Awakening the Divine Spark-Chapter 119: New plan.

Xiao Lian looked at Lee in disbelief, but then realized the guy arrived to the sect only two days ago.

"The reason Gong Niely wanted your assignment is to use the senior brother’s cultivation room. That’s why everyone in the outer sect fights for that kind of jobs." Xiao Lian explained, "Inner disciples don’t usually let others in their homes, but if they do – it’s only a favor to their relatives or friends."

"Cultivation room?" Lee was confused.

"Yes, the one you used during the past two days." Xiao Lian nodded, but Lee could only awkwardly scratch the back of his head. He did meditate, but did this either in the living room or in the yard.

"And I would suggest you listen to few of the lectures the senior brothers and sisters hold before you get in more trouble. I understand you come from a different world, but here ... well, you’ll see." Xiao Lian said, "And then there’s another problem. During the upcoming days I won’t be able to get you back home – I picked up a new mission and will have to leave the sect. Probably the best thing you could do is to hire someone ... but you don’t have contribution points ..."

"How exactly do the contribution points work?" Lee asked.

"You ..." With how fluent Lee’s speech was, Xiao Lian kept forgetting Lee was a newcomer, "Basically with everything you do in the sect, odd jobs, taking missions, even betting in the arena – you can earn contribution points. They get registered in your token, but if you haven’t sensed the elemental energy yet, junior elders can do that for you. Inner sect’s disciples also can do it, but we ... "

He looked at Lee and sighed, "Anyway, you can exchange contribution points for cultivation and combat techniques in the Hall of Knowledge. We, of course, do everything we can to get our hands on the best cultivation techniques so we can ignite our sparks as soon as possible, because only then we are considered to be cultivators."

"Alright, what did you mean by betting?" Lee asked.

The word bet immediately peaked his attention, because if there were bets involved, one could manipulate their outcome. In other words – scam people.

"Usually people bet in the arena." Xiao Lian said, "Even our senior brothers bet on themselves, but those fights are not very common. Not counting tournaments, of course. The elders, from what I understand, bet on everything, but they have endless amount of contribution points compared to us so ..."

"Can I bet on someone else?" Lee asked.

"Sure, but you don’t have any contribution points, right?" Xiao Lian didn’t like where this was going.

"I’m just wandering." Lee said, "How many contribution points do I need for a cultivation technique?"

"It depends. They range from ten thousand to hundreds of thousands depending on your elemental affinity, talent and other factors. The combat techniques are similar, but I don’t know much about those, because before I ignite a spark, I’m not wasting my time fantasizing about useless things. That’s the advice every elder will give to you too."

’Interesting ...’ Lee thought to himself, ’Lunax basically adapted this system to motivate his followers, but here ... this is a treasure trove!’

"Can I borrow a couple of points?" Lee asked, "I need to hire someone to get me back home after the fight today."

Xiao Lian looked at him with suspicion, "You’re not going to gamble, are you?"

"No!" Lee said, "We’ll talk about that when you return."

He was already making plans, but needed his new friend’s assistance to properly rig a boxing match. Besides, even though yesterday he noticed the punch that knocked him out, he wasn’t certain he could avoid it today, at least not yet.

In addition, for a proper scam one needed the corresponding numbers of audience, but for now Lee couldn’t arrange it.

He didn’t intend to slave his life away, trying to earn laughable amounts of contribution points, and what Xiao Lian said next, only strengthened this resolve. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

"I have only a little over two thousand points. Please don’t waste the three I’ll give you." Then he stretched out his hand, and Lee guessed he intended to transfer the contribution points to his token.

After giving token to Xiao Lian, Lee saw his and Xiao Lian’s tokens slightly glow, and then he got his back.

"See? It’s easy. But you have to sense the elemental energy first." Xiao Lian said.

"Can elemental warriors do that?" Lee asked.

Since he already had a spark from a beast, it was impossible to become an elemental master in this life, to not speak of becoming an elemental lord. But he was not going to waste it and intended to accumulate as much knowledge as he could, to start the next life with incredible advantage.

Only now he understood why Potato was so strong and could ignite his own spark at the age of five. It also explained why the guy was so arrogant and allowed himself to badmouth Lunax.

"Sure." Xiao Lian said, "They have elemental energy from the beast spark. But please don’t think about getting one. It’s not worth no matter how you look at it. Even if you turn out to lack the talent to ignite a spark, you can live a good life in the outer sect as you are ... just stop looking for trouble ..."

"Thank you!" Lee said.

It was obvious Xiao Lian was genuinely worried for him, but it was more likely the guy sooner or later would get in trouble himself because of his good heart. Naive people already had hard time surviving in a normal world, but in the sect full of cultivators with godly strength they basically were stepping stones in the eyes of others.

Lee wasn’t the one who forgot favors, though. But to repay this particular one he first had to put himself into yjr proper position. And for that he needed either strength or wealth. But preferably both.

After saying goodbyes, Lee rushed to the inner sect and this time he inspected one of the villas more carefully. For a change he picked the one belonging to Chi Yanzhen.

Besides the living room and bedroom, there were a couple more rooms, but also a place he previously considered to be an empty closet. It was tiny, at most forty square feet, and had no windows. The air inside was still, but dense, and carried the smell of sandalwood incense.

There was no furniture, and walls were void of any pictures or drawings. And only a simple meditation mat on the floor indicated the room was used for something.

Without a second thought, Lee sat on the mat, and closed his eyes.

At first he didn’t feel any difference between meditating here or in the living room. But as he focused on the sparks in his abdomen, he realized he was sitting in a complete silence. He couldn’t hear birds chirping, nor the wind blow outside. The place was constructed in a similar fashion to how Lance Newman’s ritual building was built in Sunwell, except this was much smaller.

’Ok, so there is a cool room for meditation.’ Lee thought to himself, ’Is it worth the hustle?’

After spending the next half of the day there, Lee had to agree it was. It had never been so easy to guide the elemental particles, and the sparks seemed brighter than usual as well. Lee could even swear he felt some kind of intimacy when focusing on them, especially the water spark.

The results were interesting, but required more testing. Therefore he dropped the exercise after noon, went to have lunch and then for a stroll afterwards.

With how intense the last few days were, he hadn’t had the time to get familiar with the sect and its rules. And while becoming Xie Wuking’s punching bag was a calculated risk, he didn’t intend to make mistakes he couldn’t recover from.

The first thing he wanted to do was to follow Xiao Lian’s suggestion to listen to a senior’s lecture.