Chapter One: Heaven's First Floor

  "You've just arrived on Qingyu Island, and your initial cultivation is still at the stage of 'no way to go'. You can't do things like capturing demons, spiritual farming, array protection, or crystal excavation. You can only take on some simple tasks. I took a look at the recent whiteboard tasks issued by our sect, and there are three that are suitable for you."

  Xu Xing stretched out his index finger and said, "Firstly, feeding the beasts. Our sect has many divine birds and spiritual beasts that are raised for various purposes. There are also some on Qingyu Island. Matters related to these creatures are all managed by the 'Spiritual Beast Hall' within our sect, so this task is also issued by them. What you need to do is take care of the spiritual beasts on Qingyu Island, feed them on time every day, and clean them regularly without any negligence. It may be a bit dirty and tiring, but it's unavoidable."

  Xu Xing stretched out his second finger and said, "The second task is to refine the elixir. To be honest, it's called refining the elixir only because this matter is a task issued by the 'Dan Tang' of our sect. You are now neither knowledgeable nor experienced, so you will not be allowed to actually refine the elixir. The tasks on the whiteboard are for you to assist, manage the fire timing of the elixir furnace, and identify the medicinal materials to hand over to your senior brothers and sisters who are refining the elixir at any time. Therefore, the time spent may be much longer than other tasks."

  Four young men heard this, all slightly furrowed their brows, and their faces didn't look particularly relaxed. These tasks sounded simple, but doing them was obviously not easy. Xu Xing saw their expressions and smiled slightly, continuing to say: "Third, collecting shells. Every morning and evening when the tide recedes on the island, many beaches have five-colored shellfish, which are materials for some low-level magic arrays of 'Zhen Tang'. They're just hidden deep in the beach mud, making them a bit hard to find. For this task, every 200 shells can be exchanged for one spiritual crystal."

  He Xiao Mei was stunned for a moment and exclaimed: "So many talents can only be exchanged for one Ling crystal?"

  Xu Xing smiled and said, "Exactly, the sect's rules are like this. It is precisely to temper new disciples with difficult situations that the tasks assigned will not be particularly easy. These three tasks were specially selected by me for you, and they can still pass. As for later on, there will be even more green board, red board, and yellow board tasks, with difficulty levels that are even higher, such as the spiritual farming, demon capturing, and other things I mentioned earlier, as well as talismans, underwater exploration, and crystal excavation..."

  Shen Shi's eyebrows suddenly rose as he spoke up, "Huh? Do we still have a task related to the Fu Talisman here? Isn't this a side quest?"

  Xu Xing glanced at him and said, "How to put it, this five-element technique is indeed not comparable to the various mainstream Taoist divine abilities that we will cultivate in the future. However, this type of technique has been passed down for thousands of years and can still be useful at times. Especially for cultivators at the Refining Qi stage, due to their limited cultivation level, they can only cultivate a few divine abilities, so they often practice one or two five-element techniques as a means of self-defense. In our sect, there is a special 'Technique Hall' that specializes in these five-element techniques, although it's not large in scale, but it will still issue tasks such as talismans and the like. After all, taking these talismans out to the big cities and markets outside can still be welcomed by some cultivators, especially those with low cultivation levels, and can earn a considerable amount of spiritual crystals."

  "Originally, it was like that." Shen Shi suddenly enlightened, but soon heard Xu Xing smile slightly and say: "However, the way of talismans is notoriously complex and difficult. The various symbols of yin and yang, the five elements, are complicated and twisted, not to mention that based on this foundation, the symbol arrays drawn on the talisman paper are even more difficult. Moreover, it's necessary to go through the last step of 'infusing spirit' to truly create a talisman. Therefore, even if one is an exceptionally skilled talisman master, it's still difficult to produce large quantities of various talismans. Throughout history, few disciples have been able to accomplish this task."

  Shen Shi nodded slowly, and Xu Xing saw that he didn't ask any more questions, so he stopped talking and turned to Sun You: "These are the tasks that I think are still passable. You can consider them, of course, you can also go to the whiteboard again to take a closer look, maybe there are other suitable ones for you. However, as new disciples, most of the tasks you can do are on the whiteboard. The green, red, yellow, and purple boards behind it are all difficult tasks, and you may need to spend some time before you can handle them."

  Sun You nodded and said, "Thank you, Little Brother-in-law."

  Xu Xing smiled and said, "Alright, for now it's like this. You all go around and get familiar with the place first." As he spoke, he seemed to have thought of something else, hesitated for a moment, and stopped himself from speaking further.

  Sun You was sharp-eyed and saw Xiao Shu's appearance, smiling: "What's wrong, Xiao Shu, is there something else?"

  Xu Xing thought for a moment, then said: "Actually, I just thought of another thing, which is also simpler, but... Ah, on the way you came here, did you see those red clam demons outside Qingyu Village?"

  The four of them nodded, and He Xiaomei even gestured with her hand, saying: "It looks really strange, two big clams just growing on his body like that."

  Xu Xing smiled and said, "These Hong Bang tribe people have been living under our Ling Xiao Sect for many years. Over time, you've all gotten used to them. What I wanted to say earlier is actually related to these Hong Bang tribe people too, it's also a task, but it's not usually written on this whiteboard."

  Sun You and others were all curious, Sun You being the fastest, was the first to say: "What? There's actually a task like this, what is it?"

  Xu Xing smiled and said, "Actually, this matter is just those Hong E tribe people who are taking advantage of our new disciples to do various things. This tribe has lived by the sea from ancient times to the present, and their favorite food is a kind of large shrimp called 'Ghost Face Shrimp' that lives in the ocean. There are many of them in the waters around Jin Hong Mountain. However, it's not easy to catch these shrimps. Although they can be caught with fishing nets during the tide, their shells are extremely hard and cannot be opened with knives or axes. The only way is to use a sharp blade to stab from the abdomen and carefully pry open the shell to get the tender shrimp meat." Xu Xing made a gesture with his hand to roughly demonstrate.

  Those Red Clam Tribe people love to eat Ghost-Faced Prawns, but they are extremely cleanliness freaks. They just have to eat the tender flesh of these prawns, and when peeling the shells, they inevitably get their whole body bloody and dirty. So, it's always been a huge chore for the Red Clam Tribe. After seeing us assign various tasks to our new disciples, they also followed suit, saying that as long as someone helps them peel the prawns, they will reward them with Spiritual Crystals.

  "So that's how it is..." Sun You and the others finally understood, but Shen Shi was quick-witted and thought of another matter, saying: "Permit me to ask, Brother Xu... uh... what should I call you?"

  Xu Xing smiled and waved his hand, saying: "I am older than you by a few years, so from now on, just call me Uncle Xu."

  Shen Shi nodded and said, "Uncle Xu, isn't it said that demonic tribes like the Hong Ben tribe don't usually use spirit crystals? Where did they get the spirit crystals to give us as payment?"

  "Ah, this is how it is. Our Golden Rainbow Mountain Range is the first spiritual vein in the southeast, born with a rich gathering of heaven and earth's spiritual energy, every day condensing many spiritual crystals. This is a well-known fact. Although this spiritual vein is usually deeply buried within the depths of the spiritual mountain, there are still extremely fine residual veins scattered around the edges, some even extending deep into the ocean floor beyond the islands. The Red Clam Tribe has an excellent aquatic ability, without needing any magical tools or assistance, they can dive to extreme depths in the ocean, so from time to time they would discover small amounts of spiritual crystals on the ocean floor. Although they have no use for them, since they know that our human tribe views them as precious treasures, naturally they collect and store them to trade with us."

  Jiang Hongguang hesitated for a moment, and asked in a low voice beside him: "Uncle Xu, how many ghost-faced prawns do we need to kill before the Red Clam tribe will give us our reward?"

  Xu Xing replied, "One hundred ghost-faced shrimp, one spiritual crystal." As he spoke, he extended his fourth finger and smiled, saying, "So this can also be considered the fourth thing I told you about, peeling shrimp."

  After leaving Xu Xing's place, the four of them stood in the Bai He Tang to discuss it. The four tasks that Xu Xing had just mentioned didn't seem difficult at all, and they could be done even if they were incompetent. However, upon careful consideration, each task was actually a dirty and tiring job. Although Jiang Hongguang and Shen Shi were okay with it, Sun You and He Xiaomei came from very good families and had never suffered before, so they didn't want to do it.

  Several people discussed it for a while and decided to come together again to take another look at the whiteboard to see if there were other more suitable tasks.

  At this time, many young men were already standing under the whiteboard, and it was clear that under the rules of Ling Xiao Sect, which prohibited everyone from carrying spiritual crystals into the door by themselves, the top priority for these new disciples had become earning spiritual crystals for cultivation. After all, except for the only one given at the beginning, the subsequent spiritual crystals needed seemed to be clearly indicated by Ling Xiao Sect that everyone had to earn them by themselves.

  Four people stood in front of the whiteboard, looking carefully for a while. All they saw was that the whiteboard was covered with numerous sheets of Fangzheng white paper, layer upon layer, and there were many strange tasks on it, but no matter how difficult or tiring they were, or what rewards they offered, they seemed to be similar to the ones Xing had mentioned before, and some even looked more difficult than what he had said.

  Shen Shi looked for a while, and then thought of Xu Xing's mention of the talisman earlier. He had been drawing talismans since he was young, but he never thought that there would be a chance to use them in Ling Xiao Sect. His heart stirred, and he couldn't help but look at the whiteboard to see if there were any tasks related to talismans.

  He looked around here for a long time, almost searching the entire whiteboard, but couldn't find even a single character. Shen Shi furrowed his brow, thinking that Xu Xing shouldn't be able to deceive him. After a moment's thought, he suddenly had an idea and glanced around, seeing no one paying attention to him. His newly acquainted friends Sun Youhao, Xiao Mei, Jiang Hongguang, etc., were still carefully examining the whiteboard from a distance. He quietly walked around to the side of the whiteboard, made a circle, and ended up behind it.

  After the whiteboard, there is a large wooden board with green color. According to Xu Xing's previous statement, it should be called the green board. Like the situation on the whiteboard, many paper slips are also posted on the green board. However, in front of the green board, there are fewer Lingxiao Sect disciples than in front of the whiteboard, and among them, there are not a few who are older and from the previous five-year cycle.

  Some people noticed Shen Shi walking over to the green board and cast him some strange glances, but soon everyone probably thought that Shen Shi was just one of those new disciples with a strong curiosity who came over to see something fresh, so they didn't pay much attention. One by one, they turned their heads back around and focused on watching the slips of paper on the wooden board again.

  Shen Shi let out a breath and began to search on the green board, this time it was unexpectedly smooth, when he saw the third white paper on the green board, he found that it was indeed a task issued by the Taoist temple, and the content was also to draw a special symbol array on the talisman paper.

  Making talismans, not making talismanic scrolls, just fits Shen Shi's intention. At this moment, his Taoist practice is completely gone, and if he wants to make a talismanic scroll, the last step of "infusing spirit" will be impossible to pass, but if it's just drawing a single talisman array, relying on his own seven years of day and night connection, Shen Shi feels that he still has some confidence.

  Just as he was about to feel happy, his eyes looked down and suddenly furrowed his brow, a look of astonishment flashed across his face, and below the note were four clear words:

  Materials will be provided by yourself.