Three days later I received two red pills, pills that I discovered were body tempering pills, two spirit stones, and a new pill called muscle strengthening pill. I ate the first two and my physical cultivation soared to the 4th layer and the two spirit stones ended up under my straw bed. As for the muscle-strengthening pill I feigned eating it but instead put it in my inventory space to be used for my breakthrough into the tendon-refining realm.
My days then returned monotonous and all I did was eat, sleep, and cultivate. A good life but after a while I was eager to go out to temper myself.
The occasion came three months later when Huan Long came to pick me up saying: “Come on, I have taken a mission outside the sect and you’re coming with me.”
I scrolled off the petting girls, I’d become quite wanted after the tournament, and followed him outside.
There I saw Thai Hua and Red waiting for us.
(Red) ”Good, now that he is here we can begin our mission! Let’s go, our team leader is awaiting us!”
I didn’t notice how stereoptical energetic our red-headed kid with a greatsword was.
Hua blushed and reached her hands towards my fur but then retracted it. But before she could do that completely I moved myself to touch her hand with my forehead. She smiled cutely and started petting me as we went.
It turns out that our team leader was a stern-looking guy with gray hair who introduced himself as an inner disciple and said that it was custom that the three strongest outer disciples were grouped in a group led by a formation establishment disciple.
That was probably to groom them as the next members of the inner court.
In the beginning, it should have been Blue instead of Red inside the team but he refused saying, and I quote, ‘I work alone’.
(I) ‘How edgy can a guy be?’
Then Gray, as I started calling our new leader, gave us the details of the mission: “OK kids, listen up. Our mission is to investigate a series of disappearances that have happened in the fluvial city of Boarbridge. It’s probably the action of some rogue demonic cultivators, in any case, we must identify the culprit and bring them to justice. If the author of these acts is a rogue demonic cultivator our order is to execute him on the spot. Any questions?”
(Huan Long)”What is a demonic cultivator?”
The others watched him strangely while I waited for the answer.
(Gray) Sighing ”Ahhh. There are two ways a demonic cultivator is born. The first and the most common is by practicing a demonic cultivation technique. These techniques are based on the word ‘sacrifice’. By sacrificing a part of their being or the lives of others, the cultivator is capable of obtaining a great boost of strength. The problem is that these techniques make the practitioner obsessed with power and make them sacrifice more and more until they become only a shadow of themself. A shadow whose only objective is to kill everything they land their gaze on. The other way is to develop and succumb to a heart demon. In this case, you become like a wild demonic beast losing all thinking ability and moving only by instinct.”
I shuddered recalling how close I had been to fully becoming a demonic beast by succumbing to my two heart demons.
(Gray) “If there isn’t any other question we shall depart.”
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He then took out a little flying boat from his storage ring and invited us to depart.
During the days of our trip, I cultivated and enjoyed Thai Hua patting and revised my cultivation panel.
Name:
Kuma Zhao
Race:
Prodigious Ailuropoda melanoleuca (panda gigante)
CULTIVATION
Qi
13th layer Qi gathering realm
Mental
Early 4th stage Spirit Sense realm
Physical
6th layer muscles refinement realm
SKILLS
Spirit Sense (Lv 4) - Crystal mind lake (Lv 4) - Bear combat style(Lv 2) - Elemental Qi infusion (Lv 2) - Stealth II (Lv 1) - Regeneration(Lv 2)
Thanks to the more abundant resources I have progressed in both my qi and physical cultivation and since I concentrated more of my time on my mental cultivation it is progressing nicely.
What I am most happy about is the upgrade of my stealth skills. Now qi gathering cultivators can no longer see through it.
As for Bear's combat style and the regeneration skills they are lagging but I feel that can’t be helped since I need proper combat experience to raise them.
After a few hours of travel, we arrived at Boarbridge town. It was a very big city, surrounded by walls. It was built with the river at its center, over which passed many white bridges that seemed made of ivory. The river crossed the city from north to south.
We landed outside the walls and traveled to the gate by foot. We were greeted by a couple of guards at the qi gathering realm. They bowed at us and, while still giving odd looks at me, they let us through.
(Gray) ”Long I know you’re surprised to see city guards at the qi gathering stage but you have to remember that you are not on the barren continent anymore. Here even if people don’t find their hidden meridian by the age of twelve, and so be ineligible to be part of a sect, it doesn’t mean they will never find it. Besides, if you can’t promote yourself to the foundation establishment before the age of 19 you will have to go down the sect and find work in the mundane world.”
Huan Long nodded his head still thinking.
Gray led us to the residence of the city’s Lord that is supposed to give us a detailed version of our mission. It was a great mansion with a big garden in the center of the city, the property was delimited by a stone wall 3 meters high. The guards saw us and one of them escorted us to the Lord’s study.
As we passed the garden we passed over a little white bridge like the ones in the city that passed over a little stream which ended in a pond. It was probably a canal built to beautify the garden.
The Lord was a middle-aged man at the formation establishment, who welcomed us warmly: ”Welcome, young daoists, welcome. I was expecting you. As you probably know our city has been plagued by a series of disappearances and my people are showing signs of uneasiness. If we don’t stop that soon we will probably see people leaving en masse.”
(Gray) “When have the disappearances started?”
(Lord) “A year ago: at the beginning were just a few people from the poorest part of the town and we dismissed the problem as some local gang fight or debts not repaid but after some time more and more people started disappearing. At the beginning we tried to solve the problem internally but with the phenomenon increasing and with still no clue we had to ask help from the sect.”
(Gray) ”Do you have a map of the city with the location of the disappearances?”
The city’s Lord opened a drawer from his desk and took out a map. It depicted the city with some numbered points, the numbers arrived at 567.
(Red) ”That’s a lot of people”
(Lord) “ Well in a city of one million people, it’s like a drop in a bucket. And with them spanned in the year it took us a while to notice the trend and to identify those who were part of the phenomenon”
(Gray) “OK, I think it’s all for this moment. We will now investigate some of the marked locations. Farewell.”