Book 2, Chapter 14 - Sect Contribution

After reading the disciple manual, Zhao Jiuge had a certain understanding of the situation.

The Mysterious Heaven Sword Sect had a history of 3,700 years. The ancestor, Old Man Mysterious Heaven, was originally a scholar who accidentally entered the path of cultivation. Although his talent was ordinary, he loved the sword. Finally, something hit him and 1,000 years of comprehension allowed him to ascend, thus creating this sect.

After years of history, the sect was now more than 10,000 people and had many powerful cultivators. However, even after so many years, no one else had managed to ascend after Old Man Mysterious Heaven. For nearly 100 years, there had been no outstanding disciples, so they had fallen from the top of the seven holy lands to the bottom. In particular, during the gathering of the various sects across the Huaxia Dynasty, their disciples were all killed. This caused their power to weaken and made other factions become ambitious.

The sect was comprised of three peaks: the Mysterious Heaven Peak, the Mysterious Fall Peak, and the Mysterious Strange Peak. The three peaks that complemented each other. The mountain range was surrounded by the formation left by Old Man Mysterious Heaven, and with it active, not even some of the most powerful cultivators could break in. The sect had relied on this formation to continue its inheritance for over a thousand years.

The three peaks were divided into the inner and outer sects. After a new disciple had been in the outer sect for three years, they would have a chance to enter the inner sect to learn more profound sword arts. Otherwise, they could only stay in the outer sect and learn shallow techniques.

In addition, the Mysterious Heaven Sword Sect had three halls, two pavilions, and one temple.

Duty Hall: dedicated for disciples to receive missions and earn sect contribution.

Law Enforcement Hall: once one reached a certain cultivation level, they could join to work internally to uphold sect law and punish those who broke sect laws. They could also work externally and go out to exterminate evil in the world.

Sword Casting Hall: the Mysterious Heaven Sword Sect focused on swords. Each disciple could use sect contribution earned from completing missions to purchase materials to create their own flying sword. The quality of the flying sword depended on the materials. The Sword Casting Hall was responsible for creating flying swords.

There were two pavilions, the Sword Pavilion and the Treasure Pavilion.

The Sword Pavilion contained materials for creating swords, and a large amount of swords that belonged to members of the sect who had died. In addition, after a disciple entered the inner sect and reached a certain cultivation level, they would go out to train. The sword pavilion contained their life origin lamp. When they encountered danger outside and died, the lamp would extinguish. Disciples of the inner sect were the core of the sect, and the path of the sword was a path of killing. If you didn’t have combat experience, then it would be like a baby holding a dragonslaying technique but being unable to use it.

The Treasure Pavilion contains various strange cultivation methods and spells brought back by disciples who went out to hone themselves. There were also various materials and such. As long as you had enough sect contribution, you could purchase what you wanted.

One temple, the Mysterious Heaven Temple.

This was the core of the entire Mysterious Heaven Sword Sect. Generally, when a major event took place, the head teacher would go there to announce things. Whenever a new group of outer sect disciples entered the inner sect, they would go there to find a teacher. Powerful cultivators would go there to select disciples. This would be direct one-on-one teaching instead of group teaching.

There were many other big and small introductions, but what Zhao Jiuge cared about the most was the Sword Pavilion and sect contribution. Just seeing flying swords made Zhao Jiuge’s blood boil. It was as if he had seen his own dashing appearance when holding his own flying sword and his robe fluttering.

However, it was a bit of a pity that he could only begin receiving missions from the sect a year after entering. Those simple missions were merely to find herbs and items that the sect required. The more complicated ones would require them to gather information and go to nearby villages to deal with things like ghosts. What made Zhao Jiuge’s eyes shine was that after entering the inner sect and reaching Spirit Core Formation, he could go out to catch famous evil doers. The sect would reward him with various spirit pills and even pills that would help increase the grade of his spirit core and such.

It has to be said that after the Foundation Realm was the Spirit Core Realm, where one’s spirit core was divided into nine grades. The higher the grade, the greater the potential they would have. When forming one’s spirit core, heavenly signs could appear. Sometimes, there would be the sound of a Law Horn, and other times there would be Immortal Music. When Old Man Mysterious Heaven formed his core, both occurred.

Of course, even if the quality of the spirit core wasn’t good enough, it could be increased by using external forces. Aside from spirit pills, one could also use spirit veins hidden within mountains and rivers. These spirit veins contained powerful spiritual energy. There were Cold Ice Chalcedony Veins, Fire Force Veins, and Absolute Hidden Heaven Veins. Every spirit vein had different properties. One would have to find one that matched their spirit core. Then, if one cultivated there to refine one’s spirit core, there would be a chance to increase its quality.

There was a total of nine ranks of spirit core. After reaching the sixth rank, the path of cultivation would be smooth. Those who had rank six or higher spirit cores were people whose fame spread far and wide.

Although the heavenly dao was elusive, nothing was absolute. The heavens would always leave you with a sliver of hope. The rest would depend on whether you could grasp the opportunity. That was why all inner sect disciples that reached the Spirit Core Realm would be sent out to train. The first reason for this was that one had to find opportunities to improve their cultivation. The second reason was to hone their mentality and gain insight about the world. The third reason was to remove evil from the world and gain actual combat experience. After all, even a baby eagle would one day have to fly on its own.

When Zhao Jiuge closed the disciple manual, he couldn’t calm his heart for a long time. As long as there was temptation, there would be desire, and as long as there was desire, one would act to fulfill that desire. From when he was very young, he understood that he would have to work hard to gain anything, so he never lacked perseverance. Back then, he would enter the mountains and lie in wait for hours without moving, all in order to hunt a hare.

What’s more, after experiencing all these wondrous things, Zhao Jiuge could already no longer wait until his cultivation was powerful so he could go outside. However, the road was long and it was best to take it one step at a time. He sat there and thought for a while. For the first year, it would be best if he obediently learned from the instructors and put down a solid foundation. Then, during the next year, he would earn sect contribution to buy materials. He at least needed his own flying sword!

Even if the flying sword he created was not good, he at least wanted to have one. It would be better than fighting empty-handed.

When he thought about the cost listed in the manual, the corner of his mouth twitched. The Mysterious Heaven Sword Sect was simply too greedy!

The worst sword embryo cost more than 10,000 contributions, so there was no need to even talk about the better quality ones. In general, one would need a sword embryo and other materials to create a flying sword. The better the materials, the higher the quality of the flying sword. The sword embryo was like the skeleton that the materials fuse to. The better the sword embryo, the stronger the sword. The various materials could also add special properties to the flying sword.

There were also those materials that made Zhao Jiuge want to cry, but he had no tears. However, they also opened his eyes and widened his horizons.

Scarlet Water Gold Sand: 3,000 sect contributions.

Black Gold: 700 sect contributions.

Null Li Metal: 1,200 sect contributions.

Sunset Dark Light: 6,000 sect contributions.

Green Light Bamboo: 2,300 sect contributions.

Thousand Year Cold Essence: 5,800 sect contributions.

……

There were densely packed lines listing all the different materials, but Zhao Jiuge was in no mood to keep reading. It has to be said that an ordinary mission only gave a few sect contributions, while the worst flying sword would take tens of thousands of sect contributions.

There was no need to even talk about buying a spirit beast’s essence soul or spirit core.

The spirit core of a spirit beast could be used to increase the effect of a spirit pill and could even be used on a magical treasure.

The higher the cultivation level of the spirit beast, the more valuable their spirit core would be. Of course, there was something even more rare, which was the essence soul. A spirit beast had to reach the Spirit Core Realm to have a spirit core, and they had to reach the Nascent Soul Realm to have an essence soul.

When a human cultivator reached the Spirit Core Realm, they could break their spirit core to reach the Nascent Soul Realm. They would create a nascent soul that looked exactly like them but was the size of a palm. The nascent soul would live inside their body. Even if their body was destroyed, as long as the nascent soul lived, they could create a new body.

A spirit beast that had reached Nascent Soul Realm would not form a nascent soul, but an essence soul. However, they are almost the same. A spirit beast at the Nascent Soul Realm could also take human form, which was why they were so expensive. Not only were they difficult to acquire, but a spirit beast would rather self-destruct than have their essence soul taken. This was because what awaited them would be a miserable fate.

They would be refined into a magical treasure by a human cultivator. Refining a spirit beast’s essence soul would not only increase the power of a magical treasure greatly, it would also give them the characteristics of the spirit beast. It was equivalent to the treasure souls that heavenly treasures had.

This was why whenever there was news of an essence soul, even powerful cultivators that normally stayed hidden would come out to compete for it. One couldn’t only rely solely on themselves when it came to cultivation, there were also magical treasures, mysterious items, enslaved spirit beasts, and other external factors to increase their strength.

That’s why one had to go out and practice while cultivating, to increase one’s strength. Between life and death, there were not only dangers, but great opportunities. Everything would be decided by fate.

Zhao Jiuge’s eyes were filled with passion as he let out a sigh and was filled with envy. He felt like there were thousands of ants crawling in his heart, making him itch. He was helpless and could only wait until a year passed to accept missions.

Then he thought that it would be better to cultivate first. It had been many days since he last cultivated, and the growth of his spirit force was too low. He suddenly remembered that he still had a Blue Spirit Pill left! Back then, Mu Longjie had given him three pills. He had used one to successfully create the golden dragon and reach Spirit Transformation. Then, when Su Su was injured, he had given her one, so there was still one left.

Thinking about Su Su, Zhao Jiuge was suddenly lost in thought. They had been together for many days. He thought about the night they fought against the Ten Thousand Corpse Elder, as well as that affectionate kiss to feed Su Su the pills. Recalling these memories, they knocked on Zhao Jiuge’s heart.

He gradually awakened from his thoughts and decided it was better to focus on cultivating now. When they met in five years, his cultivation couldn’t be much worse than hers; otherwise, with her personality, who knew how she would belittle him.

Looking at the blue pill in his hand, still exuding a faint fragrance, he was considering if he should use it. After pondering for a bit, he decided not to waste it, since the Blue Spirit Pill was used to break through to the Foundation Realm.

He still had plenty of time, so it would be best if he improved his cultivation and the second golden dragon. After three years, before the test of the inner sect, he should take advantage of the Blue Spirit Pill to see if he could break through to the Foundation Realm in one go. Only then could he impress the higher ups of the Mysterious Heaven Sword Sect to find himself a good teacher who would teach him well.

As a result, he threw aside all distractions and focused his mind. He sat down and closed his eyes as he was going to take advantage of the rich spiritual energy here to cultivate.

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