"Oh? Chu Du loaned me 150,000 Immortal Yuan Stones?"
Fang Yuan received Chu Du's reply in short order, and the number of Immortal Yuan Stones Chu Du had lent exceeded his expectations by a fair margin.
In his letter, Chu Du had been diplomatic with his wording. He first reminisced about their pleasant past collaborations, then spoke of how fate played tricks on people—the gulf in their status made the situation awkward. He explained that lending 150,000 Immortal Yuan Stones was already the absolute limit of his ability. As for the repayment deadline, he left it entirely up to Fang Yuan to decide.
"So Chu Du still wants to continue working together. After all, the Wild Barbarian True Meaning is quite tempting." The single reply immediately laid bare Chu Du's attitude and intentions.
Chu Du had originally been a rogue cultivator. After his falling-out with the Liu family, he was branded as belonging to the Demonic Path faction. Now he had established the Chu family and aligned himself with the Righteous Path.
But at his core, profit still came first.
That was why, despite the enormous risk of cooperating with Fang Yuan, the potential gains were far greater—enough to make Chu Du gamble. He not only lent 150,000 Immortal Yuan Stones but personally penned a reply.
This message Gu, though only a mortal Gu, carried extraordinary significance. If Fang Yuan ever threw it out into the open, it would serve as powerful evidence of Chu Du colluding with the Demonic Path.
But this was precisely what Chu Du had intended. He deliberately used this method—handing Fang Yuan leverage against him—to demonstrate the sincerity of his cooperation.
And Fang Yuan had now fully felt that sincerity.
"Chu Du is still worth cooperating with."
"Of course, the Calamity-Drawing Immortal Gu I previously lent him also forms the hard bedrock of our partnership."
Fang Yuan was fairly satisfied.
150,000 Immortal Yuan Stones was no small sum.
Generally speaking, the Immortal Yuan Stone reserves controlled by a Sixth Transformation Gu Immortal numbered in the thousands at most.
A Seventh Transformation Gu Immortal's reserves would be in the tens of thousands. Most Seventh Transformation Gu Immortals typically had several thousand Immortal Yuan Stones in reserve.
Once one reached the Eighth Transformation level, tens of thousands was merely the floor—reserves often reached the hundreds of thousands, and seasoned veterans could amass a million.
As for Ninth Transformation, reserves would climb into the tens of millions, or even the hundreds of millions!
The above applied to individual Gu Immortals.
In terms of forces, a major superpower typically maintained around one million Immortal Yuan Stones in reserve.
The Wu family had such reserves, which was why Wu Yong had proactively lent Fang Yuan 100,000 Immortal Yuan Stones during the Dream Realm battle. This was well within the Wu family's capacity. Of course, they could have lent more, but Wu Yong only needed Fang Yuan to stabilize the Immortal Formation, and 100,000 was sufficient.
The Chu family, however, was a superpower recently established by Chu Du. Although it had a respectable number of Gu Immortals, the vast majority were Body Path cultivators with shallow reserves. By Fang Yuan's estimation, the Chu family's total Immortal Yuan Stone reserves were perhaps 600,000 at best.
Out of those 600,000, Chu Du had lent Fang Yuan 150,000 without even setting a repayment deadline. The sincerity behind that gesture was undeniably weighty.
Without question, Immortal Yuan Stone reserves were one of the key metrics for evaluating both individual Gu Immortals and their forces.
However, much like savings—the more you hoarded, the better off you were not. Wealth piled up without circulation was as good as dead.
The same principle applied to Immortal Yuan Stone reserves.
With Chu Du's support, Fang Yuan's previously depleted reserves suddenly surged to over 150,000!
But Fang Yuan was far from satisfied.
He continued to patiently await further replies.
He had not only written to Chu Du, but had simultaneously reached out to the Three Eccentrics of the Mad Demon Lair and Miao Ming Shen of the Eastern Sea, negotiating for additional loans of Immortal Yuan Stones.