Who Let Him Cultivate？

Chapter 65: The Examiners

Lu Yang turned Qin Yuanhao’s Storage Ring over in his palm, attempting to channel his spiritual qi into the band a few times before shaking his head with a dry sigh.

“A structural dead end,” he muttered. “This Storage Ring is biometrically bound to Qin Yuanhao’s specific spiritual signature. It’s a paperweight to us. Attempting a brute-force decryption of the spatial matrix will only collapse the internal pocket dimension, banishing its contents into the chaotic void of spatial exile. We’d never find it.”

“Let’s go audit his residence instead. Might be some tangible assets left behind,” Lu Yang said, gesturing for the other two to follow.

The Changui that had lured Qin Yuanhao to his doom floated obediently behind them. Man Gu, ever the benevolent manager, felt the spectral entity had met its key performance indicators and decided to issue a performance bonus: two lamb skewers. Theoretically, if the skewers were roasted into pure, carbonized ash, the ghost’s ethereal form could consume them.

As for whether the Changui would receive a perfectly seared culinary delight or a charred stick of carbonized regret, that remained a matter for empirical testing.

Qin Yuanhao’s residence was spartan to the point of clinical depression. For a man living alone, the estate felt hollow, entirely devoid of the warmth of human habitation.

The trio bypassed the living quarters and stepped into the training room. Aside from a solitary jade statue resting on a pedestal, the room contained only two rows of heavy wooden bookshelves, groaning under the weight of various cultivation manuals and esoteric texts.

The jade statue was draped in a carved stone robe, its facial features entirely smoothed over, rendering its gender and identity an ineffable mystery.

“This must be the core of the Immortal Cult’s corporate branding—the Indestructible Immortal,” Meng Jingzhou said, circling the statue with a critical eye. “The material density is far superior to standard masonry, but the craftsmanship is utterly abysmal. Whose divine idol doesn’t at least strive for a modicum of anatomical accuracy?”

Lu Yang ignored the critique, his fingers trailing lightly over the uneven spines of the texts on the shelf. He always appreciated the tactile feedback of ancient bindings. “Water Avoidance Technique, Formation Novice, Sword Moves and Countermoves… Standard entry-level curriculum. You could trip over these on the first floor of our Scripture Pavilion.”

His hand paused on a particularly worn section. “Optimizing Upward Mobility: A Guide to Managing Your Superior, The Architecture of the Human Heart, Advanced Office Intrigue… What in the name of the Dao is this administrative garbage?”

Lu Yang casually pulled out Optimizing Upward Mobility. The corners of the pages were dog-eared and frayed, a testament to how desperately Qin Yuanhao had studied it.

He flipped to the first chapter. “Method One: Synergize through Matrimony. Depending on your age and core competencies, strategically target your superior or their direct descendants for marriage.”

In the margins, Qin Yuanhao had frantically scribbled: The Branch Leader never removes his mask. Identity unknown. Gender unknown. Networking via marriage is structurally impossible.

Lu Yang flipped the page. “Method Two: Strategic Gifting. Flashy treasures project an ostentatious aura and negatively impact your cultural fit. It is highly recommended to present your superior with assets that are aesthetically low-key yet financially devastating.”

Qin Yuanhao’s handwritten note read: Leveraged my personal credit to finance a jade throne for the Branch Leader. Praying for a positive return on investment.

“Method Three: Aligning Core Hobbies. Conduct a thorough analysis of your superior’s extracurricular interests and aggressively cultivate identical hobbies.”

Qin Yuanhao’s note: The Branch Leader’s primary hobby is fishing. Accompanied the Branch Leader to the river. I caught more fish than the Branch Leader. Praying the Branch Leader does not view my superior angling talent as a threat to his authority.

“Method Four…”

“Method Five…”

It was glaringly obvious that Qin Yuanhao had poured his heart and soul into kissing up to middle management, only to see a catastrophic lack of dividends.

“Climbing the corporate ladder in a demonic syndicate is just as soul-crushing as anywhere else,” Lu Yang remarked, a dry, cynical smile tugging at his lips.

However, thanks to Qin Yuanhao’s desperate marginalia, Lu Yang now possessed a functional organizational chart of the Yanjiang Branch.

“The internal hierarchy is strictly stratified,” Lu Yang summarized for the group. “At the bottom are the ordinary cult members—the entry-level grunts. They range from the Qi Refining stage to Foundation Establishment and have zero clearance for the Immortal Cult’s classified operations.”

“To break into middle management and become a Deacon, a Foundation Establishment cultivator must pass a rigorous performance review. The Yanjiang Branch operates with a board of twelve Deacons. With Qin Yuanhao’s recent… termination, they are down to eleven.”

“At the top is the Branch Leader. Identity classified. Cultivation base confirmed at the Golden Core stage, though the exact tier is unknown. And, crucially, he enjoys fishing.”

Aside from the HR manuals, they looted a scattered pile of Spirit Stones and a handful of spell books that clearly violated righteous-path compliance laws—hypnotism, dual cultivation bedroom arts, and other unsavory techniques not worth the paper they were printed on.

“Let’s move,” Lu Yang said, pocketing the Spirit Stones. “We have nine days to prepare for the demonic cult’s talent acquisition phase.”

***

Nine days later. The border of Yanjiang County.

Fractured shafts of pale light pierced the canopy of the dense, primordial forest, illuminating the expressionless faces of countless taciturn cultivators. The dappled shadows clung to them, suffusing the woods with a suffocating, eerie tension.

Every cultivator maintained a paranoid, calculated distance from the next. Spiritual qi thrummed quietly in their meridians, coiled and ready to strike. The moment anyone showed a fraction of weakness, the others would descend upon them, ruthlessly liquidating the competition.

These were the dregs and elites of the demonic path—Rogue Cultivators who had intercepted the recruitment location through black-market channels and arrived early to secure their future.

Under the relentless, suffocating suppression of the righteous sects, their operational bandwidth had shrunk to near zero. To secure cultivation resources, they had to integrate into a massive conglomerate. The Yanjiang Branch was the ultimate prize.

Historically, joining the Immortal Cult required a direct referral from a Deacon, a process that demanded exorbitant bribes. But this fiscal quarter was different. The doors were open. It was a once-in-a-generation hiring event.

An hour before the assessment was scheduled to begin, the clearing was already packed with the most notorious scum of the region.

“Look! Isn’t that Chi Xulong? The butcher who slaughtered an entire bloodline overnight, didn’t even spare the rats in the walls, and strolled out the front gates in broad daylight?!”

The man in question was a hulking brute, gnawing on the femur of an unidentified Demon Beast like a feral savage. His skin was forged bronze, his muscles corded with explosive power, and his arms were a tapestry of lethal scars. When he grinned, he bared teeth filed into wolf-like fangs.

Chi Xulong was a legend among the demonic Rogue Cultivators. He was an arrogant, domineering force of nature who had survived countless execution attempts, possessing the terrifying ability to force breakthroughs in the heat of slaughter. He was the epitome of a man who grew stronger the closer he danced to the grave.

“Chi Xulong. I never expected a rabid dog like you to answer a corporate summons,” a pale-faced scholar drawled, lazily fanning himself with a paper fan.

A sharp, icy huff escaped Chi Xulong’s lips. “Shen Jinyi. You’re an educational consultant. Why aren’t you rotting in some academy? No one here needs your pedantic lectures!”

“What? That’s Shen Jinyi? The man who runs a private academy dedicated to the art of homicide?!” A nearby cultivator gasped, stumbling back several paces to put distance between himself and the scholar.

Shen Jinyi was indeed a teacher, but his curriculum didn’t cover Confucian classics or historical texts. He taught the optimized, frictionless mechanics of silent murder. He had manufactured an untold number of elite assassins, making him a boogeyman even among the demonic path.

Beneath that frail, smiling, scholarly veneer lay a monster. If you provoked Shen Jinyi, you’d be dead before your brain registered the pain.

“Assassins? Just a gaggle of cowards too terrified to look their victims in the eye,” sneered a towering swordsman. He carried a monstrous broadsword strapped to his back, the blade as wide as a man’s torso. He looked at Shen Jinyi with undisguised contempt.

Shen Jinyi’s smile vanished, a lethal retort dying on his tongue the moment he recognized the swordsman’s face. He swallowed hard, his voice hissing through gritted teeth. “Yi Zhang Hong!”

“What are you barking at, corpse?” Yi Zhang Hong spat, a glob of phlegm striking the dirt with the force of a hidden weapon. He met Shen Jinyi’s murderous glare with absolute disdain.

The surrounding Rogue Cultivators felt their blood run cold. The heavy hitters were truly coming out of the woodwork today. “It’s the Ten-Foot Crimson! Yi Zhang Hong! They say anyone who steps within a ten-foot radius of him is guaranteed to bleed! His close-quarters combat is so oppressive that even half-step Golden Core masters refuse to engage him!”

Beyond these three, the clearing was littered with high-value targets—villains with astronomical bounties on the government’s wanted lists. Yet, no bounty hunter dared claim their heads, lest they end up as fertilizer.

These apex predators naturally gravitated toward each other, forming an intimidating nucleus. The lesser cultivators, acutely aware of their own inadequate metrics, huddled on the periphery, too terrified to even breathe loudly.

Suddenly, the oppressive atmosphere was shattered by the arrival of three figures.

The man in the center walked with a sword strapped to his back, his expression a mask of absolute, deadpan indifference. To his left strode a man holding a sage’s text, radiating the stoic aura of a Confucian scholar. To his right walked a man wearing a smile so bright and unhinged he looked like a certified lunatic.

The trio moved in perfect silence, their gazes fixed straight ahead. They didn’t even spare a glance for the gathered mass of legendary murderers. Their aura was an overwhelming, suffocating wave of superiority.

“Who are they? Do you recognize them?”

“No clue. But with an entrance like that, they must be upper management.”

The three men parted the sea of bloodthirsty criminals without breaking stride, walking directly to the solid stone wall at the front of the clearing. Muttering a synchronized chant of “Praise the Indestructible Immortal,” they reached out.

Through a flawless spatial displacement—secretly utilizing a storage pendant, but executing it with such theatrical flair it looked as though they were warping reality itself—they pulled a heavy wooden desk and three chairs straight out of the solid rock face.

Chi Xulong and the other heavyweights narrowed their eyes. To manipulate spatial formations so effortlessly… they must be the Cult’s internal operatives.

Taking the center seat, the sword-bearing man cleared his throat, the sound cutting through the silence like a whip. Every eye in the clearing snapped to him.

“My name is Lu Yang,” he announced, his voice echoing with administrative finality. “These two are Meng Jingzhou and Man Gu. We are the senior examiners for this recruitment cycle.”

He leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “The Immortal Cult’s talent acquisition phase has officially begun. Form a single-file line. When you step up, clearly state your name, your core competencies, and your personal information.”