The Inner sect was not too dissimilar to the Outer sect. Besides the striking difference in qi density, the most obvious change was the construction of the buildings. Everything was slightly more elegant, and constructed with better quality materials, though in the same style. It was a lot smaller too, made for around a thousand cultivators rather than several thousand. As John explored some key details stuck out to him. All the key infrastructure from the sect could still be found: Mission Hall, Exchange Hall, Contribution board, etc. They were all central. What surprised him was just how many ancillary buildings there were. Many seemed to be specialized cultivation halls, each focusing on a different aspect of elemental water. Storms and raincloud type aspects also featured prominently, but the facets of flow, ice, vapor, clouds, and more dotted the sect landscape. Smaller and rarer were halls for cultivating other elements. Fire, earth, metal, and wood could all be found, but that was pretty much it, no depth to those elements was indicated from the outside, at least. John guessed that the sect wouldn't turn away cultivators of other elements, but those who didn't fit the primary theme of the sect didn't go as far.
Another thing that changed was housing. In the Outer sect, a huge block of nearly identical houses and pavilions quartered the majority of the disciples. While there were differences in quality, especially at the top end, most of it was made to merely serve, and not for any luxury. Here in the Inner sect disciple housing was spread out, and much more scenic. Various pavilions and pagodas dotted the mountainside, with a variety of styles. Maybe the disciples had more freedom to choose or construct their own? John couldn't be sure.
John spotted workshops of many varieties too. Alchemy, metalworking, artificer halls, many 'journeyman' levels of cultivation craftsmanship were suited here. Foundation establishment was the real start of the disciples capacity to work these more complex tasks. Most conspicuous were the gardens. Rather than growing huge quantities of base spiritual grasses, or other low tier ingredients, the gardens of the Inner sect were truly works of formation art. Entire gardens would have smaller nodes of plant varieties that fed energy into a higher tier, sometimes a few special flora, but most often a single plant was the focus. All of them without exception were truly odd and powerful. They gave off a pressure just like a higher ranked cultivator did, to John. He estimated they were in the top of Foundation Establishment or even Golden Core equivalent strength. Terraces of icy flowers fed a pure white gourd that was covered in frost. Pale blue roses and squat evergreen bushes fed a huge fruit tree, itself dotted with dark blue peaches. A sunflower with flaming blue petals was surrounded by anise-smelling herbs, just to name a few.
John could sense that some of these plants were infected with Weird qi, and he grew excited for what the Mission Hall held for him, he made his way there quickly. Inside was an arrangement of formation boards set against the wall. Like the contribution hall they each were labelled with their various categories. Unlike the Outer sect which mainly contained mundane or chore-like missions for the lower level disciples, the Inner sect largely focused on tasks outside the sect. Foundation Establishment cultivators were strong enough to contend with many problems that would get a Qi Condensation cultivator killed. The few missions that stayed inside the sect pertained to those journeyman workshops. Someone had to smelt spirit steel, make basic artifacts for the Outer sect, and tend to the special gardens after all. The big difference was these missions required special cultivation methods or training in various aspects. Formations was a common need, and some missions would service the sect-wide formations themselves, keeping the weather, information, and defense in line.
For missions outside the sect, there was a lot to do. Trade between sects was a recurring theme, with diplomats and enforcers. Monster or demon subjugation was another huge chunk of tasks, as well as hunting of monsters or demons for various body parts. Plants too, hundreds of missions listed needed materials and possible locations for their growth--either where they had been found previously or rumored to grow. Some recurring missions like spirit stone mining, excavating specific needed soils and ores were common as well.
One board was just titled 'Bounty' and had an endless list of items the sect would trade for contribution points, sanctioned trade, in other words. With so many disciples leaving the sect regularly, it made sense that some would come across fortuitous encounters that granted them resources beyond their need or ability to hold safely. Giving it to the sect would be a pretty good deal in exchange for something better suited to your own situation, even if you could make more selling at an auction house.
In the back corner was a board generously labeled 'Esoteric'. It actually did contain some non-Weird qi related items, but they were quite strange. Someone wanted to replace their eyes with those form a demon. Someone else wanted help to exorcise an artifact spirit that was causing him trouble. Basically they were all from other disciples who had strange and unusual needs. Lots of missions from the sect gave John exactly what he needed luckily--Weird qi removal requests would top up his contribution and silken qi strands. John had made up to around one hundred contribution, but regular training with a weapons master wasn't cheap.
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Like the rest of the Hall, many missions went out of the sect, describing locations of mass plant infection, or last sightings of Weird demons in the region. John would hit those when he felt more confident in his strength. Many missions still relegated to inside the Inner sect were up for grabs and he didn't feel bad monopolizing them. The others would just have to catch up some other way.
In the end, it took John several weeks of steady progress to complete all these internal missions. The biggest issue was his strangling time constraints. John had no idea why the sect still felt the need to segregate them so heavily. Maybe it was just that they liked having their tools all in one place, but John figured it was something deeper, and beyond his current understanding. It wasn't a matter of mere exposure since they were basically free to explore the Outer sect and interact with other disciples, not that the Weird kids did much interacting with other disciples.
The real issue came from two of the missions that really stumped John. The aforementioned peach tree actually had a massive infestation running from its roots all the way up through a quarter of its trunk and into the canopy. Typically John had been solving these problems by slicing off the affected area at the same time as he aggressively invaded and fought the tumorous qi. Let alone that he would not be powerful enough to rip out a huge chunk of the powerful fruit tree, the sect would punish him for damaging it so senselessly. A poor job would lose him some of the reward, but a catastrophe would see him court martialed. He needed a new strategy.
John spent days using his five hours to examine the exact state of the peach tree, and the rest of his waking hours meditating by spirit trees in the Outer sect. Some things quickly became apparent to him. Trees were a lot like cultivators deep in meditation, spirit trees especially. Each day they breathed in the air and qi in the canopy, sucking up water from their roots like an extremely long breath in. At night the water would recede, bringing nutrients and qi to the rest of its body, fueling its growth in one massive exhalation. By spreading his qi into a multitude of extremely thin strands, he could send them underground and infiltrate the roots, following the water up the microscopic structures like an insidious venom.
John had to practice eliminating Weird qi bundles without harming the plants too. It took him the rest of his Inner missions and several from the Outer sect too, but eventually he nailed the technique. Weird qi often clustered into bands of density that grew more numerous toward the center, terminating in a nucleus of sorts. By cutting through this nerve cluster he would render the rest of the qi inert, ready to be sucked up by fanged tentacles. For such a large infestation though, it would take much more than his allotted five hours, he had to get permission from Elder Catherine.
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Several days later, John sat in front of the massive peach tree with his designated minder watching behind him. It was still early morning, as this was the best time to start infiltrating. John started from healthy roots, so as not to alert the Weird qi too early. Slowly he worked his qi up the trunk until he could sense the tumor. It actually had three nuclei across the length of the trunk. John frowned, it would be a lot harder to hit all three at once... He fed more and more qi up the trunk until he was completely dry, all his might ready to strike at once.
He hit hard and fast, but even with all his preparation, John had not been fully prepared for just how strong the infestation would be. He was able to cut through the bottom nuclei and rendered the roots and lower trunk inert, but the rest of the Weird qi went absolutely berserk, causing the whole tree to shiver and groan. John was panicking, this was his beyond his worst case scenario, if that qi mutated and ruined the garden it would be his neck on the chopping block, maybe literally. He ripped qi from the roots and ground into a wicked sharp claw and drilled into the side of the trunk directly, slashing the middle nerve cluster. He would much rather take some damage to the tree than lose everything all at once.
From there, it was a constant wrestle to push against the top portion. It was so agitated that John couldn't make any ingresses and was forced to push the qi upwards and into the branches, inch by inch. Such was his concentration that his whole body was covered in sweat. Hours passed and he barely even noticed.
Each time the qi was pushed past a fork in the branches, the section no longer connected to the nucleus would go inert, and John could concentrate his efforts even more. Bit by bit, he made his way toward a singular blue peach. The fruit seemed to hold qi better, as the entire cluster got compressed inside it, the moment it passed the stem, John whipped a spare thread and sliced the fruit from the branch, the Weird qi fluctuated crazily before settling into the seed of the fruit, trapped in the densest part of the water-qi pit. As he sliced it off, he heard a gasp behind him, but he was too exhausted to care. Probably that had lost him all his contribution points from this mission, and maybe more from his personal stock, but it was worth it. His qi now free to act, he slurped down all the inert Weird qi remaining in the entire qi and it was truly an enormous meal. Natural qi flooded to the liberated portions, already beginning to heal and reassert itself.
John still had enough mind to grab his prize from the ground before trudging his way back to the Mission Hall to report what happened. He would need a whole new strategy for the other troublesome mission.