Zhou Feng quickly returned to the courtyard and collected some of his personal belongings, the most important of which was food.
To be honest, apart from food, there was nothing else.
It was worth mentioning every time Zhou Feng returned to the courtyard, he would notice that there were fewer and fewer people.
The courtyard he was in originally had dozens of people.
But now, there were no more than a dozen people.
A large portion of them had died from various causes, and a small portion had defected to many inner disciples.
Especially those with handsome and beautiful faces, almost all of them had chosen to submit to inner disciples.
Now, only a few with better talent were left, and some were waiting to die.
How long had it been? It had only been a few months, and it had already become like this.
Zhou Feng felt an even greater sense of urgency in his heart.
'No! I must first become an inner disciple! At least, an inner disciple can still have a sliver of security!'
The key to becoming an inner disciple was with Zhao Jun. He had to obtain sufficient resources from Zhao Jun.
Only then could he quickly advance and reach the Qi Gathering realm.
The Qi Gathering realm was actually relatively simple.
Regarding the cultivation realms, the outer sect did not reveal too much about it.
Zhou Feng had done his best to gather some information.
At present, he only knew of two realms. One was the Body Tempering realm, and the other was the Qi Gathering realm.
As the name implied, to advance to the Body Tempering realm, one had to strengthen the body and lay a good foundation. The only thing one had to do was to increase the strength of their body as much as possible, to the point where it could adapt to the violent Heaven Earth Spiritual Qi.
On the other hand, if one wanted to advance to the Qi Gathering realm, one would have to be capable of drawing a sliver of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi into the body to form Spiritual Qi.
Even if one hadn't reached the 9th Layer of Body Tempering realm, as long as they could draw Spiritual Qi into their body to form Spiritual Qi, they would be considered to have entered the Qi Gathering realm. This was because after one had possessed Spiritual Qi, they would be able to use many techniques.
Zhou Feng had collected these pieces of information through his painstaking efforts.
Therefore, when necessary, Zhou Feng planned to forcefully draw Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi into his body.
He was very confident in the strength of his body, after all.
Thanks to Old Skin, his Defense would increase as long as he recovered from an injury.
Moreover, this increase in Defense included all aspects, which improved his physical fitness.
Compared to a normal person, his body was much stronger now.
Even if the conditions didn't allow it, he still wanted to continuously injure himself and recover from his injuries.
But under such circumstances, it was better not to follow through with such a suicidal plan because Old Skin's passivity could judge the degree of his injuries.
The injury had to reach a certain degree before Old Skin could be triggered successfully.
For example, some small scratches were not counted.
Gluttony provided additional Blood Qi, Old Skin enhanced the overall defense, and Self-Healing Constitution could speed up the recovery of injuries.
Finally, he had added Battle Instinct (Passive).
The passive skills that Zhou Feng possessed directly formed a combat system. They complemented each other and continuously increased his strength.
'When the sky turns dark, I'll go and scout the location!'
In order to accurately intercept Zhao Jun, he planned to scout the location at night.
First, he would scout out Zhao Jun's possible escape route.
What Zhou Feng did not know was that because of his initiative to scout, he would coincidentally encounter Zhao Jun, who planned to escape overnight.
This also laid the groundwork for advancing to the inner sect in the future.
…
Night descended quietly.
The bright sun slowly set in the west, and Mount Gu became quiet.
Zhao Jun had worked hard this morning and finally managed to exchange all the collected resources for Blood Pills and Primeval Blood Pills.
One had to know that Zhao Jun had stayed in the outer sect for a long time, so he had sold many things at a low price in order to exchange for Blood Pills and Primeval Blood Pills.
Even so, Zhao Jun had quite a lot of resources on him.
This was because Zhao Jun had also ruthlessly plundered the other Meat Gu caves.
That's right! Zhao Jun had previously been a steward in other Meat Gu caves, and this was also an opportunity that Zhao Wu, an inner disciple, had won back.
The management of these low-level Meat Gu caves in the outer sect was actually not arranged by the sect.
Instead, it was obtained through the inner disciples' own struggles.
The management arrangement was for the inner disciples to compete in martial arts, and the winner would obtain the management qualification of a Meat Gu cave.
After one obtained the management qualification of a Meat Gu cave, they would only have three days of protection.
When the three days passed, others could directly challenge you, and you were not allowed to refuse.
It was precisely because of this that Zhao Jun had been a steward in many Meat Gu caves.
This was possible only because the sect was implementing the policy of raising Gu.
Every inner disciple continued to cultivate resources, and becoming the Meat Gu cave steward was the most convenient way to obtain resources.
As long as you wanted to advance, you had to obtain the qualifications to be a steward of a few Meat Gu caves. Otherwise, you could only muddle along and wait for death, being surpassed by your peers, and eventually dying here.
Raising Gu was not a joke in the entire Tri-Gu Sect.
The battles between inner disciples were even more terrifying.
Although Zhao Wu had just become an inner disciple, and his talent was shocking, he could only keep the position of steward of one Meat Gu cave at a time in the face of such intense competition.
Thus, wherever Zhao Jun went, he would plunder the place like a swarm of locusts.
When the protection period was over, Zhao Wu would take down the position of steward of another Meat Gu cave and let Zhao Jun continue to plunder.
The benefits of each Meat Gu cave were directly divided into three parts, with the resident disciples, the sect, and the steward splitting the profits.
The sect took up the majority of the profits, the resident disciples were next, and the stewards were last.
The sect and the resident disciples naturally could not be provoked, so Zhao Jun could only attack the outer disciples who could not resist.
He collected numerous resources by not giving them remuneration, monopolizing the sale of fodder, and selling the qualifications to feed the Meat Gu.
One had to know that each Meat Gu cave did not only have one Meat Gu.
Just the daily wages alone were quite a lot.
However, the price for doing so was that, while Zhao Jun obtained large amounts of resources, he also let countless outer disciples die tragically.
What was even more terrifying was that such a terrifying act was tacitly approved by the sect or even deliberately done.
To the sect, the outer disciples were like other people's feed. If it wasn't enough, they could just take in a wave of outer disciples.
Although Southern Border's environment was harsh, quite a number of people were living there.
Just the territory the Tri-Gu Sect occupied alone included 36 large-scale villages and several hundred small villages.
The so-called large-scale villages needed at least 20,000-30.000 people in order to be called large-scale villages.
Only the cruelest environment could nurture the most outstanding Gu.
This was also one of the Tri-Gu Sect's ideals.
It was just sacrificing some fodder, not a big deal.
If there were no accidents, Zhao Jun would be the same as before.
After ruthlessly collecting the spoils, he would leave the mess to the others.
And the new steward would definitely not take over the mess.
In the end, he could only split the spoils evenly with the outer disciples in charge of this Meat Gu cave.
It was unclear how many people would die by then. Anyway, this was already the norm.
Unfortunately, Zhao Jun had met Zhou Feng this time.
He had kicked the iron plate!