- Sky -

He'd been thinking through the possible scenarios for his Foundation Establishment while he walked over to the mission hall. He hadn't wanted to waste time, and had gone straight there after the exam. Walking inside, there was a desk next to the entrance, at which sat a Senior that Sky didn't recognize.

"Hello," the Senior said, "Senior Antony mentioned that some of you might come by today. I'll explain how the mission hall works if everyone's here who's gonna be here."

Sky looked around. Emily, Ava, Derrick, and a few others had come with him, but not everyone had. Some of them had wanted the option of taking missions, but more so just wanted to be spared having to endure Senior Hall's harsh training every day.

Emily spoke up first "I think this is everyone, Senior."

She clapped her hands together, and said, "My name is Jen. First thing you need to know, is how to get missions, and how to know which missions are right for you. All you have to do is come in, tap your ring on the jade slip on the desk to register, then head to the back wall over there."

She pointed to the back of the room, where a jade board was built into the stone wall. Then she walked over to it, waving for them to follow her. "Over here, you'll tap your ring to the jade. This mission stone has developed its own rudimentary intelligence. It will read your cultivation level, which is recorded in the meta data in your rings. It will also take into account other data, such as your age, your cultivation technique, and other pertinent details that could have an impact on your viability as a mission candidate. It will use that information to give you a list of available missions appropriate to you. Each mission has a title, description, and a number indicating the minimum number of participants recommended at your cultivation level. Once you have selected a mission, simply focus on it to highlight it, and it will be sent to your ring. Then you'll come back to the desk, and tap the jade slip again. I will confirm that you understand the mission parameters, and that you have the minimum number of cultivators in your party. When that's done, the mission will be recorded into your ring, so that it can be recorded at the departure gate.

"You may take more than one mission at once, but I will review each one to ensure that they are compatible, and that it will not take too long for you to complete all of the missions you have accepted. Gaming the system is not allowed, and whoever is working the desk has full discretion and authority in mission assignments.

"Lastly, when you get back, you'll need to give a full written report of the mission, as well as a short verbal summary of any critical details, such as dead party members, unusual encounters, or that sort of thing. When that's done, you'll tap your ring on the jade slip again. The mission will be marked as completed in your rings, and your contribution points will be transferred to you. If you want or need to look over your past missions for any reason, there will be a new icon when you inspect your rings. Just activate it, and your past missions will become visible. Deactivate it to hide them. You'll understand once you've accepted a mission. Just toy with it, and it's rather intuitive. Any questions?"

Sky spoke up, "Senior Hall mentioned that we could see rewards, and housing stuff here."

"That's right. If a mission offers a specific reward, it will be mentioned in that mission's description. For general rewards, or for housing, you'll see it when you inspect the mission jade. If nobody else has a question, go ahead and give it a try."

Nobody had anymore questions, so they all went to the mission board to look through the missions. When Sky touched his identification rings to the stone, he was greeted with a message, [What would you like to do?], then under that message were the options, [Missions], [Rewards], [sys.update.keke].

That was odd. Senior Jen hadn't mentioned the third option. Sam looked over the missions, Kyle looked through the rewards, and Yuma withdrew his attention to ask the Senior about the strange third option.

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"Third option?" she said, "There are only two options. Perhaps you mean the system message. That's just a welcome message. The intelligence has developed some manners over the last few hundred years. It's kind of adorable, but don't worry about it. You'll see that if something isn't an option, then you won't be able to interact with it."

Yuma returned his attention to the mission jade. If it was intelligent, and only Sky could see that option, perhaps it was meant specifically for him. Jen had said that it would curate their options based on their abilities.

Meanwhile, under the [Missions] option, Sky saw that there were several more options ranging from [herb gathering] and [beast hunting], to [escort missions], and even [competition postings]. Curious about the competitions, he looked over a few of them, and saw the same general theme. Some cultivator wanted to test their skills against someone new, or some Master wanted their disciple to gain experience in a controlled setting. He navigated out of the competitions and looked at the options again. He saw an option titled [part-timers], and opened it. These were all semi-permanent positions as aids or office workers of one type or another. They had regular ongoing schedules with recurring pay. Some of them even included fundamental training as a perk for the position. For instance, the herb gardens were requesting interns to aid in basic maintenance, but this required a minimum understanding of horticulture, so there would be a training period where the intern would learn everything they needed to know. One such mission listed was in the Bureau of Arrays and Formations. He was tempted to take it immediately, but it required regular attendance, which he wouldn't be able to provide while he was training with Coyote. He'd have to look for it again in four years. He moved over to the herb gathering tab, and started combing through the missions with a more organized approach. He'd have to find short missions that wouldn't interfere with his training and cultivation.

At the same time, looking at the [Rewards] option, he went straight to the housing options. He saw that there were hundreds of available housing units. He saw [search filter] pinned at the top of the list. He accessed that, and saw that he could narrow the list based on criteria such as price, size, location, or what amenities were available. He narrowed down location first, to be near the training hall. Since he would have to check in there periodically, it wouldn't make sense to move too far away. There were still a few dozen choices within a reasonable distance, so he narrowed it down to the cheapest options. He identified one with a bedroom that looked large enough for him, and took note of the price. 55 million contribution points. It was expensive for him, but based on the contribution points he was seeing offered on the [Missions] section, he thought he could afford it within a year if he saved carefully. He went back to the other [Rewards] options, and looked through. There was a tab at the top called [milestones], so he clicked on that. Another list of options showed [contribution points], [mission completion], and [misc.]. Opening the [contribution points] tab, he saw several reward tiers available [Earn 100 points!], [Earn 1,000 points!], [Earn 10,000 points!], [Earn 100,000 points!], and then in slightly less visible text it read [Next available: Earn 1,000,000 points!]. There was another list beside that one, which read [Spend 100 points!], and so on. Then another list that said [Purchase a single item worth 100 points!], and so on. He guessed that the first list was based on cumulative earnings, since he didn't currently have 100,000 contribution points saved. He briefly looked over the rewards for each section, and saw that they were generally useful items that could otherwise be purchased outside of the reward menu. The items' values increased as the difficulty of the milestone increased, and he could only choose one item for milestone. He could also choose contribution points as a reward if he didn't want the items, but the items were things that weren't often available for purchase. He guessed that it would be one shared item, instead of one for each body, since the ring put their contribution points into a single pool. That would be too bad, but at least Sky was able to earn contribution points faster than his peers. The [mission completion] lists were similar in nature. He had already earned several milestones for quantities, and varieties of spirit beasts. Apparently the training missions counted toward milestones. The [misc.] tab was an odd assortment, with milestones ranging from [Eat your first spirit food!] to [Reach Foundation Establishment!]. In the latter list, he noted that he already had milestones for [Become a cultivator: circulate chi for the first time!], and [Enter Chi Condensation!]. Looking over the various options, his eyes landed on the strangest list available, [Meet Coyote, keke!], [Receive Coyote's blessing, keke!], [Receive Coyote's inheritance, keke!], and [Next: ??? kekeke!!].

Yuma accessed [sys.update.keke] from the main menu. When he did, the messages in front of all three boys were replaced with [initializing download: progress 1%].