From what he remembered last time he had gone to exchange battle credit, the five legions had an Execution List just like the Wildlands did. Taking the heads of some of the people on that list came with hefty rewards.
“Now that I’m a colonel, I have lots of powerful experts under my command. I refuse to believe that I can’t earn some battle credit with their help!” It didn’t take Bai Xiaochun very long to reach the central district, and the base of the tower, where quite a group of cultivators was gathered. When they caught sight of him, they gave him solemn nods of greeting.
Bai Xiaochun looked up at the eye at the top of the tower, then pulled out his identity medallion and sent some spiritual sense into it to begin browsing the Execution List. The first thing that jumped out to him was the first name on the list.
As soon as he saw it, his eyes went wide.
“Mistress Red-Dust!”
Mistress Red-Dust’s information was clearly listed there in first place on the list. She had a Deva Realm cultivation base, and was a ruthless fighter who was cold and cruel to the bone. In fact, there was even a reminder that, because she was a deva, it was best to avoid her at all costs.
The number of cultivators she had killed since she made her debut was shocking to behold, including many Nascent Soul cultivators.
Most shocking of all was that she hadn’t even been practicing cultivation for 200 years!
To become a deva so quickly seemed almost impossible to Bai Xiaochun, especially considering how impoverished the Wildlands were. There was no energy of heaven and earth there, only soul power. And yet, despite being in those conditions, this Mistress Red-Dust had managed to set a heaven-defying pace in her cultivation.
“I remember Mistress Red-Dust....” Bai Xiaochun murmured. As soon as he focused on her name, a picture appeared in his mind. It depicted a young woman, more beautiful than Chen Manyao, wearing red garments that accentuated her good looks, and yet made her seem very dangerous. Her murderous aura was shocking to the extreme, even though it was just a picture.
Bai Xiaochun remembered seeing her in the flesh during the battle outside the Great Wall. She had been in the middle of fighting Chen Hetian when she had actually made a move to try to kill Bai Xiaochun....
Of course, anyone who looked at Mistress Red-Dust’s name on the list would see the same image Bai Xiaochun was seeing.
She was a spectacular figure, who had a reward on her head so high that it was astonishing to behold. Anyone who killed her would be promoted to general!
If there were no generals who needed to be replaced, then a new legion would be created! That was a reward that surpassed even Bai Xiaochun’s ideal of becoming a major general. As soon as he saw that reward, his eyes burned with passion and envy. However, it also caused him to purse his lips.
“So stupid! The only person who could take that shrew out is a deva, and why would a deva want to be a general in the army?” Bai Xiaochun shook his head. If he was good enough to take out a deva, then he wouldn’t be sitting around at the Great Wall. He would definitely be back in the River-Defying Sect already. Besides, when it came to devas, they weren’t the type of people he would ever be willing to offend.
Sighing, he went on to look at the second name on the list, which also belonged to a deva, who went by the Daoist name Wakening Insects. The number of merit points offered up for his death was shocking, to say the least.
Astonished, Bai Xiaochun continued to go down the list. Soon, he began to frown as he realized that all the names in the top 30 were those of Nascent Soul stage necromancers. Although some of the names at the bottom of the list were Core Formation cultivators, the battle credit reward for them wasn’t very high. After a few calculations, Bai Xiaochun found that he would have to kill everyone from 30th place all the way down into the 200’s to earn enough battle credit to become a major general.
“What am I supposed to do, then...?” he thought, sighing. Obviously, he had to give up on the idea of killing people on the Execution List. It was simply too dangerous of an undertaking. However, the thought of the honor, glory, and benefits that came with being a major general were something he just couldn’t give up on. There had to be a way to get more battle credit.
“What a headache!” he thought. “How am I supposed to pull something like this off when the only thing I’m good at is concocting pills?
“Wait a second. That’s not right. There is something I'm good at!” Stopping in place, he thought back to his time hanging out with Zhao Tianjiao, and how he had called himself a love saint. Suddenly, his heart began to pound.
Looking back at the Execution List, he blinked a few times, feeling a bit torn.
“Don’t tell me that in order to become a major general, I’m going to have to rely on my sex appeal to seduce Mistress Red-Dust...?” The mere thought left him grieving in indignation. That was especially true considering that she was so much older than him. Although she was pretty, who knew what kind of eccentricities she had? The more he thought about it, the more that plan seemed like a huge sacrifice.
“Not worth it...” he thought, feeling more crestfallen than ever. With that, he abandoned the idea.
--
Quick note about Mistress Red-Dust’s name. First of all, this is a Daoist name, not her real name. That fact is not confirmed until later in the novel, but it seems pretty obvious from the get-go. It’s a hard name to pin down how to translate. There are different ways to interpret it, but I’m going with the way the term is used in Buddhist philosophy. The “red dust” is a metaphor referring to the world of mortals or human society. In terms of why she would have such a name, there is no explanation provided at this point, so you will have to contemplate that on your own.
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Chapter
509: My Own Mission
“Could it be that the heavens are jealous of me, Bai Xiaochun? Have I been doomed to never become a major general?!” Feeling overwhelmed by sorrow, he clasped his hands behind his back and looked up into the sky. After a long moment, he sighed and turned to leave the pagoda.
However, in that very moment, one of the cultivators nearby opened his bag of holding and produced a collection of vengeful souls. Bags of holding couldn't be used to hold vengeful souls for long periods of time, and in fact, these souls were already starting to grow dim. As soon as they flew out into the open, a gravitational force sprang out from the huge eye.
In the briefest of moments, the souls were sucked up, which seemed to enliven the huge eye.
Bai Xiaochun suddenly stopped in place, his eyes growing wide. Clearly, after turning in all of the vengeful souls, the cultivator from just now had been given some battle credit. Instantly, Bai Xiaochun’s spirits lifted.
Eyes shining brightly, he slapped his eyes.
“Of course! How could I have forgotten? You can turn in souls to get battle credit.... In fact, as long as you keep turning in souls, your battle credit will continue to climb.”
However, only a moment after getting excited, he suddenly felt even more down than before. “That won't work either....” After all, there wasn’t very much fighting going on lately, which meant that there were very few souls on the battlefield. He was extremely adept at taking care of souls, but had nowhere to exercise his talents. Sighing, he trudged away.
After returning to his command center, he sat there in frustration, mulling the matter over from different angles. In the end, he could only think of one solution. If he wanted to get more souls, he would need to leave the Great Wall and go out into the Wildlands to search for them himself.