novelraw Chapter 15 : Chapter 15
Chapter 15 : Chapter 15
Chapter 15
After leaving Gannan City, Shuang Wenlü raised two fingers and drew a line through the air, taking out a jade token.
It was Sword Pavilion’s identity jade token. Every Sword Pavilion disciple had one, and it was needed for entering and leaving Sword Pavilion and the like. Shuang Wenlü’s own had been sitting in Mustard-Seed Sumeru Space for so long it was nearly gathering dust.
The Sword Pavilion jade token had many functions. Besides serving as identification and for emergency messaging, it could also connect to places such as the Merit Hall.
The Merit Hall was where Sword Pavilion disciples took missions to accumulate merit. After completing missions, one could obtain merit, which could then be exchanged for all kinds of spiritual materials, Treasured Artifacts and pills, and miscellaneous cultivation methods and the like.
The stewards of the Merit Hall verified mission postings and completions, evaluated performance based on mission records, and issued merit accordingly.
Shuang Wenlü took out the jade token to use precisely its function of connecting to the Merit Hall.
The Merit Hall stood on Jiuhuan Peak. Jiuhuan Peak was not among Sword Pavilion’s Seventy-Two Peaks.
Sword Pavilion stretched across three thousand li, and it was not limited to seventy-two mountain peaks. Rather, it used those Seventy-Two Peaks as its foundation to establish a formation. Beyond the Seventy-Two Peaks, there were still countless peaks, valleys, and caves. Some Sword Pavilion disciples referred to those places as the outer peaks, while the Seventy-Two Peaks were called the inner peaks.
Many cultivators who did not need to accumulate merit preferred to cultivate and practice the sword within the Seventy-Two Peaks, unwilling to take on the miscellaneous outer-peak missions.
The steward currently on duty in the Merit Hall was named Luan Huan.
Because identity jade tokens could connect directly to the Merit Hall, not many people personally came to accept or submit missions. At this moment, only Luan Huan was in the hall.
He was sorting through the mission completion records on the merit plaque.
Ever since the Grand Patriarch had left seclusion, missions out in the world had been completed with astonishing speed.
Many Sword Pavilion disciples trained outside, taking merit missions along the way if locations matched. Naturally, they were not in a rush to complete them. But now, everyone wanted to hurry back to Sword Pavilion.
“Junior Brother Luan, it is you on duty in the Merit Hall again?”
Hearing this, Luan Huan looked up and saw a female cultivator with twin swords on her back.
“Aunt-Master Liao,” Luan Huan said with a smile.
Sword Pavilion counted disciples by generations of a hundred years. Liao Suxiang was a senior from his previous generation. She wielded Yin-Yang Twin Swords and carried herself with a spirited, chivalrous zeal.
Liao Suxiang said, “Nine times out of ten when I come to the Merit Hall, I see you. Why do you not return to the inner peaks to cultivate? Did someone force all the duty rotations onto you?”
Luan Huan shook his head and smiled. “Nothing like that. I simply like being in the Merit Hall.”
He was the opposite of fellow disciples who preferred seclusion and sword practice. Though he had long stopped caring about the small amount of merit gained from serving as a steward, he was still happy to set aside time every day to review and record the Merit Hall’s affairs.
Liao Suxiang asked, “If you waste your days on these miscellaneous matters, will that not delay your cultivation?”
Luan Huan replied, “Secluded sword practice is cultivation. But I believe handling these errands is also cultivation.”
In his view, those fellow disciples who only recognized seclusion as cultivation and disliked taking on chores were no different from the disciples who ran after merit to exchange for what they needed. Both had taken a crooked road.
Disciples wanted merit in order to exchange it for things that aided cultivation. But was cultivation something that could only advance through acquiring external objects? The Merit Hall had not been founded to hoard merit in the first place, but for the tempering gained in the process of completing missions.
“That is reasonable,” Liao Suxiang said. She no longer dwelled on it and instead asked, “Have there been very few outside missions taken lately?”
Luan Huan nodded. “This month, only one hundred and two outside missions have been accepted.”
One hundred and two sounded like a lot, but that was across all of Sword Pavilion’s missions out in the world.
Liao Suxiang sighed. “Of course. Aside from those fellow disciples who truly cannot return from outside, who would take outside missions at a time like this?” The mission she had posted in Shuozhou would likely go unclaimed for quite a while.
“I will check for you who else is in Shuozhou,” Luan Huan said.
“Good. Thank you,” Liao Suxiang said, chatting idly. “The Sword Sovereign has been out of seclusion for quite some time now. I wonder where he is at present?”
Luan Huan swept his eyes over the merit plaque. Ever since the news that the Sword Sovereign had left seclusion spread, merit mission acceptance had become like this, and it would continue for a while.
As he was thinking, he suddenly and unexpectedly saw three characters beside one mission:
Shuang Wenlü.
Luan Huan: …
Seeing his expression abruptly stiffen, Liao Suxiang asked in confusion, “What is it?”
Luan Huan steadied himself, silently thinking: The Grand Patriarch has gone to Suizhou to do a merit mission.
He needed to go pay his respects to the Peak Master of Jiuhuan Peak.
Peak Master Yuan Jiuhua resided above Yulin Gorge on Jiuhuan Peak.
After Luan Huan reported the matter to Yuan Jiuhua, even this peak master—usually steady and composed—showed a trace of surprise.
“What mission?” she asked.
“Across Suizhou’s eighteen counties, the soil and seedlings will not live. It is suspected that the earth-qi has gone wrong, and it needs to be verified and resolved,” Luan Huan replied.
Yuan Jiuhua asked, “Have you told anyone else?”
“No,” Luan Huan said.
How would he dare?
If this got out… Suizhou would likely turn into a grand gathering of Sword Pavilion disciples.
Yuan Jiuhua said, “Well done. For now, you will keep that merit plaque under your control. Do not pass it to anyone else.”
Luan Huan nodded, then added, “Peak Master, someone else has accepted this mission as well. It is the steward stationed in Suizhou, Xie Jingfei.”
Even when he saw it, he could not help but sigh. What luck.
So many people had traveled great distances back to Sword Pavilion just to see the Sword Sovereign once, only to miss him. Yet the one who had not rushed back would be the one to meet him instead.
The Sword Sovereign had been in seclusion for too long. Among the juniors, though they all knew of him, they might not necessarily recognize him face-to-face.
Yuan Jiuhua checked. To be assigned outside as a regional steward, a disciple’s cultivation needed to reach the Fifth Layer of the Yuheng Realm. Suizhou was chaotic, so the requirement was higher. Xie Jingfei’s cultivation was at the Sixth Layer of the Tianquan Realm. He had entered Sword Pavilion only around seven hundred years ago and had never met the Sword Sovereign either.
Sword Pavilion identity tokens would only show whether someone had accepted a mission; they would not show identity. With identity jade tokens connected to one’s divine soul as proof, ordinarily no one could impersonate a Sword Pavilion disciple.
No one knew how this mission would turn out.
Xie Jingfei was in a very good mood.
When a person was having rotten luck, encountering another fellow sufferer tended to make him feel a bit better.
Thus, when he met the fellow disciple who had also accepted the mission, he hosted him with great enthusiasm—even though this fellow disciple seemed rather cold. After they met, the other only stated his surname and that he had entered the sect earlier than Xie Jingfei.
Xie Jingfei did not pay it much mind. Sword Pavilion spanned three thousand li, with countless disciples of all temperaments. As for the surname “Shuang”… though it was not common, there were some within Sword Pavilion, and Xie Jingfei knew several.
In any case, it was impossible that, after leaving seclusion, the Sword Sovereign would be so bored as to come to Suizhou to do a merit mission…
Shuang Wenlü was also satisfied.
So, not all of his Sword Pavilion disciples had heard the news of his leaving seclusion and then blindly rushed back without thinking.
Xie Jingfei introduced the rough situation. “Cultivators from other sects are investigating this matter too, and they already have leads. We can just go with them.”
An institution like the Merit Hall did not exist only in Sword Pavilion. For external affairs missions like Suizhou’s, many sects often posted similar tasks. Orthodox cultivation sects frequently shared information and resources, and disciples often cooperated when they encountered such missions.
This Suizhou mission had been posted for quite some time. Besides Sword Pavilion, other sects had long since sent disciples to investigate. Xie Jingfei was only getting involved now because a friend in Shuiyue Ward asked him for help, and he accepted the Merit Hall mission along the way.
Across Suizhou’s eighteen counties, the earth-qi had all gone wrong, yet the core issue lay in a single point.
It was a grand formation that used earth-qi to refine a sinister method. Cultivators of Wujiguan had already calculated the location of the formation’s core, and so almost all cultivators from various sects who had accepted the merit mission rushed over.
Besides cultivators from the major sects, there were also independent cultivators who had accepted the Prefect’s summons. The newly appointed Prefect of Suizhou, Qiu Shufeng, had only arrived not long ago. Suizhou was chaotic to begin with, and with the Blood-Rust Blade stirring the winds and clouds, he had suffered more than one assassination attempt on the road to taking office. At present, he truly had no energy to manage this matter, so he broadly issued the Prefect’s order, calling for capable people to resolve the earth-qi problem across the eighteen counties.
Mortals had no cultivation, yet they carried “fortune,” which could be used to refine certain special spells and Treasured Artifacts.
Xie Jingfei also had a few old friends he knew here.
Yin Songquan of Medicine King Valley spoke up. “Senior Brother Xie, I heard the Sword Sovereign has left seclusion?”
Xie Jingfei nodded. “Yes. My other fellow disciples all rushed back.”
Yin Songquan asked curiously, “Then why did Senior Brother Xie not return?”
Xie Jingfei sighed. “Suizhou needs someone to stay and watch it. We drew lots, and I lost.”
Shuang Wenlü: …
Oh. So that is how it is.