.
In private, people whispered that those crewmen might only have been spouting drunken nonsense and might not actually have had the guts to murder and plunder.
Yet over that mere sliver of possibility, Elder Li had slaughtered them without mercy.
Furthermore, neither the island authorities nor the pavilion manager blamed him; instead, they lavishly praised Elder Li's actions, calling them a reasonable and effective measure to safeguard Liuli Island's assets.
Even the common folk of the island, upon hearing the news, cursed the bandits for getting what they deserved and declared that Elder Li had done a splendid job.
From then on, no one in Tianbao Pavilion's fleet dared harbor disloyal thoughts again.
Whenever people saw Li Fan, they treaded with utmost caution, terrified he might find an excuse to execute them.
***
Li Fan naturally did not care what others thought of him.
To quickly take complete control of the fleet, a few displays of killing the chicken to scare the monkeys were quite necessary.
He had no energy to waste on such mundane trifles.
Over the past year, whenever he had free time, he painstakingly cultivated the *Xuanhuang Mind-Clearing Incantation*.
This was not merely because it could dispel miasma, but because Li Fan had discovered something that brought him unexpected delight.
The charging progress of [True Reversion] had sped up!
Before this, [True Reversion]'s charging progress could only increase naturally with the passage of time.
It reached one hundred percent every twenty years, slowly rising until it hit the cap of two hundred percent, after which it would no longer grow.
Throughout his previous nine reincarnations, Li Fan had tried all sorts of methods to speed up the charging progress, but none had succeeded.
It had been a little over a year since Li Fan left Great Xuan and arrived in the cultivation world.
According to the past pattern, the charging progress should have been between six and seven percent.
Yet to his pleasant surprise, Li Fan found that the charging progress had actually reached fifteen percent.
The charging speed was nearly twice as fast!
Aside from the Mind-Clearing Incantation, Li Fan had not come into contact with anything else that might have helped with this.
The only explanation was that cultivating the *Xuanhuang Mind-Clearing Incantation* could actually accelerate [True Reversion]'s charging progress.
Although he still did not understand the underlying principle, that did not stop Li Fan from practicing with ever greater diligence.
And with the display on [True Reversion]'s panel, every shred of progress could be seen with absolute clarity.
This also prevented Li Fan from losing motivation from prolonged, tedious, repetitive cultivation.
In addition to the charging progress, Li Fan's maximum lifespan had also increased considerably.
Name: Li Fan
Realm: Mortal
Physiological Age: 42/95↑
Psychological Age: 505/1210↑
Reversion Charging Progress: 15%
Anchor Charging Progress: 51%
Current Anchors: 1
Bound Items: *Golden Chapter of Thousand Mechanisms and the Jade Cosmos*, Taiyan Boat, Step-Halting Broken Stele (Damaged)
***
Time slipped by quietly as Li Fan lost himself in cultivation.
Soon, only one year remained until the opening of the Purifying Spirit Pool.
Liuli Island also announced the list of materials required this time.
Li Fan was currently examining this list together with the members of Tianbao Pavilion.
"Everything else on this list is straightforward enough, but what is this Star Sea Flowing Sand?" Li Fan asked with a furrowed brow after reading through it.
Having worked for Tianbao Pavilion for a year, Li Fan had not come away empty-handed; at the very least, he had acquired a general understanding of the common ores and rare materials circulated throughout the Congyun Sea.
Not only did Sun Zhang look completely blank, but even Yin Yuzhen, the manager of Tianbao Pavilion, fell silent.
"The materials required this time are all quite common; only this Star Sea Flowing Sand is unheard of. It seems the deciding factor in competing for a spot lies right with this Star Sea Flowing Sand," Sun Zhang remarked.
"I have done business for over a decade, yet I have never heard of this thing either." Yin Yuzhen tapped her finger lightly on the table. "It seems we'll have to ask around with the people from the Wanhua Merchant Guild."
"Those folks are like reincarnated starved ghosts—incredibly greedy. I'm afraid it's going to cost us an arm and a leg," Sun Zhang sighed.
"A spot in the spirit pool is something I must secure," Li Fan said in a low voice.
The Wanhua Merchant Guild was not a local merchant guild of the Congyun Sea, but hailed from a continent countless tens of thousands of li away.
The guild was said to be backed by immortal masters, which allowed them to easily traverse the boundless sea and come to this remote Congyun Sea to conduct trade.
Ever since Yin Yuzhen established ties with the Wanhua Merchant Guild over a decade ago, the two sides had maintained trade relations over the years.
And it was precisely by relying on the Wanhua Merchant Guild that Tianbao Pavilion was able to quickly offload and convert the massive amounts of treasure Li Fan salvaged into profit.
"We still have a year to prepare. A traveling agent from the Wanhua Merchant Guild should be passing through the Congyun Sea in three months. I can get in touch with him then," Yin Yuzhen said.
"We can't pin all our hopes on the Wanhua Merchant Guild either. Over the past year, Liuli Island has taken in many refugees from other islands. These refugees come from all across the Congyun Sea; who knows if there might be someone among them who recognizes this Star Sea Flowing Sand? We can inquire among them. The other factions on the island will surely be searching for this Star Sea Flowing Sand as well, so we must keep close watch on them too. If they discover anything, we can move quickly right behind them." Li Fan made the final call.
Chapter 34