While all the disciples stared in disbelief at the elder who blatantly wanted to steal their salary, Rihai looked at Aotian with a strange expression in her eyes.
'Tian'er… aren't the sect elders a bit too peculiar?' she spoke to him through sound transmission, amusement in her tone, but also confusion.
Aotian looked at her, puzzled.
'Are they? I didn't notice.' He put on a clueless face, but couldn't hold back a smile at her.
Rihai rolled her eyes, amused.
Bao Hui, receiving incredulous looks, spoke up at that moment.
"Well, it's a pity about your salary, but don't be sad about it, you'll receive it next month. As for the next matters, I've already explained them to my disciple, and she'll handle it. So, farewell," he explained and, with a smile, suddenly vanished from in front of them, leaving them stunned.
"H-he… just left?" some disciples muttered, blinking in disbelief.
They had thought the elder was joking and never expected that he would actually snatch their salary.
Seeing the speechless and stunned looks on the disciples' faces, Xiao Ling felt a headache coming.
"Everyone, don't worry, you can request your salary at the Treasure Pavilion, just like you did when you were outer disciples—and that includes this month's salary."
Xiao Ling, rubbing her forehead, explained, which immediately relieved them.
"Ha! I knew the elder was just joking," one of the disciples said with a confident look.
The others agreed with him, feeling that it made sense.
Only Xiao Ling wiped a bit of sweat from her forehead, with an odd expression.
In truth, her master had indeed brought the disciples' salary with him—he just didn't want to hand it over. But she knew that since the disciples hadn't received it, they could still request this month's salary from the Treasure Pavilion.
During this time, she had learned her master's quirks, and the other elders from the Treasure Pavilion had secretly taught her how to deal with him, something she was very grateful for.
One of the disciples, after whispering with a friend, raised his hand, catching everyone's attention.
"Senior sister Ling… may I ask a question?"
The middle-aged man who raised his hand asked the young girl with blue hair.
Xiao Ling just nodded to him after recovering from her master's actions, already prepared for questions.
Seeing that he was allowed to ask, the man didn't waste any time. Talking to a fellow disciple like her was much easier than talking to a powerful elder, so he felt more confident.
"Earlier, Elder Zheng Tao mentioned something about a 'soul challenge'. What is that?" the man asked with a serious face.
Everyone immediately sharpened their ears, for they too were curious about this thing. They knew the sect's benefits were anything but ordinary.
Xiao Ling had an 'as expected' look, already anticipating that he would ask about that.
"The Soul Challenge was something we didn't have access to before, but my master said that, with the number of inner disciples increasing, the sect leader has made it available for us to spend contribution points to access it, or, as in your case, enjoy it as a reward."
She explained, and continued.
"But my master said that this benefit is usually only for core disciples or as a special reward—your case falls under the latter—so with your current status, you can only receive it as a reward, not purchase it with points. As for what it specifically is… my master only said that we should head to the Heritage Pavilion if we want to make use of this benefit."
Xiao Ling informed them with a serious look, repeating what her master had told her earlier.
Before the announcement of the disciple competition rewards, she too had never heard of these things, just like the other disciples.
The disciples felt a bit disappointed upon learning that, with their current status, they couldn't buy it. They didn't know what it was, but they knew it had to be something good, and being restricted to receiving it only through rewards felt regrettable.
Among the disciples, Rihai couldn't help but grow curious and looked at Aotian.
'Do you know what this soul challenge thing is?' she asked through sound transmission, eyeing him with curiosity.
'Of course, it's something fun.' He smiled and looked again at the status of the outer elder from the Heritage Pavilion, specifically the one who had come on the ship.
[Name: He Ziren (Meaning: The Benevolent Sage)
Position: Outer Elder (Heritage Pavilion)
Cultivation: 7th Level Foundation Establishment (Host Realm [Disabled])
Position Skill: Heart of Knowledge
Affiliation Skill: Wisdom Affinity
Position Bonus: Soul Challenge (4 times a day)]
'The soul challenge is a secret technique performed only by the elders of the sect's Heritage Pavilion. There are two types of uses—the first is for teaching, and the second for combat.'
Aotian explained, piquing the girl's curiosity and making her raise an eyebrow.
'And what does it do?' she asked, blinking as he said nothing more.
'You'll find out when you try it,' he teased, with a playful smile as he saw her irritated look at being provoked and left curious.
'Hey, I don't do that to you. When you ask something I don't go saying "You'll know at the right time"!' she complained mentally to him.
This time it was Aotian who rolled his eyes at her.
'Of course you do. When I asked you about treasure rankings, you only went up to Core-Tier and then said there was no point in me knowing more.'
He complained, not forgetting old 'grudges'.
Rihai looked at him in disbelief.
'Are you serious?! How was I supposed to know that the husband I arranged among mortals would just so happen to be a big shot behind the scenes, and that for some strange reason didn't know anything about the world? It made no sense to tell you things that didn't even exist on the continent we were on and that wouldn't help you in any way—besides making people suspicious if they found out you knew such information.'
She retorted through sound transmission, visibly irritated.
'Still left me curious, that's what it is.' Aotian raised his nose arrogantly, inwardly satisfied at being called husband.
'Aotian, you're impossible!' She massaged her forehead upon seeing him like that.
While they argued, no one noticed, as their attention was focused on Xiao Ling explaining things on stage.
"With the inner disciple token, you can tap it against your old outer disciple token, and by activating them with spiritual energy, they will merge."
She explained, and everyone began doing so with bright eyes.
Aotian and Rihai paused their conversation and tapped their storage pouches, causing them to spit out a gray token into their hands.
Aotian picked up his token and then touched it with the white token that he and all the disciples had received from Bao Hui earlier, surrounding both with energy.
The gray token glowed and melted as it merged with the white one.
The white token didn't change in appearance, but above it, characters projected in light, hovering lightly in the air.
Written there was:
[Infinite Dao Sect]
[Position: Inner Disciple]
[Name: Long Aotian]
[Contribution Points: 0]
Aotian looked at his contribution points with a strange expression. Not that they were wrong—he really didn't have any.
Neither he nor Rihai had left the sect in the two months they had been there to take on missions.
They simply hadn't had the time, and Aotian wasn't particularly interested in those tomb-raiding missions, which he already carried out using his avatars.
Normally, if a disciple brought a Founder-Tier technique that the sect didn't yet possess, they would receive 1,000 contribution points—the same amount needed to purchase a synthesized Refiner-Tier spell from the sect.
As for the package containing the Foundation Establishment Cultivation Technique along with the Qi Concealment Technique, which the disciples had previously acquired, Aotian charged only 1,000 points as well, but left the disciples with a debt of 49,000, to be repaid with a percentage of the rewards gained in future missions.
He did this simply so that the disciples wouldn't remain stagnant for too long without advancing to Foundation Establishment. If they stayed that way, they wouldn't be of much use.
But when it came to the Golden Core level, he didn't intend to be so generous. By the time the disciples were able to access those techniques, they would have more than enough capability to pay the full amount in contribution points.
Moreover, the methods for earning points were expanding and no longer based solely on missions outside the sect. Over time, there would be even more ways to accumulate them.
As for Founder-Tier spells, they weren't cheap either. The full cost was 10,000 points, which was why no disciple had acquired one yet.
Setting those thoughts aside, Aotian turned his gaze to Rihai's disciple token.
[Infinite Dao Sect]
[Position: Inner Disciple]
[Name: Liu Rihai]
[Contribution Points: 0]
'Poor.' He sent to her, looking at her with disdain.
Rihai quickly turned her head toward him, then glanced at his token and saw the same big 0 in contribution points, which made her roll her eyes.
'You're not ashamed of being the sect's young master and still having 0 points?' She mocked him with a small smile.
'Bah! Isn't that your fault? If it weren't for you wanting to be cautious, I would've already slapped an infinity symbol on this thing. And don't call me young master, I feel offended,' he complained, sticking out his tongue and making a grumpy face at her.
'How old are you?' She couldn't help but chuckle softly, receiving a playful look in return.
Silence then settled between the two as they listened to Xiao Ling explaining some rules.
'...'
'...'
'Are you really not going to tell me what the soul challenge is? I'm really curious now, I don't want to wait.' She couldn't hold back and complained.