Concealing her killing intent once again, Zhou Shan continued with the explanation.
"Anyway, you can also earn points if you bring the corpse of the beasts here as they are used by the sect in many ways. The amount of points you get will depend solely in which stage of cultivation they had before dying."
"So this was what he referred to when he said that I could sell the corpses from the beasts." Ling Xu remembered the reason why he had set his sight on guarding the border of the sect's array, after asking Zhou Xueqin which daily task he should choose from the board inside the Affairs Hall.
"For every stage it had you will be able to get one point, once you accumulate a hundred points you will earn a merit from the sect."
Seeing the faces of doubt from the disciples, she continued explaining.
"Merits is the sect's currency and they can be used to buy any kind of item available in the sect. The value of one merit point is equal to one low grade spiritual stone, so if you accumulate a hundred points in one month it's the same as increasing your salary by one low grade spiritual stone."
Hearing the value of a merit point, they all became excited as they started talking between themselves.
"One merit is equal to one low grade spiritual stone, I wonder how many of them I will be able to get!"
"If I get four hundred points from hunting beasts I will get four merits and my salary will have doubled. Let's see how far the gap between us and the other disciples widens by then."
While the rest of the disciples were already fantasizing about increasing their monthly salary several times, there was one person who remained the same.
Ling Xu didn't show it but he felt disappointed, he had expected that he would get more as compensation for killing so many beasts but the result was different.
After all, if he killed a hundred first stage beasts and then brought them here he would only get one merit.
This was far from enough for what he initially expected.
Although people like Ma Dongpil who had enough resources outside of the Formless Sword Sect didn't feel much from the reward that Zhou Shan announced, they still felt like it was something.
But for Ling Xu, who knew how much time it would take him to enter the outer sect, this was a drop in the bucket.
"With my current equipment and the items inside my spatial ring I should have the value of hundreds of low grade spiritual stones. Even if I want to earn just half of it by hunting beasts it will take me ages."
Feeling down about what he thought would help him getting resources, Ling Xu stopped worrying about it and only had in mind to reach the ninth stage of Blood Qi and become an official disciple.
"Now you will be assigned a partner who has already gone through this task and will guide you in your journey."
…
Near the border of the sect's array, Ling Xu could be seen patrolling the forest with his new partner.
He Xiaosheng seemed to be very reserved as he had barely spoken a few words after he introduced himself to him.
But being in the forest for quite some time already, Ling Xu got accustomed to his partner's personality as he also liked the silence.
The few times He Xiaosheng talked was only when it was necessary.
"I can see the marks from a poisonous frog, it must be near so stay silent."
After finding the purple frog, which was in the third stage of Blood Qi, He Xiaosheng displayed a precise horizontal slash that made a clean cut right in the middle of the beast.
Leaving the corpse on the ground, the pair continued as Ling Xu asked why they didn't bring the corpse with them.
Although he didn't have any personal interest in getting the few points from the corpse, he didn't know why his partner would reject it.
"Even though its corpse is small and we can put the frog inside the bag I have, the problem lies in that its body emanates a poisonous gas which is very harmful for the human body."
Out of curiosity, Ling Xu wanted to ask what the side effects were but realized that his partner didn't want to continue talking so he let it go and continued with the patrol.
After eight hours of patrolling around the sect's border, Ling Xu's turn had finally ended and he was now handing over the corpse from a sixth stage sharp clawed bear.
He Xiaosheng was the one who fought, showing no difficulty on killing the beast as he was already in the eight stage of Blood Qi, having a cultivation gap of two stages.
"The corpse from the beast gives you six points, how are you distributing them?"
Looking carefully at Ling Xu, He Xiaosheng realized that he didn't mind he took the points as they were from the beast he had taken.
Taking out the identity token, six points were transferred to him.
Partying ways after finishing the task for the day, Ling Xu headed to his room.
It took him a stick of incense before he arrived at the small villa where his room was as he found several disciples grouped up in one of the training grounds they had at their disposal.
"I didn't expect we would be directly taught by one of the elders from the outer sect, I wonder if the rest of the new disciples in the other residences were so lucky."
Hearing that they would be instructed in their sword technique, Ling Xu suddenly became excited as he wanted to receive guidance from someone who had completely mastered it.
"I wonder if he has reached perfection in the Three Purities Sword."
After waiting for another stick of incense, the rest of the disciples returned to the villa as they were all gathered in one place.
Soon enough, an old man entered the training ground making the crowd fall into complete silence.
Looking at the high figure, they all waited patiently.
"Greetings everyone, I am elder Wen and from now on I will guide you in learning the Three Purities Sword technique. I will also act as the final test for you to become official disciples, so once you have completed the ninth stage of Blood Qi and are confident enough in your mastery of the sword technique you may challenge me."
"I never expected for this to be the method to enter the outer sect. I thought that once you had completed the ninth stage of Blood Qi you would be able to enter directly."
Ling Xu thought as he had just entered the sect and barely knew anything about it.
"Now that I have introduced myself let me show you the complete form of the Three Purities Sword. Try to learn from it as much as you can as this will be the only time I show you."
Elder Wen took a wooden sword that was available in the training grounds to practice and then started displaying his sword technique.
He first started with the three basic movements of the sword technique, showing precise control as he landed the sword in the same place in the air several times, not missing even once.
After a few seconds, the three basic stances started to connect one after the other and then they started to show different variations.
The elder then went above that and Ling Xu could only follow the appearance of the sword movement but he wasn't able to understand how it could be done as it was going too fast for him.
After a minute where he fully displayed the Three Purities Sword technique, elder Wen put the wooden sword where it was and asked the disciples to start practicing.
For the next two hours, Ling Xu didn't stop swinging his sword as he tried to slowly implement the precise control he observed from the elder.
It was extremely hard but it seemed to show some progress as he slowly felt that he was getting accustomed to swinging the sword.
"What is he doing? Did he never touch a sword before?" elder Wen observed Ling Xu during the whole lesson but didn't try to help him once.
He thought that if Ling Xu had only now begun training with the sword it must have been like those cases from the other years where new disciples enter the sect after barely making any effort outside.
This was also the reason why this year the entry requirements had increased so much compared to before, allowing only a fifth of the usual number of candidate disciples to enter the sect.
This was the case not only for the people of Lesser Crimson Town but for the rest of the subsidiary branches where the Formless Sword Sect selected disciples.
"Such a shame, for him to have reached the seventh stage of Blood Qi while barely putting any effort he must be very talented. How can the heavens give talent to someone who doesn't appreciate it?"
…
Unaware of the elder's thoughts, Ling Xu had returned to his room after the lesson ended and night came.
For the following hours, he refined his bones without stopping.
Making the subtle sound of a torrent, his blood qi flowed naturally through every part of his body as it slowly permeated the bones.
Afterwards, he went to sleep as he had been active the whole day and was very tired.
Ling Xu had woken up when the sun had just started to rise and trained for three consecutive hours in his sword technique, then he patrolled the border of the sect's array for eight hours and after another two hours of training in his sword in the elder's lesson he refined his body.
All this process took the last bit of mental energy Ling Xu had as he fell asleep right away.
…
Waking up once again, Ling Xu started training with the sword, trying to get completely accustomed to the sword movements.
After an hour of training, he found out that he wasn't the only on the training ground as more new disciples had woken up early to train.
Still, only a few were awake at this hour.
Those who were didn't notice Ling Xu's lacking technique as they hadn't mastered their own sword techniques they trained with before entering the sect till great success like Xiao Lao.
Afterwards Ling Xu saw his junior brother appear as they greeted each other and he continued with his training.
[Name]: Ling Xu
[Realm]: 7th stage of Blood Qi (60%)
[Cultivation]: Basic Blood Circulation (perfection), Existence Shadow Will (27,1%)
[Techniques]: Three Purities Sword (entry 8%), Blood Thread Transformation (completed)
Training for several hours like yesterday, Ling Xu would only stop to eat one of the energy grains he was given in the patrol center.
He realized very fast that if one wanted to survive being an unofficial disciple, it was impossible if he didn't complete the daily task.
After completing yesterday's turn, Ling Xu was given in the patrol center enough energy grains to sustain himself for a week.
These energy grains were very special as they were very small but were capable of giving enough energy to sustain the body of a Blood Qi cultivator for several hours.
But if he didn't complete yesterday's task, he wouldn't have gotten the energy grains and would have to starve for another day after entering the sect.
But now that he thought about it, Ling Xu realized that he could also cook the beasts he hunted in the forest while completing his task as he didn't need the points from its corpse.
He was very eager to do so as two whole days had already passed since he had eaten anything that could satisfy him.