33 The Contribution Point
Three days after the selection, all the new disciples had selected their direction of cultivation, and the next procedure was the introduction of section mission. After all, to run such a large outer section required enormous sums of funds and labor. Outer section didn't raise idlers.
Early in the morning, Wei Gaoyuan entered the glorious central hall once again and all the twelve new disciples had gathered there, including WEI Gaoyuan, who glanced around the eleven other disciples, like a crowing cock somewhat.
The Elders of the six peaks did not appear. There were only two chief officers and a few elder disciples to introduce the section mission to the new comers.
The section mission was generally divided into two types: the inside and the outside. The inside included some affairs inside the section like guarding the section main gate, transporting all kinds of goods or materials, preparing for meals… Most of the outside involved looking for diverse stuff, such as some useful herbs, or materials for refining, as well as solving some troubles for the villagers under the mountains.
Unlike the guarding section main gate three days a month, most of the missions were not compulsory. That meant the disciples were allowed to choose them freely, and each completion of mission would earn them corresponding contribution points. After the contribution points reached a certain number, it could be exchanged for various items in the outer section like some scrolls or methods for Internal Qi cultivation and combat skills, even some powerful weapons, talismans and small magic items.
...
The outer section of the East Mountain Sword Clan was located in the East-Lee Mountain. There was a concave land, like a giant basin, behind the outer section. Due to the particular terrain and the environment, the wind in this basin was extremely violent when the wind rose in the mountain. Hence ordinary people could hardly stand in it, and it was difficult even for a martial artist to stand in firmly.
Wei Gaoyuan was surprised and happy while discovered this place by chance. It was a ideal natural place for training himself. Once the wind blew up, full of grass and branches were flying in the basin, even with some big and small stones coming from different angles time to time. A really perfect place to strengthen the power and stability of his legs as well as the body agility and dodging technique.
Indeed, the power and toughness of his body grew a lot while in the East Mountain Sword Club whereas he actually leant little about the training and practicing method for the Martial Arts. During that period, he'd been practicing just two stuff most of the time: the unnamed cultivation method of Internal Qi in the scroll of the woman in white, modified by the dream space; the modified version of eight-pattern swordsmanship: Eight Clouds in Dream. He hadn't realized that his body, as a martial artist, appeared a bit weak until he reached the ninth level of the Mystery.
After all, what he'd been doing in the dream space tend to be a cultivation in spirit rather than the training of physical body quality in reality.
After discovering the curious wind basin, he went there to train himself for at least one hour each day. But this place had already been discovered and administered by the out section so long ago. So you used it, you paid for it, only by your contribution points; one point for one hour. And about ten hours altogether later, Wei Gaoyuan found that his contribution point had gone zero.
He had to earn the points. Otherwise, nothing useful could be available in the outer section because coins could buy nothing official here.
Even if he could buy from others, he had little coins currently. Thus he went to the Exchange House.
The Exchange House was a special place, where different items could be exchanged freely with each other, including personal items, official items, even contribution points. Also, section missions could be received on the Mission Board there.
Wei Gaoyuan had few valuable items which could be exchange there. The scroll from the woman in white? No way! The two Inner Essence of ninth level spiritual animal? He just found it turned out to be rather cheap in the Exchange House! As a result, to earn contribution points, the only thing there worthy to do was to find and complete suitable section missions.
(Ranking of spirit animal: 1st level to 9th level, from the weak to the strong)
Standing in front of the Mission Board, Wei Gaoyuan began to examine the rows of various missions on it:
To bring one Golden Icy Flower: Difficulty—unknown; Reward—20 contribution points
To bring one scale of Navy-Scale Snake: Difficulty—five stars; Reward—50 contribution points
To guard the gate for XXX for six months: Difficulty—half-star; Reward—1 contribution points
...
A Golden Icy Flower? A Navy-Scale Snake? Wei Gaoyuan never heard of them. He asked the brother beside him and got the answer: A Navy-Scale Snake was a fifth level spirit animal!
To fight against a spirit animal at fifth level? Crazy! Only one round, he believed, probably less than one round, he would visit Kshitigarbha for free…
(Kshitigarbha: a bodhisattva primarily revered in East Asian Buddhism and known for his vow to take responsibility for the instruction of all beings in the six worlds, as well as his vow not to achieve Buddhahood until all hells are emptied. He is therefore often regarded as the bodhisattva of hell-beings. "visit Kshitigarbha" means " go to hell.")
To guard the main gate for six months? It was too long, and only one point in spite of low difficulty.
He continued to search down… his eyes suddenly lit up when it reached the sixth mission:
To suppress the bandits for the villagers in Chu Village: Difficulty—unknown; Reward—a total of 15 points for all the participants
This was a cooperative mission, which meant the whole team could get 15 contribution points after the completion no matter how many people participated. The team determined itself how to distribute the points.
That seemed not bad, Wei Gaoyuan thought, which could be good for accumulating combat experience and meanwhile earned him much contribution points.
According to the general introduction of the chief officers, the contribution point seemed approximately proportional to the difficulty of the mission.
The half-star difficulty was extremely easy, even for the new disciple, accordingly the reward couldn't be high, usually one point or even a few missions for one point.
The reward for the one-star mission was ordinarily not more than ten points, suitable for the disciple at ninth level of the Mystery or close to ninth level.
The two-star mission offered between 11 and 20 points as usual, suitable for those at eighth level of the Mystery, and the top of ninth level could try it as well.
The reward of three-star missions was between 21 and 30 points for the seventh level, certainly, the top of eighth level could try.
And so on.
The five-star mission would give between 41 and 50 points for the fifth level of the Mystery or the top of sixth level. The reward of Navy-Scale Snake, as shown on the board, reached up to 50 points, indicating that it might be one of the toughest in five-star missions and very dangerous for the top of sixth level.
As for the unknown difficulty, the reward tended to be neither too high or too low. The unknown meant the uncertainty before the mission was over.
15 points for the bandit-suppressing mission, presumably, it was no more than two stars in difficulty, and he was just the eighth level of the Mystery.
A perfect mission for him, perfect if without any uncertainty.
