Awakening the Divine Spark

"Sigh ... fortunately it’s only for three days." Shu Ying said, looking around in slight desperation.

If they hadn’t come here to do the manual labor, it could actually turn into a fun vacation. But now thousands of disciples spread out in the vast valley between two mountain ranges only to pick one type of plant. In fact, it was the most common herb in the Scorchveil world – the blazebloom grass.

"I still don’t understand why we can’t use sickles or scythes." Ling Xiaotao pouted, "I’m not even allowed to use my sword!"

"Senior Sister Hu clearly explained – the roots are more valuable than leaves. So just suck it up and use your hands." Shu Ying said, but her tone was sad and not patronizing, and it seemed that she was saying it more to herself rather than to her young friend.

"I strongly suggest you cover your faces with something." Lee said, "We can’t see any active volcanoes, but the three magma rivers flowing down the eastern slope indicate the air isn’t clean enough to breathe."

"Smartass! Rivers – shmivers! The air stinks! I can tell it with my eyes closed!" Ling Xiaotao angrily said, but followed his advice, and tied the fancy scarf that was around her neck the way Lee suggested.

Before the departure, the three girls – Ling Xiaotao, Shu Ying and Qin Yujian, found Lee and Xiao Lian, and suggested that this time they would form a group of five. For this mission everyone was going to receive a set amount of contribution points, thus they decided to use the time to have some fun.

Clearly the two awkwardly behaving youths who couldn’t look at each other, but strangely enough stayed at arm’s reach, had another reason, but the rest knowingly ignored the fact.

Despite the heat, bad visibility, the air thick with the stench of sulfur, and the painful job, Xiao Lian was having the time of his life. His sweetheart, just like him, was picking blazebloom grass beside him, and their throbbing hearts allowed them to ignore the itch and pain caused by contact with the native plants.

The other two girls, similar to thousands of outer disciples, lived their worse nightmare, though.

They had obviously put a thought in preparation, and looked all fresh and pretty, and their skirts were elegant to say the least. But the moment they stepped through the rift, everything changed.

Because of the heat, everyone was covered in sweat in an instant, and the ash particles in the air immediately dirtied disciples from head to toe. It didn’t matter if they were outer disciples or proud elemental masters, everyone looked like a bum.

And while inner disciples were overseeing the job, making sure the peasants were safe, the outer disciples were the ones to suffer. Their palms were blistering, itchy and painful at the same time. The eyes were watering from the dirty air, and almost everyone cursed their elders for sending them here.

But the discontent was only superficial. Everyone knew they had to put in some work, because the sacks that were rapidly filled with blazebloom grass were the key to cure the sectmaster’s poisoning.

No one knew the exact method Elder Jiu, the head of the Healing Hall, intended to use. But judging by the environment of Scorchveil world, one could easily guess that the key was the fire elemental particles within the plants.

The Healing Hall disciples theorized that the sect master most likely would be soaked in blazebloom essence baths. That would allow his spark to reverse the corroding effect of the poison, and, maybe, purify it as well.

In the end it didn’t matter. The process of picking herbs became more excruciating the longer they worked, and seeing the agony the girls were in, Lee sighed and took off his gloves.

He passed one to Ling Xiaotao and the other to Shy Ying. Neither stood in ceremony and immediately wore them, inwardly cursing Lee for not thinking of it earlier.

Lee, of course, didn’t care that much about the discomfort. Firstly because the pain caused by this job was laughable, and secondly – he would be fully healed the next morning.

He did suggest Xiao Lian craft a pair of mittens for Qin Yujian, and while they turned out crude, she proudly wore them as if they were sewn with golden threads and encrusted with diamonds. Despite being primitive, he laid the inner side with leather and was pleased to see that her beautiful hands were now safe.

Xiao Lian’s idea quickly spread through the lines of disciples, and pretty fast almost everyone was wearing some kind of hand protection. Later in the evening the Refinement Hall disciples began to show off their skills and sold newly made gloves for the price that could be compared to cheap artifacts.

And it was the evening when the inner disciples began to shine.

At first no one understood why every group of ten outer disciples got two elemental masters to protect them. The inner disciples lazed around, annoying the outer disciples with their uselessness and arrogance.

Many had robes that had been crafted by experts and could be considered artifacts, just like Lee’s gloves, and didn’t get dirty despite the unpleasant environment. As the result – like peacocks they stood behind outer disciples who were working their asses off, casually discussing their own thing.

But when the sun set, from the mountain slopes packs of dark red-scaled beasts began to rush down in the valley. They were in the size of a cow, but short legged and very nimble. And the dangerous part was – almost all of them had fire sparks that allowed to breathe scorching flames at their targets.

Lee had witnessed scourge forces hunt beasts before, but in comparison to the ones that attacked now they seemed like harmless kittens. With the exception of the monster whose earth spark was fed to him, of course. Apparently Lunax always carefully chose the worlds to invade taking the limited abilities of elemental warriors in consideration.

It was obvious that inner disciples were bored after doing nothing the whole day, and went all out from the start.

Myriad of flashy skills bloomed around the campsite that was in a size of a large town, but Lee’s eyes were focused on one person.

Victoria, similar to hundreds of inner disciples, was also assigned with the duty to protect her juniors. Her signature phoenix attack was more flashy than ever, but this time it wasn’t as deadly.

Native beasts had natural protection against the fire element and couldn’t be killed that easily. Of course, cultivators had their weapons and beasts were doomed to lose from the start, but that didn’t mean there weren’t human casualties.

While no one died, many got ugly burns and even open wounds from claw attacks. The Healing Hall’s disciples took care of that, also showing off their skills, but those were appreciated only by the injured. Outer disciples watched with undisguised envy how elemental masters showed off and dreamed to one day their level.

Once again Lee was forced to recognize the difference between his puny strength and the abilities of an elemental master. But he had an inkling that he could kill one with a properly timed attack, using the elemental burst he and Xiao Lian were practicing.

He watched Victoria fight and tried to visualize how it would work, when a sudden attack from below threw her off her feet. Along with another inner disciple, she was currently fighting three beasts, and the moment she fell, one of the beasts smacked her with its tail and another breathed the fire on her.

Lee’s eyes widened in disbelief. For a split moment he couldn’t decide whether he should thank the beasts for killing her of be angry at them. But then Victoria did a couple evasive rolls and jumped to her feet, her hair disheveled, and face dirty, and furious.

"Some are underground!" Her partner called out a warning that allowed few disciples to escape Victoria’s embarrassment, but it set the spectator crowd that consisted of outer disciples in panic.

Fortunately there were not that many beasts underground, and the ones who were, were quickly killed off. After starting to pay attention to the ground, the inner disciples noticed it sometimes slightly bulging out, and it was only matter of a quick stab to neutralize the beast below.

Outer disciples watched the event for the first half of the night, until the beasts stopped coming and the remaining ones fell back. With time going by they realized that their seniors were never in true danger and cheered for them, and even made bets.

Meanwhile Lee was lost, and even depressed. The attack that Victoria took head on was almost twice as powerful compared to what he was capable off. But all the damage she took was to her pride.

He needed a new plan.