CH 98

Chapter 98 – Guangxi Province

Although there were only 10,000 disciples participating in the tournament, almost all of the disciples had gone to the Green Lotus Domain to watch. On Mountain Affairs Peak, the usual bustling liveliness was nowhere to be seen.

In Sect Affairs Hall, there were around a dozen disciples standing dispersed around the massive desk, occasionally picking up mission jade slips as they made their selections.

Xu Disheng put down a jade slip, his eyebrows furrowing slightly.

These basic mission rewards weren’t very consequential to him anymore, and were pretty much just a complete waste of time for him.

Whether it was picking spirit grass or delivering spiritual medicine, the rewards for these basic missions would only amount to around a dozen or so spirit stones, and required a lot of effort. These rewards that only gave him a trifling few dozen spirit stones weren’t worth his precious 10 or so days before the next round of the main tournament.

He went further along the massive desk in search for a mission with a more generous reward.

“You joined a Peak?” A surprised voice resounded out.

Xu Disheng turned his head and saw that among the several sect affairs disciples behind the massive desk, there was an elegant white-robed youth looking at him with an astounded expression.

It wasn’t that his memory was that good. It was just that the last time he saw Xu Disheng here, he was only at the Cleansed Meridians stage outer disciple and was still unfamiliar with selecting missions, so he had a pretty strong impression of him.

At the time, he had given him a few pointers and suggested he do some spirit grass picking missions.

But in just a mere two years, that Cleansed Meridian stage outer disciple had already made it to the Sea of Qi stage and became a disciple of a Peak. Compared to ordinary disciples, this speed really was rather astonishing.

Xu Disheng recalled that when he took the mission to go to Floating Moon Valley alone, this youth had spoken to him and given him some pointers. He nodded and said, “Yes, I joined Morning Dew Peak.”

The aura coming from the white-robed youth’s body was clearly at the peak Sea of Qi stage. For him to be able to take up a post at Sect Affairs Hall, his background probably wasn’t simple.

By this point, most of the Sea of Qi stage disciples already recognized Xu Disheng. Even if they had never seen him before, they would have seen his phantom image in those newly recorded jade slips. But here, it was different.

The disciples here weren’t interested in the tournament in the slightest, and were only focused on silently cultivating. Even though these people were relatively few, almost all of them were the solitary type who practically never paid attention to the major events and happenings in the sect.

Moreover, the tournament was only halfway through, so news about it hadn’t completely spread around yet. It was pretty normal that the disciples here didn’t recognize Xu Disheng.

The white-robed youth’s name was Luo Zheng. He nodded his head and asked, “You didn’t go to watch the Inner Disciple Tournament? If I didn’t have this post to take care of, I would have gone myself to join in a bit on the fun. What mission are you thinking of taking this time? I can help you look for what you need.”

On the massive table, there were many jade slips lined up in rows, twinkling with light. Every jade slip had over a dozen mission descriptions recorded within. The ones with more had over a hundred missions recorded within. If he were to slowly go through them by himself, it would take a lot of time.

But if a sect affairs disciple helped with making a selection, it would be far quicker and more convenient, but their services would cost 1 spirit stone.

Luo Zheng didn’t know why, but he found himself offering to help Xu Disheng search for a mission without minding about the 1 spirit stone cost.

After pondering for a moment, Xu Disheng said, “A mission for slaying a Malicious Spirit stage ghost, or a mission related to water, either one is fine.”

The last several times he came, he picked his mission from the jade slips by himself, so he didn’t know that having a sect affairs disciple help you pick a mission normally cost spirit stones.

“Related to water? Looks like you must cultivate a water-related cultivation method,” Luo Zheng said insightfully. Slightly knitting his brows, he continued, “Malicious Spirit? Malicious Spirit ghosts are equivalent to us Sea of Qi stage cultivators. It’s really dangerous! You just entered the early Sea of Qi stage. What do you need to take such a big risk for?”

But he didn’t say more after that, taking out a dark green jade slip and beginning his search. Every single mission from Sect Affairs Hall was recorded within, and they were organized neatly into categories. Only sect affairs disciples had access to this searching method.

This was yet another way for the Sect Affairs Hall to make some extra profit.

After a while, Luo Zheng said, “There are two water-related missions. One of them is a long term mission that can only be taken by someone at the Dao Foundation stage, and requires you to clean up monsters in the Zhaojiang River System. The other one can be taken by Sea of Qi stage disciples and requires you to gather spiritual medicine at the Zhaojiang River System. But I don’t recommend you to take either of these. There are a lot of demons in Zhaojiang, and very few people go before the Dao Foundation stage.”

“Senior Martial Brother, what about any missions related to Malicious Spirit ghosts?” Xu Disheng asked.

His objective in searching for missions in locations with water was so he could refine the Azure Ocean cultivation method. Clearly, the mission to gather spiritual medicine in the Zhaojiang River System was extremely dangerous, and there simply wouldn’t be any opportunity to safely cultivate.

Luo Zheng glanced at him as if he didn’t expect that Xu Disheng really wanted to slay ghosts. He put down the dark green jade slip in his hands and said, “There are ghosts running rampant on the outskirts of the Shan Mountain in the Guangxi Province. However, this is a medium-scale mission, and there are already around 10 disciples who have taken on this mission. If you want to go, you can contact them via your jade identity tablet in the morning two days from now and depart with the other disciples.”

Since it was a medium-scale mission and there were this many disciples, there would surely be a lot of ghosts running rampant. Xu Disheng was trying to get the consciousness residing within the Soul Suppressing Vestment to grow and mature, which would require a large number of souls or ghosts, so this mission in the Guangxi Province was a good opportunity for him.

“Then I will take this mission,” Xu Disheng declared.

Luo Zheng was a bit shocked, but he only opened his mouth and said, “Pass me your jade identity tablet then. I’ll assign the mission to you and provide you with the basic information about it. There’s only one detailed mission jade slip, which is already in the possession of the two Dao Foundation stage disciples who took the initiative to spearhead this mission. In the morning two days from now, you should activate your jade identity tablet and rendezvous with the other disciples who took the mission.”

Luo Zheng had already offered his suggestions, but if the other party wouldn’t listen, then he wouldn’t bother to needlessly try and persuade him further. After all, the two were just strangers who met by chance.

But if he knew that Xu Disheng was a newly recognized Sea of Qi stage genius with two Magic Treasures on him, he wouldn’t have spoken like this.

Xu Disheng thanked him, then left Sect Affairs Hall while looking at the mission details.

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The Shan Mountains were located in the Dong Territory of the Human Realm, and were extremely vast. Although the name itself only referred to one region, there were several thousand sects of varying sizes in this area, of both human and demon varieties. The strongest two forces of these were the Shangqing Sacred Sect and the Ancient Nuwa Sect, both of which had countless years of inheritance behind them.

Unknown ages ago, the two sects respectively birthed around a dozen Divine Sea stage beings, which maintained a delicate balance between the sects. Furthermore, each of the sects also had several hundred branch sects.

Guangxi Province was located on the outskirts of the Shan Mountains.

Within, there was an extremely small sect called the Miaohua Sect, which was made up of one Dao Foundation stage cultivator and several Sea of Qi stage existences. But in one night, the entire sect, several hundred strong, were massacred by ghosts.

After it was discovered by a disciple from the Patrol Enforcement Hall, it was reported to Affairs Hall and classified as a medium-scale mission, requiring at least two Dao Foundation stage disciples to take the lead.

Even though the Miaohua Sect was extremely small, it was still a branch sect of the Shangqing Sacred Sect which paid taxes to them every ten years.

The branch sects helped to manage the land of mortals on behalf of the Shangqing Sacred Sect. But even though one of these branch sects had been almost completely wiped out by some unnamed ghosts, the chief branch of the Affairs Hall of Wenyuan Mountain wasn’t all that concerned about the matter. He just raised the reward for this medium-scale mission and issued the mission to the Mingxin branch.

The reason why the mission was allocated to Mingxin Mountain was simple. It was just because the Mingxin Mountain Range was relatively close to the Guangxi Province.