In a cold cave with poor illumination, there"s a young man running around. He had bored eyes even while running, and his steps almost made no sound like he was some ghost. The youngster was Noah, who was testing the results of one week of training."Hmm, my speed is indeed higher than before and i need to concentrate to hear my footsteps, not completely silent but enough to fool second or third stage Mortal Realm cultivators as long as they are not aware of me being there." Noah had obviously not mastered the technique in only one week, he was not some heaven sent genius after all. But he had mastered it enough to continue praticing it without the manual, so he doesn"t need to waste twenty five spirit stones for another week.
Noah entire week of training had another benefits too, he became a little stronger. Emptying and absorbing Qi in his Dantian the entire week had expanded his maximum capacity of Spirit Qi, and his body got just a little stronger, probabily from running around the entire week. Exercise makes it easier for the body to absorb Qi, because the tired body will absorb the nutrients in the air(Spirit Qi).
Noah got out from his cave, heading in the Martial Arts Pavillion direction. He soon reached there and gave the Elder the manual. Strangely, the Elder remembered him even tough there were so many disciples coming here daily. Noah had no idea why. Walking out of the pavillion, he thought it was time for a important matter.
"Weapons buying." Weapons were obviously important. In this world, the majority were cultivators that only used their fists and martial techniques, sword and spear wielders(majority of these being swordsman), and very very rare bow users. Bow users were incledibly rare to find, probabily because of their weakness in tournaments.
Noah wanted a bow. Why you ask? "Who the h.e.l.l would want to waste minutes fighting some dude to the death when you can just snipe him out from a distance" was his opinion. The problem is, weapons obviously cost money. They cost gold coins, to be exact.
Spirit Stones were worth a lot of gold coins, and cultivators only used Spirit Stones. Gold coins were useless for them. Noah only current way of making money are the Sect Missions, the thing you see in xianxia novels that disciples go to kill some magical beast or get some special herb for the missions given by the sect.
These missions were what maintains the sect wealth, and were done mainly by outer sect disciples, who Noah mocked as "glorified servants". The sect gives them strengh to complete missions, and they do it for spirit stones endlessly, giving the sect even more wealth.
Only inner sect disciples were truly treated like disciples, the rest were basically doing their job and getting underpaid for it, because the materials are worth way more than the missions give them. Oh yeah, and outer sect disciples need to do at least ten of these a year, or they can end up expelled from the sect. Inner disciples have no obligations besides their loyality.
"If i remember correctly the place was called Mission Hall or something." After asking directions from a servant again, he headed towards the Mission Hall. The place was filled with outer disciples,papers on the walls with the details of the missions and the workers in the counter. The disciples only needed to tore out a paper or point at them, give them to a clerk and they could already accept the mission. Noah gazed around the place, searching for something. He soon found what he was looking for, Xiao Long, who was busy giving a paper to a clerk.
"That trash is accepting a mission difficult even for third stage Mortal Real cultivators, had he decided to commit suicide already?" Some random guy said in a mocking tone. The crowd of people had a lot of disciples mocking Xiao Long, who acted like he didn"t even heard them. What was happening is the normal course of events of accepting a too difficult mission for his realm, and surprising everyone in the sect by doing it. Xiao Long left and the crowd soon returned to their normal course of events.
Noah searched for some easy mission and found a interesting one.
"Gather five Red Leaf herbs and bring them to the Mission Hall, needed for pill conocting. Reward : Fifteen Spirit Stones, Beware the poison in the herbs."
"Poison Huh?" Noah smiled.