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Chapter 99 – Departure
TL: Sponsored chapter (4/4)
A young boy in plain cotton clothes raised his arm to wipe the sweat from his face. Seeing how dirty his sleeve was, he hesitated for a moment, but still decided to do so anyway. “Daddy, it’s so hot. How much longer until we can arrive at Miaohua Mountain?”
A black-faced man sat at the reins, urging the horses on as he turned his head back to reply. “Now you’re complaining about the heat? Weren’t you the one who insisted on coming in the first place?”
The plain-clothed boy held tightly onto the wooden frame of the horse-drawn carriage, rocking and jolting with every bump on the road. “How was I supposed to know that being on the road would be this difficult?!” he complained.
Looking up at the sun’s position in the sky, the black-faced man replied, “Just hang in there a little bit longer. It’ll be a lot cooler at night! Tomorrow, we’ll just have to ride for another half a day and we’ll be there.” He turned back around to look at the carriage full of wooden crates and said, “The past few years, the harvests of Green Spirit Grass have really been plentiful. Even after taking out the 80% tax that we have to pay, our village is still left with quite a lot!”
As the village chief, the black-faced man was evidently quite proud of the harvests of Green Spirit Grass in the past few years.
The radiant sunshine of the three brilliant golden suns gradually disappeared. The black-faced man stood on top of the horse carriage to survey the area, finding that he could already make out the outline of the Miaohua Mountains off in the distance.
However, he was also surprised to discover a black air shrouding the Miaohua Mountains. Compared to when he came here 10 years ago to turn in the taxes, the clouds and mist were completely different.
But that was 10 years ago, so his memories of that time were already a bit hazy. The black-faced man didn’t think too much about it. He picked up the reins once more, patting the head of the cloth-robed youth with his coarse, weathered hands. Like that, the father and son duo continued with their journey, laughing and chatting as they rode on.
… …
On a giant terrace in Mountain Affairs Peak, Luo Chengyi was surveying the surroundings. There were around 30 disciples gathered nearby.
“Brother Ying, there were around 40 disciples who signed up for the mission. There should still be around 10 who haven’t arrived.”
An elderly man with an amiable complexion smiled and replied, “Brother Luo, it just passed 9 o’ clock. Let’s wait a bit longer.”
Just as he finished speaking, several streaks of light landed on the terrace, and the people joined the crowd.
One of them was a youth in a black Daoist robe with gilded sleeves who was riding on a black Spirit Cloud, attracting the gazes of the other disciples.
After the time it takes an incense stick to burn, no further people showed up, causing the good-natured old man, Ying Wei, to furrow his brows.
“Brother Ying, there are still 5 people who haven’t come. Let’s not wait any further and depart then,” Luo Chengyi said, eyeing the jade slip.
“Fine,” he responded.
“You Sea of Qi disciples should all get into groups of three and ride together on one flying-type Spirit Tool per group so we avoid being too scattered. Follow closely behind us two so you don’t get lost.”
The Sea of Qi disciples all did as instructed, looking around at the disciples nearby them and forming groups to ride together.
Xu Disheng took back out the black Spirit Cloud which he just put away when he heard a voice beside him say, “Junior Martial Brother, can the two of us ride with you?”
The one who spoke was a peak Sea of Qi stage disciple with a gentle tone of voice, his eyes lighting up when he saw Xu Disheng.
The other person by his side was also a peak Sea of Qi disciple. He smiled and said, “For the trip to and back, we can pay you 4 spirit stones each to make up for the transportation cost.”
Xu Disheng lightly flicked his sleeves and said, “No problem, come on up.”
He turned his body slightly, gesturing to Zhong Zhengqing and Wei Tianhe to get on his black Spirit Cloud.
When Wei Tianhe sized up Xu Disheng, the look in his eyes grew brighter. It looked like he wanted to say something, but held himself back.
“Junior Martial Brother, did you also not go to watch the Inner Disciple Tournament?” Zhong Zhengqing said, not recognizing Xu Disheng. He just thought of him as any ordinary early Sea of Qi stage disciple.
“Well, the Inner Disciple Tournament has a period of break before the next round, and there’s still over 10 days until the next round,” Xu Disheng said flatly.
Hearing these words, Wei Tianhe became even more certain of Xu Disheng’s identity.
Yesterday, a good friend of his who went to the Green Lotus Domain had sent him an information jade slip, telling him that an early Sea of Qi stage disciple had defeated the rank 32 Jie Zizhuo, and even had two Magic Treasures on him!
That disciple’s phantom image was also included, and it looked just like Xu Disheng! That was why Wei Tianhe pulled Zhong Zhengqing along with him and approached Xu Disheng so they could travel together.
Zhong Zhengqing was someone who actually didn’t care too much about the matters related to the tournament. He belonged to the kind of people who were always taking sect missions, so he was pretty much a solitary type.
He and Wei Tianhe both belonged to Cening Peak. A few days ago, he found this medium-scale mission and saw that there were two Dao Foundation stage disciples taking the lead. Based on his intuition as a disciple who had been doing sect missions for many years, he sensed that this mission had a relatively lower risk and a fairly higher return than most, so he immediately chose to participate.
After a short while, the 30 or so disciples formed around 10 groups, each with 3 people on a flying-type Spirit Tool. It worked better this way because the disciples on the mission wouldn’t be as scattered, and the two Dao Foundation stage disciples wouldn’t have to be responsible for the costs of over 30 peoples’ flying-type Spirit Tools.
Although people who owned flying-type Spirit Tools would go through more spirit stones, those who dared to undertake a medium-scale mission wouldn’t be hurting over the 1 or 2 spirit stones required to fly them either way.
Luo Chengyi looked at all of the Sea of Qi disciples and said, “We will now depart. Erase the mission qualifications for the 5 remaining disciples who didn’t show up.”
After that, he got on a different flying-type Spirit Tool from the old man and lifted off first from the terrace, leading the way at a pace that wasn’t too fast or too slow so that the Sea of Qi stage disciples could keep up.
Xu Disheng moved his black Spirit Cloud forward alongside the other 10 or so flying-type Spirit Tools, shooting off into the sky after the two Dao Foundation stage disciples’ trails of light.
“Junior Martial Brother, could it be that you’re from one of the upper ranking Mountain Peaks? Seeing as you actually dare to go on a ghost extermination mission at the early Sea of Qi stage, where there might even be Evil Spirit stage ghosts and all,” Zhong Zhengqing asked. At a glance, there were 4-5 early Sea of Qi stage disciples among the 30 or so Sea of QI stage disciples here. All of those early Sea of Qi stage disciples had either arrogant or indifferent expressions and clearly had hidden trump cards of their own.
Xu Disheng declined to comment, only nodding his head.
Wei Tianhe, who knew who Xu Disheng was, smiled and said, “Senior Martial Brother Zhong, cultivation stage doesn’t always mean everything. Anyway, I do have some insider info about this mission,” he said, looking around at the dozen or so trails of light, glowing in various colors. “The sect master of the Huamiao Sect in the Guangxi Province was a bona fide early Dao Foundation stage cultivator, but he somehow died mysteriously without a word against some ghost. It’s extremely unnerving!”
Zhong Zhengqing shook his head and said, “These kind of medium-scale missions where they say there might be an Evil Spirit stage existence seem extremely dangerous, but relatively speaking, they’re actually the safest missions to take.”
As if he was saying this for Xu Disheng to hear, Wei Tianhe interjected, “Most disciples see that it’s a ghost extermination-type mission and avoid it like the plague, not even knowing that there have to be two Dao Foundation stage disciples leading the team. Even if there really were an Evil Spirit stage ghost, it’s just destined to be turned into ashes by them. In the end, these missions are the best to join up with for a free mission reward.”
Clearly, Wei Tianhe was just like Zhong Zhengqing in their broad experience with undertaking sect missions, and were already well-versed in the crafty tricks to get the most out of it.
“Deacon Ying Wei loves to take care of junior disciples, so coming out with him is almost like a guarantee of your safety,” Wei Tianhe said, standing at Xu Disheng’s side as he pointed at the old man who was at the Dao Foundation stage and was riding at the front of the group.
Many people seemed to know this Dao Foundation stage elderly man, who was a Deacon in the rank 109 Gutai Peak.
Over 700 years had flown past for him, but he had been stuck at the peak Dao Foundation stage the entire time, so he had no hopes of breaking through whatsoever. Seeing that he only had a decade or so left, Ying Wei accepted his situation and decided to go on small-scale missions and even medium-scale missions often to help out Sea of Qi stage disciples as much as he could. Because of this, many disciples held a lot of respect for him.