Chapter 38

Zhou Xing sighed. "Lu Tianqi really is a lucky man."

Lie Changfeng scoffed. "I think he's pretty blind. What's so good about a woman who puts on an act like that?"

Zhou Xing laughed. "It's a weakness men have. I'd prefer someone a little more vulnerable too, but forget someone like Bai Su. I couldn't handle her."

Lie Changfeng rolled his eyes at him. "With your looks, you'd be lucky to become Bai Su's lackey."

Bai Su had already become quite famous in the Outer Gate, especially since she seemed to possess a Treasure Box, always able to supply the people around her with plenty of pills. For those close to her, even receiving magical artifacts wasn't out of the question.

"That's enough, you two," Shu Bai said.

Shu Bai glanced toward Su Jiu, reminding them that there was still a child present.

Zhou Xing immediately dropped his flippant air and looked at Su Jiu.

But that look made him freeze. "The sixth Qi Refining layer already?"

Lie Changfeng looked over too. "Her Cultivation Level seems quite solid. It doesn't look like she only broke through in the past couple of days."

Shu Bai and Mo Yan had already noticed the change in Su Jiu's Cultivation Level. Although they were curious too, that fell within the bounds of her private affairs, so they hadn't asked.

"We were thinking of going to sign up together for this mountain patrol in a little while. Do you have any plans coming up?" Shu Bai asked, taking a sip of tea.

Su Jiu shook her head. "I wasn't planning to take any missions for a while anyway. I didn't expect this mountain patrol to come up just then."

"Actually, this mountain patrol is connected to the demonic cultivator you encountered last time," Zhou Xing said.

"The higher-ups are worried that other demonic cultivators might sneak into the mountains near the Azure Tide Order to hunt sect disciples, so they want to conduct a thorough sweep." This was the useful information they had gathered over the past two days.

"I wonder what arrangements the sect will make once we've signed up." Lie Changfeng poured a cup of tea and gulped it down, making the corner of Shu Bai's eye twitch.

Su Jiu felt that quite a few people would sign up for this mission. After all, the rewards were generous.

The Outer Gate had a hundred thousand Qi Refining disciples. Even if those in the middle and late stages accounted for only half, that still meant over fifty thousand people.

The group arrived at the mission registration desk.

Just as Su Jiu had expected, the registration area was a dense sea of heads. She even spotted quite a few familiar faces.

Yu Yin's former boyfriend, for instance, was right there among them.

There was also Su He, a Su Household disciple who had arrived with the previous group.

Besides them, Bai Su's trio had a crowd of lackeys trailing behind them. However, the sect had already stipulated that each team must consist of five people, so Su Jiu had no idea how they had divided themselves up.

In the few days since Su Jiu had last seen her, Bai Su's Cultivation Level had risen rapidly, reaching the fifth Qi Refining layer. Su Jiu had received a voice transmission talisman from Su Mianmian yesterday and learned that she was only at the fourth Qi Refining layer. That showed just how many pills Bai Su, with her three spirit roots, had piled into her cultivation.

No wonder the later portions of that book had barely mentioned Bai Su's Cultivation Level. By the end of the story, Bai Su had only reached the Golden Core stage, the same as Su Jiu.

It wasn't just Bai Su. Lu Tianqi and Ran Chao had also reached the fifth and fourth Qi Refining layers respectively. Su Jiu frowned, feeling that Lu Tianqi's talent was going to waste. He had a single water spirit root, so with normal cultivation, his progress shouldn't have been much different from Su Mianmian's. After all, the purer one's spirit root, the faster one cultivated. But Lu Tianqi spent every day wrapped up in romance with Bai Su. Did he really have that much time to cultivate? If his Cultivation Level had also been built up with pills, that would be a terrible waste of his talent.

As for Ran Chao, she didn't even need to think about it. His cultivation must have been built entirely on pills. Apparently, with enough pills, one really could do whatever one pleased.

The corners of Su Jiu's lips curved faintly.

Besides the three of them, many cultivators at the late Qi Refining stage followed behind Bai Su. Su Jiu knew this because Shu Bai had said he couldn't see through their Cultivation Levels, and he himself was only one step away from the late Qi Refining stage.

After waiting for nearly half a day, it was finally their group's turn. Su Jiu looked back. There was no one left ahead of them, but the line behind them stretched farther than the eye could see.

An Inner Gate disciple handled their registration. When Su Jiu gave her name, he stared at her curiously for quite some time.

After all, it was the first time he had ever heard Senior Brother Xia Jue praise an Outer Gate disciple. Although that praise had amounted to no more than "not bad," it had still been enough to leave his junior brothers and sisters astonished for a long time.

"You're only seven this year?" The Inner Gate disciple couldn't resist saying a little more to Su Jiu.

Su Jiu nodded.

Then, as though something had occurred to him, the Inner Gate disciple said, "Reaching the sixth Qi Refining layer within a year is already quite good. Don't chase quick achievements and rush ahead recklessly. Taking too many pills won't benefit your cultivation, and it can easily leave your foundation unstable when you attempt Foundation Establishment."

Su Jiu was rather bewildered. Were Inner Gate disciples all becoming this friendly toward Outer Gate disciples now?

Still, Su Jiu thanked him respectfully. After all, he meant well, didn't he?

Once they had registered for the mission, Zhou Xing and the others gathered around her. "Do you know that senior from the Inner Gate?"

Su Jiu shook her head. "No, I don't."

The other four exchanged puzzled looks.

As their team leader, Shu Bai held their team's Numbered Token: seventy-four.

The rules were written on the back of the Numbered Token.

One hundred people would enter the mountains at a time, patrolling from different directions. Each patrol circuit would take seven days, after which they would return to the mission office to hand over the assignment.

Their team's token was number seventy-four, which meant they couldn't begin their patrol until the fourth week.

Su Jiu made a hypothetical calculation. If twenty thousand people signed up, it would take two hundred seven-day periods for everyone to complete the mission. Their next patrol would be four years away.

Shu Bai had clearly thought of that possibility too, and his expression wasn't pleasant. "Once we're done this time, we won't take it again."

The next day, they received another notice from the mission office. Sure enough, even more people had signed up than Su Jiu had imagined: over thirty-two thousand in total. It would take six years for every disciple to have a turn. Su Jiu had little doubt that by then, she would most likely have reached Foundation Establishment.

In a demon grotto somewhere, an old man stared resentfully in the direction of the Azure Tide Sect. Yet now, even setting foot in their mountain range was an extravagant dream. He wore the same kind of cloak as the demonic cultivator from before, with most of his face concealed beneath it.

A young man beside him tried to persuade him with a grin. "Old monster, have a little patience. If that little girl reaches Foundation Establishment, surely she'll leave the sect to gain experience? There's no need to rush. Besides, the Azure Tide Sect still has several old fossils holding the fort. To put it bluntly, unless our sect master comes out, we can't deal with them."

"But even if the sect master does come out, do you think he'll provoke the Azure Tide Sect over your junior brother?"

The old man refused to appreciate his advice and stared coldly at the man before him. "Deputy Envoy Zuo, just attend to your own affairs. You needn't trouble yourself over mine."

The man wasn't angry either. Shaking his head, he walked out with a cheeky grin, but the red gleam in his eyes made him look particularly sinister.