Devouring Soul Emperor

"Hmm, let me see... Huh? Mission 127! *That* mission!"

The Great Xia Dragon Guard in charge of tallying missions had been casually leafing through the scroll, but when he opened it and saw the mission written inside, he was stunned. He couldn’t help but cry out in shock.

This mission had been around for many years, but no one had ever been able to complete it. As a result, its difficulty level had been raised time and time again. Naturally, the reward had increased right along with it.

Placing this mission among the assessments was purely a product of their twisted sense of humor. They wanted to create an impossible task just to mess with the Examiners.

But he never expected that someone would actually come to turn it in.

Hearing that someone had completed Mission 127, many other Great Xia Dragon Guards rushed over to see just who could have accomplished such a task.

"This kid? A Fifth-level Martial Artist? You’ve got to be kidding me."

"I heard several Lord Guardians at the Small Spirit Realm have attempted that mission, but none of them succeeded. That Flower Thief is just too slippery."

"*Ahem*, I’ll let you in on a secret, but don’t spread it around. I heard a Grand Commander from the Earth Spirit Realm took that mission last year and still failed. After that, they raised the mission’s level again."

A crowd of Great Xia Dragon Guards muttered amongst themselves, discussing everything they knew about the mission.

Even a few Guard Captains walked over, silently observing the scene.

"You’re Chu Qingyun, right? Are you certain you killed Ma Zhiyong? If you just grabbed a random stand-in and we find out, the consequences will be severe," the Great Xia Dragon Guard in charge of the mission said, his expression grim.

A few people had tried that before, unable to complete their missions and attempting to fool them with fabricated evidence. Without exception, they were all found out, had their assessment qualifications revoked, and were even stripped of their Great Xia Martial Orders.

Chu Qingyun smiled. "I’m sure. This is Ma Zhiyong’s head, and these are a few items from his person that should be able to prove his identity. I brought them all."

’Of course I’m sure,’ Chu Qingyun thought. ’I devoured Ma Zhiyong’s Martial Soul myself. How could it possibly be a fake?’

The Great Xia Dragon Guard had been hunting Ma Zhiyong for many years. Although they had never caught him, they had gathered many clues during that time.

Based on his appearance and some of his personal effects, they could indeed determine that the man Chu Qingyun killed was, in fact, Ma Zhiyong.

But this mission was a major affair. So, after the first man finished his inspection, he had two other Great Xia Dragon Guards responsible for mission processing check it as well.

The three of them spent more than ten minutes examining the evidence. Afterward, they exchanged glances and nodded silently.

All the evidence indicated that these items did indeed belong to Ma Zhiyong. The mission that no one had ever been able to complete had been finished by an Examiner who was only a Fifth-level Martial Artist!

After the confirmation, the surrounding Great Xia Dragon Guards were all stunned.

How could he have completed a mission that even a Grand Commander from the Earth Spirit Realm couldn’t!?

Facing the countless shocked and questioning stares, Chu Qingyun gave a wry smile and cupped his hands. "Sirs, Ma Zhiyong’s own strength was quite average—he was just an ordinary seventh-level Martial Artist. He was, however, extremely cunning and hid himself very well, which is how he managed to evade capture time and time again. This time, I just got lucky."

’That wasn’t entirely a lie,’ he mused. ’If the people from the Martial Soul Hall hadn’t interfered and made a mess of things, I really wouldn’t have been able to find Ma Zhiyong.’

However, everyone present was the elite of the elite. Few of them believed that Chu Qingyun could have completed the mission on luck alone.

Luck? Perhaps that was a factor, but it was more likely just a convenient excuse on Chu Qingyun’s part.

However, since Chu Qingyun didn’t explicitly state how he found Ma Zhiyong, they weren’t about to press him for details. After all, everyone had their own secrets. The Great Xia Dragon Guards cared about the result, not the process.

At that moment, among all the Examiners on the training grounds—

"Chu Qingyun, do you have any idea what level this mission is?" the Great Xia Dragon Guard in charge of missions asked with a smile.

"I would be grateful if you could explain, Sir," Chu Qingyun said, neither servile nor overbearing.

"The Great Xia Dragon Guards’ missions are graded according to the target’s strength and the mission’s overall difficulty. Missions for targets below a ninth-level Martial Artist are called Low-Level missions. The reward for those is only a few dozen Military Merits."

"Missions involving a Half-Step Martial Spirit are categorized as Middle-Level missions. The minimum reward is one hundred Military Merits, with more difficult ones being worth several hundred."

"Above that, the missions are numbered. A Level 1 mission corresponds to a first-level Martial Spirit, a Level 2 mission corresponds to a second-level Martial Spirit, and so on."

"This mission of yours originally started as a Low-Level mission. But since no one could complete it, we re-evaluated its difficulty and promoted it to Middle-Level. Still, no one could finish it. This went on for several years, and now... this mission has been upgraded to a Level 2 mission!"

"In other words, by completing this mission, you have earned... two thousand Military Merits!"

Two thousand Military Merits!

That was dozens of times the reward for a Low-Level mission!

On the surface, the reward for a mission corresponding to a second-level Martial Spirit was only about ten times—or even less—than that of a mission for a Half-Step Martial Spirit.

But one had to understand that completing a mission wasn’t as simple as an enemy standing there waiting to be killed. Completing a task often required a huge investment of time and effort, and the energy spent in combat was often not the most significant part.

Therefore, an expert at the second-level Martial Spirit realm would much rather take on a single Level 2 mission than ten Middle-Level missions. The latter was simply too draining in terms of time and energy.

Two thousand Military Merits. Not only were the other Examiners stunned, but even the surrounding Great Xia Dragon Guards—including their Guard Captains—were starting to look on with envy.

Two thousand Military Merits! To these ordinary Great Xia Dragon Guards, who could typically only accept Low-Level missions, it was an absolutely enormous fortune.

Military Merits were constantly being spent, so many of the Great Xia Dragon Guards had never possessed such a large amount at one time.

Immediately, Chu Qingyun felt a series of burning gazes lock onto him.

Watched by the envious eyes of a large crowd of Great Xia Dragon Guards, which even included ninth-level Guard Captains, Chu Qingyun felt the pressure mounting. A cold sweat slowly began to bead on his forehead.

Before he could even recover from his pleasant surprise, Chu Qingyun was already feeling the heat from these Military Merits.

If it were two hundred Military Merits, he could have walked away with them safely. But with two thousand... these Great Xia Dragon Guards were starting to get ideas.