Chapter 119 The Interview
Upon seeing the message, Shang An nearly fainted.
He read the short letter of one hundred words three times to make sure it contained his name and the Giants Sect's insignia, and only then did he realize that the other party was not a fraudster.
Last week, many scam groups used the Giant Sect's recruitment as a pretext to defraud people. It wasn't until five days ago that the sect leader hired a third-party team to deal with those who took advantage of the situation, finally bringing an end to the various creative scams.
Shang An then turned the letter over to the back and found a QR code there.
After nervously scanning the QR code, he was surprised to find 10,000 spirit stones deposited into his account, with the note stating that it was for travel expenses.
Shang An's heart pounded, and for a moment the air in this unfinished building felt exceptionally fresh.
There was a whopping 10,000 yuan for travel expenses.
It seems that it is indeed the official website of the Giant Sect.
In order to save as much money as possible, he did not choose to buy a train ticket directly. Instead, he carefully calculated the price of materials and purchased twelve sets of basic materials for making low-level teleportation arrays. He planned to slowly move to Cangmang Mountain using these nested teleportation arrays.
The train ticket costs 800 yuan, while the materials for the twelve lowest-level teleportation arrays only cost a little over 500 yuan. Although he would have to stay in the virtual teleportation space for at least five days, he could save more than 200 spirit stones. He felt like he was a genius at saving money.
At 8:30 p.m. on Monday, he emerged from the teleportation array looking disheveled, having successfully arrived outside the Giant Sect territory a day ahead of schedule.
He gritted his teeth and spent twelve yuan to buy another carrier pigeon service. In the letter, he politely told the other party that he had arrived near the sect and would attend the interview on time the next day.
Less than five minutes after the carrier pigeons were released, he saw several gleaming streaks of flying swords appear on the horizon.
Those flying swords were clearly new models just released by the Refining Sect. They would have levitation acceleration runes when flying, and each flying sword would cost at least several million.
No cultivator dislikes flying swords, but not everyone can afford one.
One of Shang An's favorite hobbies is adding high-level flying swords to his shopping cart on the Refining Sect's official website, while also choosing their accessories, patterns, and colors. Browsing without buying anything gives him a subtle sense of satisfaction.
The moment he saw the new high-level flying sword fly over, his mind went blank. He wanted to touch the patterns on the sword, but he was afraid that doing so would make him seem too low-class.
He stared blankly as a long-haired boy stepped off the first flying sword. Opposite him was a boy with a braid tied at the back of his head and an androgynous beauty.
"Shang An, right? I am Yin Fuxue. Come with me and I will take you to a place to stay."
Shang An was led to another flying sword and, bewildered, was taken to the front of a cave. He looked around like a country bumpkin.
He hasn't lived in a room without any drafts for two years since graduation.
This should be the cave dwelling provided by the Giant Sect. It is at least over 100 square meters in size, fully furnished, with not only a cultivation room of over 40 square meters, but also a balcony of over 20 square meters.
The open-air balcony is filled with flowers such as tuberose, milan, and variegated wood, while ornamental plants exuding spiritual energy are grown in soil pots next to it. All the plants look very well taken care of.
Pushing open the bedroom door, the first thing you see is the mountain view outside the huge floor-to-ceiling window. The bedroom bed is over two meters long, and there is a walk-in closet next to it.
The handsome senior brother placed several high-grade spiritual herbs in the cultivation room and handed Shang An a small bag containing a stack of spiritual energy flow acceleration talismans worth tens of thousands of yuan and a gold-inlaid jade card.
"This is a temporary meal card. The cafeteria is open 24 hours a day, so you can go eat anytime. I'll have my assistant bring you a new set of clothes later."
Shang An nodded blankly, feeling as if a little person was running around in her heart, jumping and screaming repeatedly.
He knew the Giants Clan was rich, but the actual experience was even more exaggerated than what was rumored online.
Such a large piece of gold-inlaid jade would sell for tens of thousands of yuan elsewhere, but here it's just a temporary meal card. Isn't that absurd?
He's just a college graduate applying for a job, does he really deserve such good treatment?
Including the cost of accommodation in the cave and souvenirs, the cost of this reception must have been over 100,000. If this process were carried out in other sects, Shang An would definitely suspect that the other party wanted to drug him first and then rape him. But on the territory of the Giant Sect, he felt a strange sense of security.
With that gleaming gold meal card in hand, he immediately went downstairs to the cafeteria and got a serving of spiritual food.
Each set meal comes with a description of the dishes. This braised pork contains mushrooms produced from high-grade spiritual fields. The pigs used as raw materials have been drinking spiritual spring water since they were young, and even the food they eat is better than the scraps and garbage that Shang An used to gnaw on.
The chef's skill made the pig's death worthwhile; each square piece of braised pork was perfectly coated in a thick, glossy red sauce. Taking a gentle bite, the aroma of the fat mixed with the rich flavor melted on the tongue.
At this moment, Shang An was so moved that he almost cried.
If he could, he would love to stay in the Giants Clan as an unregistered resident.
He was willing to serve Sect Master Fang for life, even as a rat.
Shang An ate a total of six set meals in the cafeteria, trying one-fifth of the food stalls. He stuffed his stomach with a bowl of beef noodles, a durian pizza, a bowl of cream of mushroom soup, and three servings of braised pork.
To avoid appearing to linger too long in the cafeteria, he planned to fight again the next morning.
Back in her clean and tidy room, Shang An took a nice shower and changed into the silk pajamas her assistant had brought her. She let out a satisfied and happy sigh, feeling that her experiences over the past half-day could fill a book called "The Peach Blossom Spring".
He would not allow anyone to slander Sect Master Fang; from now on, he would be Sect Master Fang's most loyal servant.
When he arrived at the interview the next afternoon, he found that there were three other people with the same determined expression as him.
Everyone's faces showed a unified expression of willingness to charge into battle for the Giants Sect, clearly overwhelmed by the influx of money.
The interview process was a hundred times simpler than Shang An had imagined. He thought that Sect Master Fang would torture him like the small sect he had interviewed before, but Sect Master Fang simply had them put their phones on a stone that could reveal information, and the stone would automatically read their credit status and criminal records.
Almost no cultivators in the desolate hills can avoid borrowing money altogether; the only difference is how much they borrow. Shang An himself is in debt for more than 50,000 spirit stones, while the debts of the other three range from 20,000 to more than 200,000 spirit stones.
Sect Master Fang pushed four jars filled with spirit stones in front of everyone.
"There's a million here. Use it to pay off your small loans first, and you won't need to borrow money again."
"The sect has all kinds of resources and cultivation materials. If you have any other difficulties in life, you can tell me."
Shang An and the other three interviewees stared at each other, so moved that tears were about to well up in their eyes.
Is there any promise in the world more appealing than "Follow me, and you'll never have to borrow money again"?
there is none left.
These were the most touching words he had ever heard in his life.
Shang An's throat tightened, and he subconsciously wanted to assure Sect Leader Fang that he did not need a salary, but the other party seemed to see what he was about to say and interrupted his suggestion directly.
Fang Zhuo rubbed his temples and said, "Don't mention not paying wages. I've heard too much of that these past few days... This little bit of salary is no burden at all for the Giant Sect. Your good cultivation is the greatest reward for me."
Fang Zhuo was telling the truth—for every small realm his investment target advanced in cultivation, he would receive at least 300 million in cash returns and double the cultivation points as a return. Compared to the salary and cash returns, it was just a drop in the ocean.
He recruited these four people in the first place so that he could fully exploit the system's resources. Anyway, there were still four investment slots left, so they were just sitting there empty.
But these junior cultivators clearly didn't think that way; their faces showed expressions of overwhelming gratitude and surprise.
If his assistant hadn't been there to support him, the boy, who didn't look very bright, would have almost knelt down to express his gratitude.
After signing the contract, Fang Zhuo looked through the resumes of the four new disciples.
Two of them did not appear in the original work. They were originally ordinary people whose personal freedom was restricted, but their talent values both exceeded 93, which means that he successfully picked them up.
In addition, there is a female cultivator from the Ruthless Path. According to the original plot, she will be forced to switch to the Beast Sect thirty years later due to overdue loans. She will be transformed into a beastman in the Beast Sect and then follow the sect leader in battles across the country. In the end, she will be stabbed to death on the spot by the sect leader's enemy in a secret realm.
With a talent rating of 91, Fang Zhuo naturally signed her.
Fang Zhuo's gaze shifted to the last timid array cultivator: "You're an array cultivator, right? I'm going to the Divine Array Sect to buy an array later. You can come with me."
Shang An pointed to himself, unable to suppress a silly grin: "Hehe, me?"
Fang Zhuo nodded.
This array master has a talent value as high as 96. In the original text, he only has a pseudonym, and some basic information such as appearance, height, school he graduated from, and age is mentioned briefly. This person is first described in detail in the chapter where he dies.
The system's navigation function only works for full names, so Fang Zhuo couldn't take the initiative to find the other party immediately. He could only take the opportunity of posting a recruitment notice to see if he could recruit the person.
In the original novel "The God of Loans", the death of Xiao Zhenxiu is one of the most tragic plot points.
More than a hundred years later, Xiao Zhenxiu is about to grow into a formation genius known to everyone in the entire desolate hill. He is talented, unrestrained and unconventional, and has led his team to enter the arena competition year after year. Of course, he has also mentored many junior immortals such as Long Aotian.
Later, he and Long Aotian encountered an unexpected collapse of a secret realm. The natural secret realm had gathered most of the experts in the desolate hills, and more than 800 people were unable to evacuate in time.
The array cultivator exerted all his strength to create a teleportation array that could accommodate hundreds of people in the snowy secret realm, which could only be entered and exited on foot. He teleported all the young cultivators present out, while he and the remaining dozens of old men remained in the secret realm forever.
After completing the teleportation array, which was theoretically almost impossible to achieve, the array cultivator had irreversibly exhausted all his sanity.
The pride of his former glory is gone, and his behavior and logic have almost degenerated into that of a child.
His memory seemed to have returned to a time more than a hundred years ago, a time when he was still constantly hitting roadblocks. While fawning over everyone with obsequious gestures, he muttered, "Boss, I can work 22 hours a day, I don't need a salary..."
"I can do anything. This formation can be completed tonight. Do you want me to write a user manual PPT for you?"
The teleportation array was still counting down, and the young cultivator inside closed his eyes, unable to bear watching any longer.
Everyone knew perfectly well that if it weren't for the need to send more people out of this place, the senior array cultivator could have secretly drawn an array and left on his own. The mental strain from that would not have been so severe; at least people wouldn't have become completely stupid.
In a desolate place where everyone is driven by profit, such people are few and far between.
Long Aotian, fighting back tears, comforted him, "You've been hired. Your monthly salary is ten thousand spirit stones. There's no rush for the formation; just get it done and give it to me by next Friday."
Zhen Xiu knelt on the ground with satisfaction, a foolish smile on his face: "Thank you, thank you for your understanding, boss."
"I'll work overtime this week to go over the revisions with Sister Cao and try to get the formation design plan out by the day after tomorrow."
Finally, a heart-wrenching cry, which could no longer be suppressed, broke out from the crowd.
The great formation suddenly began to move.
This is one of the most important plot points in the original story. Only from this point onward can Long Aotian finally shoulder the responsibility of leading the entire immortal sect and become the leader of the younger generation.
At this moment, the array cultivator stood in front of Fang Zhuo, exuding an air of utter foolishness. He showed no signs of future ambition or willingness to sacrifice himself for the lives of the younger generation.
Fang Zhuo could devise dozens of ways to realize the plot point of the secret realm, among which at least ten methods would not involve more lives and would not change the original plot.
In other words, he could have preserved the formation without changing the basic plot.
Fang Zhuo beckoned to Shang An, inviting him to choose a high-level flying sword for himself on the software.
Seeing Shang An intently and excitedly selecting configurations on the tablet, Fang Zhuo felt a sense of relief for no apparent reason.
"Boss, I've made my selection."
Shang An rubbed his hands together. When the four flying swords of the newly initiated disciples flew to the window, he immediately recognized the one he had chosen and happily plopped down on it.
For some reason, he always felt that Sect Master Fang looked at him with exceptional kindness, like a gentle old father.
However, the next second, his illusion was brutally shattered by the person in question.
"Take this and send a telepathic message to the sect leader of the Divine Array Sect, saying that you are about to buy their sect's treasured Spirit Gathering and Divine Transformation Array, and ask them to name a price."
Shang An felt that his current expression was exactly the same as that of the little demon who had been ordered by the king to capture Tang Sanzang and his disciples. He pointed to himself incredulously again: "Huh? Me?"
This Spirit Gathering and Divine Transformation Array can only be mastered by successive sect leaders of the Divine Array Sect. Even the sect's elders are not qualified to be taught this great array.
Letting the Divine Array Sect sell this array to outsiders is as absurd as someone swaggering into the Giant Sect and saying they want to buy out Sect Master Fang.
Despite the immense pressure, this was, after all, his first mission since arriving at the Giant Sect. Shang An carefully crafted his message, then enthusiastically sent a message to the Divine Array Sect Master via megaphone:
"Junior disciple Shang An of the Giant Sect requests to purchase your sect's Spirit Gathering and Spirit Transformation Array. Could we discuss this in person in half an hour?"
The elder over there was probably slacking off at work, because he replied almost instantly:
"You brat, how dare you impersonate a disciple of the Giants Sect to commit fraud! You are incredibly audacious; you are courting death."
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Author's Note: Shang An (staring wide-eyed in a daze): Who's scamming me? Me?
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