Chapter 773: Promotion, Ascension Conditions (Thanks to '17298' for tipping)

Chapter 773 Promotion, Ascension Conditions (Thanks to "17298" for tipping Alliance Leader)

Hearing Luo Wuji's work directives, the cultivators present had varying reactions in their hearts.

The group leaders of Martial Arts Groups 1 and 2 felt the greatest resistance in their hearts.

To them, letting Zhang Yu come over to guide performance, wouldn't that just encroach upon their power? It would also bring them greater performance pressure and increase the cost of working.

Under this risk of reduced rights and increased costs, not a word was mentioned regarding the possibility of a salary raise...

"Is this trying to treat us like outsourcing?"

To the two group leaders, that was a grudge of blocking the path that weakened their immortal Dao potential.

Although neither was willing to clash head-on with Minister Luo Wuji at the meeting, their eyes were already full of hostility as they looked at Zhang Yu.

Thus, Xiao Zhi, the leader of Martial Arts Group 1, was heard saying, "Minister, Zhang Yu has, after all, only recently arrived at the sect from the lower realm, his time in the sect is still too short, and his understanding of the situation in our two groups is also limited."

"Martial Arts Groups 1 and 2 have been operating stably for so many years; rash alterations might cause adverse reactions, which would then affect the review rhythm and accuracy of all martial arts techniques."

Hearing these words, the leaders of the other technique review groups present—such as Daoist Arts, Artifact Refining, Talismans, Body Refining, and so forth—all nodded secretly in their hearts.

Among them, Daoist Arts, like Martial Arts, was a review group for broad categories of techniques.

While Artifact Refining, Talismans, Body Refining, and the like were specialized technique groups subdivided from within, and the techniques they involved... were not reviewed by broad category review groups like Martial Arts or Daoist Arts.

In the eyes of these group leaders, being from the lower realm was the largest label on Zhang Yu.

The existence of this label naturally caused these sect cultivators to have one notch less trust in Zhang Yu.

After all, people from the lower realm... what did they know about cultivating immortality? This wasn't discrimination, rather, this was just their perception of lower realm people.

Nor would any sect member feel this was discrimination; aren't lower realm people just like that? Statistical results summarized from data, derived from immortal Dao analysis, how could it be called discrimination?

As for the practice of demanding the Martial Arts groups to improve performance like this, it also made the other groups feel the chill of a shared fate, and a faint intent to oppose arose in their hearts.

Xiao Zhi, the leader of Martial Arts Group 1, continued to say, "The model Zhang Yu is currently applying in Martial Arts Group 3 lacks the accumulation of time; we don't yet know if it can be universally applied, let alone how many risks and how many flaws are within it."

"I suggest... it's better to wait a year or two for the situation in Martial Arts Group 3 to stabilize before discussing it."

The leader of Group 2 on the other side also said, "Leader Xiao's words are words of mature experience; this matter is of great importance and requires long-term deliberation."

Minister Luo Wuji nodded and said calmly, "If there are any other opinions, let's all speak up. Vice Minister Lu, you have overseen the Martial Arts groups for many years, what is your view on this?"

Lu Hengzhang, who was called upon, said unhurriedly, "The performance growth of Group 3 is a good thing, but how many risks are within it is indeed not fully understood yet."

"I suggest disclosing all work processes and logs of Group 3 first, to let all groups study it together first."

Group 1 Leader Xiao Zhi said, "Correct, why not just have Zhang Yu and his team contribute their memories to serve as a model work memory, so we can all study it together and see what risks and what deficiencies are inside..."

Saying this, he looked toward Zhang Yu, smiling radiantly, "It just so happens we can help you find gaps and make up for deficiencies."

Hearing these words, Zhang Yu's brow furrowed slightly; providing his memory was, of course, something absolutely unacceptable to him.

And feeling the hostility within the opponent's gaze, Zhang Yu thought to himself, "Singing in harmony, this Xiao Zhi perhaps... has also united with Lu Hengzhang, preparing to deal with me."

On the other side, hearing these words, Qu Yizhi became even more furious.

"Contribute memory? Isn't this blatant robbery?"

How could he tolerate his and his group members' memories being provided for free?

Now they dared to demand free donations of memory; would they want free donations of bloodline memory and direct donations of seeds in the future?

Qu Yizhi still remembered the free donation of seeds that had once been promoted, and the subsequent accident where a cultivator was drained alive.

"Letting us contribute our memories, won't they be able to find reasons to flip through our memories at every turn in the future?"

Qu Yizhi immediately said, "Whether it is Zhang Yu's experience or any guidance, we provide them all for free, and we can even provide assistance to everyone during working hours."

"And over the past month, in order to increase performance by 30%, our entire group threw money and threw people into it, even a large batch of soul cultivators was consumed, and only then did we rush to complete the performance requirements before the end of the month."

Thinking of the soul cultivators consumed and the immortal coins thrown out to rush the performance before he received Zhang Yu's guidance, Qu Yizhi felt a pang of heartache.

"For the sect, we can spend any amount of money and endure any amount of hardship, but I just don't understand, we are all doing the sect's business, why is it that the more someone does, the greater the grievance they suffer?"

Just as the three group leaders were about to argue, another person spoke up, halting the speeches of the three.

"Everyone, please hear me out."

"Zhang Yu's experience is still worth promoting; if all three groups of Martial Arts review can increase performance by 30%, I see that the piling up of techniques awaiting approval can also be gradually reduced."

"As for memory... could it be that everyone has forgotten the matter of Fuxiantian more than two years ago?"

At the mention of the three words Fuxiantian, the expressions of many cultivators present darkened slightly, as if recalling that period of instability, where arguments and bankruptcies were everywhere, and everyone lived in fear of being connected to Fuxiantian.

At the same time, they also understood the meaning of this speech.

It was said that the reason Fuxiantian went mad back then was precisely because it absorbed too many memories of lower realm people, causing its own thoughts to be soaked in lower realm concepts and ideas, ultimately driving it completely mad.

Thinking that Zhang Yu's memory must also implicitly contain various instincts, concepts, and ideas from the lower realm... the gaze of the crowd looking at Zhang Yu was instantly filled with a trace of disdain, and the same thought welled up in their hearts.

"Must not touch Zhang Yu's memory, lest we get stained with the stench of the lower realm."

Even Qu Yizhi on the side was slightly stunned in his heart, thinking, "Exchanging thoughts with Zhang Yu like this all the time, I wouldn't already have a lower realm stench on me, would I?"

And after the speaker finished, he smiled at Zhang Yu again, saying, "My words just now carried no intent of discrimination; I am also from the lower realm, and we lower realm people are indeed not quite up to par."

Zhang Yu looked toward the speaker, thinking to himself, "The other vice minister overseeing the Artifact Refining techniques... Gu Qingya."

At the same time, through Qu Yizhi's previous introduction, Zhang Yu also knew the special aspect of this Gu Qingya.

"He graduated from Wanfa University."

"He is from the 10th floor."

Although the opponent possessed the same lower realm label as himself and theoretically seemed like they should band together.

"But according to Qu Yizhi's words, this Gu Qingya is ashamed of his lower realm origin, and among the many vice ministers, he is the one who treats the outsourced employees from the lower realm the worst, with the highest bankruptcy rate among his subordinates."

Yet at this very moment, Zhang Yu could feel the goodwill coming from the opponent.

He thought to himself, "Is it because... Minister Luo supports me?"

Just after a flurry of discussion among the crowd, Luo Wuji summarized the speeches of all the cultivators and finally set the tone to have Zhang Yu give classes to Martial Arts Groups 1 and 2 first, to impart his review experience.

Hearing these words, Group 1 Leader Xiao Zhi felt anxious in his heart: "Classes after work, or classes during work hours?"

He prayed in his heart that it must be classes after work, and absolutely must not occupy their working hours.

Upon hearing Luo Wuji tell them to have classes after work, Xiao Zhi breathed a sigh of relief.

After the meeting ended, Qu Yizhi sent a message to Zhang Yu, saying, "Giving classes is likely just a warm-up, to let you understand the situation in advance."

"The Minister is very satisfied with your results this time, but your rank is ultimately too low, and you are from the lower realm; direct guidance right now might not hold down the stage. It is estimated that after the evaluation ends, you will be promoted to the second rank, and it will be convenient to let you guide the review work of Groups 1 and 2 then."

"I congratulate you in advance."

Zhang Yu said, "Group Leader, rest assured, the number one in performance in the future will always still be our Martial Arts Group 3."

Hearing these words, Qu Yizhi immediately laughed, and a trace of worry in his heart was temporarily set aside.

At the same time, Qu Yizhi looked at the leaders of the other two groups, saying proudly, "You two, your groups' performance improvement is far too slow. You still need to cooperate well with Zhang Yu and organize all the personnel of your groups to come to class."

Whether it was speaking at the meeting earlier or confronting the two men at this moment, Qu Yizhi, as a disciple of the sect, naturally did not do so purely to show off.

Or rather, to him, showing off itself was not for emotional value, but to highlight his presence, elevate his right to speak, increase his influence, and leave a deeper impression before the leadership.

Qu Yizhi knew how many powerful cultivators within the Wanfa Sect were boundlessly glorious and famous throughout the world, which was what allowed them to boost stock prices and currency prices, triggering further expansion of assets to feed back into the growth of their cultivation.

Not to mention during every single ascension selection, the various campaigns and advertisements of the candidates would flood the scene relentlessly, as if looking to swallow the entire sect tier whole.

Qu Yizhi knew that his actions today amounted to absolutely nothing when compared to those true chosen children of heaven who were riding the crest of the wave.

At the same time, Xiao Zhi looked at Qu Yizhi and Zhang Yu without showing any weakness, saying, "The work of auditing is not to be done blindly like you two are doing. The more you do each month, the higher the probability of making a mistake. Be careful not to work yourselves to death."

Along with the conclusion of the monthly meeting, the performance results of each group for February were also published one after another.

The massively improved performance of Martial Arts Group Three once again shocked a great crowd of people. Within the office area of Group One, Shen Qingyun was extremely satisfied with her own performance from last month; a performance that had increased to a full 166 points gave her the confidence to look down upon the rest of the crowd.

Whenever she recalled the eyes of the other members in her group as they watched her submit reports time after time, watched her performance grow time after time, and watched themselves fail to catch up time after time until they completely gave up, Shen Qingyun would feel a deep sense of satisfaction.

As an elite who had entered the Hall of Imperial Law by ranking first in both the re-examination and the interview, she simply thoroughly enjoyed this state of surpassing others and watching them fail to catch up even when striving with all their might.

She had even purchased the memories of those failures, solely to savor in detail that exact wave of despair whenever they thought of her.

"This feeling is even more exhilarating than dual cultivation."

And today, carrying her expectation of returning to the number one spot, Shen Qingyun walked unhurriedly to her own desk, waiting for the cross-group performance rankings to be announced.

But when she looked at Zhang Yu ranking first, and the massive performance score of 198 following behind his name, Shen Qingyun fell into a daze for a long moment.

"Impossible!"

"How could he possibly be so much higher than me?"

And when Shen Qingyun looked further at the performance scores of the others in Martial Arts Group Three, she felt an even greater sense of astonishment.

"The entire group, from top to bottom, actually improved by this much? All improved by more than 30%?"

At this moment, Shen Qingyun was no longer merely shocked, but had also become deeply curious; she desperately wanted to know exactly what method Zhang Yu had used to be able to raise the performance of so many people by such a margin.

Hearing that Zhang Yu would be lecturing them after work hours next week, Shen Qingyun's eyes suddenly lit up.

"I will wait to learn from you, and then surpass you step by step."

......

On the other side, after learning that Zhang Yu might guide the entirety of Martial Arts Groups One, Two, and Three in the future, a trace of worry also appeared on Ye Xingli's face.

"With the workloads of three groups added together, I fear the tasks will be too many and the performance requirements too high, leading to a backlash of karmic retribution against you in the future, Junior Brother."

During this period of working daily in the sect, Ye Xingli had also heard many stories of cultivators who, under the oppression of step-by-step performance increases, rose rapidly at the beginning but ultimately suffered a backlash, being caught up by the overtime line, ending up paying to work overtime every day and unable to save a single penny.

Zhang Yu, however, remained calm and said, "It is fine, Senior Sister. If it is three groups, I can still bear it."

Feeling the sixteen demon-descendant avatars within his body, Zhang Yu understood that although combining the Formless Martial Play with the Three-Ged Eye Divine Ability was already his optimal mode for auditing cultivation methods,

as long as he activated more avatars to simulate the cultivation methods, he could go even faster.

Only to hear Fu Ji say, "Haha, in the future you will control the numerous draft animals of the three martial arts groups, and everyone's performance will be entirely in the palm of your hand. Whomever you want to fall behind will fall behind. When the time comes to collect protection fees, won't you be making a roaring trade?"

Zhang Yu did not actually intend to collect protection fees, but he felt that if the group members wanted to give him gifts for the sake of making progress, he had no reason to refuse; he could not well dampen the filial piety of his team members.

At the same time, Zhang Yu thought back to the contents of today's meeting and secretly mused in his heart, "After this evaluation, Director Luo should be breaking through to the Void Refining stage, right?"

"But looking at it now, even after he breaks through to Void Refining, he still wants me to continue raising the performance of the various martial arts groups."

Zhan Xian said, "This is only natural. Now that you have risen in position, you must increase the performance for Luo Wuji. Because once he rises in position, he too must provide performance to the higher-ups."

Fu Ji muttered, "Hehe, the merits of the lower cultivator belong to the upper cultivator, while the faults of the upper cultivator are borne by the lower cultivator."

Zhan Xian said, "It can also be phrased another way: the achievements of the lower cultivator are shared by the upper cultivator, yet the costs of the upper cultivator must be paid by the lower cultivator."

"As long as one remains within the system of Kunxu, one can never escape these things."

"The only way is to climb upward, to climb to a high enough position..."

Zhang Yu asked, "How high is considered high?"

Zhan Xian sighed, "Ascending to become an immortal. After becoming an immortal... at least you personally will face very few restrictions."

Hearing this answer, Zhang Yu let out a sigh of emotion, "Ascension... that is something one only has a chance at after reaching the 9th rank, right?"

Zhan Xian spoke calmly, "The 9th rank, breaking through to the Ascension Realm, Dao Heart level 80, mana at 1 billion, becoming an immortal candidate, and then passing the ascension selection—only then can one ascend to become an immortal."

Listening to the words spoken by Zhan Xian, although Zhang Yu's heart was filled with yearning at this moment, he also knew that this path was still very far away from him.

However, Zhang Yu believed that as long as he climbed upward step by step, the probability of ascending to become an immortal in the future would certainly not be zero.

With his fighting spirit ignited, Zhang Yu once again focused himself entirely on his work.

Although performance had skyrocketed during the previous February, in order to subdue the various members of Group Three, Zhang Yu had barely possessed a single moment of leisure.

In terms of personal cultivation, even his Nascent Soul Sacred Body had not grown in the slightest, still maintaining a level of 14/14.

"Once I control the various martial arts groups, there should be a period of tranquility to allow me to elevate myself..."

And at this moment, Zhang Yu was browsing through the information on cultivation methods within the internal dharma realm.

"Regrettably, with my current rank, I cannot consult the actual contents of the Immortal Gate cultivation methods. At most, I can only see a brief summary of their principles to use as a reference."

Regarding the various cultivation methods within the Ten Thousand Laws Sect, what Zhang Yu was naturally most interested in were still those Immortal Gate cultivation methods, especially those that could form his own law-chain diagram.

But Zhang Yu knew that sect officials of levels 1 to 3 within the Hall of Imperial Law could not casually leaf through the original texts of the Immortal Gate cultivation methods.

Unless one was transferred to audit the Immortal Gate cultivation methods, only then would there be an opportunity to leaf through the original texts of the relevant methods.

"The opportunity to participate in the auditing of Immortal Gate cultivation methods is a rare stroke of luck that cannot be sought, and it is not something I can control."

"For now, I will still silently accumulate, and first gather enough money to buy an immortal spiritual root. As for the Immortal Gate cultivation methods... if there is an opportunity in the future, I will steal them; if there is no opportunity, I will just continue to pool immortal coins and Dao merits to buy them."

Just as Zhang Yu was lost in thought, a notification surfaced before his eyes.

"An application for re-examination?"

Zhang Yu knew that this was a copyright applicant for a cultivation method he had rejected, who had applied to the Re-examination Department of the Hall of Imperial Law for a review.

Clearly, the other party refused to accept Zhang Yu's judgment, believing that their cultivation method possessed novelty, creativity, and practicality, and by all rights should be granted a copyright.

And as Zhang Yu swept his gaze over the specific details, that cultivation method also came to mind.

"Is it that Art of Refining the Spirit?"

Shaking his head, Zhang Yu rejected the other party's application once again, just like last time.

Over the next few days, things became increasingly smooth for Zhang Yu within Martial Arts Group Three.

First, with the arrival of his salary and bonuses, Zhang Yu's account balance suddenly shot up to 5000 immortal coins and 60 Dao merits.

Secondly, all the tasks that Martial Arts Group Three could accept were placed before Zhang Yu by Qu Yizhi, leaving them entirely to Zhang Yu's selection.

Zhang Yu could freely choose the tasks he wished to complete, and could even replace Qu Yizhi in allocating the tasks.

Moreover, the numerous group members seemed to have received some sort of news, and began sending gifts to Zhang Yu one after another.

Chu Wangji was seen bringing a large box of mind-awakening incense into Zhang Yu's dormitory, saying, "True Lord Zhang, a small gift of no consequence, merely to express my gratitude for your guidance, True Lord Zhang."

Wen Zhiwei: "True Lord Zhang, didn't you say last time that the enlightenment elements at home were not enough to eat? I brought you this box..."

Inadvertently, Zhang Yu had already become the core figure of Martial Arts Group Three.

And at the same time, he gradually discovered that the outsourced employees in the group had suddenly decreased by a great deal. Upon inquiring, he learned that half of the outsourced employees had been dismissed.

Zhang Yu secretly mused in his heart, "Is it because of me? Elevating performance, yet reducing their workload."

Zhan Xian said, "A single immortal achieves success at the cost of ten thousand resignations. If you want to climb upward, if you want to become an immortal, you must elevate immortal-dao technology and enhance work efficiency... Along this path, you are destined to encounter many who are eliminated because of your progress, even if this is not your original intention."

"Only by remembering this, accepting this, yet without changing your original intent, can it be possible for you to achieve the things you desire."

Zhang Yu said nothing, only gazing at the somewhat empty office space, his eyes gradually deepening with thought.

With the conclusion of the sect’s internal evaluations in March, Zhang Yu’s name appeared on the list for promotion within the Yufa Pavilion, entering a seven-day public display period before officially becoming a Grade-Two Sect Affairs Officer.

Yet just as his colleagues in the team were offering him their congratulations, in another office belonging to Lu Hengzhang, the latter looked at Zhang Yu’s name on the display list and slowly spoke toward the far end of the Dharma Realm: “It’s time to make our move.”

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(End of chapter)