Chapter 438: The Beast Core Possibility - 438
Zhu Yi stopped playing around in the city and found an information broker.
He cheaply bought information on nearby sects. Besides the heart scalp sect, the only other two sects that could be considered nearby were the Water Lotus sect and the Great Fire sect.
Zhu Yi remembered Zhou Fan's words about his affinity. "Master. Do I only have a fire affinity?" He asked.
"Yes. That is your only affinity." Zhou Fan responded.
Zhu Yi nodded. The choice was not a difficult one, he chose the Great Fire sect without too much thought.
The only real issue left was whether or not he could actually join the sect.
After buying some basic information on the sect, Zhu Yi spoke to Zhou Fan. "Master. This Great Fire sect is a level higher than the Heart Scalp sect. It is said that there is a nascent soul realm cultivator within it. What if I can't join?"
"It doesn't matter. We'll find a way." Zhou Fan said.
Zhu Yi nodded before falling into deep thought.
After a moment, he spoke. "Master, what if I postponed trying to join the Great Fire sect until I am stronger?"
Zhou Fan didn't speak for a moment after hearing Zhu Yi's question.
"What about, instead of waiting until you are stronger, we wait until you are more talented?" Zhou Fan asked.
"What do you mean master?" Zhu Yi asked.
"I can increase your talent if I recover more or have access to a large amount of untainted Qi." Zhou Fan said.
Zhu Yi was confused, but he was far too weak to understand what raising talent truly meant.
"It sounds like you were really strong before being injured, Master. In that case, I suppose that we can indeed wait." Zhu Yi said.
The surrounding 3 sects were the only ones that Zhu Yi could reasonably travel to. Out of the three, the Heart Scalp sect was a no-go zone, the Water Lotus sect was unsuitable for him, and the Great Fire sect was too high level.
Zhu Yi's talent was not enough to join. Without Zhou Fan, he would have likely never reached the Foundation Establishment realm, especially without the true cultivation manual. If he had practiced with one of the other cultivation manuals going around, then his future would have been even more limited.
In combination with the low density of Qi, Zhu Yi had been destined to fail to reach the foundation establishment realm. Luckily for him, that had all changed due to Zhou Fan.
The only issue was finding spirit stones.
"Actually, there may be a way to get untainted Qi without needing spirit stones." Zhou Fan said.
He had been thinking about the possibility, and although he had never tried it, it seemed as if it would work.
"What would that be?" Zhu Yi asked.
"Beast cores. After dying, the beast core of beasts still contains Qi. It is used for many purposes, but unfortunately, it is tainted since it came from the beast." Zhou Fan explained.
All Qi that had been inside a cultivator's body had been tainted, but if a cultivator died and left behind a coagulation of Qi, or in this case a beast core, then it may be possible to untaint it.
"With my power, I may be able to untaint Qi from a dead beast's beast core." Zhou Fan said.
The Qi of a person contained a trace of their will, even when they died. It was what made it their Qi, but in the case that the owner of the Qi was dead, then the will could theoretically be removed. Although it sounded simple in theory, only Zhou Fan, who had the river of cultivation, would be able to do it.
"In that case, I just need to find Beast cores, right?" Zhu Yi said.
"Not really find. You'd likely need to kill the beast. After the death of a beast, the vast majority of the Qi quickly dissipates. What remains afterwards is at best 1% of the original amount. In order to have any substantial effect, the beast needs to have been dead for no more than 30 seconds." Zhou Fan explained.
In other words, Zhu Yi could not simply go and buy beast cores from the market to help Zhou Fan recover.
With everything understood, Zhu Yi headed to the place that all low-level, sectless cultivators gathered to survive and continue cultivating. The rogue cultivator guild.
This was a place that accepted all, though much different from a sect. First, there was not simply a single place that it existed. The rogue cultivator guild had many branches everywhere throughout the entire world.
Also unlike a sect, the rogue cultivator guild would not protect you or help you freely. You would also not have to fight for the rogue cultivator guild.
The rogue cultivator guild simply acted as a place of transactions between sectless cultivators, whether it be monetary or service.
Zhu Yi walked into the branch that existed within the city. Inside, there was no lack of cultivators, each of them sectless.
In a city like this, where around 50% of the people were low-level cultivators, the rogue guild experienced its highest traffic.
In addition, although a foundation establishment realm cultivator could join almost any sect they wanted, whether it be as a disciple or a guest disciple, there were no lack of them in the rogue cultivator guild and white palace city.
Some had offended powerful people, some had stolen items, some had killed and run, and the white palace city was the sanctuary for all such people, especially if they were at the peak of the foundation establishment realm and fairly strong.
As Zhu Yi walked up to a front desk, he looked around. The entire place seemed to be made out of wood, and there were posters everywhere, as well as a technological innovation of cultivators known as the crystal pad, the recent successor to the crystal ball.
There were a few crystal pads in the rogue cultivator guild with lines of cultivators in front of them. The crystal pads, as well as the outdated crystal balls, were connected to a network that held a large amount of information.
Chapter 439: Crystal Pad Network - 439
The network behind the crystal pads and crystal balls spanned the entire world, or at least that was what was said.
While the crystal pads in the rogue cultivator guild could only be used to find missions within a certain area, it is said that there are higher level crystal pads that could freely browse the network, though not all information could be freely seen, or seen at all.
Zhu Yi looked forward to using the crystal pads, but first, he needed to actually sign up. After waiting in a line for a while, Zhu Yi finally reached the front desk.
"Welcome to the rogue cultivator guild. How can I help you?" The lady behind the desk asked in a tired voice.
"I'd like to join the guild." Zhu Yi said.
The lady nodded and pulled out a clipboard from under the desk. "We need your name, cultivation, and blood."
Zhu Yi nodded. They did not need too much information.
"Your blood will be kept on standby in case you lose this card. In the case that you lose the card, the blood test will be taken." The lady said as she handed Zhu Yi a card.
The card had nothing special about it, or at least not to the naked eye. According to what Zhu Yi had heard, there was some sort of special mark on the card that only core formation realm cultivators could see.
At the core formation realm, simply having a card did not mean anything and there were different forms of identification, but below the core formation realm, the card and blood were the only two means used.
Zhu Yi took his card and lined up near the pads. His information was uploaded into the crystal pad network almost instantly after receiving his card.
When Zhu Yi reached the crystal pad, he scanned his card on the top of it.
A screen popped up that read, "Welcome Zhu Yi."
Zhu Yi looked over the screen and attempted to understand how it worked.
He tapped on it, and the words went away. With a blue background, there were 3 icons.
One read, crystal web. Another read, missions. The final one read, personal information.
Zhu Yi clicked on the crystal web icon in curiosity, but a screen asking for a username and password appeared.
Zhu Yi helplessly clicked out of it and clicked on personal information. On it was his name and cultivation, as well as rank within the rogue guild.
The rank of a cultivator was increased by completing missions and gaining mission points. Even a nascent soul realm cultivator could be at the F rank. Zhu Yi was also at the F rank.
The ranks in order were posted on the wall. It went: F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS, X.
There were apparently benefits gained with a higher rank, but Zhu Yi did not know what they were.
Finally, Zhu YI clicked off of personal information and tapped on the missions icon. A long list of missions appeared, but a button at the top that read, "Find fitting missions" made everything easier.
Zhu Yi clicked on it and countless missions disappeared. What remained were basic F rank missions within the vicinity. While anyone could take a mission of any rank, it was more or less better to focus on missions within the same rank unless you entered the rogue cultivator guild already powerful.
The missions were sorted from F to X based on importance, and although it was theoretically possible for a Qi gathering cultivator to reach X rank, X rank missions were more or less impossible for anyone below the absolute peak of the world, which was why there were probably few.
Of course, as an F rank member, Zhu Yi could only see missions up to A rank, which were already far out of his league.
Zhu Yi found an F rank mission to retrieve Qi gathering realm beast tendons. There were countless shops around the entire world that used such things.
This mission was perfect for Zhu Yi. He could find where beasts were and absorb their core while also making money.
It was a win-win-win situation.
Zhu Yi took a mission and the location where that specific beast resided popped up. Zhu Yi grabbed a piece of paper that was next to the crystal pad and wrote it down. Naturally, it was quite far away from the city. He would need to travel for a few days even while running at his fastest speed. Luckily, the mission paid a fair amount.
In general, only Foundation Establishment realm cultivators could touch spirit stones, so this mission paid in gold. It would seem like a lot to mortals, but cultivators found metal coins more or less useless.
The Inn that Zhu Yi stayed at was still a mortal inn, though the prices were sky high due to being in a cultivator city.
Zhu Yi soon left the rogue cultivator guild and walked towards the exit of the city with a loan backpack on his back. With his hatred for that arrogant old man, Zhu Yi had a newfound motivation to get stronger, and waiting even a single day was impossible.
Zhu Yi began to run out of the city, Zhou Fan on his shoulder as always.
Traveling on the path was uneventful as usual, besides the flying cultivator that Zhu Yi saw. It was his first time seeing a person fly, not including Zhou Fan in his soul form.
"I guess I'll be able to do that eventually, right master." Zhu Yi said with a tone of longing.
"You better." Zhou Fan said. He still needed Zhu Yi to beat up that old man.
After around 4 days of running and resting, Zhu Yi finally entered the "Lizard Beast Forest".
As for why it was called the lizard beast forest, it was not hard to comprehend.
Zhu Yi looked up as he walked along. He moved quietly and carefully. Although there were foundation establishment realm lizards in the forest, they would stay in the inner portion. Zhu Yi only needed to worry about peak Qi gathering realm beasts. After all, he was only at the 5th level of the Qi gathering realm.
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
121 Power
stone 
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