When Hua Yan awoke, he was confronted with the sight of a little monster sleeping around a pile of bones from last night’s meal. Seeing how comfortably she was sleeping, with drool pouring out of her mouth, he had the urge to kick her awake.

And that’s exactly what he did.

“Owwwww! Don’t hit mee! Go awayy!”

Rolling around, Hua Yin refused to open her eyes. All she did was simply dodge his kicks out of instinct.

“Clean this mess up and go fetch some water.”

“Yesh. Yesh. Yesh. Ye,” murmured Hua Yin, continuing to keep her eyes closed.

໒( ⇀ ‸ ↼ )७

Seeing her still refusing to budge, Hua Yan tried another tactic.

“Oh look, it’s Hua Li from Courtyard 28. It looks like he’s… searching for something here.”

(づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

The next thing he knew, the mess on the floor was cleared at record speed, and Hua Yin had disappeared outside with an empty bucket, almost like magic.

“Sigh… this girl.”

Ignoring her, Hua Yan decided to walk outside for a bit. He needed some air.

The sun was not yet up, but the bustle of the manor was much more than it was last night when he had returned late.

The reason for this was because the people living in this area were mostly servants of the side branches. They were quick to bed and early to rise, since they had to prepare a lot of things in the morning for the people of the main house.

Besides, some of the younger ones also practiced martial arts in the morning, so as to not fall behind the other youths of their age. Competition amongst the servants was something that was not uncommon after all.

In fact, these practitioners were essentially all close to Hua Yan in age. But the main difference between them and Hua Yan was that he had more responsibilities, whereas they had their parents to look out for them.

As for Hua Yan, not only were his parents completely useless, they actually brought him more trouble than good. Even after his death, his father was still a cause of discomfort in his life. As for his mother… she was a wicked woman.

Forgetting about them, Hua Yan walked to the Task Pavilion. This was the place all members of the clan went to in order to collect missions to do and find some money to make. It was a two story building, and the first floor was only open to those from the side branches.

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The upper floor was restricted to those from the main branch. This was because the missions there were more rewarding, albeit being a little harder in nature. Despite this, the reward was much, much more significant compared to the paltry amount offered in the lower floor.

The reason? It was because in the upper floor, no one was paid in money for the tasks they did. In fact, they were paid with clan contribution points.

What makes clan contribution points so valuable? It was worth more than gold because it was able to purchase things which money alone could not.

For example, special cultivation techniques circulated within the clan were not things that ordinary outsiders could ever dream of getting a hold of. It was precisely these manuals that gave the martial artists of this clan the name they had today.

And for this reason, the clan protected these manuals very strictly. Only members who the clan valued could obtain them.

For a side branch member to get these techniques was essentially an impossibility. Unless they had strong connections with those in the main branch, it was not practical to expect them to be able to obtain even the simplest techniques.

As for main branch members, it was a bit easier for them. All they needed to do was go to the Task Pavilions of their respective manors and complete missions. Once they completed missions, they would earn class points. And once they had accumulated a significant number of these points, they could redeem them for a visit to the clan library to pick out some martial techniques.

Central branch members? They just needed to exist, and all the techniques of the clan would be dropped at their feet. That’s how much of a status they had within the clan. They were true chosen sons and daughters of the heavens who were able to go out into the bigger world and make a place for themselves, unlike most of the people in Gin Town.

Inside the Task Pavilion, there were numerous levels of tasks for practitioners to choose from. Even the lower level had such variety.

There were tasks suited to both ordinary people and martial practitioners. Obviously the ones catered towards martial practitioners would be better paying compared to the ones for ordinary people.

This was because there was a significant difficulty increase in the tasks for the martial artists. But for those that actually practiced martial arts, these tasks were actually a quick way to earn money. This was precisely the reason why many rogue cultivators would join up with local clans; they wanted to make some quick coin.

They had the skill for it. They just needed to find a place to sell their skills to. And the missions offered in the Task Pavilion were a perfect fit for their demands.

This had nothing to do with Hua Yan though. He was just a normal civilian without any formal martial arts training. He had yet to even reach the most fundamental Ballooning Stage, which was the most entry level bodily cultivation stage.

With this being said, Hua Yan severely lacked the qualifications to take up most of the tasks inside the pavilion, outside of the tasks that had to do with simpler stuff meant that was meant for civilians.

The tasks he could do would only offer up a few silvers at most for a reward. And even those would take him a while. So he just stuck with collecting Truewood Essence, since the job was always available and because he was already long since used to doing it.

Furthermore, he could also do other auxiliary tasks such as herb picking if they were offered on his way back and forth from the forest.

Today, as he was accepting a mission from the Task Pavilion, a hurried voice had caught his attention.

“Trouble from the Scraplands!”