Chapter 198: Competition (1)
"Then when I leave, the contingent would be set to zero?"
"No. The contingent is independent of you being here or away. Once you have become a member of the sect, even if it is only in-name, then you will be a member until you die and you will always have the things available that you are entitled to according to your rank and position."
"So they would go to waste when I'm not here?"
"Not really. They just will be used somewhere else."
"So can't you use them?"
"That wouldn't be a good idea. These things are prepared for the disciples and if they were used by the servants it would be seen as a waste. Eating together and eating the leftovers is fine, but especially preparing stuff for us servants would lead to problems."
"Oh.", although Ivan was slightly disappointed, he accepted it as being the standard here. If not, he would have given all these things to her, after all, he couldn't use them.
They continued eating their food before Clara went and did the dishes, while Ivan once again started reading. There was still a lot left for him to read through.
The following days were spent just like that. He continued trying to reduce the amount of Qi he could control, he read through the information he had acquired from the library, and he practiced his pill refining. He would also eat the delicious food Clara made and use the opportunity during the meals to talk with her.
Through these talks, he could collect a lot of knowledge that wasn't contained inside the library information, since it had a different viewpoint. The library information was mostly from the point of a disciple or cultivator. It didn't really look at things from a mortal perspective. After all, everyone who would read them would be a cultivator.
His preferred place for reading was in the comfortable chair in the garden. And after a few days, Clara started to copy him. It seemed like now, that she had become his personal maid, she didn't have as much to do as before anymore. And in order to always be ready to serve him, she had decided to use her free time to either research new dishes or to read entertainment literature.
They leisurely spent their time together, only interrupted by the lessons given by Miss. Klein to Ivan and Serge. Until finally, it was time for the competition to be held.
That morning, Ivan woke up as usual. This was followed by the usual breakfast and then he got ready to leave to meet with Miss. Klein and Serge.
"I don't know when I'll be back, so you don't have to wait for me.", Ivan told Clara who nodded in response.
MIss. Klein hadn't told him the complete format of the competition but it seemed like it might last a long time, depending on how far he could come.
Miss. Klein had told them to meet at the entrance to the place, so he waited for her there. He had arrived first, but it didn't take long for Serge to arrive as well.
After a casual greeting, the two of them stood in silence beside each other, waiting for their master.
They had to wait until the meeting time had already passed for more than half an hour when finally their master appeared.
"Sorry guys, my master delayed me.", she apologized, while looking exasperated.
Both of them nodded in understanding. During their stay, this had happened more than once. Their grandmaster seemed to really love their master's companionship and always delayed her from coming to their lessons.
"Alright, let's get going. I have already registered you, Ivan, so later you will automatically enter the competition.", she told them while starting to walk towards the center of the sect. She then continued on, "During the competition, you will enter a virtual room, where you have to solve the problems presented to you on a display. There will also be detailed instructions on how it works, so if you don't have to worry about the formal stuff."
"There are also two other screens, one for requesting materials and one for inputting an answer or a result." She had already participated in the competition more than once, so she was familiar with how it worked.
"The most important thing is to remain calm and not to make mistakes because your rushing too much.", she gave him a final tip.
"As for you Serge, you will have to assist me during the competition, so it will be even simpler for you. Just follow my orders and you will be fine."
"So what are the rewards?", Ivan asked a question after she had finished lecturing them on how the competition would run. He was sure that there were rewards, because who would participate if there weren't? It was just that their master had never talked about them.
"Well it's unlikely that you will get any, but I'll tell you about them anyway.", their master's response was quite cruel, although realistic. Ivan was well aware that compared to the disciples of the sect who focused on pill refining, he wasn't that knowledgeable about pill refining. This was something that had been made abundantly clear when he had read the information on the crystal card. But understanding the fact and having been told it by his master was still something entirely different.
"So your biggest reward will be the opportunity to practice. The virtual room is usually extremely expensive to use, so this is a great way to practice pill refining without having to care about the price of the materials. Because rarer and more complex ingredients are more energy consuming to simulate it won't be possible to request everything but those relevant for the test can be requested multiple times. So make use of this opportunity to practice refining them."
So basically his master was asking him to make use of the opportunity to practice. This made him wonder if this didn't go against the spirit of the competition. But oh well, who cared? As long as this could help him improve, he was more than willing to do something like going against the spirit of the competition.
"Of course, there are also tangible rewards if you reach a high enough placing. But those only start at rank 1000. Those below don't get anything but the experience of participating. Form rank 1000 there will be packets that can contain materials, tools, or recipes. Those packets are random."
It sounded unusual to Ivan. It didn't seem as much as a clear reward, but more like a loot box, one would be rewarded, with luck making up the real determiner for your reward.
As if she was reading his mind, his master turned towards him and grinned, "The elder responsible for the competition loves to do things like this. He even named the rewards, 'Normal Loot Packet', for those rank 1000 to 100, 'Great Loot Packet' for 99 to 10, 'Excellent Loot Packet' for 9 to 2 and 'Bombastic Loot Packet' for the one in the first place."
When Ivan and Serge heard the name of the loot packet for the first place, they couldn't help but laugh out loudly. This name was just too ...
Really there were no words to describe the feeling of coming to know that the best rewards for a competition of this dimension were named 'Bombastic Loot Packet'.
After they had calmed down again, Serge asked curiously, "Wow, and nobody has ever had a problem with this style?"
Miss. Klein shook her head, "Who would dare? The elder responsible is one of the strongest cultivators in this realm. So who would risk getting into trouble with him, just because of something like the name for the reward of a competition? After all, although the names are a bit unusual, the possible content of these packets is really good. So everyone just accepts it."
This was how the world worked. As long as you had the power, you could do whatever you want.
"Master, you participated in the competition before, right?", Serge asked.
"Yes. And I even managed to get into the top 500.", she said proudly.
"Top 500?", Serge asked in surprise. He looked at Ivan who too looked surprised. Unconsciously, they had expected her to do much better. After all, she seemed to be one of the best pill refiners in the sect, so how come, that she had only reached the top 500?
As if reading their minds once again, she answered their silent question, "The competition isn't only for members of our sect. Other sects also participate and one of them is fully focused on pill refining. They usually hog all the top places for themselves.
And besides that, compared to most of the other top participants I'm still young."
Pill refining was a path without an end. Even the most basic pill, could if enough knowledge, skill, and experimentation was invested, reach unprecedented highs. Of course, just about nobody would invest so much into the basic pills. Making a higher grade pill could provide the same effects, just much simpler and often cheaper. Although the lower prize came from the materials needed for the experiments and not the crafting of the pill. The materials to craft the pill would most likely be much cheaper but development costs would increase the comprehensive price extremely.
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