18. Must make money…? Or not. Yeah, let’s not.

After Wen Zhihao sent the studious Sun Fuyu back to the sect, Wen Zhihao went back to the forest with the excuse that he wanted to continue to cultivate in nature.

That trip to the town, the fact that Sun Fuyu didn’t have a spatial ring...it started to gnaw at Wen Zhihao.

He didn’t have money.

Wen Zhihao was the kind of person who read webnovels—which was why he understood what had happened when he first transmigrated. Unfortunately, from memory, people who transmigrated to Ancient China-like settings typically gained money and power from either food (cooking well), medicine, or were transmigrated directly into the imperial palace. While those who transmigrated into cultivation settings either made highly sought-after magical treasures or were—you know—extremely great cultivators who basically had money and treasures thrown at them before, during, and after dangerous missions, or money was simply not something of worry to them.

Wen Zhihao could not do any of those things, and Wen Zhihao worried.

A tight anxiousness clawed up Wen Zhihao’s throat. He needed to make money! He needed to find someone to work for, or be a private business owner. He needed money so that—

—Wait.

He didn’t need to do all those things. Money? He was living quite well already! Power? Comes responsibility!!

He simply needed enough money to be able to buy some good food and random trinkets in town for Sun Fuyu. He simply needed enough spiritual stones to help Sun Fuyu buy a spatial ring (and maybe buy himself some more soft blankets for Important Sleeping reasons).

For the mortal money, Wen Zhihao had already decided to work as a delivery man and make those small lights.

As for spiritual stones, he thought back to the memory of the original ‘Wen Zhihao’. There were a number of ways that spiritual stones could be obtained. Firstly, he could make them. Except the original didn’t know how, and who was he kidding, he wasn’t a genius with bucket loads of qi to spare.

Secondly, there were tasks and missions that cultivators could do, both for their sects and other sects, that were paid in spiritual stones.

There were a lot of “defeat the demon”, “eradicate the ghost”, “deal with the rumours of hopping zombies” type missions, which Wen Zhihao immediately dismissed. Instead, he thought about the “collect” type missions and the “help” type missions.

Collect rare herbs, rare ingredients, rare rocks and items.

Help a senior cultivator prepare basic materials, act as their assistant, be at their beck and call.

Since Wen Zhihao was in the forest...those collect missions would be best. There had to be a lot of spiritual herbs around here!

And there was that special hot spring from a while ago. That water felt especially good, it probably had some sweet properties.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard Wen Zhihao looked (which wasn’t that hard), he couldn’t find the hot spring anymore.

Maybe it’s a moving hot spring. Wen Zhihao had seen such moving bodies of spiritual water in supernatural stories in his life on earth.

Which led Wen Zhihao back to his original thought of collecting herbs. Unfortunately, the original ‘Wen Zhihao’ was not only bad at physical sword cultivation, but was also a mediocre theoretical student, so any memories about herbs was extremely vague, and there was neither phone nor internet to search anything on...

Ah, forget it. He might head to the Missions Hall instead...

...well, later, after having a nap first.

*

Zhang Wu seethed all the way to the training ground. He soon spotted the junior disciple Sun Fuyu flying quickly over.

Wait...aren’t those two friends? The morning training hadn’t yet started, so Zhang Wu called Sun Fuyu over.

“Sun-shidi, do you know where Wen-shidi is?”

Sun Fuyu blinked. “Wen-shixiong returned to secluded cultivation in nature…” he said softly.

“He—secluded—arrgg!” Zhang Wu pulled back his temper. It wasn’t Sun Fuyu’s fault.

“Zhang-shixiong, I have a request.”

“What is it?” Zhang Wu said shortly.

Sun Fuyu took out some jade slips. “Requesting Zhang-shixiong to determine their authenticity.”

Zhang Wu did so, since he certainly did not want any of his charges to go down the wrong path. He quickly checked the jade slips, and there was a proper marker that showed that these jade slips were made, refined and validated by the Sword Cultivation Hall in the sect.

“These are standard sword manuals,” Zhang Wu said, passing them back. “You can acquire identical ones from the Sword Cultivation Hall. This is very good that you have finally bought them, they will help in your cultivation.”

Sun Fuyu bowed. “Thank you, Zhang-shixiong. I will work hard.”

“Very good. Get into line.”

Zhang Wu crossed his arms and huffed. If only that slacker Wen Zhihao was as dedicated as Sun Fuyu!

*

Later, after having a nap, Wen Zhihao returned to the Golden Sun Sect, once again passing those three senior cultivators with the heavy qi auras. Wen Zhihao smiled politely at them as their swords passed by each other.

...Next time, let’s go to a different part of the forest.

Wen Zhihao found the Mission Hall and went inside. In the Mission Hall, a number of inner sect disciples sat behind low tables with round glass balls in front of them. Using these balls, they would display tasks requested by other cultivators and by mortals.

“Good afternoon, Fellow Daoist,” Wen Zhihao greeted one of the admin disciples.

The male cultivator glanced at him, eyes bored. “What type of mission are you looking for?”

“Collecting herbs, please.”

After a moment, the male cultivator droned, “Cultivator An is looking for two leaves of the Z plant, Cultivator Bai is looking for five grams of the Y plant…”

Wen Zhihao stared at the floating text, without pictures, in a daze. He didn’t recognise the name of the plants at all, they just sounded miscellaneous to his ears.

“Which task do you want?”

Wen Zhihao smiled sheepishly. “One second thought, is there any cultivator or mortal needing someone to carry things for them?”

The male cultivator clearly thought Wen Zhihao was stupid. “Senior cultivators have spatial rings, junior. If you don’t want a mission, stop wasting my time!”

Wen Zhihao cringed. “I wouldn’t have to waste your time if there was a public notice board with the missions listed,” he muttered under his breath. In a louder voice, he apologised to the male cultivator and left.

Ach, forget that too!

In fact, outer sect disciples had a small allowance of spiritual stones each month. As long as he didn’t spend any of it, he could save them up.

But that didn’t mean that could completely shake off his failure. And he wasn’t in the mood to try and earn mortal money either.

Instead, he jumped on his sword and flew out a different direction instead.

Sun Fuyu carefully holds the sword cultivation jade slips, deeply touched...If he knew that Zhang Wu was cursing Wen Zhihao, it’s unknown what would happen to Zhang Wu….