Chapter 34: An Uneventful Day.
[Host has received SCP-154]
[Host has received a broken sword!]
[Host has received a cloud seed!]
Jing was not pleased with the results of the rare tickets. SCP-154 is practically unusable for anyone that wasn't a complete lunatic. Even she wouldn't use the bracelets despite being able to bypass its undesirable effects. She couldn't deny its useful possibilities but she would need someone as tough as Hu Tao or crazier than Hu Tao to be able to use this weapon effectively.
SCP-154 is a pair of bracelets that if worn on the same arm, the user performs a pose like they were shooting with a bow, an ethereal bow will form and the bracelets will glow slightly. When the bowstring is pulled and released, the bones of the user will be forcibly shot out from the arm holding the bow, traveling at speeds that could assassinate any normal cultivator. The missing bones and damage to the arm will be quickly regenerated and the bow will be able to be fired again. The unfortunate part of this is that the pain is excruciating for the healing process. There is also a small chance of the user's arm mutating during the healing process and possibly becoming larger, a different color, changing in structure from the original arm, growing extra joints and fingers, or possibly even being replaced with a completely different physical or chemical makeup. This small chance will continue to grow the more the user uses SCP-154.
For now, she'll keep it inside her inventory along with the coffin, dumbbells, and SCP-4820's ability. She might find a use for it in the future. The broken sword was actually useless. It was a standard steel sword that was cut in half. There was nothing special about it in the slightest. She even checked using her qi to see if there was some secret hidden inside it. She chucked it into her storage ring and looked at the cloud seed.
The cloud seed was white and round in appearance. When she squeezed it, it was soft and squishy to the touch. One of these days, she'll get around to making that garden but that time isn't now. She didn't know how valuable these seeds were nor did she have anywhere to hide them that the higher-ups in the sect couldn't find. Growing and taking care of them wouldn't be a problem with SCP-914 but keeping them from sight while using them frequently would.
Jing walked outside her house and locked the door behind her. Li Li was cutely perched on her shoulder like usual and she took a walk through the sect. Taking a walk through the sect isn't usually a pleasurable experience. There are very little sights to enjoy within the sect besides the surrounding environment. On a normal day, Jing would see disciples bullying a weaker disciple, disciples fighting each other, disciples nearly killing each other or killing one another, disciples glaring and looking down on one another, and more situations like that.
Seeing this on a regular basis made Jing wonder if all sects were like this and if her vision of a sect would be something truly revolutionary for these barbarians. She initially thought that sects were kind of like a school or academy for furthering cultivation, building social connections, and improving oneself and environment. But it was actually a dog-eat-dog organization that rewarded survival of the fittest and gaining shallow connections to succeed instead.
Truly a place that only scum and wastes could thrive in. She'll have to make sure Li Li doesn't gain any bad habits from living in this place. He's an impressionable young boy. There's no telling what could influence him. His recent hobby of making and playing with talismans could only be beneficial for him though. They're like toys in a way, it helps his imagination and patience. She's warned him against using it around people though. An extremely strong cultivator could try and take him if they see him using talismans or rumors would spread about him that would link to her. She is the only person inside the sect with an owl for a pet after all.
She was on her way to choose 5 tasks the sect sets for every disciple every month. The Mission Hall was strangely quiet today. It's usually filled with disciples looking for ways of gaining contribution points or bargaining with each other. It looks like since the Treasured Plains is opening soon, everyone has gone crazy to start preparing for it. The goodies inside must be something truly great if it causes this much of an effect. Jing will have to remind her followers to gain as much as they can during it, a chance like this doesn't come often. Along with causing as much chaos and hell as they can.
Particularly to the three factions that compete in the Outer Court. The first faction was the Huan Clan that are enemies with Ying and Bing. They are the strongest faction in the Outer Court because they had members from the Inner Court. The other two factions, Fearsome Garden ran by Meihu and Wolfeng Gang ran by Jianyu, didn't have connections in the Inner Court. This made their greatest strength their numbers.
The Huan Clan didn't accept just anyone into their group. Every member was related to the Huan Clan in some way. This was surprising because the number of people in their group wasn't small. Their blood must be related to some ancient rabbit people or something. They know how to multiple.
She chose 5 relatively easy tasks at the board and gave it to the receptionist at the counter. He marked her name down for the specified tasks so that once she completed them or failed them it would be under her name. There would be a punishment if she failed and contribution points if she succeeded. The severity of the punishment varied depending on the type of task selected. Most disciples choose easy physical labor tasks for their monthly tasks.
There's basically 0 risk and a small amount of contribution points as rewards. Jing chose 5 easy tasks because why wouldn't she? If the average disciples chooses these types of tasks of course she'll pick them too. It would be strange if she chose difficult or special tasks that only certain people could accomplish. That would only bring attention to her and she doesn't wish for that currently. Not until she's built a strong enough faction within the sect. It would be boring if she just took over using her abilities and forced them all to kneel under her rule without any foreplay or games beforehand.
And if there is one thing Jing loves, its foreplay. Watching as things slowly spiral out of control and erupt into the ever-sweet destructive climax is such a rush! That's one of the reasons why she doesn't just cultivate in her room till she's strong enough to kill the sect leader and take over. What's the rush for when she can take her sweet time in playing around with all these different toys? It would be such a waste...
"Hmm? Do you see anything Li Li?" Jing asked him as they travelled through the forest.
"Hoo." He responded while pointing with his talon.
"Oh, you found one of the White Billow Herbs? Thanks." She pocketed the plant from the bush and kept walking.
Jing had to find 10 White Billow Herbs for one of her tasks. These herbs were common materials for alchemists in stabilizing volatile concoctions. They grew all around the Outer Layer of the Immortal Forest. They were common plants to find in this area. Her second task was to bring back the fur of a Tailed Rabbit without any damage. Their fur was valued for its softness and how easy it was to handle a Tailed Rabbit. Even the 9th stage ones could fall to lesser staged spirit beasts and humans.
She wanted to deal with this spirit beast as a spellmaster. She hasn't really tested her spells against living beings yet. She doubted the beast would be able to do much considering it was a stupid rabbit but it's something. They also lacked survival instincts against humans for the most part and willingly walk up to or around humans. Jing pulled out her refined second weapon.
This thing will be what she uses in public as an apprentice spellmaster. It was a small satchel covered in an unknown beast's fur. It was brown and held a simple design. She wore the strap over her body so where the satchel hung at her hips. She didn't do much when refining this bag. She refined it on very fine and gave it two anomalous abilities. Infinite storing space within and unable to be destroyed. Jing planned to use this thing as a defensive tool for the most part as she pulled out her talisman slips from the bag to deal with her opponents.
It's perfect because her enemies won't be able to get past her bag and if they somehow do, she can just rely on her movement spells to get away while setting up her trapping formation. Its amazingly annoying. It perfectly complements her frightful and passive nature! She'll either tire her enemies to death or annoy them to death by running away! And get this, most of the trapping formations she'll set up won't even be deadly! It'll be a slow peaceful trap that'll cause them to spit up blood and wish that they were dead so they wouldn't have to suffer against such a cowardly opponent who doesn't even have the guts to kill them. It's going to be perfect when she has her ranking match in the future.
"Kyeu." Li Li pointed out.
There was a tailed rabbit in the bush to the left. Its tail was curled and when uncurled it was long enough to be used as an entire limb. Jing reached into her satchel; inside it laid various talisman slips to use. She pulled out the broken sword from her storage ring and stabbed it into the ground. She slapped a conduit spell onto the hilt of the blade and threw out 4 slips around the furry creature. The rabbit tried to flee after seeing the slips attach to the ground around it but only managed to slam its head against the qi barrier formed from the talismans.
Since the person who made this task wanted the fur to be intact and in good quality, Jing had to use one of her less deadly trapping formations. Chains made of qi slowly rose from within the formation and focused on the rabbit. They shot forward and captured the rabbit in an instant. These chains started to siphon the qi from the tailed rabbit and wouldn't let go unless Jing broke the formation or all the qi was sucked from the rabbit.
This formation was the Sealing Array. A rather basic but very effective trapping formation. It was a more effective version of the Sealing spell. With the sealing spell you have to manually attach it to your opponent and make sure that they don't destroy the slip before the chains can immobilize them. The spellmaster also has to make sure the chains can actually catch their opponents as well. This formation is weak against body cultivators as the physical strength of their body is often not affected even without qi.
The tailed rabbit didn't have much qi within its body since it was only a 2nd stage beast. After sucking the spirit beast dry of all its qi, the chains shattered and the talismans burned into ash from the purple flames. It was easy to take care of the creature now. It laid on the ground barely breathing. Even as Jing stabbed into the ground around it with a sharp stick, it didn't do so much as twitch.
Well, it was definitely pleasant to look at its helpless state but her ranking match will definitely be more fun to watch. Torturing small creatures brings no pleasure for her. She snapped its neck and tied it to her waist before moving on to task #3. Her third task was pretty simple. She had to replace the talisman around one of the villages inside the Immortal Forest that keeps spirit beasts and normal beasts from attacking villages. It was a supportive type spell that casted a certain type of qi barrier over the village. This qi was considered foul and unpleasant to beasts so they avoid it at all costs.
Jing was interested in knowing what type of qi it was in particular but not even her master knew. There were many types of qi in the cultivation world. There was lightning qi, fire qi, water qi, yin qi, yang qi, and many more. But none of those qi were the type of qi that beasts would shy away from. Jing was also curious if the talisman would affect Li Li.
She reached outside Liu Village and replaced the weakening talisman with her own. Li Li squawked in annoyance but seemed fine with it after a few moments. He acted no different from normal after the initial touch of the barrier on his feathers. Jing shrugged her shoulders. Maybe it doesn't work on beasts who are too smart or strong. Guess it was time for task #4, Jing left Liu Village behind and started searching for another common alchemist ingredient. It was called a fire blossom.
It was bright red and usually grown in groups with a fire-type spirit beast nearby. Spirit beasts with a liking towards fire qi eat these kinds of herbs frequently to increase their affinity and strength with fire qi. The marked anteater was a spirit beast that eat these flowers while also deterring any other from disturbing them. Jing found a small area behind a large tree filled with fire blossoms.
She looked around for any signs of a marked anteater near the tree. No burn marks were present but she could definitely hear something underneath the hole in the tree. She took out a Minor Teleport spell and threw it on one of the fire blossoms. The talisman soared through the air and soon attached itself to the flower before teleporting right in front of Jing's feet.
"HNM! HUMH! HNM!" An angry sound yelled out.
Jing giggled as the marked anteater swaggered out of the hole with fire shooting out of its snout looking for the person that disturbed its food. She walked away before it could spot her and was on her way back to the sect. Her final task could've been solved first actually. All she had to do was turn in a Sealing Array to the receptionist at the Mission Hall desk. Sometimes spellmasters can't make their own talismans and ask for help by other spellmasters. They sometimes use them to trace over so that they can make their own eventually with enough practice.
"Are you finished already?" The receptionist asked.
"Ah.. Yes... Here is um the formation for the fifth task..." Jing responded pathetically.
He grabbed the slip from her and drew checkmarks on the tasks she completed today before giving her contribution points. He smiled after finishing everything with her.
"Have a good day."
"Goodbye..."
Jing left the Mission Hall and a sudden feeling of emptiness filled her. She's gone an entire day without anyone harassing or trying to bully her in the sect. These Treasured Plains must be something really important if these wastes are training so hard in preparation for it. Maybe she should liven up the place a little bit... What disciple wouldn't drop their training for a brand-new sky-ranked spirit weapon? Who cares if it horribly destroys your arm and might possibly give you a whole living snake as a new arm by mistake? Cultivators will do anything to get stronger than one another. Not to mention if one person doesn't want it, someone else surely would.
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CaptainBoyHole
CaptainBoyHole Comment/Review on the story readers and give me ideas on possible xianxia things you want to see! No guarantees that I will add what you want. But it helps to have ideas out there. Please point out any mistakes you notice or anything you're not clear about. I'll try to answer them and fix them to the best of my abilities.
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