Naked Sword Art

"Long... I mean... Fang. Can I speak to you for a minute."

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"What's on your mind?" Xiao Fang replied.

"It's just... the girls at the swordsmen club have been asking about you. Even Senior Chu wanted me to ask you to go see her. Are you really not planning to go?" Zhao Pan asked.

After the girls in the swordsmen club learned that Zhao Pan was in the same guild as Xiao Fang, they wouldn't leave her alone. Some of her seniors in the upper floors even came down to speak to her about him, but she never knew what to say.

"Senior Chu..." Xiao Fang said to himself as he thought.

He suspected that she was from his province, but the chances of that seemed slim. Knowing the Chu family, they were extremely devoted to the Divine Sword sect, so for one of them to be here would certainly be strange. Although it wasn't an act of betrayal, something like this would still be investigated if his father knew about it.

Xiao Fang finally shook his head.

"Tell her I'm busy, maybe some other time."

Zhao Pan didn't know why Xiao Fang was so against going to the swordsmen club considering how much talent he had. However, she wasn't the kind of girl to care about other people's personal life, so she didn't bother to ask.

"How did your application to the Disciplinary Department go?" Xiao Fang asked to change the subject.

Zhao Pan had told him that she was going to apply for it when they were in class today, so Xiao Fang assumed she had done it by now.

"I handed it in, but..."

Although the pause was brief, Xiao Fang still caught it.

"Something wrong?" Xiao Fang asked.

"It's probably nothing... I should hurry up and get ready. The girls are probably waiting for me outside," Zhao Pan said.

"Mn, go now. We can talk about it when you get back," Xiao Fang replied.

Zhao Pan wasn't used to sharing information about herself with anyone, so she froze when she heard his words. She eventually nodded, then a light smile appeared on her face as she left.

"She seems like a nice girl," Jiang Mei commented.

"..."

Xiao Fang didn't respond, but he agreed with her statement.

"Jiang Mei, I recently came up with a few ideas for the guild, I would like to get your input on," Xiao Fang said.

"Sure, what have you thought of?"

Jiang Mei followed Xiao Fang out of the gym as he passed a few ideas through her. He valued her counseling because she used to own a guild back when she was an Inner Court disciple.

As far as he knew, her guild was no longer around and long forgotten. She didn't feel comfortable sharing what happened to it, but she promised she would never allow his guild to suffer the same fate as hers.

...

Most guilds had guild shops and rewards exclusively for their guild members. These shops and rewards were often divided into 3 tiers (Low-tier, Medium-tier, and Advanced-tier) and they could only be paid with Guild Points.

Guild Points: a currency only guild members could accumulate by doing certain tasks, completing high paying missions, and improving the guild's reputation in some way.

Xiao Fang didn't have anything like that set up yet, but he had a few ideas he knew he could implement before the end of the week.

...

"Your ideas are good, but expensive. You shouldn't be spending all your merit points like that," Jiang Mei half-scolded him.

Growing up as a Patriarch's son, Xiao Fang understood how easily it was to get sucked into the habit of spending once one gained a bit of wealth. He had seen it countless times in his province.

Although he was a Patriarch's bastard child, his father never spoiled him with any gifts nor allowed him to buy anything he wanted. Instead, he made Xiao Fang see how being spoiled like a young master could hinder his growth. Due to his grandfather's manipulation, Xiao Fang was extremely self-motivated to get stronger, so Xiao Fang would never allow anything to hinder his growth, and his father knew that.

Xiao Fang's spending might've seemed reckless, but he had thought about it for a long time. As Xiao Fang's grandfather used to say,

[ Inaction or Unwavering Commitment, nothing in between ]

If you start something without complete confidence and commitment to seeing it through, then inaction is always the best course of action or else you will end up in a much worse position from where you started.

Since Xiao Fang had already created his guild, he knew he needed to put all his eggs in one basket and take it all the way.

"I can always get more merit points if I need it, so that isn't a concern to me," Xiao Fang replied.

Jiang Mei pouted thinking that he didn't really understand the danger of spending too many merit points.

"Why would you ask for my opinion if you're just going to do what you want?"

Despite knowing that Xiao Fang wasn't the kind of person to change his mind once it was made up, she still wanted to convince him to spend less merit points, but she paused when she saw him smiling.

As Jiang Mei was following Xiao Fang, she tilted her head and peeked around him to get a better look at his face.

"What are you smiling about?" she asked curiously.

"You remind me of someone I know," he said thinking about Xun Wei.

Xun Wei used to always follow him around like a secretary, and go against everything he said, but she always came around to his ideas in the end.

'It hasn't even been a month, but I already miss them so much. I wonder how Xun Wei is doing,' Xiao Fang thought.

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As they were walking down to the lab, Xiao Fang had asked Jiang Mei why she was home earlier than usual. It turned out that her training was finally over, so they let her off early to find something she wanted to do. She no longer needed to wake up early to go to work, and could start looking for work. As For Su Yun, she was required to take a few more classes, because she was caught coming into training with a hangover a few times.

Jiang Mei could now choose to work for a department, become a teaching assistant, become a club organizer, work in the Ancestral Training Grounds, or work as a guild supervisor if she wanted. Since she already had this discussion with Xiao Fang a few days ago, she already knew what she was going to do even before her training ended.

Xiao Fang knew the benefits of having an elder work for his guild, so he had already given Jiang Mei the position a few days ago.