Just a Useful Pawn in the Stain Sect

Chapter 518: Eternal Joy Garden

What did the Eternal Joy Garden actually look like?

Using the token left by Progenitor Tingyou, Lü Yang quickly connected with this strange place—one that seemed both to exist and not exist, ethereal yet tangibly real.

As it turned out, humans cannot imagine what they have never seen.

This was true even for a Talent Skill like Progenitor Tingyou. Therefore, when he created the Eternal Joy Garden, he naturally based it on the one thing he was most familiar with—

the Myriad-Soul Banner.

Lü Yang looked out and saw that the so-called Eternal Joy Garden was, in reality, a colossal black box. Inside were countless jet-black coffins, and in each one lay a Cultivator. Their faces were captured in expressions of joy, agony, or stoic numbness, reflecting the full spectrum of mortal life.

"Good heavens..."

Lü Yang blinked. Wielding the supreme authority over the Eternal Joy Garden—granted to him personally by Progenitor Tingyou—he quickly absorbed all available information about the place.

First was the Eternal Joy Garden itself.

’The essence of this strange place is very similar to the Fruit of Sorrowless Heaven. It pushes the transformation between the real and the illusory to its absolute limit, existing on the Critical Point between being and non-being.’

’As for the members recruited by the Eternal Joy Garden, besides the higher-ups of various major and minor Sects from Jiangnan, there is also a vast number of mortals and Qi Refining Disciples. The Eternal Joy Garden helps them with their Cultivation and to grow stronger, and in return, they carry out missions to keep the Garden running.’

It was a symbiotic relationship.

And without a doubt, this relationship further strengthened the connection between the mortal masses and the Fruit of Sorrowless Heaven, reinforcing the seal against the Perfected Lords.

’It added about... ten years.’

Lü Yang made a quick calculation and soon had his answer. "In my Previous Life, the seal was supposed to last sixty years, but after just thirty, the Perfected Lords were able to manifest in the world by burning their Grotto Heavens."

Progenitor Tingyou had made optimizations based on this.

With the expansion of the Eternal Joy Garden, the time before a Perfected Lord could forcibly descend into the Lower Realm was extended to forty years. While this might not seem like a huge improvement,

everything is relative.

The original No Heaven had already been optimized to its absolute limit by Primal Daoist Mu Changsheng, a stunningly brilliant Perfected Person who embodied the calamitous fate of Heaven and Earth.

Under these circumstances, the fact that Progenitor Tingyou was still able to design the Eternal Joy Garden to further improve upon No Heaven was already rather extraordinary.

If one had to point out a flaw in the Eternal Joy Garden, it wasn’t on a structural level.

The problem lay in its design logic.

Lü Yang frowned as he reviewed the information on the Eternal Joy Garden:

’All Cultivators recruited by the Eternal Joy Garden will receive its blessing, and the Garden will help them advance their Cultivation.’

Reading this, Lü Yang was momentarily stunned.

How did the Eternal Joy Garden improve its members’ Cultivation? Progenitor Tingyou had based his system on the Dao Court’s, which was essentially a blessing from the Power of Fruit Position of the Fruit of Sorrowless Heaven.

However, this power was not without its limits.

’Unless it’s a Fruit with a boundless concept like the Fruit of Long-Flow Water, the Power of Fruit Position isn’t infinite. Overuse it, and the Fruit itself will suffer damage!’

Compared to the amount of Power of Fruit Position being expended, most of the recruits were merely at the Qi Refining stage, or were even mortals. Foundation Establishment Cultivators were rare, and they couldn’t gather many resources.

Under these circumstances, there was no way to break even.

In other words, the Eternal Joy Garden was consuming the power of the Fruit of Sorrowless Heaven just to support its members.

This might have seemed like a worthy trade-off to Progenitor Tingyou—after all, the Eternal Joy Garden could increase Lü Yang’s chances of success in Seeking Gold—but Lü Yang saw things differently.

"All that precious Power of Fruit Position, given away to Qi Refining Disciples?"

"What a monstrous waste!"

Lü Yang looked utterly heartbroken. "Mere Qi Refining Disciples... they’re not even really people yet! Progenitor Tingyou was too good to them! How is the Eternal Joy Garden supposed to grow bigger and stronger this way?"

At this thought, Lü Yang immediately began to change the rules.

First, the practice of using the Power of Fruit Position to enhance Cultivators had to stop. It was the equivalent of throwing Money into a black hole—you wouldn’t even hear a plink.

Lü Yang’s new rule was simple and could be summed up in a single phrase:

Increase revenue and cut costs.

’From now on, the physical bodies of all Cultivators joining the Eternal Joy Garden will be Sealed away. They will be replaced by artificial bodies created by the Garden using the Power of Fruit Position.’

’All future enhancements and promotions from the Eternal Joy Garden will be applied to these artificial bodies... That way, it’s just the Eternal Joy Garden temporarily lending its Power of Fruit Position to the Cultivators. It can be revoked at any time, and fundamentally, it’s all still mine. Haven’t I just successfully saved on all my personnel costs?’

Beyond that, he also had to increase revenue.

’Starting today, the Eternal Joy Garden will officially issue Yongle Treasure Banknotes. All upgrades and enhancements within the Eternal Joy Garden must be purchased with these banknotes.’

’Completing missions earns Yongle Treasure Banknotes.’

’Submitting acquired Spiritual Materials, Spiritual Treasures, Daoist Skills, and Rare Treasures can also be exchanged for Yongle Treasure Banknotes... Of course, to me, they’re all just numbers on a screen.’

It was, in essence, a scheme to get something for nothing.

After all, the Cultivators would redeem Yongle Treasure Banknotes to improve themselves, but in the end, all that improvement was just being applied to the artificial bodies he had created.

It was like getting people to work for him for free without spending a single coin!

Lü Yang couldn’t care less. After all, if he didn’t squeeze every last drop of value out of these people, how was he supposed to progress? The strong are meant to mercilessly exploit the weak!

When it came down to it, he never expected these Cultivators from the Eternal Joy Garden to help him in Combat. Most of them couldn’t even be considered proper people. Their only use, besides helping him verify the Fruit of Celestial Fire, was to act as his cannon fodder—to gather resources and explore dangerous places for him.

’And for all this, they should be thanking me!’

After all, with their real bodies Sealed away in the Eternal Joy Garden, only the artificial ones were out and about. Even if they died, they could be recreated, with the only loss being a sliver of spiritual perception.

In other words, as long as the Eternal Joy Garden wasn’t discovered and breached,

these Cultivators were effectively immortal!

’But I can’t let them know that. It would be best to design a limit on resurrections. The first three are free, but subsequent ones will cost Yongle Treasure Banknotes...’

In addition, Lü Yang added dozens more microtransaction opportunities to the Eternal Joy Garden, preparing to use them to thoroughly "stimulate" the potential of these assets.

’Expand into the North and Overseas!’

’With the Eternal Joy Garden, I don’t have to worry about the practicalities of governance anymore. As long as someone is absorbed into the Garden, they become my subordinate!’

Of course, the Power of Fruit Position from the Fruit of Sorrowless Heaven was limited, so Lü Yang couldn’t possibly induct everyone into the Eternal Joy Garden.

Just as he had done in Jiangnan, he only needed to select and absorb the leaders governing a region. The people under their rule would then naturally become his own.

Soon, under Lü Yang’s direction, a brand-new Eternal Joy Garden began to rumble to life, its influence rapidly spreading to the four corners of the world.

「Several months later.」

Lü Yang sat in the Celestial Wu Hall, bored. He casually pushed the unconscious Empress Xiao to the side and began his routine check on the Eternal Joy Garden’s progress.

By now, the Fruit of Celestial Fire high in the firmament was completely lit. Its dazzling radiance was visible from the East, North, South, and even Overseas—a testament to the extent of Lü Yang’s "authority." To date, only the Pure Land in the West remained outside his grasp.

But the West had its Bhagavat; he couldn’t afford to be hasty there.

On a different note, Lü Yang had an unexpected surprise in store—one of his greatest gains in the months since the Eternal Joy Garden’s expansion had begun.

The next moment, Lü Yang entered the Eternal Joy Garden.

His gaze soon fell upon a certain Cultivator under the Garden’s purview. The man was a Holy Sect Disciple who had recently run into some trouble:

He had been possessed.

The entity possessing him was a fragment shaped like a piece of Jade. Inside it was a figure completely shrouded in smoke, who had recently been guiding his Cultivation.

Ang Xiao!