Retrospection

When he reached the stone door, Ye Mo remarked there was a small round hole on the wall beside it.

This hole was the paying fee mechanism of the institute for every cultivation room.

Beside fighting and overcoming the obstacles to attain the room, there was also a small price to pay to use them which elevated itself at 10 gold coins per day.

This would be enormous seeing from the outside but instead it was a ridiculous amount considering the benefits of cultivating in the pagoda. Even if the price was raised to 50 gold coins, there would still be many students fighting and paying for the right to enter a room.

Nevertheless, the institute never increased their price.

Their objective was to raise young cultivators with great potential.

As long as you were able to reach a stone door without any of the other constestants capable of stopping you then you proved your own capabilities and that you deserved to cultivate inside, there was no need to rip them off.

The 10 gold coins was just a small bonus and the institute still made a huge profit over this service.

In the end, outside of the rewards the sect potentially offered, the institute still needed to be self-sufficient and in this aspect the pagoda was a major part of it's economy.

Without hesitation, Ye Mo immediately transfered 300 gold coins from his pouch inside the small hole.

At that moment the room started vibrating faintly as four small light crystals of different colors embedded in each side of the squarish room illuminated the interior.

Ye Mo stepped forward and went inside when the stone door rumbled as it started moving behind him.

Seeing this, Ye Mo's palm moved in a slicing manner, hitting the side of Li Xiurong's neck with controlled strength as she fainted on the spot before he tossed her body outside.

"Die!" When he saw his cousin being released, Li Qiang immediately rushed towards the room, shouting in rage as he brandished his sword.

However the door was already halfway closed when Li Xiurong was knocked out and still moving quickly.

Li Qiang could only helplessly watch Ye Mo's mocking gaze behind the gap before the door closed itself, separating the inside from the exterior.

Near the same instant, Li Qiang appeared in front of the room, sending his sword slashing against the door as bright sparks flew in the air, yet the door remained intact.

Obviously, it wasn't made of any ordinary stone.

"Damn it!" Li Qiang gritted his teeth in furor as his piercing eyes looked at the door like it tried to get a glimpse inside.

At first, Li Qiang thought nothing of Ye Mo.

He was just a nobody with weak battle strength and no cultivation. People like him, he could dispose of them without any difficulty.

However because of Li Cheng's own actions, the Li clan was ridiculized. Li Qiang didn't need to go far to find a scapegoat, his little brother's opponent being the root of the problem was the perfect target to restore their prestige.

After the mid-year examination, Li Qiang's indifference towards Ye Mo turned into scorn and contempt.

He disdained even wasting his time dealing with him but because of his own personnality and his will to punish anyone offending his clan, he persevered in this matter.

When he saw him in the pagoda, he just planned to quickly defeat him, maybe sever a leg or dealing deep injuries to discipline him then go on with the rest of the day.

But now it all changed and his intentions reflected directly in his eyes.

"This is not the end, i will definitely kill you!" Li Qiang left this sentence lathed with all kinds of negative emotions mixed together.

He didn't forget to post 3 members of his clan beside the door to inform him when Ye Mo leaves the room before departing from the pagoda, carrying Li Xiurong on his shoulders.

Inside the room, Ye Mo laughed.

This Li Qiang was really a lamentable person. He was bound by relationships; Ye Mo was right in front of him, he could easily attack him, but because of merely one girl he turned into a useless piece of wood looking at him aimlessly.

If he didn't have this much guts, how could he impose himself further than this small Azure Water city?

For any action you undertake it had it's own consequences. No matter which place, if you wanted to achieve something, you had to pay the price.

The room was rather empty containing only toilets in a corner while on the side of a wall was a small fountain with clean water.

When Ye Mo entered, he felt a thick and pure Qi invade the space.

The dense Qi surrounded him and seemed almost alive as it tried to penetrate into his body. It was quite an intense experience as he didn't event start cultivating yet and the Qi of heaven and earth was attempting to invade his body.

Ye Mo wore a complicated expression as he stood in thought, "Originally, i had 1925 gold coins from the recruitment competition rewards and the people i killed there, but i already bought enough herbs for one year of medicinal baths required when using the Black Vortex cultivation technique and also rented a courtyard for training in the Stone Breaking Punch, losing 650 gold coins."

"Adding all the small expenses like food or my copper cauldron and i can remove roughly 23 gold coins."

"With the 300 i just expended, only 952 gold coins remain. It will be tight to further my cultivation with only this much during the last months."

Ye Mo was concerned about his financial situation.

Wealth was very important for cultivators.

Obtaining cultivation techniques and battle skills required money but most battle skills needed time and certain facilities to train in while some cultivation techniques had special requirements making you spend even more.

To progress faster, you had to use various ressources and cultivate in unique places, those required money as well and it was just the beginning.

In the life of a cultivator, your spendings would only increase as your strength grow.

For an average family, one or two gold coins a year was more than enough to live but for a cultivator this was a pitiful amount, barely worth anything.

"With my current wealth, i can only cultivate for 4 months in the pagoda. At worst i will sell the blood cores i kept for times of needs to make ends meet."

Casting these thoughts aside, Ye Mo sat cross legged at the center of the room.

He was finally able to cultivate in the pagoda after many struggles, there wasn't any time to waste on small thoughts.

Ye Mo released his Black Vortex in his dantian, sucking the surrounding Qi greedily.

Immediately, the Qi started entering Ye Mo's body as if he was a bottomless pit, swallowing all the energy available.

While he cultivated, he also used this time to indulge in retrospection of recent events.

"Liu Sen was strong, stronger than Liu Guan Tao, but since i broke through the second revolution of the Fiend body, my physical abilities reached an absurd level."

"I don't think i would lose to anyone under the 8th layer of the Qi Gatheting realm. At most, a peak 7th layer could give me some trouble but nothing more."

The quality of cultivators in a martial institute was much better than outsiders. Most of them stood out already during the recruitment competition and upon joining them, they grew even stronger. 

Liu Sen was only 18 years old but he was stronger than a team leader of the Liu clan in his mid twenties.

That's also why Liu Dan could confidently entrust him with the task of crippling Ye Mo beside the fact they are both students of the Tiger Martial institute.

"Seeing my 6th layer cultivation, he chose to turn our fight into a prolonged battle, unaware that he was also targeting my weakness at the time as i had very low reserves of Qi. I had to end the bout quickly but still needed to control my strength to not accidentally kill him so he made me struggle quite a bit."

"With enough Qi i would have easily defeated him, he was already showing signs of exhaustion before i knocked him out."

Ye Mo cultivates a Star class high-tier body refining technique. In the past he could already fight 5th layer cultivators with just his body alone.

Now that he broke through the second revolution, coupled with his 6th layer cultivation and his battle skills, he is practically invincible at his own level in Azure Water city and could directly fight on equal footing with higher cultivators.

Next his thoughts drifted towards Li Qiang, "This guy has been pestering me for quite some time already. This is the last straw, if an opportunity present itself in the future, i will just kill him."

Ye Mo's dark eyes shone coldly under the lights of the crystals.

His objective was to grow stronger and all his actions were turned towards this goal.

He was disinclined to lose his energy bonding with people, creating rivalry or exacting revenge.

For those who didn't interfere, standing on the side, he wouldn't even look at them.

However since Li Qiang was bent on obstructing his path, he would trample on this obstacle and move forward without any hesitation.