Missions

Area C Missions:

1. Senior Sister Liu of the Inner Sect brought back a five-hundred-year Nine Deaths Returning Soul Grass from Dark Nether Luo Cave. For unknown reasons, the spiritual energy within the Spiritual Medicine is rapidly dispersing. She is seeking a pair of junior brothers or sisters experienced in planting and caring for Spiritual Medicine to help tend to it. If they can solve the problem of the Spiritual Medicine's spiritual energy dissipating, they will additionally receive a copy of Basic Alchemy insights.

Basic mission reward: 20 Contribution Points.

(Note: The five-hundred-year Nine Deaths Returning Soul Grass has already entered the ranks and is extremely difficult to keep alive. Non-professionals, please take heed.)

2. Eight mu of Spirit Fields in Azure Mountain Town have ripened. Ten Outer Sect junior brothers and sisters are now being recruited to help harvest them. Time limit: five days.

Basic mission reward: 25 Contribution Points per person.

(Note: 6/10 people have currently been recruited.)

3. West Phoenix Town is preparing to plant Spirit Trees and requires a large number of cultivators at Spirit Essence Realm Third Level or above to help. Each Spirit Tree planted earns 3 Contribution Points. No limit on personnel or time.

Basic mission reward: 3 Contribution Points per tree.

(Note: Whoever completes the highest number of trees may also receive a bottle of Bone Forging Pills.)

4. Senior Brother Zhao of the Inner Sect is preparing to leave for a period of time. He is recruiting Outer Sect junior brothers and sisters at Mid Spirit Essence Realm or above to help manage his Cave Dwelling, including the Spiritual Medicine and Spirit Fields surrounding it. The term is half a year. During that time, they may cultivate near the Spirit Fields.

Basic mission reward: 80 Contribution Points.

(Note: Applicants must pass Senior Brother Zhao's test.)

External Affairs Hall,

Zhang Qingyuan's gaze swept over the words on the Projection Stone's Light Curtain one by one, selecting missions suited to himself.

However,

after looking for quite some time,

he still found no mission that satisfied him.

"Of the four mission areas—A, B, C, and D—Areas A and B are relatively dangerous. They mainly involve combat and slaughter, such as killing Demonic Beasts causing trouble within the Sect's territories. They are exceedingly dangerous."

"Areas C and D lean more toward various internal chores. Area C mainly consists of planting and caretaking missions issued by Inner Sect senior brothers and sisters, as well as forces under the Sect's jurisdiction. Area D consists of tasks such as cleaning Great Halls and sweeping up rubbish, missions specifically for low-level Outer Sect disciples of the Low Spirit Essence Realm to earn Contribution Points."

"Both are comparatively less dangerous, but accordingly, their Contribution Point rewards are also far inferior."

For nearly two years since entering the Sect,

Zhang Qingyuan had been muddling along in Areas C and D, never once sparing Areas A and B a glance.

There was no other reason.

He simply cherished his life.

Having lived a second life,

Zhang Qingyuan understood the meaning of life all the more deeply.

In a fantasy cultivation world like this,

things like murder and treasure snatching,

Demonic Beast attacks,

being caught up in a roadside battle and dying, and so on and so forth—

Zhang Qingyuan could practically imagine a three-million-character fantasy novel.

The protagonists of those fantasy cultivation novels he had read in his Previous Life

always managed to turn danger into safety whenever they encountered peril,

defeat brainless villains who provoked them, and then win the beauty's embrace.

Along the road to their rise,

they slew gods that stood in their way,

slaughtered Buddhas that blocked their path,

sent Gods and Devils fleeing,

like calamity stars walking the earth, stirring up World-Ending Calamities that cleaved heaven and earth apart.

Yet,

only after Zhang Qingyuan had truly transmigrated into this world where cultivation was real did he realize just how unreliable that was.

After all,

in this world,

not everyone was the Protagonist.

At the very least,

Zhang Qingyuan did not believe he was one.

It had been a full three years since his transmigration.

Other than a broken panel that could only display proficiency,

he had none of the things a transmigrator in a fantasy novel ought to have.

A fiancée who came to break off the engagement with her nose in the air, a ring housing the Remnant Soul of an ancient Stronger, brainless villains who targeted him every time he "changed maps"—

In three years,

he had never encountered anyone deliberately targeting him,

nor had he run into any conflicts.

Aside from the clichéd setting of both parents being dead,

there was nothing else.

Those three years had passed as calmly as still water,

without many twists or turns.

Then, after more than a year of striving in the Outer Sect, there had been neither Fellow Sect Members who jumped out to mock him for having the lowest cultivation at the Seventeenth Branch when he entered, nor stewards who relied on the power of some Inner Sect Senior Brother to bully others at will.

It had been so bland it was like a drama made of plain boiled water.

Until his Last Time trying to activate his Golden Finger had failed,

Zhang Qingyuan had become certain

that he truly was not the Protagonist of some book.

If he were,

then the person writing that book had to be an utterly failed author.

Forced to live by scavenging rubbish and eating dirt every day,

unable to pay rent, driven out by the landlord and left homeless on the streets,

with filthy hair like a dog's nest, able only to hide beneath an overpass at night to escape the cold, his phone bill overdue so he could not upload his manuscript—

the night wind poured into the hollow beneath the overpass,

and he could only wrap himself tightly in the filthy, hole-riddled blanket he had picked up.

All Over the Body, he shivered from the cold wind and kept inching farther into the overpass hollow,

a trembling,

penniless failed author wandering the streets.

Miserable,

down-and-out,

shivering helplessly.

Thinking of those failed authors from his Previous Life who had ended up homeless, Zhang Qingyuan formed such an image in his mind.

That was right,

that was exactly what Zhang Qingyuan believed.

A failed author—

who told him to write this kind of protagonist-torturing novel?

Three years already,

calm as water.

If he did not fail, who would?

Forget it.

Zhang Qingyuan hurriedly pulled his wandering thoughts back

and returned his attention to the missions before him.

"Now that I've advanced to the Late Spirit Essence Realm, I need more cultivation resources. I can't keep picking nothing but farming missions like before."

Glancing at his panel,

he saw that in the techniques section,

the Spring Breeze Fine Rain Technique on the first line

was already about to break through to the fourth level!

Zhang Qingyuan was somewhat speechless.

This was a technique specifically used for farming, for watering Spirit Grain and infusing it with spiritual energy.

Yet in the more than a year since entering the Cloud Water Sect Outer Sect, Zhang Qingyuan had accepted far too many missions related to irrigating Spirit Fields, forcibly cultivating this farming technique into the technique he was most proficient in.

One had to know,

even ordinary Spirit Planters

only had their Spring Breeze Fine Rain Technique at around the third level.

He could already be considered half a seasoned Spirit Planter.

"The missions in Areas A and B offer rewards more than ten times greater than those in Areas C and D. Now that I've entered the Late Spirit Essence Realm and possess some ability to protect myself, it's time to take on some combat and slaughter missions!"

"After All, farmers are not the mainstream in this world."

Gritting his teeth,

Zhang Qingyuan made up his mind.

Although Zhang Qingyuan knew that the combat and slaughter missions in Areas A and B were dangerous,

still,

setting resources aside,

tender affection had never been the theme of the Cultivation World.

Flowers in a greenhouse

were After All easily cut short,

and found it difficult to survive until the end.

He,

too, truly needed to improve his combat experience!

Thus,

Zhang Qingyuan turned and left Area C,

as though bidding farewell to the past.

He entered Area B of the External Affairs Hall, a place he had never set foot in before.

Half an hour later,

he emerged from Area B.

After picking through the missions on Area B's Projection Stone, Zhang Qingyuan finally found an inconspicuous mission in the middle.

It was one of the least dangerous missions.

Mission 89:

Recently, a Spirit Devouring Rat has appeared near Azure Mountain Town, stealing and eating Spirit Grain crops and causing considerable losses to the local Spirit Farmer families. Outer Sect disciples are hereby recruited to locate the Spirit Devouring Rat and kill it.

No limit on personnel or cultivation level.

The killed Spirit Devouring Rat and the Harvest from its nest may be kept.

Basic reward:

200 Contribution Points and a bag of Spirit Grain seeds.