“Today will be the day!” Bing announced loudly to himself.
He shot up straight from his bed in nothing but his underwear and promised to start doing good deeds from now on. In the Treasured Plains, Bing realized that his karmic luck had to be at zero or below because there was no logical reason why he had to suffer so much during it. The big round disciple wasn’t ignorant enough to believe that he was the only one to suffer during the event but deep down in his heart, he felt that this was the reason why so many bad things happened to him. Once he starts racking up the good points in the eyes of the world then surely good things should follow.
The Empress has yet to give them any tasks yet. Bing knew that this time of freedom wouldn’t last for long so he had to get to work quick. That event from the other day with those disciples breaking into the Empress’s home made him understand that the in the upcoming future, things will not be easy for their group. From what he understood, the sect now knew about the Empress and her strength. Well, not her strength but her frightening talent. If they knew of her strength, then the Crimson Swordsmen wouldn’t have sent people with only that much power.
Bing got himself ready for the day and headed towards the Mission Hall. On his way there, he didn’t meet any of his allies nor did he get stopped by anyone wanting to mess with him. This day was already looking pretty good so far! On the mission board where the tasks were hung up for everyone to see, Bing only looked for those that he felt would do good for the world.
From what he could see there weren’t any obviously heroic tasks put up. There weren’t any villages facing a crisis from a spirit beast or a group of people in need of saving or help. But there were other tasks. Tasks like helping to take care of spirit herbs for alchemists, mining ore for blacksmiths, and retrieving spirit beast corpses in good condition for them to be taken apart and have their materials used for the disciples.
He dillydallied in front of the board for a while. Making his way to the far left of the mission board all the way to the right side. Eventually, he took so long that some people started to complain about him taking up so much space and one of the disciples working in the Mission Hall gave him a warning to quickly choose a task and leave. Bing felt wronged by these false complaints. He made sure not to be in anyone’s way and not block them from seeing the tasks but they still complained about him.
All he wanted was to find a good task that would definitely be approved by the Heavens as something good. These small helpful tasks would probably add to it but for his first good deed he wants it to be something that would for sure add a good amount to his probably negative karma. There was one particular task that kept drawing his attention but it was a bit dangerous. The rewards seemed too good to be true for something as simple as this. It wasn’t like he needed the rewards as he still hasn’t gone through the middle-ranked spirit stones given by the Empress but they would be nice to have.
Sometime ago, Hu Tao told him, Ying, and Lei about how some tasks are actually traps set by other disciples to kill, rob, or capture their fellow peers. Bing’s been hesitant since then to accept any tasks from the Mission Hall after hearing that but now that he thought about it, taking care of people like that would surely raise his karma! He snatched the task and took it to the counter to officially accept it.
The disciple at the counter didn’t give him any trouble and soon he was off towards the Immortal Forest. The task requested him to enter a den of Sharp Jaw Wolves and bring back at least a dozen of their bodies back in great condition. The wolves were quite a distance away from the sect, so if he needed to retreat it would take him a while to arrive anywhere near the sect. Another fact that made him suspicious about the task.
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So, Bing traveled at his own pace within the Immortal Forest. Many times, beasts tried to attack him on account of his low cultivation stage, only to be devoured by his devil hand. If any beasts were at a higher stage than him, he immediately retreated with Swift Devil and most of the time this would be enough to lose them. If it wasn’t this was when he used his shield and tired out the beast before retreating or taking advantage of its lost strength and taking care of it with his devil hand. This was nothing out of the usual for those that travel through the Immortal Forest. Both beasts and humans understood that this was a land of survival. If you were weak, you died. If you were strong, you were fed.
About 5 or 6 hours later, Bing finally found the den of Sharp Jaw Wolves. These spirit beasts were known to be a particularly aggressive and ruthless. They only attacked in groups and never split from one another except in extreme situations. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem if they didn’t all have an especially dangerous biting force. Even their pups had jaws strong enough to crush and snap apart bone.
Bing had to be especially careful in how he dealt with these spirit beasts. From what he could sense, this group of Sharp Jaw Wolves weren’t too high in cultivation stage. If any of them were crossed over into the Qi Consolidation realm, he would’ve had to give up now. But with most of them being around his stage or lower, he could deal with this much. Bing already made up a plan on how to kill them without damaging the quality of their body too much and how to avoid getting bit to death.
“Alright, let’s do this...” Bing muttered.
He was nervous as this could turn badly in only a few seconds. Bing poured his qi into his spirit tool given to him by the Empress. It was a stone disk with a smooth outer layer. The stone disk soon split into four smaller discs that floated around him. Each disk responded to his qi and took a surprising amount of qi control to use smoothly. Bing planned to use these discs as a way to improve his control over his qi along with the necklace the Empress gave him.
The next thing Bing did was flow his qi through the skull necklace. Around his neck, the eye sockets of the skulls began to light up with a purple light. From this purple light, 4 large skulls made of qi began to circle around his head. With this, the disk, and his shield, there was no way he could be surrounded and overwhelmed by the wolves. Controlling both of these spirit tools was taxing but not impossible, as long as he kept a calm mind this should be a simple affair.
Bing walked right into the den. Once his foot made contact within, his ears immediately caught the sounds of growling. It was too dark for him to see anything inside so he stepped back out of the den to try and lure the beasts outside. Knowing the nature of the spirit beasts, it would only be a matter of time until they rushed out and charged him for intruding on their home.
And just as he thought that, a wolf with a dirty silver fur coat pounced straight towards him. Its jaw was no different from any other wolf but Bing knew that the bones in his arms would be crushed if they found themselves in between those terrifying maws. One of the skulls rotating around his head fired a beam of qi into the wolf and sent it flying backwards before it could reach him. The fat youth in surprising speed followed up with the attack and snatched the downed animal by the throat. He snapped its neck to put it out of commission before hearing something clang against the stone disk behind him.
With a quick look behind him, he saw a wolf shaking its head after ramming against one of the stone disks. He wouldn’t be able to kill that one as quickly as the other, forcing him to kick it away flying into a tree. The task said he needed 12 in good condition, how many wolves were there in this den? His eyes rapidly scanned the area around him. There were more than a dozen Sharp Jaws in this one den. That meant he could surely kill a few of them without worrying about screwing up the task. Despite being 90% sure that this task was a trap, there was still a small hope in Bing’s heart that it was legitimate. If it was, he didn’t want to fail it just because of his suspicions.