Dang! Dang! Dang!

Lu Li, who was still cultivating, was suddenly awakened by a harsh sound.

Up to now, he had been cultivating in the Time Hall for over fifty days, which was equivalent to four or five days in the outside world. To his delight, he had finally broken through the metal-attribute barrier of the second acupoint, and finally saw a glimmer of hope.

He got up and saw that it was already getting light outside. Lu Li knew that it was time to receive tasks.

The tasks for servant disciples were different from those of formal disciples. They didn't need to go out, and there was no danger involved. The jobs they did were almost all to assist the formal disciples in their cultivation, such as chopping firewood, carrying water, cooking, cleaning, weeding in the herb garden, and so on.

Lu Li got up and tidied himself up. He found that although he had stayed up all night, he didn't feel the slightest bit tired at all. After thinking about it, he could only attribute it to the fact that his real body was sleeping, and he couldn't help feeling secretly pleased.

In this way, he could stay up all night without worry every night.

After leaving the room, Qin Shouren and Chen Zhong also just came out. The three of them exchanged a few words and then walked towards the small square of the Servant Hall. Just like them, the servant disciples from various courtyards came out one after another.

When they arrived at the small square, Lu Li found that Steward Wen Hong was standing on the steps in the due north of the square with one hand behind his back, looking coldly at everyone. Lu Li couldn't help lowering his head.

Beside Wen Hong, there was also a thin young man in a light blue long gown, bowing and scraping.

Someone caught sight of the young man, their eyes betraying undisguised disgust. They muttered under their breath, “Lapdog.”

Lu Li glanced at the person in surprise but didn’t say anything.

Qin Shouren, however, was full of curiosity. He walked over to the person and asked in a low voice, “Senior Brother, what’s a lapdog?”

The person was startled and quickly made a silencing gesture. After giving Qin Shouren a once-over, they frowned and said, “You kid, why do you look so sneaky? Stay away from me.”

“You!” Qin Shouren was fuming. He glared at the person and stomped back to Lu Li’s side.

Moments later, everyone had gathered. The deacon, Wen Hong, swept his gaze over the crowd before finally speaking.

After a while, everyone had arrived. Steward Wen Hong scanned the crowd and then said, "Today is the first day of August. According to the rules, tasks will be redistributed today. Once you receive your tasks, you are not allowed to change them within a month until the first day of next month."

"Everyone, line up and come forward!"

After saying that, he said to the ”Lapdog" beside him, "You go and take charge of the registration."

The "Lapdog" quickly bowed with a smile and said yes, then sat down at the registration desk and shouted arrogantly with borrowed power, "Everyone, line up properly and come forward one by one."

Seeing that everyone had lined up, Wen Hong yawned as if he hadn't slept well. After giving a few instructions, he turned around and walked into the main hall.

Seeing Wen Hong leave, immediately seven or eight people walked out of the line and rushed to the front of the line.

"Brother Zi'an, I want the fishing task, fishing..." One person couldn't wait to say.

"Brother Sun, I also want to fish."

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"..."

"Don't rush," the "sycophant" replied with a smile while deliberately or unintentionally glancing at the people queuing angrily behind. "Since you've chosen to follow me, Sun Zi'an, I will naturally not treat you unfairly..."

Lu Li immediately understood when he heard this. So this person was forming cliques in private and giving all the easy jobs to his own people.

"Mud Monkey, how about... we also follow him?" Qin Shouren also understood what was going on.

The tall man standing in front of Qin Shouren looked back at Qin Shouren and said meaningfully, "Junior brother, if you're just here in the Qingyang Sect to slack off, then forget it. But if you want to go further on the path of cultivation, I suggest you'd better not do that."

Qin Shouren was stunned and quickly asked, "Senior brother, what do you mean by that?"

The man smiled and said, "Junior brother, you may not know that although the jobs that Sun Zi'an arranges privately for his own people are good, he will deduct seventy percent of the contributions you earn. That is to say, you'll only get thirty percent of the contributions in your hands. In fact, the contributions you actually get are far less than those from the hard jobs..."

"Of course, if you're afraid of hardship, then forget it."

So that's how it was.

All three of Lu Li understood after hearing this.

Sun Zi'an's "own people" quickly received their tasks. The line kept moving forward, and soon it was Lu Li and the others' turn. By this time, most of the tasks had already been chosen, and the remaining ones were basically all hard labor jobs.

Seeing that Lu Li and the other two were new disciples, Sun Zi'an rolled his eyes and began to coax them, saying that he could arrange easy jobs for them. Lu Li and the other two already knew what was going on. They weren't here to take it easy, so they politely refused.

Sun Zi'an's face immediately became very ugly when he heard this, but he couldn't lose his temper on the spot. After straightening himself up, he threw out three tasks for the three of them to choose from. Although the contributions for these three tasks were high enough, the veteran servant disciples basically wouldn't touch them.

Qin Shouren picked around and chose the task of cleaning the sect's square.

Lu Li looked at the only two remaining tasks, hesitated for a moment, and chose the task of fetching water. Although it was a bit harder, the contribution was not low, with as many as three hundred points in a month.

Finally, it was Chen Zhong's turn. By then, there was no choice left for him, so he took the task of chopping firewood. They had grown up in the mountains since childhood and thought that these jobs wouldn't be too difficult for them.

After receiving their tasks, the three of them chatted for a few words and then went to their respective jobs.

Lu Li found a pair of water buckets in the sundries building, put them on his shoulders, and walked towards the east of the Servant Valley.

According to the requirements, he needed to fetch water from the Blue Water River, which was one mile east of the Servant Valley, and then send it to the water pools on the top of the Green Cloud Peak in the west.

Lu Li was now at the first level of Qi Refining, and he moved much more nimbly than before. After a while, he saw a river that was ten zhang wide in front of him. The river water was very clear. Presumably, this was the Blue Water River.

There was no specific requirement on how much water to fetch every day for the task of fetching water, but it was necessary to ensure that five out of the ten water pools on the top of the Green Cloud Peak were full, because the water pools on the Green Cloud Peak were for the use of the entire Servant Hall, and daily life here depended on them.

As for the water supply in other parts of the Qingyang Sect, there was no need for people to carry water, because a water supply system had already been set up when the Qingyang Sect was built. Only the Servant Valley didn't have a water supply system, and the purpose was to train the servant disciples.

These water buckets were not ordinary ones either. They were more than ten times larger than normal water buckets. If both buckets were filled, they would probably weigh no less than five hundred catties.

Lu Li tried it and found that he was already struggling when he filled them only one-third full. He didn't dare to fill them any more. Carrying the long carrying pole, he hurried back. He walked and stopped along the way, and it took him a full quarter of an hour to reach the foot of the Green Cloud Peak in the west.

Looking at the extremely steep mountain path, Lu Li wiped the beads of sweat on his face, muttered a few words to himself, and then started climbing up.

When he was halfway up, he suddenly heard the sound of chopping coming from the roadside jungle. A burly young man was swinging an axe with all his might, but with each chop, he could only shave off a little bit of the bark of the dark tree trunk.

Lu Li walked over and asked in confusion, "Fatty, hasn't your axe been sharpened?"

Chen Zhong saw that it was Lu Li. He turned around and handed the axe to Lu Li with a gloomy face. "You try it."

Lu Li took the axe and looked at it. Then he gently touched it with his thumb. To his surprise, he almost cut his finger just with a light touch. He couldn't help being shocked and said, "This axe is so sharp?"

"Yes, the axe is already very sharp, but this damn tree is even harder than iron. At first, I thought it would be easy to chop down three trees a day." Chen Zhong scratched his head, looking very gloomy.

"Haha, take it slow, no need to rush." Lu Li patted Chen Zhong on the shoulder, shook his head, and went back to carrying his load up the mountain.

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