Chapter 23: Routine
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In the mission hall of the Phoenix Sect, Wáng Yǒng was currently dozing comfortably, leaning on the work table.
From his appearance, he didn't seem to be older than 25.
His job was to manage the missions of the mission hall.
From assigning them to receiving confirmation of their completion, everything was handled by him.
Completing missions often took from a few hours to a few days, so he always found himself fairly free during the day, thus he took the opportunity to take a nap every now and then.
He had been in the Phoenix Sect for a while, and after reaching a bottleneck in his cultivation that he couldn't overcome, he decided to find a job in the meantime, to support himself.
After all, he didn't have enough resources to sustain himself while waiting to overcome his bottleneck.
He had been working here for less than a year, and over time he realized that this job was quite simple, so he continued doing it.
As long as he did his job without mistakes, no one said anything to him, so he wasn't afraid of being punished if he took a few breaks during the day.
Today, as usual, he didn't have much to do, so he decided to take his afternoon nap.
While he continued to wander in the meanders of the dream realm, a tinkling sound from the entrance door of the Mission Hall woke him up.
Waking up, he opened his eyes and looked towards the entrance to see who it was.
Seeing that it was simply an outer disciple, he sighed slightly and asked in a somewhat bored voice:
"Are you here to accept a task or report the completion of a task?" he asked, knowing that outer sect disciples were rarely given difficult missions.
'Most likely he had a commission or something like that,' he thought as he planned to quickly deal with it and return to his imaginary paradise.
"To report the completion of a task," said the person who entered, handing Wáng Yǒng a slip of paper and a small bottle containing pills.
Wáng Yǒng took the slip, and after confirming it, he nodded and said:
"Alright, please hand me your sect badge for a moment so I can record your contribution points."
The boy nodded and took out from his pocket a round badge, about the size of a coin, with the engraving of a phoenix wrapped around itself, and handed it to Wáng Yǒng.
The sect badge was given to every disciple when they joined. It was like an identity document that contained the disciple's information, as well as their mission records and contribution points tally.
Each medallion, upon delivery, was bound to the owner by a technique that involved dripping a drop of their own blood onto it.
This served not only to facilitate transactions within the sect but also to prevent any cases of theft of contributions and so on.
After a few seconds, Wáng Yǒng returned the badge to its owner and prepared to sleep again, not bothering to ask the other person if he needed anything else.
The latter didn't mind Wáng Yǒng's clearly rude attitude and left the Mission Hall.
Exiting the mission hall, Ethan walked towards his lodging.
'And with this, I should be set for the next week,' he said to himself as he walked.
Now that he had enough contribution points to sustain himself for the next week, he finally felt a weight lifted off his mind.
As he passed some buildings, he couldn't help but think about the events of that morning.
After explaining his situation, Yan Qingshui, thinking it made no sense to escalate the matter unnecessarily, decided to let Ethan go with a small reprimand.
Ethan was glad that his half-truth had worked because otherwise, he wouldn't have known how to handle the situation.
Yan Mei was clearly not happy with the outcome and would have liked to teach both the attendant and Ethan a lesson, but hearing her grandfather, she decided to set the matter aside.
After a while, he finally arrived at his lodging.
This time he didn't knock on the door but used his key to enter.
Once inside, he closed the door and headed to his room.
It was quite quiet here, and seeing the door of the room next to his closed, Ethan understood that Da Shu was probably cultivating, so he made sure not to make any unnecessary noise as he closed his own room's door.
The lodging that the sect had assigned to him was fairly average.
Apart from a bathroom and the bedroom, there wasn't much else.
Showering here was done in specific spaces that were present in the sect.
As for cooking?
One could prepare meals for themselves if they wanted to, buying all the necessary ingredients, but most disciples preferred to eat in the sect's canteen.
As the sect was divided into the outer sect, inner sect, and the central zone, there was a canteen for each section.
Most disciples didn't know how to cook, and why would they?
After all, they came here to cultivate, and learning things like cooking or other skills was deemed unnecessary.
Cultivation sessions could comfortably last from several hours to several days, so not many bothered to learn things like cooking.
Of course, they had a minimum knowledge of how to cook meat or prepare simple dishes, just in case they needed to eat while traveling.
For them, this was more than enough.
Ethan was one of the few exceptions to this.
Having lived on his own in his previous world, he had some basic cooking skills, so he always kept cooking supplies in his room for the times when he wanted to eat some dish from his world.
It was almost evening, and he was already feeling a bit hungry, so he prepared a quick meal in his room and consumed it.
Once finished, he washed his cooking utensils and prepared to cultivate.
He got into a meditative position on the carpet in the center of the room and slowly closed his eyes.
"Haa, now that I've got that off my mind, it's time to deal with the other matter," he said as he calmed his mind and thought about entering his sea of consciousness.
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FRANK_LEE_JUNIOR:
Here is today's chapter.
As usual, don't hesitate to leave any comments, critiques, or error reports below.
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