As Bai Yun stumbled out of the house, he felt a hand steadying him. Without even having to check, he knew that it was old Hai.
"Thanks." Bai Yun said softly. His complexion was not too good under that mask.
"There is no need to thank me. What I am more worried about is what your mother will do to you once you get home." Old Hai chuckled.
Bai Yun groaned when he heard old Hai. It was true. He was far too severely wounded to just shrug it off or hide it. He knew that his mother would definitely ask about the cause.
It would have been fine if he had stopped at killing the gang leader, but he continued killing all the others also. It was due to the fight with the entire gang that he became severely wounded. If he had left as per his original plan, his mother would not even have known what had happened.
"Can you take me to the blood moon's place. I need to turn in the mission." Bai Yun asked old Hai. He had already told old Hai about what he was going to do. After all, without old Hai's help, it would take him days just to go from one place to another during his missions.
Old Hai did not say anything and just waved his hands. A second later Bai Yun found himself being swept alongside an irresistible force. A few minutes later he was once again in front of the pub he had gotten the mission from.
Once he got his bearings Bai Yun opened the door and entered the pub immediately. Old Hai followed him inside. Even though he knew of the reputation of the blood moon, and knew that they would not attack a potential assassin who wanted to work for them for no reason, old Hai found no fault in being cautious.
When Bai Yun entered the pub, the bartender was still standing there. But instead of saying anything, he just pressed the secret button and opened the door in the wall. Bai Yun immediately walked over and old Hai followed him. But just as old Hai reached the opening, the bartender's voice sounded out.
"Sorry. But the lower levels are strictly for the members of blood moon only. If you aren't planning to be an assassin for blood moon, I would suggest you wait here."
Old Hai stopped and looked at the bartender who only smiled politely in response. Bai Yun had asked old Hai to put on a mask too, so that no one, especially blood moon, would find out about his identity. Bai Yun was very careful about this.
Bai Yun simply nodded to old Hai and then went down the stairs. Old Hai stared at Bai Yun's disappearing back for a few moments before he sat down at the bar. The bartender calmly poured him a drink, but old Hai did not drink it as he was wearing a mask. Then the two of them just sat there staring at each other silently.
Bai Yun quickly went down the stairs and reached the lower floor soon enough. But when he stepped inside, he was a little surprised. The inside of the room was different from before. Earlier the walls were covered with mission posters, but now there was nothing left. Right now the only things in the room was the bartender's true body, who was sitting at a table facing him.
"I never expected you to finish the mission so fast." The bartender said. "And such ruthlessness. To think that you would even wipe out the entire gang. I'm impressed."
Bai Yun wasn't surprised. When he was in the headquarters of the gang he had felt two other consciousnesses on him. One of them was old Hai, but he couldn't identify the other one. It seems as if it was someone from blood moon as he had guessed. They were trying to hide it, but they could not escape his god sense.
Bai Yun sat down at the table. "Did I pass?" He asked.
"Of course." The bartender replied. " Here is your identity card." He said pushing a small palm sized, black, rectangular piece of card into Bai Yun. He took it to discover that one side of the card was completely smooth, while the other side had a small picture of a blood moon. There was also a long series of numbers on the card.
"Before you ask," the bartender continued "there is one thing you must do. You need to bind the card to you by blood. Don't look down on this card. It is extremely valuable and quite pricy. According to your current contributions, you don't have the rights to use this card, but I am making an exception since I expect much from you."
"What happened to the walls?" Bai Yun asked.
"It isn't necessary." The bartender explained. "The missions on the walls are only something that I put up using a skill. For people who have a blood moon card, there is no need for it. Thus I didn't waste any qi on putting a show."
Bai Yun nodded and then used his dagger to make a small cut on his finger and dropped a few drops of his blood onto the card. It quickly absorbed his blood, and a few seconds later it shone brightly before settling down. This was binding the card to him by blood. Bai Yun had seen similar objects in his past life, so he was not surprised. But just then, Bai Yun felt a powerful force enter his soul. With a smile, he isolated the energy with his god sense and snuffed it out.
Bai Yun slowly sank his consciousness int the small card. Suddenly in his mind, multiple images just popped up. One of them was details about him and his standing in blood moon. He was given only a number and no name. He had no contribution points and his authority rank was given as zero. According to the explanation he received, contribution points were needed to exchange some special items from the crescent moon organization. Normal items could be bought from the crescent moon organization for cheaper than full moon sells them outside, but any rare item could only be exchanged with contribution points. Both of these were common to the entire organization and not only blood moon. For members of blood moon, the points could only be obtained by doing special missions given by blood moon itself. Missions placed by outsiders rarely gave contributions points as a reward. These contribution points were extremely difficult to obtain but easy to spend.
And the other important thing was the authority rank. As the authority rank increased it became easier to access higher and more important parts of the crescent moon organization. Not only can you exchange for more items with a higher authority rank, you could even have access to the information, cultivation techniques and even secret information that the crescent moon organization does not usually share via new moon.
Bai Yun also saw the list of missions that he could currently take. As his authority rank increased he could access missions that paid more, but for now, he would have to do with the current authority.
"There are a few things you should take note of. First of all, you are not allowed to tell anyone of anything you have witnessed or learned while doing a mission for the blood moon. If you do, the death contract that you just signed will kill you." The man smiled and explained.
A death contract was a type of contract that you sign with another person or entity. It binds both parties to specific conditions, and if either party betrays the conditions, they would be killed by the death contract and the other party would be let out of the death contract. The only way to break the death contract was if the person who signed the contract became stronger than the other party by far and had great attainments in the soul path.
And the death contract that the two of them signed was quite simple. It simply stated that neither Bai Yun nor anyone he hired to help with his missions were to spill any secrets of the blood moon. In exchange, blood moon would not reveal any secrets regarding Bai Yun to anyone either.
Most people would tell someone before they put a death contract usually. But blood moon could afford to do whatever they wanted. After all, the contract wasn't too restrictive and no one would go to war with them for it. Besides, everyone who went to join up with blood moon and was qualified enough to find out about their location would also be able to find out bout the death contract before they joined. It's not like they tried to keep the death contract a secret. In fact, its existence was a comfort to people who joined blood moon.
But Bai Yun was even less concerned with the death contract. He had already known about it before he went to join up with them. With his god sense protecting his soul, only a death contract with smeone at the god step would be able to take hold of him. He easily disposed of the power of the death contract. So even though blood moon was under contract to protect his identity, he himself had no restrictions, and the blood moon had no idea.
"And there is one other thing." The bartender continued. "Since you could accept the missions by the card, there is no need to come here eveytime to accept and submit a mission. The card has a photography funtion, and you can simply take a photo as proof of compleion of mission. If you are unable to get a photograph as proof, you could still ask the blood moon to independently verify the success of the mission, but that will cost twenty percent of your reward. But if you submit evidence, and it is later shown that the mission is not completed, you will have to pay twice your reward as compensation. Thus the only time you need to come here is to collect the rewards of the missions, which you can pile up here. Thus you only need to come here once every few missions."
Bai Yun nodded as he heard the man. This was a reasonable way of conducting business which reduced the effort of both parties. "Anything else I need to know?" Bai Yun asked.
"Hmm. Let's see." The bartender replied. "The card also has an emergency call option. If you are ever in any danger, you could request help from blood moon. But it will cost you a lot of money. It also has a function where we can contact you if we need to inform you of something. Also if you lose the card, you will need to pay a lot to get it replaced. So try not to be in debt to us, okay. I can promise you right now that almost no one who had been in debt with blood moon has ended up in a comfortable position. That's all. You will have to figure out the rest as you go along."
Bai Yun nodded and got up. The procedures to join blood moon was finally over. He didn't collect the reward for his mission right now. Bai Yun decided to accumulate the rewards until he reached a level where he could exchange for something useful. After all, he wasn't lacking money.
When he came upstairs he found that there was someone other than the bartender clone and old Hai waiting in the pub. When he exited the opening in the wall, the other man brushed past him and quickly went down the stairs. He was too wrapped up in a cloak for Bai Yun to see his face. He must have been another member of blood moon.
Once he was out old Hai did not waste any time in taking Bai Yun back to the mansion.
Once he reached home, he quickly took some medicinal pills and also applied some medicinal fluid to his wounds. By now the blood loss had gotten to him. Bai Yun then collapsed on the bed and fell asleep.
A few hours later, he woke up. The swelling of his injuries had gone down a bit. But by now he was running out of medicines. He had pocketed a few medicinal pills during his recovery after the incident at the auction, but Bai Yun did not think that those would be able to sustain him for long at his current rate. There was no way his parents would give him even a single pill. He would have to be more careful from now on. Or make more of them by increasing his skill in alchemy.
Suddenly a terrifying perception seething with rage covered him. Then his mother's voice sounded in his ear. "Get down here right now!"
Bai Yun smiled wryly when he heard this. It was time to pay the piper.