Chapter 19 : Chapter 19
Chapter 19: Defying Heaven Soul-Splitting Art
After returning to his little room, Ning Ri first seized the time to practice the blade for another half hour, grinding out one more skill point.
After that, he really was tired from all the grinding, so he slept for a while to recover his energy.
He slept for two hours, then got up again in the dead of night to continue practicing.
Only after grinding out six skill points did he finally stop.
One plus six made seven skill points in hand, which meant that he could become a peak Qi Refining cultivator anytime, anywhere.
Ning Ri was very satisfied.
But aside from that, he did not really have any offensive methods. Both Gale Step and the Iron Bones Art of the Crocodile Turtle were incomplete, and the Spirit Absorption Art could not really be counted as an offensive method either.
As for 【Heavenly Craft · Incomplete Version】, there was even less need to mention it.
After thinking it over, he decided that before setting out, he would take on a mission and earn some contribution points.
At the very least, he needed to exchange for one or two offensive spells before departing.
In truth, he had also considered simply displaying peak Qi Refining cultivation outright. If he did that, the people of the Defying Heaven Sect would probably drag him straight into the Inner Sect and hand him a Foundation Establishment cultivation method on the spot. Offensive spells would naturally be no problem, either.
But he still wanted to improve his aptitude.
If he rashly revealed peak Qi Refining cultivation, the Defying Heaven Sect might stop believing that there was any problem with his aptitude at all.
That would never do!
...
He had ground away at his blade arts for an entire night. By the time he left his little room, the sky was already bright.
Under the sunlight, Ning Ri arrived at the place where Outer Sect disciples accepted missions—
【Lotus Mountain】.
Before Lotus Mountain lay a lotus lake, and in the center of the lake stood a lotus pavilion. That was where missions could be accepted.
When Ning Ri went over, there were not many people in the lotus pavilion, only one senior brother and one senior sister.
Before he could even greet them properly, both of their eyes lit up. One of the senior brothers spoke first. “You are Ning Ri, right?!”
The senior sister also smiled and said, “I remember you too!”
Ning Ri revealed a bright smile. “Good morning, Senior Brother and Senior Sister. This junior brother is indeed Ning Ri!”
The senior sister smiled and said, “Hello, Junior Brother Ning. I remember you very clearly.”
“Because you said you wanted to ‘yang’ for a bit, and your name also has yang in it, everyone in the Inner Sect is calling you Junior Brother Yang now.”
After saying that, the senior sister seemed to think of something funny and began covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking...
Ning Ri: “...”
The other senior brother waved a hand. “Do not joke around. Junior Brother Ning, have you come today to accept a mission?”
Ning Ri said, “Yes! I want to take on some missions and see whether I can exchange for a spell in the Technique Pavilion!”
Hearing that, the senior brother could not help pondering for a moment. “This is the situation: for disciples who have just entered the sect and whose cultivation is still rather weak, the lotus pavilion is not allowed to assign overly difficult missions.”
“So the only missions you can accept right now are sect errands and downhill errands.”
“But these missions are extremely trivial, and the contribution points they reward are very few.”
“Generally speaking, everyone else prefers to wait until their cultivation is stronger before coming to accept missions.”
“Which one do you want?”
...
“I choose this one. Copper coins will do. Thank you, Immortal Ning!”
At the entrance to Zhao Family Village, Ning Ri sat in a gazebo while a middle-aged man in coarse cloth clothes smiled and pointed to Ning Ri’s left as he spoke.
To Ning Ri’s left were bags of copper coins, while to his right lay a jade slip. The jade slip had a kind of automatic medical art. As long as it was activated with spiritual power and a mortal touched it, it could roughly determine seven or eight-tenths of the person’s illness.
Ning Ri handed the copper coins to the middle-aged man. “Here you go.”
“Thank you, Immortal Ning!” the middle-aged man said with a grin. Then he set down a huge basin of braised pork, turned, and left. After that, it was the next person’s turn...
Ning Ri then stored the entire basin of braised pork directly into his disciple token.
The disciple token issued by the Defying Heaven Sect had storage space inside it.
Watching such a huge basin of braised pork vanish into thin air, the villagers all cried out in amazement—
Amazing!
“Next.”
Ning Ri spoke again.
At the lotus pavilion, Ning Ri had ultimately chosen “downhill errands.” The content of the downhill errand mission was: purchasing ingredients for fasting pills.
When Ning Ri had lived near the Defying Heaven Sect before, the sect used to hand out day labor jobs.
He himself had even done day labor for the Defying Heaven Sect before.
But now that Ning Ri had already joined the Defying Heaven Sect, what he was responsible for was—
handing out day labor jobs to the villagers.
To Ning Ri, this was what it meant to go from being a day laborer to being the station manager.
The mission he brought the villagers today was: purchasing ingredients for fasting pills.
The so-called ingredients for fasting pills were simply the dishes the villagers cooked.
After the villagers finished cooking, they would bring the dishes over. Ning Ri would collect them, then either pay them or treat their illnesses. It was that simple.
Ning Ri felt this practically counted as charity, because for the people of the Defying Heaven Sect, cooking their own meals was not exactly difficult.
In fact, he felt that aside from helping support the villagers, the Defying Heaven Sect’s arrangement also allowed disciples to station themselves downhill and deter petty criminals.
After dealing with everyone’s dishes, Ning Ri hurried back to the sect and accepted a new mission—
to go to another small village and collect wild medicinal herbs.
...
Quite a few Outer Sect disciples were proud and haughty by nature. They had never liked doing such trivial missions, and even felt that they interfered with cultivation.
Usually, they waited until their cultivation was stronger, then directly accepted the kind of mission that settled everything in one stroke and rewarded a huge number of contribution points. But Ning Ri did not care.
He could run missions and practice the blade at the same time, so it did not delay him in the slightest.
Besides, he could even find enjoyment in these simple, trivial missions. It felt to him as though he were playing an online game in his previous life, running one chain quest after another.
After running missions for two days, Ning Ri had accumulated twenty skill points, and at last he had also scraped together enough contribution points to exchange for an offensive spell: 【Thunder-Control Palm】. It had imposing visual force, could intimidate people, and did not fear elemental countering.
Elemental countering referred to things like water overcoming fire and fire overcoming wood.
Then he came to the mountain gate of the Defying Heaven Sect and took out a jade slip.
The entire jade slip gleamed golden and bore the two characters for Golden Stratagem, giving off an extravagantly splendid feeling.
Ning Ri thought to himself—
As expected of the most famous wealthy sect in the cultivation world.
And the jade slip in his hand was precisely the summoning slip for 【Golden Stratagem Mileage】!
Before forming the hand seals and summoning the driver—no, summoning the cultivator—Ning Ri first opened his panel.
【Host】: Ning Ri
【Skills】:
【Defying Heaven Soul-Splitting Art】: 0
Free Skill Points: 27
Following Zhou Heng’s reminder, Ning Ri planned to first learn 【Defying Heaven Soul-Splitting Art】 and create a new-user identity for himself.
What puzzled Ning Ri, however, was this—
Elder Zhou had clearly said that the Defying Heaven Soul-Splitting Art he gave him was a simplified version.
But when the art entered the panel, unlike his other cultivation methods, it did not carry the words “Incomplete.”
What was going on?
Could it be that even if a cultivation method had been simplified and cut down, the panel could still deduce the complete version?!
Thinking back to the Spirit Absorption Art from before, Ning Ri’s eyes immediately lit up...
Then, without the slightest hesitation, he began pouring points into 【Defying Heaven Soul-Splitting Art】 with ruthless determination!