Looking at one side of the room, a long rectangular table was placed there. The long table faced the doorway and sitting behind the table was a middle-aged man dressed in the robes of a scholar. This middle-aged man did not pay attention to the people entering the house. He held an emerald green brush in his hand and continued to sketch on a piece of paper where a few plum blossoms had been painted.
When the old man saw this scene, he frowned slightly but immediately recovered his composure. He seemed to have no intention of going up to disturb the middle-aged man. Instead, he took a chair from the side and sat down not too far away from the middle-aged man as he quietly and waited for the man to finished the painting.
Chen Jin saw this situation and blinked. Together with the crowd, he went to stand behind the old man without speaking and waited discreetly.
Perhaps seeing that everyone had entered the house, the middle-aged man couldn’t help but paint a little faster. The group saw a lot of images appear on the paper that originally didn’t have much content. In about what was probably 30 minutes, a blooming plum tree amidst a sea of rocks appeared on the blank paper. It was as if the whole room was filled with the aroma of plum blossoms.
“Why have you sought me out?” the middle-aged man asked calmly with an expressionless face. It seemed that a painting of this caliber was only something of a normal standard to him.
“We have an event today but it’s not a big deal. A group of new disciples has just been inducted this year. I am merely bringing them to collect some benefits from our sect,” The old man said slowly.
“If this is the case, then you can go and collect the items yourself. One set for each person and don’t mess anything up. After you’ve collected your stuff, come to me for registration.” When he finished speaking, he gave the old man a list. It was probably a list of the items that they had to collect.
“One low grade long double-edged sword, one bottle of a basic magical elixir to strengthen one’s constituents; it can be freely selected. Two low-grade spirit stones, one sect attire, one external disciple logo, one book on basic cultivation skills and exercises, one guidebook for new disciples (including map), one bottle of fasting pills, an instrument to record contribution points for contributing to the sect, an inferior storage sack. Numbers are from one to nine, go take the items by yourself.” When he finished speaking, he gave a faint smile to the group. He secretly thought that these little fellows had really good luck. The sect had just unearthed a new mine of spirit stones and hence two spirit stones per person were added as part of the welfare for newly inducted disciples. It seemed that the recent salary of the sect would be increasing again.
After a while, everyone got a set of their things and registered them. The middle-aged people slightly scanned everyone over. It was probably because he could tell that no one took any extra items so he said, “I believe everyone has taken their items. I have nothing here that would require more of your time. I will be asking my fellow disciple brother to bring everyone out. I’m continuing to paint,” After he finished talking, he stopped paying attention to the group and casually crushed the previous painting into a ball. He threw it aside, retrieved a blank sheet of paper from the drawer and continued to draw.
When the old man saw this, he held one of his fists in the other hand as a sign of respect and without saying anything else, quietly went out. It was as if he was afraid of disturbing the middle-aged man. Everyone imitated the old man slowly went out of the door without making any noise.
“All right, everyone, put your things in the storage sack now, and follow me for the assignation of your housing.” Looking at the dazed expressions of the group, the old man made a motion and one of the disciple’s storage sacks appeared in his hand. He pointed to a groove in the storage sack and reminded, “For some of you have not cultivated, you can set the spirit stones that you just received on the groove and then aim the sack at the items you have on your hand. Pull the rope on the sack and the items will be automatically collected into the sack. Then, tighten the sack and its done. Those who have cultivated magic power in themselves, inject your magic into the groove, the remaining steps are the same.”
Everyone followed the old man’s instructions, and indeed all the items on the ground were all taken into the storage sack. Everyone found it magical. They couldn’t help but touch their storage sack like it was a treasure. Chen Jin did not feel particularly excited about this feature. His storage ring was of a much higher level than this, and the storage area was much larger. He was only curious about the activation of the sack via spirit stones. It seemed cultivation through self-teaching and trial and error on his own could not be compared to what was taught in a sect. Even a small storage bag could also be activated by spirit stones. If other items could be activated or propelled by spirit stones, it would help to save a lot of spiritual energy.
The allocation of housing was also a simple affair. Because there are so many stone houses, except those who were willing to live together, everyone got an empty house to themselves. Fang Bin did suggest living in a house with Chen Jin, but Chen Jin refused, joking that he had so many secrets, how could he live with him? Besides, Chen Jin had also chosen a very remote position. But Fang Bin chose to stay next to Chen Jin. What was surprising was that the little girl also pulled her brother Liang Hua Qiang along with her and chose to live next to Chen Jin. With this, Chen Jin had three neighbors, and things would not get too boring.
Very quickly, Chen Jin arrived at his place of residence according to the map. He opened the door with the key and walked in. Although the stone house looked somewhat simple and crude on the outside, the interior was still pretty good. There was a practice room, a small medicine garden, an alchemy room and an equipment room that contained all sorts of items for cultivation. There was even a small watering hole that was gushing with water. There should be no issues with daily drinking water and water for bathing. After strolling around in the stone house, he arrived at the bedroom. In the bedroom, there was a bed and a table. There was a small booklet on the table. Chen Jin opened the booklet and found that what was written was every function and use of this stone house. For example, the alchemy room and the equipment room were each equipped with an alchemy furnace of the lowest grade and some basic folk prescriptions that were commonly seen. But the corresponding refining materials were absent. According to the book, the alchemy materials could be cultivated by themselves in the medicine garden. They also had to purchase the seeds by themselves. As for the cultivation method, it was very simple. After all, it was only the cultivation of some low-grade herbs. He only needed to plant the seeds, water them and then bury the spirit stones in the soil to hasten their maturity. The soil in the medicine garden was first-class spirit soil, so its efficiency of absorbing the spirit stones was not fast. It also required the use of magic power to promote and hasten the absorption of spirit stones by the spirit soil. Reading this, Chen Jin became curious. There was such a thing? But there was no such thing on Earth. It seemed that the level of cultivation in the immortal world was much higher than that of the Protoss. Cultivation would not end when one had reached the level of a Sage (Mahayana). Thinking of this, Chen Jin, who had been preparing to go to the medicine garden to experiment with the spirit soil stopped. He couldn’t help but give a bitter laugh because he had no seeds. It seemed that he should go and earn some contribution points whenever he had free time so he could buy seeds.
Shaking his head, Chen Jin took out the new disciple’s guidebook from the storage sack. He read it for a while and then closed the book. Chin Jin memorized the contents of the book, leaving aside the chip in his brain, by now it was piece of cake to remember these things simply because of his current cultivation level.
“Complete the sect mission to earn contribution points as a reward. And I must complete a task every month. Spirit stones can also be exchanged for contribution points or completing tasks. However, if I rashly present a lot of spirit stones, I will raise suspicions. I should go to complete the task first,” Chen Jin muttered to himself as he went out. According to the suggestions on the map, Chen Jin arrived at a house with a brick-and-wood structure. This was the mission venue for external disciples as marked on the map.
Entering the house, Chen Jin saw a man who looked to be only a few years older than him in terms of appearance. He was holding a book and engrossed in reading it. So Chen Jin said, “Disciple brother, I am Chen Jin, a new disciple who was just inducted. I have come forth to receive the mission.”