Chapter 4221 — A Disciple's Mission
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
He had once been dead set on the post of managing second senior brother of the Soaring Heavens Pavilion's inner court; now he set his sights on it no longer. After all, even if his strength was decent, he had already become the stepping stone beneath Wei Zhao's feet—that was plain for all to see.
Even with his own grandfather Xu Yuanzheng pulling strings on his behalf, there was no way he could seize a vital post like managing second senior brother of the inner court; and even if he could, he would never be able to command respect.
Xu Lingchong was rarely so low-key. When Wei Zhao learned of it, he could not even be bothered to go looking for trouble, and went on living his plain, leisurely days in the Number One Mansion of the Azure Cloud Pavilion's inner court.
Two days later, as the crowd of new outer-court formal disciples who had joined the Triple-Tiered Pavilion gradually grew accustomed to their fresh surroundings and rhythm, the Triple-Tiered Pavilion finally issued the formal disciples' missions for the new year.
There were chiefly two kinds. The first was the weapon mission: every newly admitted formal disciple—including one who had risen in a single step to inner-court core disciple, like Wei Zhao—had to find a way to forge a weapon suited to his hand. By the Triple-Tiered Pavilion's long-standing tradition, a grand weapon contest would be held at midyear, and all disciples could sign up to take part; naturally, those without a weapon would have no such qualification.
Beyond the weapon mission, the other was the trial mission. Every formal disciple of the Triple-Tiered Pavilion could take on missions here, and upon completing one would earn the corresponding guild points. Accumulated, these points could be exchanged for appropriate rewards at the North Island Cultivators' Guild.
In principle these missions were undertaken voluntarily, but the Triple-Tiered Pavilion had set a floor: every formal disciple, inner-court core disciples included, had to complete at least two trial missions each year. This was the barest requirement of training and experience; no slacking was tolerated.
Even a young master of such deep background as Xu Lingchong—now an inner-court core disciple—had to do missions if he wanted to get along well, and no one else could do them in his stead.
To be sure, with a grandfather like Xu Yuanzheng standing behind him, he would never lack cultivation resources no matter what. But a man of such ambition—how could he be content to drift along and remain a mere ordinary disciple?
Even if this time, because of his disastrous showing in the inner-court tournament, he could not compete for the post of managing second senior brother of the inner court, that was only a temporary setback. In days to come he would surely rise. To avoid giving people grounds for gossip then, he had to start from these foundational steps and perform as brilliantly as possible.
Of course, if it were a second-generation cultivator with not a shred of ambition, that would be another matter. Take Shangguan Lan'er: the girl had no mind at all for serious cultivation, and as for trial missions and the like, it was purely a matter of her own whim—no one would come scolding her even if she never went.
Wei Zhao and Huang Xiaotao, naturally, had to go do missions. The two of them came to the mission board specially set up by the Triple-Tiered Pavilion and scanned it up and down.
There were fully a hundred-odd trial missions large and small, ranging from solo missions of lower difficulty to quite demanding group missions that required several people working in concert before completion was even possible.
One thing was certain, however: whether solo or group, all of these had been transferred over from the North Island Cultivators' Guild, and so some of the long-term missions had a rather familiar ring to them.