Cultivating Through The Game-Chapter 502 - 294: Unexpected Reward

The attendant holding a chair stood on the high stage, somewhat at a loss, his mind quickly turning as he pondered a solution.

Perhaps Lu Jingfeng wouldn’t care about this petty matter, but as his subordinates, they had to take these things into consideration.

Lu Yu noticed the attendant’s conflicted and distressed expression and offered, "Give it to me."

The attendant snapped back to reality upon hearing the voice and hurriedly handed the chair to Lu Yu, showing a grateful expression.

Lu Yu placed the chair behind Su Peng and sat in the second row, keeping a low profile and not showing his face on the stage.

Lu Jingfeng saw Lu Yu sit down and recognized him; he had a deep impression of Lu Yu. When they resolved the Heaven Poison Centipede Demon Lair last time, it was thanks to Lu Yu.

Other returning individuals said that, apparently, Lu Yu was the one responsible for resolving the demon lair this time too.

With two monumental merits, it’s hard for Lu Jingfeng not to remember, although he was somewhat troubled, unsure of what reward to give Lu Yu.

If the reward he offered was too low in value, wouldn’t that make him seem stingy? Lu Yu had rendered extraordinary service to Beifeng City, and yet, he’s only rewarded with such a paltry prize.

But for higher value items, he also didn’t know what would be appropriate to offer as a reward.

Suddenly, he thought of the wall of fire he saw when returning to Beifeng City from the Black Mist, and had an idea. Since Lu Yu cultivated fire spiritual power, giving him that should be very fitting.

With the ongoing competition, Lu Jingfeng was not in a rush to give Lu Yu his reward right away.

Instead, Lu Yu had no thoughts about any rewards at all. Because of the two incidents, he participated solely because he had accepted the missions, and the mission reward was the best reward for him.

Lu Yu thought about the demon lair destroyed by Zhou Chisheng upon being lifted into the sky, feeling a bit regretful as he hadn’t obtained any Seed of Demons from it.

Only through Su Peng did Lu Yu learn that the demon lair did not contain just one Seed of Demons; super-sized demon lairs generally had multiple Seeds of Demons.

For example, according to Su Peng’s experience, there should be 2-3 Seeds of Demons in the thousand-meter giant lair that appeared in Beifeng City.

However, in contrast, the larger the demon lair, the harder it is to destroy, and once destroyed, it becomes much more difficult to find the Seeds of Demons.

After all, when Seeds of Demons don’t appear in sight, they possess no aura at all, and for players skilled in using perception to find things, they are invisible objects.

In a massive thousand-meter-high demon lair, searching for 2-3 roughly palm-sized invisible objects is obviously as difficult as fishing for a needle in a pond.

Lu Yu quietly observed the busy crowd below and asked curiously, "How do you select qualified people? In a competition, doesn’t it just become a matter of who’s stronger? It doesn’t seem directly related to qualifications."

Su Peng glanced at the scene below, smiled, and said, "It’s quite simple. Actually, during their drawing of lots, their qualifications were roughly tested, and then we manually arranged and sorted the numbers to eliminate those without passing qualifications."

"In the end, the arena only has those who are qualified left. Let them determine the winner; anyway, the final result won’t differ too much," Su Peng said indifferently.

To him, the outcome wouldn’t differ greatly, but to those competitors, such rules were undoubtedly unfair.

But that’s how things were: who gets eliminated when the competition starts was already decided in advance.

"What if, I mean if, someone unqualified relies on their own strength to earn a spot, then what?" Lu Yu asked.

Su Peng shrugged and said, "Then let them go. But do you genuinely believe someone can achieve that?"

"Even if one’s strength is high, if they face strong opponents in every match, they’re bound to fail eventually. The chance of such an occurrence is very small," Su Peng revealed yet another behind-the-scenes detail.

Lu Yu noticed the expressions of those around him; the attendants and guards showed no expression, appearing deaf to the conversation. Others seemed completely indifferent.

There was no reaction to Su Peng’s words, as if everyone was already accustomed to it.

"Really shady," Lu Yu murmured.

"Haha~" Yang Jiawei, hearing Lu Yu’s sigh, chuckled twice and glanced at Lu Yu, saying, "For them, this is already very fair; at least they are given a chance. Whether they can seize it depends on them."

"’Shady’ would mean not giving any chance at all. Can you believe many participants actually know about this, but they still enter for that chance?"

"If it was truly shady, would you still be sitting here? You’d already be locked away in a dungeon," Yang Jiawei said, expressionless.

Lu Yu understood what he meant; he never assumed that just because they were on the same side, he wasn’t an enemy.

Yang Jiawei was merely temporarily constrained by the surrounding circumstances, unable to act against him directly; if given the chance, he certainly wouldn’t miss it, as Lu Yu was undoubtedly the culprit responsible for his son’s death.

Though there wasn’t evidence, did murder require evidence?

Lu Yu also grasped his point: Yang Jiawei meant that if his Yang family was "truly shady", various forged evidences would have landed Lu Yu in jail long ago.

Actually, this wasn’t related to whether his Yang family was shady; Yang’s reason for not daring to handle Lu Yu like that was nothing more than the fact that Lu Yu had the Divine Weapon Pavilion behind him.

While he dared to stealthily attack Lu Yu in secret and kill him, he absolutely didn’t dare to let this incident blow up; otherwise, it’d mean confronting the Divine Weapon Pavilion.

The colossal entity that is the Divine Weapon Pavilion could obliterate countless Yang families with just a breath, something the Yang family couldn’t afford to provoke.

Provoking a disciple of the Divine Weapon Pavilion and provoking the Divine Weapon Pavilion itself are entirely different concepts; the Pavilion adopts a laissez-faire approach to its disciples unless they have sponsorship, otherwise they face a high risk of being beaten secretly.

Some people even specifically like to target the disciples of the Divine Weapon Pavilion, especially those without any backing.

As long as things don’t get exposed and don’t attract the attention of the Divine Weapon Pavilion, nothing much will happen.

The Divine Weapon Pavilion wouldn’t make a big deal out of one or two missing disciples, unless that disciple had backing in the Pavilion, maybe a certain elder who valued him and would seek revenge, actively investigating the truth.

But according to what the Yang family knew, Lu Yu hadn’t joined under any elder following the master-disciple ceremony and had always been cultivating on his own.

It can’t be blamed on the Yang family’s information lagging behind, as Lu Yu’s master, Li Qiuyang, is too much of a recluse, rarely active, not going to Heaven-Breaking City to preach or teach, and hasn’t taken in any new disciples recently.

So, apart from Li Qiuyang’s friends and Lu Yu’s fellow juniors, no one else is aware that Lu Yu has taken Li Qiuyang as his master.

The Yang family’s intelligence network can’t infiltrate the elders of the Divine Weapon Pavilion; they can only gather information from ordinary disciples, checking which elders have taken in disciples and which ones.

Beep beep beep~ Lu Yu heard the system prompt, opened his friend list, and found that Su Peng had sent him a message.

Su Peng: "Doesn’t that Yang guy have a grudge against you? He seems to have quite an opinion about you. Want me to deal with him?"

Lu Yu read the message and replied, "No need, I’ll handle it."

Su Peng: "Okay, if you need anything, find me. If I’m not around, look for Jing Yang." 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

The two talked in the chat channel about whether to deal with Yang Jiawei, completely unbeknownst to Yang Jiawei, after all, Lu Yu and Su Peng weren’t using spiritual power voice transmission, leaving no power fluctuations.

Yet Yang Jiawei inexplicably felt a chill behind him, a fleeting coldness, worrying if he was being eroded by demonic qi?

The competition ended amid their idle chatter, as midday approached, the referee notified the three who got the spots to gather at the City Lord’s Mansion at 3 PM.

Su Peng, Jing Yang, and others headed towards the Celestial Immortal Guest Inn, as this banquet was hosted by Lu Jingfeng to reward those who contributed in resisting the demons.

However, since the Celestial Immortal Guest is managed by the Ling family, it eventually turned into the Ling family’s treat, though it didn’t matter who hosted, Lu Yu was just tagging along for a meal.

The meal was lavish, but Lu Yu didn’t enjoy it much, as everyone continued chatting during the banquet, leaving few actually eating.

Lu Yu didn’t care about others’ looks, just eating and drinking as he pleased, though the awkward atmosphere at the table gradually dulled his appetite.

"You still don’t like getting involved in these things, as always," Su Peng remarked, watching Lu Yu sitting quietly eating without talking.

"There’s nothing worth mentioning," Lu Yu said plainly.

Lu Yu regretted coming to the celebration banquet, with people constantly toasting Su Peng and Zhang Jingyang, trying to curry favor, even dragging Lu Yu into handling the coming guests.

Among them were all Core Formation Realm individuals, with Lu Yu being the only one at the Qi Sea Realm, even though many knew Lu Yu had performed meritorious service in the battle against demons.

Still, when seeing his cultivation level, they subconsciously assumed Lu Yu earned his place here because of his associations with Su Peng and Jing Yang.

Indeed, everyone here was at the Core Formation Realm, why did he, a Qi Sea Realm, deserve a seat? Just for making significant contributions?

Moreover, his perfunctory attitude when they toasted him didn’t convey any respect Lu Yu presumably should have felt towards his seniors, gradually making the atmosphere at the table turn strange.

Lu Jingfeng noticed the change in atmosphere and promptly stood up, saying: "In this battle, we owed a chance created at a critical moment by Lu Yu; otherwise, the outcome would have been uncertain."

"Of course, with the arrival of the two emissaries, Beifeng City was sure to secure the final victory."

"To express gratitude for the significant contributions made in the battle and inspire those to come, I, as the City Lord of Beifeng City, present an award to Lu Yu from Beifeng City."

Lu Yu was slightly dumbfounded after hearing this, wondering why he suddenly received an award.

Seeing Lu Jingfeng coming over, he quickly stood up, as Lu Jingfeng pulled out an iron-crafted box from his Storage Ring.

"Here, this is your reward," Lu Jingfeng said, handing the box to Lu Yu.

Lu Yu took the box with both hands, resisted the urge to open it immediately, said "Thank you," and tucked the box into his backpack.

Clap clap clap~ Su Peng and Jing Yang led the applause, followed by the others, instantly dispelling the awkward atmosphere in the room, making Lu Yu slightly embarrassed, feeling like he was receiving a schoolchild’s award.

Thump~ Lu Yu returned to his room, closed the door, eagerly taking out the box to see what reward Lu Jingfeng had given him.

As soon as the box opened, a blast of heat poured from the opening, noticeably raising the room’s temperature by five or six degrees.

An irregularly shaped, black, warm-to-the-touch stone lay inside the box, and when Lu Yu saw the contents, he froze on the spot.

Touching the scorching black stone, Lu Yu couldn’t believe Lu Jingfeng had actually given him a piece of solar remains as a reward.

Lu Yu felt slightly speechless, sensing a touch of serendipity in his acquisition of the solar remains, yet he still felt pleased.

The solar remains, unlike the Immortal Heart, didn’t specify what abilities would be gained if refined into a divine soldier; perhaps this highlighted the difference between system-created items and natural spiritual objects.