The Hall of Cultivation.
After saying goodbye to
This was the place within the Celestial Spirit Courtyard where various missions were posted. Once students completed these missions, they could receive Spirit Stones, artifacts, and other rewards.
The Spirit Stones the academy provided each month were far from enough, and Nie Li and Lu Piao had to come up with various ways to earn more.
The Dragon Ruins Domain was an incredibly harsh place. Spirit Stones were a scarce resource that countless people fought over. Without Spirit Stones, no matter how great one's talent was, it was extremely difficult to advance in cultivation. The fastest way to obtain Spirit Stones was to join a powerful faction and pledge loyalty—in return, those factions would provide abundant Spirit Stones to the talented individuals under their command. But that obviously wasn't an option for Nie Li and Lu Piao.
Other than that, coming to the Hall of Cultivation to complete missions and earn Spirit Stones was also a decent method.
The Hall of Cultivation was bustling with people, students from various academies filling every corner. The walls inside were covered with mission notices plastered across their surfaces.
Nie Li looked over the missions posted in the hall. Many were hunting missions—slaying various Demon Beasts to obtain Demon Spirits. At minimum, the Demon Spirit had to be of Excellent-grade growth potential to be exchanged for Spirit Stones, which meant the difficulty was still quite high. Beyond that, there were missions involving forging weapons, collecting materials, and other tasks. None of them were simple.
"Looks like getting Spirit Stones is really tough." After looking through these missions, Lu Piao realized that none of them were something he could handle and couldn't help but sigh.
"Of course. The number of Divine Pools controlled by the major Divine Sects is limited. Each Divine Pool can produce at most tens of thousands of Spirit Stones per year. With so many disciples within a sect to supply, the amount each person gets is naturally quite small," Nie Li explained.
"Getting Spirit Stones is way too difficult. What do we do next?" Lu Piao asked.
"This mission—we could actually give it a try!" Nie Li pointed at a mission notice on the wall.
"What mission?" Lu Piao looked at the notice Nie Li was pointing at.
"Miss
"Of course I'm going to treat her illness. Saving a life is worth more than building a seven-story pagoda—ever heard of that?" Nie Li rolled his eyes. He had considerable confidence in his Guide Technique.
"If you can cure her illness and get Spirit Stones to boot, that'd be pretty great." Lu Piao rested his chin on his right hand, looking thoughtful. "That Gu Bei guy isn't bad either. He even said he'd treat us to a meal!"
In his previous life, Nie Li had known a thing or two about this Gu Lan. She was Gu Bei's older sister—a mysterious and extraordinary woman. It was said that during her cultivation in her youth, something had gone wrong, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Confined to a wheelchair and unable to cultivate, she had still somehow lived for over two hundred years. Rumor had it that the reason Gu Bei's Sword Intent had been able to reach its pinnacle was entirely thanks to Gu Lan's guidance.
In his previous life within the Dragon Ruins Domain, Nie Li had heard many legends about Gu Lan. Since he happened to see the mission notice here, there was no harm in giving it a shot.
"Nie Li, if you're so confident in your medical skills, look over here—people who've gone haywire during cultivation number in the hundreds at least. If you cured them all, we'd get tens of thousands of Spirit Stones!" Lu Piao pointed at the adjacent mission notices.
Hearing Lu Piao's words, Nie Li smiled wryly. "Are you trying to work me to death? Besides, the Feather God Sect is a nest of complex factions. Every move we make has to be carefully considered! If I didn't sense that Gu Bei was a decent person, I wouldn't dare act so rashly. The last thing we need is unnecessary trouble."
"Well, let's cure the Gu family young lady's illness first, then we'll talk," Lu Piao said with a grin.
Nie Li and Lu Piao headed together toward the address listed on the mission notice.
Along the way, Nie Li carefully recalled every piece of information from his previous life related to the Feather God Sect. Within the sect, there were three peak-level factions: the Dragon Seal Family, the Gu Family, and the Azure Flame Family. The Jin family, to which
The reason Nie Li wanted to try treating Gu Lan's illness wasn't just for the one-thousand-Spirit-Stone reward. He was also thinking ahead for himself and Lu Piao—if they could save the young lady of the Gu Family, they would at least be able to build a solid relationship with Gu Bei.
Following the address provided in the mission notice, Nie Li walked all the way to the southernmost reaches of the Celestial Spirit Courtyard, arriving at a magnificent estate.
This was merely one of the Gu Family's properties. The siblings Gu Bei and Gu Lan lived here. The heavy front gates were shut tight, with only a small side door left open. Two servants stood guard at the entrance.
"May I ask who you're looking for?" one of the servants inquired.
"We saw the mission notice at the Hall of Cultivation and came to see if we might be able to treat your young lady's illness," Nie Li said.
The servant looked Nie Li up and down and waved his hand dismissively. "You should just go home."