Fire or Earth. I had considered this choice several times over the past year.


    There were good reasons to go with the Fire Peak. It would give me an easier way to sell pills, it would provide me with access to the sect’s alchemy knowledge, and it would allow me to learn more about a new location.


    However, these reasons weren’t very compelling. I had learned enough about formations that I no longer needed to rely on only selling pills. I also didn’t need the alchemy knowledge the peak possessed. I had Emperor Li’s books, and if my guess was right, he would show up again once I was ready to begin learning Rank 6 alchemy. Learning about a new peak might be interesting, but it was a hollow reason to make such an important decision.


    Instead, joining the Earth Peak would allow me access to formation knowledge I didn’t have, and I would have access to the Earth Peak Trial to cultivate earth essence and permanently raise my affinity.


    The factor that made my choice for me, though, was the PangBo Merchant Association. They had a presence on the Fire Peak and regularly enslaved alchemists who went there. I would need to repay my ‘debt’ to them and Brother Wen at some point, but for now, they were best avoided.


    In truth, I didn’t feel the need to be too frightened of this small merchant group. Wen had made it sound like they were enslaving all the sect’s alchemists, but that seemed more than a little far-fetched at this point. I doubted the Master of the Fire Peak would allow someone connected to the Wind Peak to be so brazen. Likely, the merchants flew under the radar by only focusing on the weaker alchemists, and my position as an inner sect disciple should provide some level of protection against their schemes.


    Still, without a clear reason to join the Fire Peak, there was no reason to take such a risk.


    I looked at the scribe. “Earth Peak.”


    I heard a buzzer, and a young servant came in to lead me away.


    He led me to the Earth Peak just as a similar boy had done in my previous life. As we walked, he seemed slightly sad that I showed no reaction to anything around me and didn’t ask him any questions about the sect.


    When I entered the administration building, I saw the same lazy disciple that greeted me the last time. I walked up to the desk and stood in front of him, but he didn’t even look at me.


    “Hello.” I tapped on the desk to get his attention.


    Letting out a long, exasperated sigh, he looked at me. “What? I’m busy preparing to take the Exam to advance to the inner sect. Don’t disturb me.”


    “I’m a new disciple. I need to be introduced to the sect.”


    He rolled his eyes. “Badge.”


    I held up the jade token I’d been given. He grabbed it and threw it onto a small formation plate to the side of the counter. When he saw the result, his eyes widened in shock, and a grin appeared on his face.


    “Senior Brother Su, welcome to the Nine Rivers Sect. I am so glad you have joined us on the Earth Peak.”


    He reached over and tapped a buzzer, summoning a servant disciple. When a young woman entered the building, he looked at her hurriedly.


    “Go tell Senior Brother Wang that a new Grade 3 inner sect disciple has joined the peak. He needs to pass this information on to Lord Hao immediately.”


    The servant bowed and disappeared. Watching this open plotting almost made me want to laugh, but I just snorted and turned to leave. I didn’t need to be introduced to the sect, and placing my jade on that formation had been enough to record my presence here.


    “Senior Brother Su, please wait one moment. Let me introduce you to Senior Brother Hao, Lord Hao. He is a formidable core disciple who is sure to advance to Sovereign in the future. Joining his retinue will guarantee your advancement in the quickest time possible. Look at me. I started as a lowly Grade 1 outer sect disciple, and I’m already on the brink of joining the inner sect.”


    I tilted my head towards the over-eager young man, but I had no desire to accept his entreaties.


    “I have already pledged to join another Lord’s retinue. Apologies.”


    Before he could try to persuade me any further, I made haste to leave the building. The longer I stayed there, the more I would risk placing myself in a situation where I had to reject him more forcefully. That would only cause problems.


    <hr>


    As everyone was destined for a different peak based on their chosen professions, our small group had been split apart for the time being. They would all need time to learn about their place in the sect, so I had a little time on my hands before I needed to meet back up with them.


    To make the best use of this time, I headed to the Mission Hall to see what new options I would have as an inner sect disciple.


    I first took a look at the missions available for servant and outer sect disciples. If I needed to, I could still accept one of these, so I wanted a solid understanding of what was available.


    As I had seen in my last life, the servant disciple missions were all ones that didn’t require an overly impressive skill set. They mainly involved physical labor that was beyond the limits of what a mortal was capable of without specialized tools. There were a few combat missions available, but they all had rather low payouts for dangerous missions.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    Looking at the missions available to outer sect disciples, I saw that, as expected, they were nearly all the combat missions that had been posted by the Lords of various cities, and the locations of these missions were all somewhere in the three empires accessible by the portals outside of Mortal City. Through the use of the portal network, these missions wouldn’t require nearly as much travel time as I had feared when I first saw them.


    Aside from the poster, location, and type of mission, these postings also had a section for actions that would result in the number of contribution points awarded being reduced. For the most part, this involved killing other sect members. While some posters didn’t care, others assessed anywhere from a 20% to 100% contribution point reduction if the person who accepted the mission killed another member of the sect.


    These point reductions were a mechanism that had developed from the sect’s lack of official rules about killing. If one were to slay someone during a mission, there would not be any official reprimand. However, friends and family of the slain cultivator might head to the city for retribution. So, any city lord who wanted to avoid such an eventuality would do everything in their power to prevent deaths from being linked back to them. These mission penalties were just one of the strategies they employed.


    After scanning the combat missions, I came to feel that it would be good if I had a solid map of the three empires. It would be good to know which cities neighbored which. Additionally, an almanac with the key details about each city, kingdom, and empire would be valuable. Creating something like that on my own was outside my current skill set, so I would need to see if Yan could handle it.


    I needed to get more information about the combat missions so that we would be able to sign up for some to train ourselves, but I put it to the side for the time being. We weren’t even close to ready for that yet.


    After walking to the next section, I looked at the missions available to me as an inner sect disciple. There were more combat missions here, but instead of individual tasks, they required a team of between five to ten people. There were also the missions that I had been looking for, formation missions.


    In my last life, Tie Yang had explained a bit about these missions to me. I hadn’t needed to put that information into practice yet, but I had a basic understanding of how things worked.


    Formation missions were divided into four types: Open, Certified, Graded, and Special Request.


    Open missions could be accepted by anyone with the proper rank in the sect. For example, an open mission for inner sect disciples could be taken by anyone in the inner sect or above. When a formation was turned in to complete this type of mission, as long as it functioned properly, it had to be accepted, even if it was poorly made.


    These missions weren’t common. Usually, anyone who would consider making such a request would just buy the formation from one of the shops in the city instead of posting a mission. So, these missions were mostly used by people trying to get a good deal from outer sect or servant disciples whose skills were undervalued.


    For inner sect disciples, most of the missions were in the ‘certified’ category. The missions required one to be certified on the specific formation requested. To be certified for Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formations, for instance, I would need to go to the Missions Hall, make the formation, and then have it evaluated by a deacon. If the formation I made was of sufficient quality, I would then be allowed to accept ‘certified’ missions for Rank 3 Qi Gathering Formations in the future.


    However, posting a mission as ‘certified’ didn’t guarantee that the final result would meet the quality standards of the Mission Hall. It only guaranteed that the person who accepted the mission was capable of meeting those standards. It was safer than an open mission, but there was still risk.


    This was where ‘graded’ missions came in. With a graded mission, the person who posted the mission could make specific requests about the strength and durability of their desired formation. An elder of the Mission Hall would then ensure that the final formation met or exceeded these demands.


    The downside was that this added a significant cost to the request since an elder’s time was valuable. If the formation were approved, the requestor would need to pay for the elder’s time and services. If the formation were rejected, the formation specialist who created it would need to pay. This meant that these missions were generally only offered to core disciples, and even if inner sect disciples were allowed to sign up for one, few would take the risk of accepting it.


    To get around these costs, one could use the final mission type, ‘special request.’ With this, a requester can specify exactly who is allowed to accept a mission. The final product of such a mission wouldn’t be graded, but if a person had a strong reputation for delivering quality work, this is a way to get a well-made formation with only a slight markup over the cost of a certified mission.


    At the moment, I could only accept open missions because I had not yet been certified for any formations. Since I had some time before I was supposed to meet up with my classmates, I considered trying to earn a few of these certifications, but I could do that later. I wanted to have a better understanding of the quality of my formations first.


    Once I had a solid grasp of the missions available, I left the hall and took the portal back to Mortal City. I rented a small room near where I planned to meet the others and settled in for a bit to take care of some things.


    First, I wanted to deal with the problem of trying to improve my formation abilities. I needed to be certified, but without a clear understanding of how good or bad my formations were, that might be a problem. I could learn to assess formations like a normal formation specialist, but I had something better in mind.


    “System, I want an analysis ability for formations up to Rank 3. I want it to give me a breakdown of all of a formation’s key statistics, such as durability and power, in a way that will make it easy to compare two different formations.”


    Cost 100 million credits.


    It was quite a bit more than my pill analysis ability had been, but I was asking for more from it. Hopefully, I could use this ability to learn to make such judgments myself so that I didn’t need it at higher Ranks.


    “Purchase.”


    Purchase Confirmed. 7,632,086,524 credits remaining.


    With that taken care of, I could be more confident when accepting formation-related missions in the future.


    So, I turned my attention to the information I had been putting off. I opened my mental journal and found what I had written while inside the Exam Trial.


    Large crowd. Pretty girls, few clothes. Angry men yelling.


    Martial arts tournament. Fight until defeated.


    Formation test. Cannot hide ability. Compelled to do best.


    Pill—


    Write this down so that you have a record of it. Carrying information out of the Exam in any way is prohibited. If you try to do so again, you will be punished. This is your first and only warning.


    A spike of fear shot through me as I read these words, but I quickly calmed myself. It might be impossible to try anything again in this life, but I could make another attempt next time around. I just needed to practice taking notes without it being so obvious.


    Reviewing what I had written, I got a few hints at what was happening inside the Trial. The first line suggested to me that they were using a few different techniques to probe for any hint of cultivation madness. If someone reacted strongly to the taunts or the scantily clad women, they would quickly be rejected. The other lines only gave me a rough outline of what I already knew about them testing our abilities.


    Hopefully, I would be able to learn more in the future.