The Restaurant

The day quickly passed by, by the time evening came, the formation was almost complete but it would have to wait till tomorrow. It was 6:30 in the evening and Sej quickly made his way home after being excused from Elliott's house. Lights shone on the streets and few pedestrians walked along on their journeys. Home soon came into view as the door was pushed open from the inside and a chubby figure could be seen coming out and looking around. Spotting Sej, he calls out " Hey just on time, everyone else is already inside, wait here, I will call them."

The chubby Henry returned to the house. Soon the orbs of light in the house deactivated as Henry, Cara, and Sam came out. They were each wearing the sect robes required to be worn by the Apail family members as per the sect rules. The group proceeded down the street heading to the west part of the city while joking around and playing, just like any other group of friends out for a night out. The west part of the city was the business district, you could find all sorts of restaurants and stores here which included 'heavenly pill pavilion' owned by the Apail family. An elegant establishment came into view while strolling along the sidewalk as carriages passed by pulled along by exotic creatures of all kinds. The group entered and asked for a private room so that they could talk in peace about business.

After ordering, Sej immediately jumped in with a question, "so what is this all about?"

Cara looked over. "Sej you need to plan about the future, you can't go about willy nilly and just hope things fall into place." Cara was the daughter of a wealthy family back on earth, she went to private school for her education since young and so became the sort of de facto leader after removing her shy disposition.

"Anyway, we are here because of the hunting exercise in six months, as you may have heard, the sect is holding a hunting competition for body refining and essence gathering cultivators. The rewards are great." This was the first Sej was hearing about this, it occurred to him that he did not investigate his new habitat very well and was in the dark about a lot of events. He resolved to try and find more avenues of information in the future.

"We have no experience in hunting for a monster beast so I was thinking that we should hold an expedition of our own in Darkjade forest near the city. It's a great way to get practice and we can earn sect points and Essence crystals quickly" Cara tried to persuade the group with potential benefits.

Darkjade forest, I heard about that place, it seems to only have stage 1 and 2 monster beasts. Stage 2 monster beasts are usually near the centre of the forest, it is quite safe. Sam was excited by the prospect as he loved sports and was what better sport than hunting which he could not do on earth.

As the conversation progressed, Sej became more embarrassed as he realised he truly knew nothing. Henry also reluctantly agreed to the expedition as he did not want to be left out. He was however concerned about the low cultivation realms that they currently possessed. Currently, only Cara and Sej had broken through to the muscle refinement realm. He thought it was a bit early.

Sej, himself agreed to the hunting trip. A stage one beast could be sold for 5-15 low-grade Essence crystals or traded for 10 sect points. This was found out by Cara. On top of that, for every three of the same grade beasts that were killed, so long as proof was provided, they would count as missions. But the corpses and the monster beast cores would have to be traded for sect points.

"We should go on the hunting expedition next week. At that time we would have each received, the resources are given by the apail family and can buy some weapons, armour and medicine in case we get hurt. It will also allow Sam and Henry to breakthrough." Sej proposed as he finally had some ideas to contribute to the meeting.

"Good idea. Also, I will find some books on the monsters and herbs available in the DarkJade forest, that way we could make some extra cash along the way."

Sam cut in quickly, "we need to get more storage devices, I have a brother in the sect who came a few years before me, I will see if I can get any from him."

The meeting soon finished and the food consumed before they returned home to get some rest or cultivate.