"This Heavenly Court Cult is obscure, yet its foundation is actually this profound?" The Fifth Elder gasped, having never heard of any Heavenly Court Cult before.
Seeing that the Fifth Elder seemed taken aback, Lu Yang continued, "Besides the foundation mentioned above, the Heavenly Court Cult will soon hold another round of recruitment. We already have two prospective candidates in mind. One possesses an innate immortal physique; Immortal Jiuchong, the very first person in antiquity to achieve immortality, attained the Dao and became an immortal precisely because of his innate immortal physique."
"The other enjoys the fortune of his entire race, possesses surging luck, and cultivates both the barbarian and Confucian paths!"
"Fifth Elder, what do you say? Would you like to join us?"
"Originally, our Heavenly Court Cult planned on taking a long time to grow so that we could take center stage in the struggle of the Golden Age. Unfortunately, that loathsome Nine Nether Cult has set its sights on us. We need a Dao Protector to help us deal with them!"
Lu Yang cupped his fists and said solemnly, "If the Fifth Elder is willing to lend our Heavenly Court Cult a helping hand this time, our Heavenly Court Cult will surely reward you handsomely in the future!"
The Fifth Elder fell silent for a moment. Just as Lu Yang thought he was about to agree, he heard the elder ask slowly:
"Has your Heavenly Court Cult registered and filed with the imperial court?"
Lu Yang froze. "Registered and filed?"
"Yes. Great Xia law stipulates that any faction established must be filed and registered with the local yamen. Failure to register constitutes an illegal operation and is subject to severe crackdowns."
"The former Four Great Demonic Cults and the current Three Great Demonic Cults never registered."
Lu Yang: "..."
Seeing Lu Yang and the others fall silent, the Fifth Elder burst into laughter. "All right, all right, out with it. Cut the nonsense. What is really going on here?"
As one of the renowned Nine Sons of Dao Seeking, the Fifth Elder naturally wouldn't be fooled by Lu Yang.
Ancient immortal legacies? Aid from a prominent clan? Weren't they just talking about themselves?
With the destruction of the Immortal Cult, Lu Yang had obtained the legacy of the Immortal Celestial.
Meng Jingzhou was the eldest son of the Meng Family, so any money he spent counted as aid from a prominent clan.
Li Haoran's past life, Qin Haoran, had been a half-step Tribulation Transcendence cultivator.
And Qin Yanyan was Qin Haoran's daughter, making her naturally the first heir in line.
With no other choice, Lu Yang honestly recounted everything that had happened. The Fifth Elder clicked his tongue in wonder, his eyes lighting up.
"You kids sure have some nerve—fabricating an imaginary Heavenly Court out of thin air, conning the Nine Nether Cult into cooperation, and if your luck holds, maybe even tracking down the Shining Sun Cult and the Emotionless Cult."
A nostalgic look crossed the Fifth Elder's face. "Back in the day, the nine of us pulled off something pretty similar to what you're doing."
"What happened?" The four of them looked at the Fifth Elder curiously.
The Fifth Elder picked up a stone and casually refined it into a table and chairs, gesturing for Lu Yang and the three others to sit.
The table and chairs looked rather thin, but having been refined by a grandmaster craftsman like the Fifth Elder, they were sturdy enough to withstand several strikes from a Golden Core stage cultivator.
"It was probably about nine hundred years ago," the Fifth Elder said. "Eighth Junior Brother disguised himself as a low-level cultivator and went out to do chivalrous deeds. Quite by accident, he stumbled upon the trail of a Nine Nether Cult member. Rather than raising the alarm, he simply followed his nature, falling into bad company with the cultist. Day and night, they visited brothels and gambled together, with Eighth Junior Brother picking up the tab most of the time. Such behavior quickly won the cultist's trust."
Lu Yang and Meng Jingzhou hadn't interacted much with the Eighth Elder, but he had left a deep impression on them.
After all, the Eighth Elder was the one bold enough to sell Meng Jingzhou the entrance exam questions from twenty years ago while swearing up and down that they were genuine test materials.
"What happened next?"
"The Nine Nether Cult member asked how Eighth Junior Brother, being a fellow Nascent Soul stage cultivator, had so many spirit stones. Eighth Junior Brother told him that his organization had discovered a longevity-extending pill formula. Although the extension wasn't significant, it was more than enough to drive cultivators nearing the end of their lifespans into a frenzy."
"Eighth Junior Brother also claimed it was insider information from his organization, and that he was only telling him because they were good pals."
"However, production of the longevity pill formula was too low to meet demand, requiring a massive amount of spirit stones to purchase raw materials and expand scale."
"Eighth Junior Brother said their organization was short on funds and asked if he could borrow some money. It wouldn't be for free—he guaranteed to return the principal plus twenty percent interest after a year."
"The cultist was tempted, though still somewhat skeptical. At first, he only invested a few tens of thousands of spirit stones. A year later, Eighth Junior Brother dutifully returned the principal plus twenty percent interest."
"The cultist tried this for three years, and it was the same every year."
"Later, the cultist's superior found out about this. The superior also wanted to invest and asked Eighth Junior Brother if that was possible. Eighth Junior Brother said he needed to ask his superior, and brought out Old Ninth—your master."
"Your master said an investment was welcome. The superior then invested for five years, more than doubling his assets, and was ecstatic."
"Walls have ears, and eventually, word reached the Cult Master of the Nine Nether Cult. The Cult Master didn't tell anyone else, but cautiously requested to inspect the alchemy process in person. Old Eighth and Old Ninth called the rest of us over to stage a fake refining scene, with Eldest Brother posing as a test subject who had taken the pills."
"After the inspection, the Cult Master felt the nine of us were very dependable, so he first invested his own spirit stones and made a tidy sum."
"Even though he had made quite a lot of money, the Cult Master felt it was still not enough. He set his sights on the Nine Nether Cult's treasury, using the treasury funds to invest. Once he got the returns a year later, all the spirit stones in the treasury would be restored, and the interest would be his—wouldn't that be perfect?"
"The Cult Master embezzled part of the treasury and made even more money. Still unsatisfied, he ended up investing more than half of the entire treasury."
"And then, we absconded with the funds."
"Don't tell anyone about this. Even your Grandmaster doesn't know," the Fifth Elder cautioned.
Qin Yanyan asked in bewilderment, "Didn't the spirit stones you paid the Nine Nether Cult in returns come from the Dao Seeking Sect? How could Grandmaster not know?"
The Fifth Elder shook his head. "We didn't need a single coin from the Dao Seeking Sect. In the whole process, Eighth Junior Brother only used his own spirit stones at the very beginning to bait the cultist."
Qin Yanyan grew even more puzzled.
The Fifth Elder was very patient with his grand-disciple: "Think about it. When we paid out returns, weren't there other Nine Nether Cult members coming to invest with us?"
Qin Yanyan nodded.
"Then couldn't we just take the spirit stones invested by the new people and pay them as returns to the previous batch?"
Enlightenment dawned on Qin Yanyan.
"Wait... isn't that just fraud?"
"I asked Eighth Junior Brother that very question back then. Eighth Junior Brother asked how that could possibly be called fraud—we merely suffered a business failure, and the invested capital went down the drain. In business, it's completely normal to make profits or suffer losses."
"'If they think we committed a crime, they can go sue us in court. A straight foot fears not a crooked shoe!'"
"'Besides, if anyone committed a crime, it was the Nine Nether Cult Master embezzling property.'"
Qin Yanyan: "..."
Lu Yang noticed Li Haoran standing beside them with an indescribably bizarre expression. "What is it?"
Li Haoran looked at his master with a face full of conflicted emotions. "The Cult Master who got scammed was so overcome with rage and fury that he soon died of anger. Then Qin Haoran took over as Cult Master, only to discover that the Nine Nether Cult had massive financial troubles."
"To his dying day, the Cult Master two generations back never found out who had conned him."
Chapter 318