Chapter 8: I Am the Sect Master

Chen Yi looked at the newly refreshed missions and fell into thought.

Two new missions had appeared all at once.

One main mission, one side mission.

The main mission was completely predictable.

First, there was a requirement for his cultivation as the sect master.

Second, there was a requirement for the number of sect members.

As for sect buildings and so on, those were all ready-made. As long as he followed those two core ideas, the sect’s main mission would not be difficult.

This side mission, however, looked a little interesting.

Holding a sect-founding assembly was actually an optional mission. It seemed the system’s grasp of the current situation was inaccurate. It did not know the current speed of information transmission in society, which was why it had set such a simple requirement of one hundred reputation points.

An optional mission had instantly turned into a free giveaway.

Chen Yi had already figured out how to freeload—cough! Complete it.

But before that, Chen Yi still had something he absolutely had to do.

Plant the peach tree and collect the spirit stones.

Chen Yi chose to complete the mission, and five spirit stones appeared in his hand.

Each spirit stone was about the size of a quail egg, irregular in shape, and milky white in color. When he stared at them, there seemed to be a glow contained within, though they were not transparent. Holding them in his hand felt like holding warm jade.

Chen Yi scraped one with his fingernail, but could not leave even a mark. He had no idea how he was supposed to absorb and use these spirit stones that had only ever appeared in cultivation novels.

At any rate, they could not be used as currency for now.

Rolling the five spirit stones around in his hand, Chen Yi thought for a moment and soon noticed that the water mirror had changed.

There was now a second-level menu.

After choosing to open it, he found many new functions inside.

[Disciples]+

He opened the third-level menu under [Disciples].

[Disciple Aptitude Inquiry]+

[Disciple Personnel Appointment]+

[Disciple Mission Dispatch]+

There was even a fourth-level menu!?

Chen Yi raised his brows.

After that, under the [Disciple Aptitude Inquiry] menu, he found the buttons [Accept Disciple] and [Transmit Cultivation].

Seeing this, he thoughtfully looked toward the two children behind him, who were about to wake up…

Other than that, the second-level menu also had [Cultivation Methods]+

Mental Art [Spirit-Nurturing Art], study progress 10%.

Techniques [Sword Manipulation Art], [Saber Manipulation Art]… study progress 0%.

His progress had reached 10% at the first stage of Qi Refining, which surprised Chen Yi a little.

This meant that the [Spirit-Nurturing Art] was only an introductory mental art. From the look of it, it could probably only support him until the end of Qi Refining.

But what delighted Chen Yi the most were the empty slots behind these mental arts and techniques!

Having read plenty of web novels and played some browser games before, Chen Yi instantly realized what could be placed in those “empty slots.”

He tentatively placed one of the spirit stones in his hand into an “empty slot,” and sure enough, it went in.

He had guessed right!

A proper AFK slot!

He never thought he would become a hack player too!

Great!

This way, he could focus on doing missions and building infrastructure while also taking care of the children.

Not having to sit on the ground cultivating every day was probably the thing that delighted Chen Yi the most since obtaining the system.

He placed a spirit stone into the AFK slot behind [Spirit-Nurturing Art].

Then he sensed it carefully.

After he placed the spirit stone inside, the [Spirit-Nurturing Art] was indeed circulating through his meridians in a fixed sequence. It was a little slower than when he practiced it himself, but considering that AFK cultivation ran constantly, it did not seem slow at all.

This function was great!

A huge thumbs-up for the system!!

He then hung another spirit stone in the sword art’s AFK slot. For now, he did not feel anything different, so Chen Yi did not put more stones behind the other techniques.

He still did not know what spirit stones would be useful for later, and biting off more than one could chew was never good. No matter how many techniques he learned, he only had one pair of hands. Fist techniques could be kept in reserve for emergencies, but he still had to see how this AFK function consumed resources first.

Other than that, [Gale Legs] could not be set to AFK. The cultivation conditions had not been met.

He finished handling everything while standing in place, and the children woke up at just the right time.

Chen Yi picked up one in each arm.

Now that he had cultivated the mental art to the first stage of Qi Refining, his strength had increased quite a bit compared with the beginning. Carrying the children was even easier. He could comfortably hold two children with one arm, while his other hand was still free to rub their sleep-flushed little cheeks.

The older brother had not fully woken up yet. He rubbed his eyes and looked around. When he saw Da Huang following behind them, he craned his neck, wanting to pet the dog. He still remembered the happiness from that morning.

The younger sister was still lazing in his arms. She hugged Chen Yi’s neck, rubbing the tears from the corners of her eyes against him. Her chubby little hand pinched Chen Yi’s earlobe, rubbing, kneading, and squeezing it with utter fascination. This counted as a small bad habit.

After all, Chen Yi was not the original owner, so he was more or less unused to it. He forced himself to endure and overcome it, and then he gradually adapted.

Holding the children, with a Da Huang country dog following behind him, he circled the sect space once before finally returning to the front of the Scripture Pavilion.

“Qianqian, Linlin, look.”

Chen Yi deliberately wanted to show off to the children, and also let them get used to this, so he called for them to look ahead while raising his hand and pointing.

Then they saw it.

A huge peach tree, lush and thick, of unknown age, its crown taller than a five-story building, its branches twisted and entwined, flourishing and verdant, appeared before the three people and one dog from nothing.

It rooted itself firmly in the ground, as if it had already been growing on this land for countless years.

“Wow!!”

The two children were so shocked their eyes went wide, and they looked at their dad with worship all over their faces.

Even though Da Huang’s intelligence was limited, it was still shocked by the scene. Its dog face froze, and it even forgot to breathe.

Forget them—even Chen Yi was shocked by the peach tree’s ancient, vigorous presence.

This peach tree was more than a hundred years old. It was not even merely a thousand years old. It felt like three thousand years was the starting line, with no upper limit!

And it was not an illusion. As soon as the peach tree appeared, the aura of the entire space became cleaner. Not only was there a faint fragrance of fresh grass, but the spiritual energy in the air had clearly increased by a few degrees.

As expected of an item rewarded by the sect system. It completely did not exceed Chen Yi’s expectations.

Chen Yi set the children down and let the two children and the dog play beneath the peach tree, which would take seven or eight adults holding hands to circle around.

Amid their cheerful laughter, Chen Yi spoke to the peach tree with a solemn expression. “I don’t know whether you have a spirit or not, but I’ll assume that you already possess spirituality. The apocalypse is approaching, and the aberration will appear, so I would like to ask for a peach branch to make a sword. Thank you.”

After saying that, Chen Yi waited quietly.

The peach tree did not respond.

Chen Yi felt a faint disappointment inside. So it was not a peach demon or peach immortal after all.

Then he breathed a sigh of relief. He, the sect master, was nothing at all. If this peach tree really had become a spirit, he would not be able to keep it in check. He would be a proper wage slave, confirmed.

Just in case, Chen Yi repeated himself once more. Then he rolled up his sleeves and started climbing the tree to snap off branches.

He found a very thick branch and broke it off. With his current hands, he could break wood. Although he could not finely craft it, cutting off a section to the length he wanted was not difficult. If he could choose, he hoped that length would be forty meters.

In the end, Chen Yi broke off a branch about one and a half meters long to use as a sword, muttering to himself with some dissatisfaction.

He did not waste the remaining branches either. As long as they could be used, even making small daggers would be fine. This was an ancient peach tree rewarded by the system, starting at three thousand years old!

Chen Yi did not even throw away the peach twigs and leaves. Together with the spirit stones, he carefully stored them in the sect’s main hall. Perhaps they would have some use in the future.

Just as he finished doing all this, he saw his mother, Xiang Lan, appear below the mountain gate with a backpack basket on her back, a woven bag in one hand, and the family’s big white goose in her other arm.

Chen Yi went forward and took the things from his mother’s arms. He found that aside from food, there were also quilts and bedding.

He had thought his mother was preparing bedding for the grandchildren to sleep on. Who knew that what she took out from the woven bag were several full sets of bedding compressed flat in vacuum bags.

The items had been compressed and barely stuffed into the woven bag, but their weight had not lessened at all. At the very least, they had to weigh about a hundred jin. Add to that the rice, flour, and oil in the backpack basket on her back, as well as a small gas canister, and everything on her body weighed at least three hundred jin.

The Xiang Lan of the past definitely would not have been able to carry all this up. Now, however, she was only panting slightly and sweating a little. After coming up, she even had spare energy to tidy things as she said, “Who knows what other tricks that ghost thing has? I figured this place is safer than home, so I packed everything up. After one more trip back, we’ll be able to stay on the mountain for ten days or half a month.”

After listening, Chen Yi nodded, feeling that his mother was right.

Compared to going head-to-head with that aberration thing and risking exposure, Chen Yi really wanted to hide away and develop in this paradise beyond the world. Ideally, he would never have to participate in battle for the rest of his life.

“I’ll go back and get them.”

Xiang Lan stopped her son and smiled. “That light ball you gave me really is incredible. If I didn’t have to avoid people, I could have made ten trips already. I’ll go. I packed the things, so I know what to bring.”

Chen Yi could only say, “There’s no signal in this space. Remember to tell Dad. Also, when you come up, help me bring the firewood chopper and a small knife. I need to carve a sword.”

Xiang Lan glanced at the tree branch beside her son’s feet, then looked at the peach tree she had seen as soon as she arrived. Knowing her son had stirred up something new again, her face filled with pride.

She did not ask further. She just nodded, said, “Okay,” then got up and left.

Watching his mother leave, Chen Yi saw someone exit the space with his own eyes for the first time.

He had not expected that the effect of passing through the space would actually be thin mist gradually blocking the person’s figure. Before she had even reached the end of the blue-jade steps, she had already disappeared.

Of course, Chen Yi was not going to get things because he also had something to do.

His gaze fell on the side mission.

One hundred reputation points. It really was a freebie.

Only, he had to think carefully about how to publicize and promote it. He could not truly expose the sect’s existence, yet he also had to make the system acknowledge that he had completed the mission.

After thinking like this for a while, he called the two children and Da Huang over and carefully instructed them.

Then he set up his phone on an orange tree branch he had plucked from outside. The camera was aimed straight at the main hall behind him, and he pressed the record button.

Chen Yi stood in the camera frame with both hands clasped behind his back. Behind him were the main hall and the plaque of The Lurker Sect as he said solemnly,

“Spiritual energy has revived. The aberration are coming. In this age of great strife, demons and monsters, gods, Buddhas, immortals, and invaders from other lands will all appear. I alone am the master of a sect, sagely wisdom bestowed by heaven, unmatched brilliance standing apart. I found my sect upon Hidden Dragon, and it is called The Lurker Sect. Let this be widely announced.”

After he finished speaking,

his younger sister, Chen Yilin, lifted the “crown” she had just woven from peach branches and stood on tiptoe to place it on Chen Yi’s head.

As soon as it was steady, her older brother, Chen Yiqian, who had been waiting behind her, threw a blue-and-white checkered bedsheet over Chen Yi from behind, person and all. He even tried to tie the bedsheet tightly around Chen Yi’s neck. In the end, Chen Yi quietly took over to avoid hurting the little hands.

Finally, before Chen Yi stood up again, Da Huang held in its mouth the peach branch Chen Yi had snapped off barehanded, as thick as a calf and one and a half meters long, and passed it into Chen Yi’s hand. Then it wagged its tail and backed away.

With a bird’s nest on his head, a bedsheet draped over his shoulders, and a gnarly dark-brown branch in his hand, Chen Yi straightened up and looked at the phone camera, saying with a solemn expression,

“I am Sect Master Chen Yi.”

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