"Have you heard about the new disciple from the alchemy pavilion?"
"Hua Feiyan?"
"Yes, she managed to refine a pill to 70% purity on her first try! Madame Xue herself seems to have taken her as a core disciple. She hasn't even reached the foundation realm yet and she's already a core disciple!"
"I heard she was beautiful enough to compete among the sect's three beauties!"
Qingyi listened to those rumors with a proud smile as he walked through the Sect.
The fortune he had spent on Feiyan had been worth it.
Even if her combat strength was lacking, her new talent with alchemy was probably enough to place her as one of the sect's most important disciples.
She simply wouldn't lack for cultivation resources.
"Ah... in the end it looks like I'm going to be the one who ends up being spoiled by her," he muttered, still remembering the excited smile and the warm, soft embrace of that voluptuous beauty when she received his gifts.
"I need a woman, and fast," he concluded, but quickly pushed those thoughts from his mind. He had endured twelve years without the touch of a woman, a few more weeks wouldn't hurt.
Soon, he entered the Sect's great mission hall, where dozens of disciples were staring at a large board with an endless list of missions. Some were as easy as delivering a letter to a nearby village, others required fighting spirit beasts and criminal groups.
Squeezing himself between the disciples, he began to look for any individual combat-related mission.
"Fellow disciple," a strong hand fell on his shoulder, and Qingyi turned around.
"Is there a problem?" He asked, his eyes scanning a rough-looking man. He was a little taller than Qingyi, with a powerful body and steady eyes.
"Well... we're trying to get this mission, but we're one short. What do you think about completing the group?" He showed Qingyi a piece of paper.
It was a combat mission classified as difficult, needing at least five disciples at the eighth stage of the Qi Refinement Realm. They needed to travel to a nearby village and kill a spirit beast at the seventh stage of the Qi Refinement Realm for the local baron. The prize was fat: a thousand Sect contribution points, two hundred each.
"When do you plan to leave for the mission?" Qingyi asked, looking at the time limit: 10 days, basically the time he needed before going to the wedding in the Yang family.
"Uh..." The man scratched his chin. "Right now, actually. We're just waiting for someone to complete the group."
"Hm... right, I'll go with you." Qingyi smiled, shaking the man's hand. "I'm Long Qingyi."
"I'm Bao Zhang. Come on, I'll introduce you to the rest of the group." Bao Zhang smiled, guiding Qingyi out of the Sect and onto the busy main street of Golden Cloud City. A wagon with three other Sect disciples was waiting for them.
"These are Lei Feng, Jun Hao and Chu Yang." Zhang pointed at each of the men.
"I'm Long Qingyi, please take care of me." Qingyi put his hands together, bowing his head respectfully.
He hated having to go back to being the calm, gentle and humble Qingyi, but that Qingyi gave him too many advantages to choose another face.
Lei Feng was playing with a small dagger, but the moment he heard that name, he raised his head. His eyes focused on Qingyi as he jumped off the wagon.
"That's the guy I was talking about! The junior who got a golden token and Hua Feiyan was clinging to him throughout the test!" He smiled brightly, pointing at Qingyi as if he were a rare animal.
Jun Hao and Chu Yang, who seemed uninterested, finally noticed Qingyi's presence.
Jun Hao, a chubby man with a friendly face, climbed down from the carriage with a grunt, stopping next to Qingyi and slapping him on the back.
"Fellow disciple... we have a lot to talk about... in detail, preferably... hehehe..." He spoke, his face red with lust, just like Lei Feng and Chu Yang. Their eyes watched Qingyi as if he were a national hero.
Hearing those words, Qingyi shuddered. 'This is going to be a long journey...' He began to regret having joined the group.
"Get on the wagon if you don't want to go running!" Bao Zhang roared, taking the driver's seat.
Qingyi saw this as a way out, jumping onto the carriage with Jun Hao and Lei Feng running after him.
"So, senior brother Zhang, what kind of beast do we have to hunt exactly?" He asked, trying to get away from the three curious disciples.
Bao Zhang looked like a serious man, and at the first stage of the foundation realm, no one there interfered while he spoke.
"We don't know much. It's at the seventh or eighth Qi Refinement Realm. It seems to be some kind of giant wolf with horns, killed some farmers and now it seems to be attacking travelers going to Spirit Grass Village," Bao Zhang slapped the reins of the horse pulling the carriage.
"Hm... but we're travelers going to the Spiritual Grass Village. Won't we be attacked too?" Lei Feng asked, intruding on the conversation.
He was still curious about Qingyi's relationship with Feiyan, but he was smart enough to notice Qingyi's discomfort and not push it.
"Well, then we'll finish the mission even faster! We won't even need to look for the bastard!" Chu Yang replied confidently, but Bao Zhang only clucked his tongue.
"If the beast attacks us first, we're dead. Fighting it without a trap is suicide." The group leader reached into one of his pockets and pulled out four small packets.
"These are essences to ward off beasts. We'll use these until we set the trap." He distributed the packets to everyone.
Qingyi looked at the packet, holding it tightly.
Spirit beasts were really scary. His master had told him many stories about these creatures.
They were powerful - even the weakest ones were comparable to bloodline cultivators. It often took several other cultivators of the same level to suppress just one of them.
The most powerful ones could fight dozens or hundreds of cultivators of the same level, some with bodies that alone represented calamities.
'Ah... never mind, it's still no match for my Corruption Dragon God bloodline or my Primordial Dragon constitution,' Qingyi thought, injecting some confidence into his mind.