Chapter 60: Missions

Long Tao returned to his room and into the crimson lord world. The exploits this time were quite profitable. He got 6000 middle-grade spirit stones from Lin Zhong. Given his expenditure levels, these would last him until he reaches the advanced level of Qi master. He couldn't wait to start the training. The avatar of Long Tao that was newly formed had already broken through the Qi master realm. It was shocking to see how efficient one would become given they have the experience of higher realms of cultivation. Long Tao now had to think of the new distribution system of the avatars. He had six clones allocated in the different academies and powers including the military. Now he had 5 clones remaining. Of these 5 avatars, 2 were already allocated. These were the skill set and the fighting experience with a puppet. The remaining 3 Long Tao wanted to concentrate totally on cultivation. So, he decided upon the pathway. He had three pathways to follow and he decided to allocate the three to these 3 different pathways. The first one was going to cultivate the Qi realm. The second was going to cultivate the body and the third one was going to cultivate the soul.

Long Tao decided that soul training will be divided into three parts. One would be cultivating using the Heavenly pestle. The second part will be practicing the soul replenishing art, and the third would be the usage part of the soul. Long Tao decided that Heavenly pestle was to be given a lot of time because it was the slowest and the most torturous cultivation technique he was practicing. The Soul replenishing art also had volume but he couldn't open them. Long Tao came upon the fact that it might not be because of his realm, but because he didn't master the easiest volume yet. So, he was going to give time for that. He needed to uncover the second volume fast. The next part was the soul control art and the soul manifestation art. Long Tao decided to increase his efficiency in these two because they were the offensive soul arts he was practicing. Long Tao needed to increase his soul offensiveness in addition to the manifestation he was able to produce by the soul Qi. The soul spike was the first manifestation. There was the soul sword, the soul scythe, and finally, the soul is. The soul being would mark the optimum level of the soul manifestation art.

As per the body cultivation path, Long Tao decided that he would still continue with the opening of tertiary meridians. There were 108 tertiary meridians and these would result in the final completion of the meridian set opening of the body. Long Tao decided that he will majorly concentrate on the opening of meridians while he will also open some acupoint sin between. What he planned up for the future was to open around another acupoint while within the QI master realm. But he wanted to complete the total opening of the meridians. According to the ancient will's memory and manual of experience, he had managed to open around half of the tertiary meridians and around 60 acupoints but was still nearly killed by the drop of blood of a true dragon. He told Long Tao that unless he reaches at least his level, he was not to try the thing out. Upon consulting with the keeper, his ideas came up to be true. The blood of a true dragon was something very precious according to the keeper. Also, each drop of blood holds immense power, and hence, it also warned Long Tao about the precautions he needs to take before starting the cultivation. Long Tao has decided that he would open all the tertiary meridians and as per the number of acupoints, it will be the number he manages to achieve, by the time he reaches the Qi General peak. So, meridians were the primary goals for now and the second avatar had already retired to the training grounds for beginning the practice of opening. With the practice of the Weapon tempering art, it was much easier for Long Tao to open up his meridians with the help of the intents of the life-weapon he created. All the cultivation art that Long Tao practiced was somehow interrelated.

The last part was Qi training. He had three arts to cultivate and he currently didn't have the resources to practice the blood tempering formula. He had to wait till he goes to the missions to gather a lot of level 3 beasts for cultivation. Until Then Long Tao decided to cultivate the Hell more solid art and the Crimson world scripture of Qi master to their best possible levels. He decided to break his time equally. He knew that the Crimson world scripture is going to advance the fastest, but he still decided to give it an equal time period. Now the most important work to do was to raise his cultivation by leaps and bounds. He decided that he will have to at least break-through the intermediate Qi master level by the time he returns back to the camp. He had allocated two months for this training and they were going to complete missions while also training in these months. Long Tao, as said before wanted to control these regions and it required absolute strength. He wanted to raise a group of followers and who better than the Black-buck squad. Long Tao had long decided upon the missions they were going to complete. When he informed the mission hall about it, they were scared shitless. Long Tao had basically applied for a ton of missions. On average each member would have to complete three missions to complete the whole set and he had asked for just two months. If successfully completed, the Black-buck squad may rise up to be the number one squad. That was exactly what Long Tao had in mind.

Currently, in the military infirmary, a group of people was standing beside an injured person lying on the bed. This person was none other than Lin Zhong. The group standing beside him had an old man standing in the middle. This was none other than Lin Zhong's father and one of the vice-generals of the North-eastern military, Lin Bao. He had bloodshot eyes when he saw the current condition of his son, but he couldn't do anything about it. There was another vice-general who as involved as a backer for Long Tao and he was stronger than him. He could only manipulate the scene from the shadows. "What is your opinion about Long Tao?". Lin Hao stepped forward and said" according to me, that man is not only strong but extremely ruthless. I suppose uncle has already received the reports of what he did to the spies we have sent into the squad. None of them were left with an intact body and their severed head was delivered to the groups they originally belonged to. Also, all the lieutenants were nearly crippled and lost a lot of their cultivation. We can't have disciplinary action taken on him, because he must have proof that we were the ones who attacked first and he was the singular opponent who took down a group of people who were of much higher-level cultivation than him. This would not only demote our reputation in the military but most probably would result in action taken on our group. Also, he most probably is as strong if not stronger than me. If you would ask me, I would request you not make an enemy out of him.". Lin Bao listened silently and he understood the logic behind Lin Hao's words. But how could he let go of the person who nearly killed his son? "What is the news regarding him as of now?". "He has taken a set of missions from the mission hall. What I come to understand from my contacts, he had allotted himself an impossible time frame to complete it. He had taken around 50 missions and asked for 2 months to complete all the missions. We would have an opportunity to get him when he returns after failing in completing those missions." Lin Bao agreed. He was under heavy scrutiny by that person, and he would allow anything to happen to Long Tao. But if he could show how reckless Long Tao was, he could bring him under punishment in the disciplinary hall and as the manager of it, he would have the perfect opportunity to exact his revenge at that

Long Tao completed his planning and once again ordered for all the members to gather. "This is a briefing before the commencement of the 2 months of mission training. I have undertaken 50 missions and each one of you is to complete a total 3 missions on average to be able to complete it. The aim of this session of training is that I will be allocating all of you an equal amount of resources before leaving for the mission. Each one of you has to break-through three more levels of cultivation before we return while simultaneously completing the mission which I will assign. The criteria are the same as before. Those who dare to take my resources and are not able to complete the task I give them are going to be executed. I will be true to my words as I have already proved to many of you in the recent set of events.". Each of the members was given a storage ring." We will be proceeding together and you will be separating at the time I will ask you to. The rings contain the allocated resources and the mission slip you have been assigned. The resources are enough for you to cultivate up to the intermediate Qi master realm at least. On successful completion, another space ring will be assigned to you which will hold the rewards that will help you in your cultivation further. Now the mission is divided into three groups. The first one is the resource collection. The second is scouting and the third set id ambushing and killing. Each one of you has been assigned a collection and scouting mission, while collective ambush missions are assigned. All the ambush mission will be carried out by the whole group. I will be supervising all the groups and how you conduct yourself in these two months. I want the squad to achieve the top ranking by the time we return back to the camp. Also, you are to improve your team skills. Failure will not be tolerated."

After the briefing about the mission, the group was given half a day time to prepare. The next day the whole Black-buck squad went out together towards the enemy borders. Each one of them was nervous. Not because of the enemy but because of the tyrannical vice-leader of theirs who would kill them for sure should they fail. This was a race against time