Chapter 4080 — The North Island Expert Rankings

A big merchant house with deep capital like the Hong Commerce, when it lacked some item, would usually just post a bounty to buy it, but that approach did not suit the small traders whose capital was thin.

They generally recruited a few hands of their own to form trial squads. Besides gathering goods for themselves, such squads could also earn spirit jade through bounty missions—small capital, two gains in one stroke. Yet this approach was highly uncertain, and their supply of goods was often insufficient, so they were doomed to remain small merchant houses.

Passing through the noisy, bustling main hall that felt like a vegetable market, Wei Zhao went straight to a room on one side. It bore a sign: this was the dedicated registration point.

In truth, if Wei Zhao had come solely for the Life-Form Mushroom, he need not have come to the North Island Cultivators' Guild at all; he could have tried to make his way directly to Mount Tianwu in Hucai. But in the end Wei Zhao decided to follow Hong Zhong's advice and come here to register and sign up.

Because once a mission was accepted here, one could obtain the corresponding intelligence directly from the Cultivators' Guild—route maps and every sort of caution and notice—which saved a great deal of tedious preparation. That was what Wei Zhao truly needed.

The registration process was not complicated. After Wei Zhao revealed his cultivation at the Foundation Establishment stage, he waited only a short moment, and soon it was smoothly approved, and he received a membership card of the Cultivators' Guild.

Of course, it was not given for free; it cost one hundred spirit jade.

Like the spirit jade card, once one's signature true qi was input, it could identify and verify identity through a special micro formation array. It was something of a "technological product" unique to Cloud Tier Island; its reliability and security far surpassed similar products on Earth, so one hundred spirit jade could hardly be called expensive.

This membership card was not only the badge of Wei Zhao's membership in the North Island Cultivators' Guild; the bounty rewards from missions done in the future would all be paid directly onto this card, and like the spirit jade card, it could be used for spending at the major merchant houses under the Commerce Alliance.

And under the face Wei Zhao now wore, the name displayed on the membership card was "Ling Yi."

With the membership card done, Wei Zhao's next order of business was naturally to accept missions. The North Island Cultivators' Guild divided its missions into two areas: one for the Golden Core stage, one for the Foundation Establishment stage.

Gold Core members had private, elegant rooms, and missions were accepted within those rooms. Yet many Golden Core missions were posted by Triple Stack Pavilion, and the vast majority were taken internally by Triple Stack Pavilion disciples; rarely did anyone come here to accept missions, save for the very few powerful rogue cultivators.

As for the Foundation Establishment mission area, it was this very main hall Wei Zhao had just passed through, and the situation was the exact opposite of the Golden Core side—crowded and bustling, packed to bursting. All missions were written up as mission boards and hung on the great black board in the center; once a mission was completed it was removed, and those already accepted but not yet finished were ticked on the board to show they were in progress.

However, apart from the various bounty missions, Wei Zhao noticed another black board set alongside it, filled from top to bottom with names, which was likewise a focus of attention and discussion for everyone present.

"The North Island Expert Rankings?" Looking at the dark-gold characters at the very top, Wei Zhao could not help but feel a start. This ranking's tone was certainly grand—the North Island Cultivators' Guild claimed to encompass every cultivator on the North Island. Could those mysterious, unfathomable top experts all be on this ranking?

Wei Zhao thought that if that were truly so, then he really ought to study it carefully, and even commit it to memory, so that at least when he clashed with others in the future, he would have some idea of where he stood.

Yet the very first glance, full of anticipation as it was, made Wei Zhao immediately reject that possibility. The reason was simple: the many high-ranking figures of Triple Stack Pavilion did not appear on this ranking, nor did Gongyang Jun, nor even Shangguan Tianxia, Pavilion Master of Skyward Pavilion.

If one said Shangguan Tianxia was not the North Island's foremost expert, that was hardly strange; but to say Shangguan Tianxia could not even make this so-called North Island Expert Rankings—that was absurd.

After carefully reading the explanation beside the ranking, Wei Zhao finally understood. This so-called North Island Expert Rankings was in fact merely a gimmick. Strictly speaking, it could only be counted as a mission contribution ranking, not a ranking of strength, and moreover this ranking was limited to the Foundation Establishment realm; experts of Gold Core and above were not included.

In this North Island Cultivators' Guild, each bounty mission completed earned, besides the bounty reward, a corresponding score called mission contribution value. The more bounty missions completed, the higher the score, and the higher one's rank.

"Seen this way, this ranking isn't entirely without reference value after all." Wei Zhao pinched his chin thoughtfully.

Though it ranked by mission contribution value rather than a more intuitive assessment of strength, in this North Island Cultivators' Guild, which dealt mainly in bounty missions, one's mission completion rate could to a great extent reflect one's strength—at least at the Foundation Establishment level, it was fairly reliable.

Just then, it happened that a staff member of the Cultivators' Guild was updating the ranking. First place was still that same name, but the string of contribution value behind it had, remarkably, surged by a whole chunk.

"Whoa, Senior Brother Su Zhaohe is amazing! Only a few days since he last came, and his contribution value has shot up by so much again—past a hundred thousand already. That's just outrageous, absolutely monstrous!" A man dressed as a Skyward Pavilion disciple clicked his tongue in admiration, unable to hide the reverence and awe in his tone.

"Indeed, indeed. Second place is only a little over sixty thousand now—the gap is enormous, no contest at all! Across the entire history of the North Island Cultivators' Guild, I'd wager there are only a handful who ever broke the hundred-thousand mark!" The people around him sighed in praise as well.

At that, one of them boasted, "Hey, what do you lot know? Senior Brother Su is a genius cultivator the likes of which the North Island sees once in a thousand years. He's not even thirty, and already at the peak of Foundation Establishment. Word is he's begun preparing to form his core. At this rate, he'll surely be another legendary figure like the Pill God Zhang Lifeng!"

"If he's that formidable, then why is he still doing missions? Better to save all the energy he spends on missions and push for his core formation as soon as possible, isn't it?" someone wondered aloud.

"Let me finish before you cut in! I heard Senior Brother Su has caught the eye of Pavilion Master Shangguan of Skyward Pavilion, who means to take him as a personal disciple. So the more outstandingly he performs, the more the Pavilion Master values him!" R1152