After the Inner Sect Challenge, I returned to the elder’s enclave to talk with Deacon Liu.


    “Deacon,” I said, “I want to spend more time making pills for the sect in the village. I want to do what you said and try to understand my place here.”


    “I see,” he responded. “It will help you, but I hope you won’t stop working with the elder during this time.”


    “Of course not,” I said. The deacon’s help and the elder’s library had been the greatest boons I had received in this life. I was sure that if I maintained this relationship, I would gain access to Rank 3 manuals after reaching Grandmaster. My current mental library couldn’t hold Rank 3 techniques, but I could still do my best to memorize the most important ones, and hopefully, I could create a copy of a Rank 3 cultivation technique that was small enough to fit in my storage space.


    “Deacon,” I said, “how many pills can an average Martial Master 4 create in a day?”


    “It will vary a little, but you can expect the average Master to be able to make one per level, so a Martial Master 4 would be able to create three or four pills a day.”


    “So, I can plan to make four per day for the sect. That will leave me with a significant amount of free time, which I can spend helping you with pills. Just give me a week or two’s worth of ingredients, and I’ll make them in my spare time. If possible, you could have a servant drop them off for me in the village.”


    “Hmm,” said the deacon, “that should be acceptable. It will cut down on the pills you can help us with, but you will still be contributing more than most people. You should know, the elder has emphasized the importance of you entering the inner sect so you can help us with Rank 3 pills. With the rate you can concoct pills, if you were making Rank 3 pills, it would significantly help him achieve his goal, and making a name for yourself by doing work for the sect will make it easier to get you promoted.”


    “Is there a way I can begin working through the pill hall without risking another incident?” I asked. “I would like to get my bearings before being confronted again.”


    “Yes, that would probably be for the best. Focus on the sect bounties. There are always a few types of pills in high demand, and the sect will buy as many as possible at 100% of their value. If a pill isn’t on the bounty list, you might get significantly less. You just need to go to the pill hall, buy the ingredients, make the pills, and turn them in. No one will complain about you completing bounties.”


    After a few more words with the deacon, I left and made my way to the village.


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    I entered the sect’s pill hall once more and began looking around. It wasn’t too different from my first visit. Various bulletin boards had missions posted to them, and several disciples were browsing their options.


    It took me a few moments of searching, but I finally found the board where bounties had been posted. The types of pills listed were basic, but I could understand why they were on the list. Rank 1 Healing Pills, Rank 1 Qi Gathering Pills, Rank 2 Healing Pills, Rank 2 Meridian Builder Pills (fire, earth), Rank 3 Healing Pills, Rank 3 Qi Gathering Pills (fire, earth). These were the basic healing and cultivation pills. Likely, these were the pills that were being constantly consumed by the Martial Peak, and they were also probably the quickest-selling pills outside of the sect.


    I was a little surprised that the Rank 1 pills were on the list since those should mostly be handled by the nominal disciples, but since some outer sect disciples didn’t have a spirit fire yet, it was probably for them.


    I decided to just start by making a large quantity of Meridian Builder Pills until I got comfortable, but I didn’t rush to buy ingredients. Instead, I slowly perused the posted missions. My goal was to simply wait and observe any interactions between disciples. After about twenty minutes, however, nothing of note had happened, so I decided to give up. There would be plenty of chances in the future, so no reason to rush it.


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    For each pill I made, I earned roughly 100 contribution points after deducting the cost of materials. Contribution points could be used to buy various resources and time with mentors, but I did not need to purchase either. Instead, I used all the points I earned in the sect’s Technique Hall.


    The number of techniques offered was far greater than in the elder’s library, but the quality was inferior. It held only a single Low-Profound cultivation technique. This one was also for fire qi and increased density of qi, but it did so in a different way than the technique the elder had. It didn’t increase the power of qi. It just allowed you to use it for a longer duration.


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    The cheapest manual was a Rank 1 Low-Yellow alchemy technique for only 100 contribution points, while the most expensive was a Rank 2 Low-Profound fighting manual for 500,000. At my current rate, it would take years to earn enough points to purchase it, and I think that was the point. People weren’t supposed to buy it.


    There wasn’t anything in the Technique Hall that seemed immediately important to me, so I didn’t worry too much about what I bought. Whenever I had the points, I just purchased the cheapest technique available that I didn’t already have. My plan was simply to copy down the entire collection.


    I wanted to get my hands on that fighting technique, but I was in no rush. It was too far out of my price range, and I wasn’t completely convinced it was truly worth the price. At this point, I wouldn’t have been surprised if the sect was just selling a defective technique at an extortionate rate to anyone who decided they wanted to learn to fight.


    Quality techniques were expensive, but as time passed, my mental library slowly expanded.


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    I kept a steady rhythm of purchasing ingredients and returning to the pill hall every few days for a couple of weeks. I never saw any altercations break out between disciples, which had me a little concerned. Had my experience been so out of the ordinary? Was choosing a mission already picked by another disciple so uncommon, or was it just rare to be berated for it?


    As it turned out, spending twenty to thirty minutes in the place every few days for a couple of weeks simply wasn’t enough time. On the third week of my stakeout, I finally saw what I was waiting for.


    A small, young man had just reached up and torn a tab from a mission when a burly older disciple walked up to him. Both were wearing the robes of an outer sect disciple.


    “What do you think you’re doing?” asked the burly man. “This mission has already been claimed by me, Tao GuFei. No one else is needed!”


    The young man gave the brute a slight frown. “Arrogant and arrogant. Your father doesn’t need any help deciding which missions he will take.”


    After saying this, the young man began walking to the counter, but the burly man stepped in front of him.


    “A frog at the bottom of a well,” said the burly man, “let me teach you a lesson in place of your parents.”


    The young man looked up at the brute. “A good dog doesn’t block the way.”


    “You dare!”


    It looked like the large man was about to take a swing at the other guy, but at that instant, the deacon who had been silently watching finally spoke up. “GuFei!”


    The hulking man looked at the deacon for a moment before looking back at the young man.


    “Do you dare to make a bet?” he asked. “If I defeat you in this mission, kneel down and call me grandfather.”


    “And if you lose?” asked the smaller man.


    “I won’t lose!”


    “Same rules,” he said, “if you lose, kneel down to your grandfather.”


    The burly man gritted his teeth before growling out, “Fine!”


    I watched the entire exchange, a bit shocked. The way the burly man acted was almost exactly the same as how that girl had acted. Was it a coincidence, or had this become some kind of ritual? If so, why? Both participants had put their entire reputations on the line here. This couldn’t just be about someone being annoyed at someone else’s mission selection.


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    I carefully monitored the pill hall over the next few days. I wanted to see how this drama was supposed to play out.


    On the third day, the burly man entered the pill hall early in the day and turned in his pills. After that, he stood around and talked to anyone who would listen.


    “That coward doesn’t dare to show his face around here. He’s already abandoned the mission and run away. I want to see how the sect punishes him for treating missions in the pill hall as games.”


    About an hour after he arrived, he started talking with the receptionist.


    “Call the mission already. That fool is too late. It’s clear he isn’t coming.”


    This behavior continued for a long while before the shorter man finally entered. He walked right up to the counter and turned in his pills. The burly man continued to boast about his inevitable victory for a bit, but eventually, the victor was called. The smaller man had won.


    After the smaller man’s victory was announced, the burly man began trying to sneak away, but he was blocked by a group of disciples led by the younger man.


    “Running away? Are you even a man? Kneel before your grandfather!” he said.


    “How dare you! Do you know who I am? I am Tao GuFei, disciple of Elder Tang!”


    “So, disciples of Elder Tang don’t honor their word?”


    “You!”


    With a face filled with rage, the burly man knelt down and growled out, “Grandfather.”


    “I don’t have a grandson as unfilial as you,” said the younger man as he walked away.


    I watched in shock as the entire drama unfolded. Was this what Deacon Liu expected me to do? While the emotions of both men seemed genuine, the entire performance felt like a play instead of an actual argument.


    I tried to take everything I had seen and knew and put it together into a framework that could make sense of this situation.


    I thought back to what Deacon Liu had told me. It was common for disciples who rushed their cultivation to become overly aggressive. Was this entire sequence a script the sect had created and taught to the disciples as a way for them to let out their pent-up aggression? Did it give them a way to flex without causing any real damage?


    Giving the disciples an actual script and telling them to recite it would be meaningless, but in the city, the sect sold novels for people to read to relax. Was this how arguments were resolved in them? Were those just guides for how to act in the outer sect?


    Also, in my observations, I hadn’t noticed anyone else reaching for the competitive missions. Was this interaction just the expected result of choosing one? When someone chose a competitive mission, was another disciple expected to throw down the gauntlet in exactly this manner? If this was the script for when the first person agreed to the contest, was there a way to concede early?


    If that was all true, why hadn’t Deacon Liu told me about it? Shouldn’t he have prepared me to deal with this situation? A tiny crack of doubt appeared in the foundation of trust the deacon and I had built.