Eris and Mylene weren’t the only ones interested in opening a store, although Aster’s level as a rune master or an alchemist wasn’t high to enough to outstand, leaving aside the “elixir” he could create using his own blood of course, but that was perfectly okay for him, since his current main focus was to reach the Mortal Transcending realm and find the rest of the materials Rya needed.
Aster already chose to be a spirit blacksmith, not only because in the group Eris and Mylene already filled the place of alchemist and rune master, not to mention Camila who was also walking on the rune mastering path.
He had to become a spirit blacksmith because his equipment had to be created by himself, due to annihilation properties, and Aster turned out to be quite skilled on it, while he wasn’t a master yet, he was now able to create Mortal Transcending treasures of the highest quality, like the clothes he was wearing and the new swords he prepared for his life at the sect, thanks to Rigel’s flames as well as his blood.
“Now that you mention it, opening a store isn’t a bad idea, since we cover the four main occupations of the sect anyway”, said Aster as he rubbed his chin.
Agnes didn’t know what to say, normally those who join the battle peak are only good with their fists, since dividing their attention in two different occupations often tends to make them regular or mediocre in both.
Aster already made a plan thanks to Eris and Mylene’s idea, but for that he first needed to become recognized, not only as a troublemaker but as someone strong.
Without saying anything, he flew towards the mission hall, and the girls followed him not too long after.
Once they arrived Aster directed directly to the third floor and looked at the different tasks displayed on the board.
By the rules of the sect, the missions who have resulted in disciples dying have to be marked with the number of deaths involved as well as increasing the reward, do it didn’t take Aster too much to find the hardest mission he could accept given the current number of points of contribution he had.
[Rank A mission of extermination: The dry bone bandits destroyed an outpost of the alchemist peak, stole the materials and killed or kidnapped the ones in charge, the mission is to eliminate every single one of them (believed to be around five thousand cultivators whose realms go from the Stellar Constellation to the Star Tribulation realm, as well as five Mortal Transcending realm vice leaders and a Sea of Knowledge leader)]
[Details: They were last seen fleeing to the Tellaria star cluster (while on the mission, the sect will cover the cost of the space gates)]
[Reward: Ten million low grade spirit jades and one hundred thousand points of contribution (must bring back their tokes of identity or their heads to receive the reward), besides that, there is an extra reward from the inner elder Helena of the Green Lotus faction]
Aster saw there was a small skull symbol encircling a number 8 at the bottom of the description, meaning this mission has already killed eight disciples, that being said it didn’t say who were they nor if they were inner or core disciples.
According to Agnes, under normal circumstances rank A missions are the limit for inner disciples, and the start for core disciples.
The woman in the counter saw Aster paying attention to the mission that has been giving her a headache, the payment assigned was quite high if it was done by a group of four or less, the problem is that even the last group of six didn’t return, meaning they weren’t enough to complete the mission.
Since the reward wasn’t high enough for the regular teams which consist in ten or so disciples, then it has been neglected and, in a month, or so, an executor from the sect will be given the task instead, meaning the mission hall will have to pay a penalty.
“That mission started as a B ranked task, and was updated after the third attempt where the Sea of Knowledge cultivator appeared…”.
Originally, she thought Aster was working for a new core disciple, until she saw the winged sword emblem ring on his left index finger.
The elder who was explaining Aster the mission was suddenly hit by a realization, she was seeing the first ever male core disciple about whom everyone was speaking for different reasons.
Aster turned to see the elder who suddenly stopped speaking, it was a tall woman with a slim figure and long dirty blond hair, her cultivation was high enough to be an inner elder, reaching the early-stage Genesis Manifestation realm, she seemed to be rather young but she has yet to start cultivating in a second path, so it was to be expected.
“Is there a penalty if I’m unable to find these guys?”, he asked.
The reason as to why he was going to accept this mission, is because he didn’t have enough contribution points to access more difficult ones, so this was a mere stepping stone to achieve what he wanted, but it required searching for the target and that could be counterproductive.
The woman shook her head as she pointed at the description of the mission.
“When the mission has a penalty, it will always be added to the description, normally extermination type missions don’t have a penalty… because failing on it often means death”.
Aster thought he elder was mocking him, until he saw her honest and curious expression, which reminded him about how the other disciples were gossiping about him, for them he was some kind of magical creature, most were curious about him instead of against him, or at least that seemed to be the case so far.
He pointed his ring towards the paper of the mission, and after five seconds of it, a small light flew from the board and was absorbed by the ring before the serial number “A36543” appeared on one of the blank spaces of the ring.
The seal of the mission at the bottom of the paper also disappeared, meaning the mission was taken and could not be accepted by anyone else for the time being.
“Thanks for the explanation…”.
Aster hadn’t finished speaking when the woman interrupted him.
“Angela, my name is Angela… only the law enforcers and supreme elders are in a position to be called formally by a Lord of a valley”, said the woman as she fidgeted her fingers.
Aster nodded, and then walked away not without saying.
“Thanks for the information”.
He then went downstairs where the girls were supposed to be looking at the other type of missions available, miscellaneous and the escort ones, but none of them got their attention so they were now chatting with each other.
Even Aster who had more than half a million contribution points thanks to his performance at the third trial, could only find this mission who wasn’t up to his liking and was the hardest one available for him, so of course the ones Alice, Aria, Tiana, Kana and Erick could accept were even more non-challenging and were left there for newly ascended core disciples.
Lilia’s pretty nose wrinkled a couple of times and she disappeared from where she was standing, appearing behind her son as she whispered.
“You smell like another girl’s perfume darling; did you perhaps make a new “friend” up at the third floor?”.
Aster chuckled and then showed his mother his winged emblem ring which now had a mission registered.
“I’m the one with the highest number of contribution points, and this is the hardest mission available for me, the rewards will be equally split but the contribution points will be kept by me, who wants to come?”.
“Me!”, basically all the ones present raised their hands, Aster wasn’t surprised to see Felicia participating since she swore to be his sword, but he thought Eris and Mylene wouldn’t want to come since they wanted to open the store.
Noticing Aster looking at them, Eris shrugged.
“Fighting is a good way to help our bodies get used to cultivate again”.
“We also want to contribute, and it will be positive for the store too”, added Mylene.
Erick then smacked Aster’s right shoulder as he laughed.
“We’ll be bothering you as well, brother hahaha”.
Aster turned to see his mother, originally, he planned to only bring Sarina and Camila, since they were more than enough to deal with any Sea of Knowledge cultivator, no if he was honest, he considered them strong to deal with even Genesis Manifestation cultivators, considering they had their respective constitutions too.
But seeing her pretty long eyelashes fluttering while she hugged him from behind, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her to stay behind.
‘Now that I think about it, those flames Sarina used were incredibly effective against those idiots who were occupying the border station back at Rodia’, thought Aster remembering those ash-red flames.
“Well, I guess our store will be a family business then”, mumbled Aster, Eris and Mylene would be in charge of the alchemy and rune mastering, he will be the spirit blacksmith and Lilia and the girls will be in charge of the missions, of course he will always participate with them, but they won’t all go every time.
“I’ll tag along too if you don’t mind, you aren’t the type to leave something left from your opponents, and with me as a witness you’ll be able to claim the reward even without any physical evidence~”.
Agnes who saw she was being left out, smiled before she offered herself to accompany them.
Aster had no complains about her tagging along, there were no flaws in her words, especially because he knew Alice and Aria would most likely compete with each other and simply erase the bandits left and right.
“Mm?”, Aster felt someone tugging on his right sleeve and he turned around just to see Kana looking at him with her big eyes.
“Can we continue with my training during this mission big brother?”.
Aster smiled and patted Kana’s head as her answered.
“Of course, but this will be a field lesson so you must be prepared for it okay”.
“Mm”, Kana nodded while she enjoyed Aster’s caresses, now that she had learned to fight, there was still one lesson she had left… how to kill, and while she was reluctant at the beginning, after seeing all the people that went after her big brother’s life just because he was outstanding, she somehow felt angry at them.
‘I want to become strong like sister Alice and sister Aria soon, so that I can fight side by side with him’, thought Kana.
The news soon spread, the first ever male core disciple had accepted a mission and it was one that had already costed some lives, so now the public attention fell on him just like Aster wanted, although not all the attention was positive, Aster didn’t care, he was about to raise a wave so big that no one in the stellar system would be able to stop it.