Chương 56: Merit mission

"So, what do you think?" Jianyi asked Miyao as they were sitting in a corner of the library. The girl shoved the scroll she had read to the side and finished some notes, giving herself time to think.

"I… don't know," she hesitated, then she couldn't contain herself anymore.

"The truth is that I love the idea of body cultivation, but I can't do it to my grandmother. Not yet. Not now. But I think I can push for another spirit cultivation technique. I will save some contribution points to get advice from Elder Mo and then go and talk to her." Her cheeks were flushed.

"Do you agree?" Jianyi chuckled.

"I am quoting my teacher: it is your path, not mine. From what I understand, the main problems with pursuing body and spirit cultivation in parallel are the limited qi card slots and the costs of pursuing two paths. But the first problem isn't that much of an issue in the first realm. So maybe, if you can find the funds, you can find an appropriate cultivation technique now and then start on body cultivation a bit later?"

"That is a great idea!" Miyao said, smiling broadly. For Jianyi, the research with Miyao in the library had also been quite interesting. He suspected that one reason the Empire was so focused on splitting body and spirit cultivation was a matter of resources during the war. Historically, there had been more people pursuing both paths. It was true that having just two qi card slots was an issue, but as with most things in cultivation, it could be overcome with sufficient wealth and resources.

His personal path to quickly gaining strength was probably to stay true to spirit cultivation while maintaining a strong focus on the spear. The only caveat was that it was apparently very hard to pursue both paths sequentially. Once your body was already hardened to some degree, it was almost impossible to get the lower stages of body cultivation to take hold. But it was not an issue in the short term.

Now that he had helped Miyao, he could do something that he had been looking forward to all day: visiting the treasure hall and buying a card for his deck with the essence he had received in the aftermath of the fight against the demon. He left the library with Miyao and was just saying his farewells when Shuhua came running towards them.

"I was searching for you. Something has happened, and now they have made a lot of merit missions available."

"Oh! Don't you also get contribution points for those?" Miyao asked, seemingly very keen to collect points for her conversation with Elder Mo.

"You do," Shuhua confirmed.

"What is the difference between normal missions and merit missions?" Jianyi asked, having missed the class where that was discussed.

"The biggest difference is that you get merit," Shuhua grinned at him, finding her joke apparently quite funny.

"Seriously, there isn't a big difference. I think the merit missions usually have some component of helping the region or the mortals in the vicinity of the sect. But from what I have heard, they have taken a lot of missions that typically would be done by inner or even core disciples and have made them available for the outer sect. Apparently, the disciples have been tasked with some big mission from the patriarch himself!"

Jianyi remembered that Elder Sun was going to talk with the patriarch about what had happened at the manor house, but kept his speculation to himself.

"We should go and check the missions. I am sure there is one for us!" Shuhua was still very excited. Jianyi was torn. For one, he wanted to go buy a card, and second, he suspected that Shuhua would make him join a mission with her and the others, while he wasn't sure that was what he wanted to do. But he relented, and they quickly made their way to the mission hall, which was one of the larger buildings in the outer sect.

Through the main door, you entered a surprisingly small hall that had half a dozen desks, separated by head-high walls, evenly spaced across it. There was a single line of outer disciples, most of whom were older than Jianyi and the others, waiting for their time with an attendant at one of the desks. When it was finally their turn, a young man with very short hair and a friendly smile, wearing the uniform of an outer sect disciple, waved them to his desk.

"Greetings. My name is Yao Qirong. How can I help you?"

"We heard there are merit missions available for disciples in their first year!" Shuhua said, smiling broadly at the young man. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"That is true. How big is your group? Any activities you would not like to do?" Jianyi just shrugged as Shuhua looked at him and Miyao for guidance on the second question.

"We are five, and we don't know what kind of missions are available, so nothing we can rule out."

"I understand; I have been there myself," he said with a grin, then tapped his chin with his finger while thinking. To the side of his desk stood a box with a silk-covered inlay that held a number of jade slips. His hand hovered over one, which he pulled out and held to his temple.

"Yes, how about this? There is a village just about half a day from here to the east. They recently had a run-in with a spirit beast. The village managed to defeat the beast, but not before it damaged their palisade significantly. The mission is to go there and support the villagers while the palisade is repaired and they are vulnerable.

If completed successfully, meaning no villagers die from beasts while repairs are ongoing, everyone in the circle gets five merit points and eight hundred contribution points for the group. What do you say?" Shuhua clapped her hands excitedly, and Miyao nodded emphatically as well, both of them looking at Jianyi.

Jianyi had identified merit points as a means to get powerful cards, and more contribution points were always a good thing—especially since he was close to zero at the moment—but he wondered whether it wouldn't be more efficient to do missions on his own. If solo missions even existed. But then again, the fight against the demonic cultivators had made it quite clear that there were a lot of people out there who were more powerful than him, so having his first mission without Elder Sun in a group might be wise.

He nodded.

"I need to get agreement from my teacher, but I don't expect it to be a problem. When do we have to leave?" The girls celebrated, and the young disciple behind the desk chuckled.

"The sooner the better. If villagers die while they wait on our support, the mission is a failure."

"Could you hold the mission for us, please? We need to find our other members, and Jianyi needs to get approval, but we should be back in less than an hour, promise!" Miyao looked at the disciple with wide eyes, and Jianyi almost snorted.

"No problem. Once you have cleared everything, just come up to me; you don't have to wait in line anymore," the disciple agreed quickly, smiling back at Miyao. They quickly agreed to meet in front of the mission hall, and that the girls would search for the Liu cousins and buy provisions, while Jianyi would run to the inner sect to check with Elder Sun.

Jianyi was on his way back from the compound. Elder Sun had approved of the idea to go on the mission, as gaining experience and merit points were both desirable. He had only cautioned Jianyi not to reveal his dual affinity needlessly. Minghao had provided him with a bedroll and a few other things that would be helpful on a mission. All new things for Jianyi, who had never slept a night outside of Shiqiu City or the sect yet.

After that, he had spent a few minutes in his cultivation chamber starting the integration process for his new pride and joy. After leaving the girls, he had briefly stopped at the treasure hall and bought the card he had previously discussed with Minghao. It fit with his cover story as a Wood and Fire cultivator, and it was in line with his mother's wish for him to buy something that would protect himself; he loved it. Verdant Mending Technique Uncommon 2x Wood Accelerates the natural healing of a target's wound.

He had Bolt of Fire to deal damage, Force of the Forest as well. This would help keep him alive. It also had the advantage of being something that could help outside of battle—he still didn't really feel comfortable activating a technique in a fight. The only thing that had him grumble a bit was that the card had been expensive. So far, he had thought that a card was a card, but it turned out that, while there were a lot of cards out there, they were not all made equal.

And healing techniques were especially sought after; therefore, he had to spend the full essence on this one card, even though it should have been worth at least one, if not two, additional common cards. Anyway, he was happy with his purchase, and he checked every few steps that the card was still on its way towards its upper dantian, where it would eventually be available for use.

To be absolutely sure that all was well, he had asked the elder whether buying a card was acceptable under the rule that one should earn one's own deck. Fortunately, the elder had reassured him that using spoils from a fight one had participated in was very well earned. His thoughts wandered towards the mission that they were about to embark on. It was certainly one of the things he had dreamed of as a child—the stuff that was the bread and butter from the stories about cultivators.

However, he had to admit to himself that he had very few ideas on how all of this would practically work. Maybe another reason for it not being all bad to go on this mission together with the others. Maybe, he thought with a chuckle, he could even write to his mother that he went on an adventure with 'friends'. What were friends, really? In the stories they were people who you died for. In his mind, they were people who held you back. Maybe both perspectives were a bit… extreme.

Maybe they were people that you enjoyed spending time with. He had by now admitted that the time spent with the other four was mostly fun. Maybe they were people whom you helped and who helped you. They had certainly done that when he had been in seclusion—and maybe one could count the time he had spent with Miyao in the library as that. Maybe they were people that you trusted. That, though, he wasn't quite sure yet. But—surprisingly—he was willing to give it a try.

Maybe, just maybe, Jianyi was willing to remove the sarcasm from the term friends. For some reason, he felt lighter as he walked down the path towards the outer sect.