Chapter 0272 – The 17th Assignment
Chapter 0272: The 17th Assignment
“Is that so?” The Soul Sculpting Realm Deacon’s eyes flashed with a hint of killing intent, as he stared at this Profound Core 8th Level Cultivator.
This Profound Core 8th Level Cultivator’s face immediately turned pale as he quickly gave a terrified bow and hastily spoke up, “This is really not the case esteemed Deacon. This Junior Apprentice Brother is named Hu You¹, had previously lied to me and cheated me out of a hundred thousand spirit stones, the only reason I stopped him was to take back the spirit stones belonging to me.....”
“You dare to lie and even cheat your Senior Apprentice Brother of the same sect out of spirit stones? Your courage really knows no bounds aah.” The Soul Sculpting Deacon also felt that Ning Cheng was not completely honest; rather he was instead more convinced that this Profound Core 8th Level Cultivator’s words were at least partially true.
Ning Cheng looked at this Profound Core Cultivator and spoke without haste, “You are a Profound Core 8th Level Cultivator and definitely not a child, how can I deceive you out of your spirit stones? Why don’t you share how I ‘so called’ cheated you out of your spirit stones in front of me and all the great experts present in this place?”
“That’s right, we have to hear it.” The cultivators, who had already surrounded them and were watching from the sidelines, were also quite curious as to how Ning Cheng had fooled the spirit stones out of him.
This Profound Core 8th Level Cultivator quickly spoke up, “Three months ago, this man said that I owed him a hundred thousand spirit stones, at that time I was confused, and just went ahead and gave it to him, and now I can’t help but think that I was deceived by him.”
Ning Cheng simply did not explain anything, he simply spread apart his hands as a sign of exasperation, before his cupped his fists towards the Soul Sculpting Cultivator and spoke, “I have nothing more to say, the esteemed Deacon’s judgement should be quite good.”
“Hahaha......” Just as Ning Cheng finished talking, the people surrounding them suddenly burst into laughter. This reason was definitely out of ordinary, if other people said that you owed them spirit stones when you yourself don’t know, and even asking you to return those spirit stones, would you ever return it immediately? If that were the case then wouldn’t this mean that all the people in the world were simply fools?
“Next time, at least find a better reason.....”
“Well, at least you could have said that someone else owed you, it would at least be a bit more reasonable.”
The Soul Sculpting Cultivator literally stared at this Profound Core 8th Level Cultivator, before speaking up after a good long while, “You better be on your way to the Law Enforcement Hall for your punishment, if this thing is repeated another time, I will personally throw you out of the Rainbow Fall Sword Sect.”
“Yes, esteemed Deacon.....” This Profound Core Cultivator did not dare to dispute the matter regarding the hundred thousand spirit stones, as he quickly gave a bow and led himself to be punished.
That Soul Sculpting Cultivator then turned to Ning Cheng and spoke in a cold voice, “You should know better, the next time you might not be so lucky.”
Ning Cheng’s heart clenched, as he hurriedly cupped his fists and spoke, “Yes, many thanks for the esteemed Deacon’s help.”
He immediately knew that the Deacon was aware that there was something fishy going on and even suspected that he was playing a few tricks. But because this Soul Sculpting Cultivator was too lazy to investigate such a trivial matter, so he only gave him a warning.
After the Profound Core Cultivator and the Soul Sculpting Cultivator Deacon left, Ning Cheng still kept looking at the huge assignments screen in the Assignments Hall in a leisure manner. For a trivial thing like this, he really did not put it to heart. If that Profound Core Cultivator were not greedy for his cultivation jade cards, he would also be disinclined to gain those measly hundred thousand spirit stones.
Unfortunately, even after Ning Cheng at the display for a long time, he found only three assignments that had Small Spiritual Domain’s cultivation jade cards as a reward.
The first assignments was to help out a disciple with Soul Essence Cultivation of the Rainbow Fall Sword Sect, who had ended up dying in the Mirage Gazing Island for no apparent reason, as such there was a need for someone to investigate into this matter, but the people to be dispatched should have a cultivation of at least Soul Essence 7th Level. This made it so that only the people on the level of elders could undertake this assignment. Moreover, it only awarded a month of cultivation time; as such, Ning Cheng directly skipped it.
The second assignment was to track down the Rainbow Fall Sword Sect’s traitorous disciple Lei Junfeng, for his evil conduct within the academy, and had even stolen the Academy’s glaze picture scroll. As long as one was able to track him down and retrieve the glaze picture scroll for the academy, they would be awarded a year’s worth of cultivation time in the Small Heavenly Domain, along with a huge amount of pills and spirit stones as rewards......
Ning Cheng was quite surprised in his heart, my goodness; just what kind of evil did this Lei Junfeng even commit? To be assigned a year’s worth of cultivation time in the Small Spiritual Domain as a reward to just track him down. Ning Cheng’s eyes suddenly had a fiery glow to it, he simply could not wait to run out immediately to track down and catch this Lei Junfeng.
“This Senior Apprentice Brother, about the 9th assignment for tracking down Lei Junfeng, just what kind of mistake did he even make to warrant this kind of reward?” Ning Cheng immediately hailed a Profound Core Cultivator hanging around the Assignments Hall.
“Hey, aren’t you Senior Apprentice Brother Ning.....” This cultivator turned around and immediately recognized Ning Cheng, and even called out Ning Cheng’s name.
Ning Cheng was slightly surprised for a moment, before finally thinking of something, “Oh, I had not recognized you a moment ago, you must have been one of the Junior Apprentice Brothers selected from the time I became an Inner Sect Disciple.”
Ning Cheng could see that the opposite party was at just the Profound Core 1st Level, and guessed that he was also one of the people who had entered the academy at the same time as him. As such, he no longer remained polite.
“Haha, Senior Apprentice Brother Ning’s prestige is spread quite far and wide, and is known by practically all the people from back then, especially for the fact that you actually dared to openly turn down a Core Disciple standing inside that arena. Senior Apprentice Brother Ning really does possess a boldness that is rarely found anymore.” The cultivator on speaking until here couldn’t help but give a thumbs-up, apparently that move from Ning Cheng at that time had earned his admiration.
Ning Cheng simply smiled and held up his cupped fists before speaking, “That is already a thing of the past. Can it be possible for me to ask this Junior Apprentice Brother’s name?”
This cultivator seemed to be quite happy to become friends with Ning Cheng and quickly spoke up, “My name is Jin Liangan, with my immortal cave in the Bright Sword Peak.”
“I live in the Developing Sword Peak, Junior Apprentice Brother Jin is welcome to drop by anytime. By the way is Junior Apprentice Brother Jin also here to pick a few assignments?” Ning Cheng had been inside the Small Spiritual Domain for almost a good period of time; as such, he had no choice to find an acquaintance, especially one who would be willing to talk to him.
Jin Liangan gave out a sigh before speaking up, “That’s right, although being an Inner Sect Disciple of the Rainbow Fall Sword Sect is actually much better that being a rogue cultivator, but you need to find some assignments suitable for yourself. Otherwise, it would be too hard for you to advance. Right, there has been many times that elders took the initiative to teach enmasse, but why didn’t Senior Apprentice Brother Ning attend? If fact, those elders really were quite good with their teachings, moreover after gaining pointers from the elders, many of us actually broke through the Profound Core Realm in one fell swoop.”
Although Ning Cheng was aware of the matter related to the teachings, he quickly spoke up, “I really was not aware of it, does the sect elders really give out exclusive teachings to the Inner Sect Disciples?”
Jian Liangan couldn’t help but stare at Ning Cheng with wide eyes, before speaking, “No, not personally but as a group, don’t you even know this? Of course, if there were no sect elders guiding us, then how are we any different from rogue cultivators? Moreover, you can even borrow cultivation jade strips from the academy, and can use the contribution points you gained from the assignments in exchange for pills, jade strips, and even for cultivation time in the Small Spiritual Domain.....”
“Is this for real? How come I did not see those things before?” This time it was Ning Cheng who was staring at this person with wide eyes, he simply did not know anything about these rules.
Jin Liangan scratched his head and spoke, “Senior Apprentice Brother Ning, it seems for certain that you did not carefully look at the jade strips given by the elder, all the notes in the jade strips were self-explanatory. You see all the assignments, in addition to the main rewards; you will also be awarded with contribution points.”
Ning Cheng only at this moment was finally able to understand what those numbers behind each assignment meant, those numbers actually indicated the contribution points attached to it.
Ning Cheng immediately fished out the two jade cards from inside his storage ring, and found out one of those jade cards really had a detailed descriptions of all the basic things, while the other one was a blank jade card, with the words ‘Contribution Points’ written on top of it.
Damn, Ning Cheng couldn’t help but pull at his hair; he had mainly come to the Rainbow Fall Sword Sect for cultivating in the Small Spiritual Domain. After he found the information regarding his immortal cave, he simply did not care about the rest of the information on the jade card; he had even thought that it was the academy’s most basic cultivation methods for cultivation. Later when Xun Hanrui and Liang Kexin came over, he had ended up getting three months’ worth of cultivation jade cards for the Small Spiritual Domain, as such he was no longer in the mood to even look at the so called academy’s most basic and lower levelled cultivation method.
But what he had not thought that rather than it containing the academy’s most basic cultivation method for cultivating in, it would turn out to be a jade card for contribution points.
“I really want to go to the Small Spiritual Domain to cultivate, just how many contribution points would it even require for being able to cultivate in there for a month?” Ning Cheng quickly asked.
Jin Liangan simply shook his head and spoke, “Who here doesn’t want to go into the Small Spiritual Domain to cultivate? Wanting to use contribution points to exchange for cultivation time, although it is possible but is extremely difficult. Unless you undertake the very difficult assignments released by the academy’s Assignments Hall, it would be really difficult, nearly borderline impossible for you to trade for it. There are many difficult assignments here, some even with a reward containing cultivation jade cards, like the 9th assignment pertaining to tracking down Lei Junfeng; if you were able to accomplish them then you simply would not have to trade in your cultivation points. Take the last one; if you had gone to the Great Liang True Country, then you would have been directly awarded a month’s time of cultivation in the Small Spiritual Domain. But it can also be considered that you were quite lucky for not going......”
Ning Cheng quickly asked, “You spoke something about the 9th Assignment, I have a question that I want to ask you, that Lei Junfeng has been labelled as a traitor to the academy, in the end just what did he do to earn such an ire? How is the reward for just tracking him down so high? One year of cultivation time in the Small Spiritual Domain, it simply too incredible to even think straight about it.”
“No, don’t put it like that; rather it would be better to not be envious about this assignment. Not only is the difficulty of this assignment too high, moreover how can anybody even know where he had disappeared? And this Lei Junfeng is also someone extremely powerful, when he was in the late stages of Soul Essence Realm, he could easily battle an early stage Soul Sculpting Cultivation to a standstill and even escape without any problems. I heard that he was able to advance to the Soul Sculpting Realm, as such with his ability, if one did not have the cultivation of Sea Opening Realm, then it would be better if they did not think of taking him head on.”
Jin Liangan speaking until here suddenly lowered his voice before continuing to speak with Ning Cheng, “Do you know what Lei Junfeng is being persecuted for? He raped the academy’s Deputy Academy Head Dan Wenyao’s Dao Companion, Bei Xialan; you tell me if this kind of person’s courage is not higher than the heavens......”
Jin Liangan suddenly remembered that Ning Cheng was also quite a bold person, and did not continue with his words, instead laughed embarrassingly.
Ning Cheng stunned for a good long while, this, this was simply too preposterous right? This person even dared to sleep with the wife of the Vice Academy Head. No wonder this assignment posed such a high level of difficulty, not to mention that no one even knew where Lei Junfeng was hidden, even if one was aware of it, just what kind of a person would be required to capture him.
“Junior Apprentice Brother Jin, didn’t you also say that I was lucky that I did not go to the Great Liang True Country, why is that?” Ning Cheng suddenly remembered the last part of the sentence that Jin Liangan spoke previously.
Jin Liangan lips pursed before he spoke up, “If you looked at the 17th assignment you would come to know about it. Three months ago, a few of the True Inheriting Disciples along with a few Core Disciples were dispatched to the Great Liang True Country and the North Shang True Country’s battlefield, as a part of the assignment. As such, no one expected anything out of ordinary from this assignment. But not only did the disciples that were dispatched not come back, but there was not even a shred of news about them.”
“A bit later, the 17th assignment was once again opened, and a few more disciples were sent, but once again, not a single one came back, and neither did any news about them was received. At this moment, the 17th assignment is actually opened for the third time, even if the rewards this time is even higher than before, who would even dare to take up this assignment?”
Ning Cheng then saw that there were a number of rewards written below the 17th assignment, but the most attractive among them for Ning Cheng was the years’ worth of cultivation time in the Small Spiritual Domain. Not only that, it even awarded one million contribution point as a part of the reward.
My goodness, the rewards on this assignment was simply too lucrative to pass up on. At the same time, Ning Cheng also couldn’t help but think of Liang Kexin and Xun Hanrui, the two of them could be considered as his friends, and had gone missing while undertaking the academy’s assignments, as such, he was quite worried about them.
“Junior Apprentice Brother Jin, since there are so many disciples who have gone missing, why did the academy’s Elders and other senior experts not go? Also why would they re-release this assignment once again?” Ning Cheng asked in a puzzling manner.
Jin Liangan spoke in an even lower voice, “How could they have not gone, many Crucible Transformation Experts were dispatched, but even though there were many Crucible Transformation Experts dispatched, there simply was no result at all, nor could they even find out what the problem was. Only cultivators at the level of Soul Essence Realm or below could go in, only to suddenly go missing. And it’s not just the Rainbow Fall Sword Sect, it’s the same with the True Inheriting Disciples and Core Disciples from the other academies too, and are also similarly missing.”
Hu You – The characters for Hu You (忽悠) literally translate to ‘To Con / To Rob’.←