Chapter 8: Missions 1

(2nd moon, 18th day, 460 Lu)

Alphonse stretched as he broke out of his meditative state. 'Prism, have you compiled all of the information about electrical theory from my memory?' Alphonse asked.

{Affirmative; are there any other bits of information you would like me to compile?} Prism asked. Alphonse thought for a moment.

'Compile a list of board games and their rules.' Alphonse said.

{Okay; ETA, one hour.} Prism responded.

'Thanks.' Alphonse said as he stood up. Alphonse heard a knock as he walked over to the scroll which details his cultivation method. "Who is it?" Alphonse asked with a raised voice.

"The only one who visits you other than your mom!" Sarah responded.

"Come in." Alphonse responded. Sarah opened the door and quickly walked inside.

"What is your cultivation stage?" Sarah asked.

"Mind enhancement, first step, I just reached it yesterday." Alphonse responded.

"I thought I sensed your strength become significantly stronger! At this rate, it won't be long before you surpass my cultivation level!" Sarah said. "Oh! By the way, they lowered the required cultivation level for attending missions!" Sarah said excitedly. Alphonse flinched a bit.

'Why does she have so much energy? I can barely get myself to wake up half the time.' Alphonse thought to himself.

{Answer: You only sleep once every 2-6 weeks.} Prism responded.

'Forgot about that...' Alphonse thought to himself in response. "Missions?" Alphonse asked. Sarah nodded.

"I suppose you weren't told since you always avoid people..." Sarah said as she went into thought. "Well, missions are things you can do to help out the sect, you gain reliability points by completing them. The amount of points awarded depends on the quest and its difficulty." Sarah explained.

"Oh, that sounds handy..." Alphonse said.

"It is! The more reliability points you have, the higher-ranked missions you can do! That is... Unless the mission requires a certain cultivation level... But other than that, so long as the reliability points are there, you can do any mission! Another reward is Cowry! It's currency!" Sarah said hyperactively.

"So, basically, it functions similarly to a guild in anime?" Alphonse asked.

"Well... I never actually watched much anime in my past life, so I wouldn't know..." Sarah responded.

"Games?" Alphonse asked. Sarah smiled, then nodded. "Well, at least you used electronics for something other than youtube and tv..." Alphonse said. "The missions sound useful though... But... Would I be able to do them?" Alphonse asked.

"Yes! They lowered the required cultivation to mind enhancement, even people in the first step of mind enhancement can do them!" Sarah stated.

"Okay..." Alphonse said as he went into thought.

"So... Will you take a mission with me? We won't be subjugating anything, it's just collection missions for us." Sarah said.

"Sure... But, why did they lower the required cultivation level?" Alphonse asked.

"Oh... Something about needing all hands on deck to acquire materials for the sect war..." Sarah said, though she seemed to have not wanted to mention that.

"I see... Since most of our cultivators who can actually fight are going to be fighting in the war, they need us lower-tier cultivators to support them. This is a wartime dynamic..." Alphonse thought to himself aloud.

"I-I see..." Sarah said, pretending to have understood what Alphonse was talking about. "Well, let's go get a mission then!" Sarah said excitedly.

"Wait." Alphonse said monotonously. "Are we prepared?" He asked.

"What do you mean?" Sarah asked.

"No matter how close we are to the city, we could be attacked, or we may get trapped in a sinkhole, or maybe one of us falls in a cave, in any of those cases we should be prepared, right?" Alphonse asked.

"But those are unlikely occurrences, I'm sure we'll be fine without detailed preparations." Sarah responded.

"Nothing detailed, we just need to make sure we both have enough food to last more than two days, just in case." Alphonse said.

"Oh, so nothing major, just making sure we have food!" Sarah said.

"Yes... Though having some form of weapon wouldn't hurt either..." Alphonse mumbled.

"What was that?" Sarah asked.

"Ah, nothing. I was just thinking aloud..." Alphonse said as he walked over to his shelves. He grabbed a small sack then walked back to Sarah. "This should be enough for me." Alphonse said. Sarah shook her head.

"No! You need more, especially since you're a cultivator that isn't reliant on spiritual ki for maintaining your body!" Sarah said.

"It's fine, this is enough to sustain me." Alphonse said.

"It doesn't matter what kind of eating habits you have from when you were little!" Sarah said with a slight grumble in her voice. "You know what!?" She asked with a hyper tone.

"What...?" Alphonse asked hesitantly.

"I'll make a lunch for both of us, this way I can make sure you eat enough!" Sarah said. Alphonse's eyes widened as his shock became apparent, though his facial expression didn't change much.

"A-are you sure about that? That'll just eat up time before we can do a mission..." Alphonse said.

"Yes, I'm sure! It's still early morning and it'll only take me an hour at most!" Sarah said in response.

"O-okay..." Alphonse said, unable to find any logical flaws in her argument.

...

"And, done!" Sarah said. "I've been practicing the bread recipe I got from Min Li for a while and made a few loaves earlier, so I managed to make some sandwiches with some meat I bought from the market earlier in the week!" Sarah said with excitement as she put sandwiches in a woven picnic basket.

"Did you also happen to make the basket?" Alphonse asked. Sarah nodded.

"How did you know?" She asked.

"Ancient China shouldn't have picnic baskets..." Alphonse said lightly with a slight sigh.

"O-oh..." Sarah said with a slight amount of surprise in her expression.

"Alright, let's go find a mission..." Alphonse said. Sarah started leading the way as Alphonse followed her.

"Okay." She said lightly.