Aspiring to the Immortal Path
Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 640: The Bill

"Raaa!"

As the mammoth head fell, cheers erupted from the walls.

Human morale reached its maximum, and the fiends that had come with the three fiend kings began to run.

The Whitebrow and Ghostface Kings saw the situation and realized that they wouldn't be getting anything from this battle, so they sighed and gave the order to retreat.

Before leaving, the White Brow Lemur glanced at Tang Jie and chuckled. "Tang Jie, yes? You're quite the fierce one, killing three fiend kings. We'll be watching you."

The two fiend kings hurried off.

This bloody battle came to an end.

Several people flew down from the walls. Their leader was the general of Dongjin Pass, Gu Pinzhang, and behind him were three people. One was a middle-aged scholar holding a large brush, one was a blue-clothed man with a large broadsword on his back, and the other was an armored soldier with a spear. These three were the reinforcements who had been sent to help Tang Jie but had been intercepted by the Whitebrow and Ghostface Kings.

Gu Pinzhang flew up to Tang Jie and bowed to him. "Gu Pinzhang pays respects to True Person Tang. In today's battle, True Person Tang fought against three kings and slew two of them. Such a wondrous feat for my Fengshan is truly something worth celebrating!"

"General is too polite." Tang Jie bowed.

The three others also bowed to Tang Jie. After seeing Tang Jie's power, even the proudest of them did not dare to look down on him. Gu Pinzhang introduced them as Sun Shuming, Liu Yunshan, and Zhang Tu.

Tang Jie had heard of Sun Shuming before. This was a Soul Transformation cultivator who was also a famous calligrapher. He had once served as an assistant minister in the Ministry of Revenue, but after Dongjin fell into crisis, he had been transferred here to serve the army. In the battle just now, he had waved his brush in the air, tracing powerful words, which was rather like Zhang Shuhan.

Liu Yunshan was the young lord of the number one sect of Fengshan, the Celestial Sword Sect, and the son of Sect Master Liu Zongchang. But while he was the "young lord", he had actually cultivated for more than four hundred years. He only appeared young, thirty years old at most.

Zhang Tu carried the title of "the Iron Horse General". He had started off as a mortal general, and he had killed his way to his current achievements. He was currently the fiercest general of Dongjin Pass, and while he might not have been as strong as Sun Shuming or Liu Yunshan, he had killed more than any of them. His name hadn't originally been Zhang Tu, but after taking an oath to exterminate the fiends, he changed his name to Tu (Slaughter).

They exchanged looks, and then Gu Pinzhang laughed and said, "Come, come, come. Today, we celebrate a major victory over the fiends, and True Person Tang is to be the guest of honor at the victory feast. True Person, please join me in the city."

Tang Jie smiled. "There's no need for a feast, but I must ask the general to settle the bill."

"What bill?" Gu Pinzhang was startled.

Tang Jie passed a piece of paper to Gu Pinzhang. "This is my contract with the government, and you can see it has the stamp of the ruler. General, please pay me according to the contract."

Gu Pinzhang numbly took the paper and looked it over, and then he paled. "1500 spirit coins for lower-grade Mind Opening, 2500 for middle-grade, 5000 for upper-grade, 15,000 for lower-grade Transformation, 25,000 for middle-grade, and 50,000 for upper-grade!"

"It's discounted," Tang Jie noted.

He waved a hand, and Yiyi came over with the fiends Tang Jie had killed, placing them in front of the group. "More than a thousand fiends were killed in this battle. I've counted 312 lower-grade Mind Opening, 238 middle-grade, and 156 upper-grade. As for Transformation, there are 12 lower-grade, 1 middle-grade, and two upper-grade fiend kings, and also three Skyshakers. Also, the Treasure Cosmos Formation killed more than a thousand fiends, but it's difficult to evaluate their grade because of the number killed."

Tang Jie added, "We'll take a big loss and count them all as lower-grade Mind Opening, and put the number at eight hundred. Skyshakers have no set price, so let's count them as lower-grade Transformation."

Tang Jie's face exuded fairness.

Yiyi nodded and began to flick around an abacus. Finally, she said, "In total, it's 3,393,000 spirit coins."

This number made Gu Pinzhang's group dizzy.

Tang Jie felt like this was a little much and said, "Let's round down."

Yiyi nodded. "Mm, then it's three million."

Shit, I was saying to only get rid of the 3,000!

Gu Pinzhang was visibly unhappy. Frowning, he said, "You're saying that this general must pay three million for your work?"

"And those fiend corpses are mine." Perhaps noticing the coldness on General Gu's face, Tang Jie made a concession. "Of course, it's difficult to determine what was killed by the formation, so I can give up on that part."

General Gu sternly replied, "Don't you think three million is a little too much? My Dongjin Pass truly does determine achievements based on kill count, but nobody has ever been rewarded like this before. To be honest, even if I rewarded the entire army for this whole war, I wouldn't spend this much money. Does True Person Tang consider me someone easy to trick?"

Tang Jie indifferently replied, "General Gu, aren't you going a little too far? These are the conditions I reached with your country. If you think it's a lot, it's not because I'm asking for a lot, but because I killed a lot."

Gu Pinzhang narrowed his eyes.

Yes, Tang Jie was right. He only felt like it was a lot not because the prices were high, but because the quantity was.

In this battle, the forces of the three fiend kings had suffered disastrous losses, which meant that three fiend cities had suffered severe blows.

In previous battles, just draining the enemy forces by a tenth was decent.

If the costs were any greater, would the fiends still even be able to call it a hunt?

Thus, before, they had only pushed back the enemy. Only this time could they be considered to have truly attained a victory.

And behind this stunning victory was Tang Jie's astronomical reward.

A reward of three million spirit coins had even Gu Pinzhang wincing in pain.

It wasn't that he couldn't pay. It was commonplace to spend millions on such battles. The activation of the formation alone required the investment of countless resources. Fortunately, he had the support of all of Fengshan. But never before had he paid out three million at one time, and to only a single person!

In a battle, even a Soul Transformation cultivator normally got a reward of three hundred thousand at most.

The fiends were no fools, and nobody would just stand there and let themselves be killed. Powerful cultivators would have to face off against powerful cultivators, and nobody was able to recklessly reap a fortune.

Nobody could have expected to run into a freak like Tang Jie, harvesting a fortune of millions with a single formation diagram. Of course, if one considered his costs, then it wasn't strange at all for him to reach these numbers. This was like putting in an investment of one billion, so the interest alone would be impressive. Alas, General Gu didn't understand finance, so there was no point in explaining it to him.

Regardless, three million was a huge number to Gu Pinzhang. If this money had been used on city defense, it could provide even more energy to the formation, more arrows to the soldiers, more resources for the cultivators. In short, there were plenty of uses for this money. But to use it on a single person… wasn't that a little too expensive?

Gu Pinzhang didn't know about the Parting Classic. From his perspective, if this money were used entirely on cultivation resources, one could consume them nonstop for two years and still not be done with them.

He looked at Tang Jie for quite a while before sincerely saying, "True Person Tang, the attacks of the fiends are ceaseless, and Dongjin Pass is crucial to preventing the enemy from getting through. When the country and humanity are in peril, everyone must step up and do their part. How can one quibble over small profits? If Dongjin ceases to be, humanity will be in dire straits. When the nest is overturned, no egg will survive, so what would be the point in being a rich man?"

He spoke with great righteousness, and even Tang Jie couldn't help but feel admiration for this old general. Who said that soldiers were brutes? This old general seemed to have quite the silver tongue. He was talking up righteousness and loyalty so that he could blow off this bill of three million spirit coins.

Tang Jie sighed. "That's why I'm giving a discount. If I calculated seriously, I could have charged as much as eight million."

Gu Pinzhang's eyes almost popped out.

Tang Jie added, "Moreover, this money will be traded by me for cultivation resources. Cultivators have to be powerful in order to attain such achievements."

"And also to seize more money," Liu Yunshan coldly said.

Tang Jie chuckled, not angered by these words. "If you feel like I charge too much, then you just don't need to hire me in the future. But it would be best if you paid this bill. General, you are actually benefiting. I didn't take a single coin from the government for Hundred Battle City, and while Dongjin suffered for a few days because of it, ever since then, the lands to the south of Dongjin have been under much less pressure. Am I wrong?"

Hundred Battle City had been the fiend city closest to the border, and now that the city had been massacred, it was Fengshan who had benefited the most. Just the expansion of actual territory controlled and the reduction in pressure from fiends was worth celebrating, especially considering that Fengshan hadn't lost a single soldier over it.

The general gave Tang Jie a long look before finally saying, "Give it to him!"

He turned and flew back to the walls, the three following close behind.

As he landed back on the wall, Gu Pinzhang suddenly said, "Tang Jie, in the future, you are not to intervene unless I request it. Otherwise, this old man might have to refuse the bill."

Tang Jie bowed. "I obey the general's order!"

Gu Pinzhang turned and left.

He had originally planned to fete Tang Jie at a banquet, but now, nobody was in the mood for that.

Tang Jie didn't care in the slightest.

The biggest problem with him was that he wasn't a native of Fengshan, so he had no concept of protecting the motherland. It was quite the opposite. He was spending every moment he had thinking of how to leave! For him, he and Fengshan were simply collaborators. If Fengshan needed his strength, it needed to pay the price.

In this, there was no right or wrong. Tang Jie wasn't wrong, nor was Gu Pinzhang. Everyone had to consider problems from their own perspective.

Ultimately, strength decided everything.

He looked up at the sky. With the fiends dispersed, the clouds scattered, revealing the light behind them.

Tang Jie cracked a smile and flew back to the city.