The previous strength of twenty people had reduced to twelve after the gruesome incident.

Three mercenaries had died, and the rest were either passengers who fell victim to the bandit's cruelty or died resisting them.

Luckily, out of the three drivers, no one had died. However, one of them was in no state to drive a wagon.

For the next three days, they remained in the camp to recover somewhat from their injuries, and only then did they set out again.

During the third day, Yi Chen was approached by Leader Han late at night.

"Leader Han? What brings you here?" Yi Chen asked curiously when he saw the person who was standing outside his tent.

"There's something I wanted to give you and also something I wanted to discuss. Can I come in?" Leader Han asked.

"Yes, of course," Yi Chen nodded and gestured for him to come inside.

After entering the tent, Leader Han scratched the back of his head and said, "This is your portion of the money we could gather from those bandits. There are other items as well. When we arrive in the city, I'll sell them and give you the rest of the share,"

Leader Han said while passing a pouch filled with metallic objects and currency notes.

Seeing the item in his hand and also noticing the hesitation in Leader Han's voice, Yi Chen was able to figure out what was going on in his mind.

With a smile, he said, "You can keep it, Leader Han."

"No, you misunderstand, it's not like I want to ke-"

Before he could complete his words, he was stopped by Yi Chen.

"I didn't misunderstand Leader Han. I know that you'll distribute this money among all the aggrieved families of this incident." Yi Chen said with a confident expression.

In the few days he had observed Leader Han, he stood out as someone who thought about others before himself.

That was also why he ended up becoming the leader of the mercenary group.

"Thank you, Yi Chen. I was too embarrassed to bring this matter to you, so I'm very grateful that you understood it without me saying it, haha!"

Elder Han said while laughing in an embarrassed manner.

"You really don't need to be," Yi Chen replied with a sincere smile, "It should be me and others who should be thankful to you for going the extra mile to help others."

After that short exchange, they discussed how they were going to set out tomorrow morning and the likely dangers they might face. It was only after that that Leader Han left Yi Chen's tent.

With a smile on his face, Yi Chen exhaled deeply the next moment to cleanse his mind of all other distracting thoughts. The next moment, he sat down cross-legged and began his cultivation.

Time passed, and the sun was soon up in the sky. There was a lot of hustle and bustle in the campsite as it was finally time to start moving.

Everyone soon boarded the wagons, and the journey that had been paused briefly began again.

This time, because of the lack of manpower, Yi Chen boarded the first wagon to keep an eye on the road ahead.

It was also the wagon Brother Xiang and Sister Ling were in, so during his free times he had a good chat with them.

His schedule returned to what it was before.

Sleeping, eating and cultivating with an addition of keeping guard while travelling during daytime and also at times performing night watches.

While this affected his cultivation speed, it was a necessary sacrifice for the overall safety of the group.

Time passed slowly, and it took them a lot more days to reach their destination than was initially planned. On the evening of the fourteenth day, they arrived in Liu City.

A journey which was initially supposed to just take 10 days

However, no one complained. They were just glad that they were able to arrive here alive.

"I wish you good luck in starting a new life, Brother Xiang, Sister Ling." Yi Chen smiled at the couple whose eyes were filled with gratefulness towards him.

"Thanks a lot, Brother Chen. In the future, if you visit Liu City again, be sure to visit us! We'll definitely prepare a huge banquet for you," Brother Xiang said cheerfully.

Hearing his words, Sister Ling also nodded and said, while feigning anger, "Indeed, Brother Chen, I would be very angry if you didn't visit us at that time and just went your way."

"Haha, alright, I'll definitely visit if the chance comes. I can't afford to make Sister Ling angry now, can I?"

Yi Chen asked in an amused tone, and the next moment all three of them shared a great laugh.

"Goodbye, Brother Chen,"

A while later, the couple waved their hands towards Yi Chen and left towards one of their relatives' places.

As for Yi Chen, he first went towards the market area to get some delicious food before finding an inn to spend the night in Liu City.

Inside the Inn.

"Nothing beats a warm bath late at night!" Yi Chen exclaimed in delight as he lay on the bed to relax for a few minutes.

In the last fourteen days, he had only bathed four times at most.

'Just thinking of bathing in that cold morning river water sends a shiver down my spine,' he thought to himself while looking back on the last fourteen days before picking himself up.

It was time to eat the dinner he had packed an hour ago.

After his stomach was filled, Yi Chen took out a piece of paper from his backpack.

It was something Zheng Ru had prepared for him. In it were all the names of the cities he would need to go through to reach the Jade City.

"Let's see…" he traced his fingers across all the cities starting from his next destination, which was Ming City.

"That would be about twelve cities that I still need to go through," Yi Chen nodded to himself.

After placing the paper aside, he soon sat on the bed in a cross-legged position.

It was time to cultivate.

Yi Chen called out his cultivation panel just to observe the little growth he had in the last few days.

====Elementary Transformation Stage===

Level: Seventh

Qi Points: 292 / 360

Godly Qi Points: 0 / 160

Progress: 292 / 520

===============================

This panel had also experienced a little change when the experience system was activated.

Yi Chen glanced at his 292 opened Qi points. In the last fourteen days, he was able to open 45 Qi points.

While it was quite a lot compared to his normal rate of 28 Qi points per month, it still was quite low when his 10x buff was taken into account.

Despite this, Yi Chen wasn't much concerned about this. With him no longer needing to act as a guard, he was sure that within the next fifteen days, he would be able to open all 360 Qi points.

What caused him to worry instead were the Godly Qi points. When he had noticed the name for the first time, he couldn't help but feel awe.

But that was it, as the name didn't answer the questions he had in his mind.

He still had no idea about where these God Qi Points were located inside his body and how to go about opening them.

"Whatever, I'll just think about them after I've opened all the 360 Qi points,"

With this thought, he immediately closed his eyes and started breathing erratically to push open the 293rd Qi point.

Night passed uneventfully, and the next morning Yi Chen had left towards the City's Wagon Depot.

After haggling a suitable price with the wagon driver, he sat on the wagon, which was leaving for Ming City.

It was a comparatively shorter journey and would take only three days to complete.

Sitting comfortably in his seat, he waited for all the other passengers to board, and soon the band of wagons departed from Liu City towards their destination, Ming City.

Seeing this, Yi Chen yawned and was about to close his eyes to rest for a while when the system shook his drowsiness away.

Ding! Assigning First Mission based on Host's analysis….

======= Mission ========

Task: Earn 500 EXP

Time Period: 45 days

Reward: Know-how on unlocking God Qi Points

Failure Penalty: Path to Godhood forever blocked.

Current Progress: 0 / 500 EXP

======== End ==========

'This…'

Yi Chen had almost forgotten about this, but seeing that he would finally be able to earn more experience points, he was naturally elated.

However, his mood didn't stay like that for long as his eyes fell upon the task which he needed to do.

'Earn 500 EXP??? Wasn't I supposed to earn EXP from doing missions in the first place...'

Although the notification a few days back had told him that there are many other ways to earn experience points as well, he was in no position to slowly discover them by hit and trial method at this point.

Taking all this into account, how could Yi Chen not understand that the system was indirectly telling him to take care of all the bandits he was to find along the way?

He gritted his teeth at this thought as his eyes fell upon the failure penalty of the task.

Knowing the name of his system, he knew that if he failed to complete this mission, then in all likelihood his system would disappear as well.

After quite a few minutes had passed, he exhaled deeply.

His gaze became firm the next moment as he thought to himself.

'Fine! I'll do it.'

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