The ten-person team quickly assembled, and after getting to know each other, Fang Yu suggested they needed someone to take charge.
Of course, he brought this up not because he wanted to be the leader himself, but to recommend Li Hanfeng.
Li Hanfeng: "?"
Wang Mingyue also joined in: "I also recommend Brother Hanfeng."
The girl who came with Wang Mingyue, Zhao Shuang'er, seemed to have a good relationship with Wang Mingyue, so she also agreed with this opinion.
However, Xie Qingfeng's friend Xie Wen had some objections: "We do need someone in charge, but we can't decide so carelessly."
Hearing this, Li Hanfeng immediately said: "I'm not suitable. How about someone else takes the role!"
He really felt being team leader would be troublesome.
But Xie Wen shook his head: "We don't know each other well, and a few days won't be enough to get familiar. So let's use the simplest method to determine the leader - cultivation level. Whoever has the highest cultivation becomes the leader."
He wasn't targeting Li Hanfeng or being defiant - he was purely thinking from the most beneficial perspective.
Everyone thought this made sense.
Fang Yu smiled and said: "That works. We can also learn about each other's cultivation levels to help with cooperation."
This time Xie Wen had no objections and was the first to reveal his cultivation: "I'm currently at the fourth layer of Qi Refining, skilled in Fireball technique and Small Spirit Shield."
With someone starting, everyone began sharing their cultivation levels one by one.
Wang Mingyue naturally didn't need to say much - fifth layer of Qi Refining, skilled in Spirit Sword technique and Mysterious Shield.
Among them, Fang Yu, Xie Qingfeng, and Chen Jianghe were all at the fourth layer of Qi Refining. Coincidentally, they were all skilled in Fireball technique - truly worthy of being a popular technique.
Zhao Shuang'er, Wu Jue, and Xie Chuan were at the third layer of Qi Refining.
Only Chen Yang was left at the second layer of Qi Refining - his spiritual roots weren't good, just lower-grade.
If his hometown wasn't close to the Shushan Sect and he could join the Shushan Sect, but had joined a small sect instead, three months probably wouldn't have been enough for him to even enter Qi Refining.
When sharing his cultivation level, he felt somewhat inferior and embarrassed.
Of course, everyone didn't show any strange looks.
In the path of cultivation, no one could predict the future.
Then, except for Fang Yu and Wang Mingyue, the other seven all looked at Li Hanfeng with curious eyes.
Fang Yu's cultivation wasn't low - anyone Fang Yu acknowledged must have decent cultivation too.
Since things had come to this point, Li Hanfeng naturally wouldn't hide anything: "I was fortunate enough to reach the sixth layer of Qi Refining, skilled in Spirit Severing Blade and Mysterious Shield."
"Sixth layer of Qi Refining?!" All seven showed surprised expressions.
They now had a basic understanding of cultivation and knew the gap between themselves and the sixth layer of Qi Refining, as well as what level it took to advance to the sixth layer in three months.
Xie Qingfeng and Chen Jianghe finally understood why Fang Yu talked about riding Li Hanfeng's coattails.
Sixth layer of Qi Refining was indeed enough to be their "big leg."
Xie Wen said: "That was unnecessary of me. Brother Li should naturally be the leader and become team captain."
"Brother?" Li Hanfeng looked at Xie Wen with some confusion. They were all peers and probationary disciples - where did this senior-junior relationship come from?
Xie Wen said very seriously: "According to Shushan Sect rules, among peers, the accomplished come first. Those with higher cultivation are senior brothers or sisters, though private forms of address are up to us."
Everyone looked at each other, not expecting Xie Wen to be so earnest about rules.
Did people really read that nearly three fingers thick rule book that was like a brick?
Seeing this, Xie Qingfeng explained from the side: "Please don't mind him - he's just that kind of serious person."
Li Hanfeng and the others weren't bothered anyway and quickly returned to discussing the assessment tasks, while also establishing two rules.
Of course, these rules were also Xie Wen's idea.
First, Li Hanfeng would be team captain, and the others needed to follow Li Hanfeng's orders when executing assessment tasks.
Second was a restriction on Li Hanfeng - if his orders were unreasonable, others could object, and ultimately the minority would follow the majority.
Although the rules weren't particularly rigorous, they could at least prevent the team from acting independently.
After settling this, everyone went back to make final preparations.
The next day, as dawn broke, the sect sent the assessment tasks to the probationary disciples' identity tokens.
[Assessment Task: A water demon is suspected to have appeared in the waters near Shuangxi Town, a thousand li northeast of the sect, threatening the townspeople and demanding human sacrifices. Proceed to Shuangxi Town to eliminate it. Time limit: one month.]
This was the task given by the sect.
The moment he received the task, text also appeared in Li Hanfeng's mind.
[Water demon rampages, poisoning the people, sect requests elimination]
[Accept task, receive Strong Karma "Demon Slaying Basics," can obtain reward of one wisp of "Innate Qi."]
[Reject task, no karmic entanglement, can obtain one Qi Refining Pill.]
"Strong Karma?"
He hadn't expected an assessment task to be [Strong Karma] - this karma level wasn't low at all.
"Is it because this matter relates to part of my future development?"
Karma levels were closely related to their impact on him. Thinking about it this way, the assessment task being Strong Karma wasn't surprising.
Over three months, having severed hundreds of karmic threads and obtained Qi Refining Pills, Li Hanfeng once again accepted karma.
"How could I possibly refuse this task?"
Unless he planned to leave the Shushan Sect for development elsewhere, but these three months had shown him what it meant to enjoy the shade of a great tree. He couldn't possibly make such a choice.
After making his decision, he quickly sensed a power appearing in his dantian.
Entering internal observation, he could see a wisp of mysterious spiritual qi emitting white light floating beside the spiritual qi mass representing his cultivation, quietly waiting to be refined.
"So this is Innate Qi? It doesn't seem much different from ordinary spiritual qi."
Of course, that couldn't possibly be true.
Ordinary spiritual qi couldn't compare to this wisp of Innate Qi.
If it were something else, Li Hanfeng might need to research its effects.
But having practiced Spirit Severing Blade, he clearly understood Innate Qi's function.
Spirit Severing Blade needed high-quality spiritual qi to show its effects, and the cultivation world naturally had plenty of treasures that could improve spiritual qi quality.
The Spirit Severing Blade manual in the Technique Pavilion had some comments introducing such treasures.
Innate Qi was one of them, and a relatively rare treasure at that.
Because Innate Qi could not only greatly improve spiritual qi quality but also enhance cultivation roots - it was a treasure that even Golden Core and Nascent Soul cultivators desired, let alone those in Qi Refining.
"The Spirit Severing Blade manual said one wisp of Innate Qi could improve spiritual qi quality from ordinary to perfect, and roots from lower-grade to upper-grade. If I refine this, could I improve my spiritual qi quality to flawless and my roots to extreme-grade?"
Thinking about this, Li Hanfeng smiled and shook his head.
"I can't be sure about roots - maybe it's possible. But the gap from perfect quality to flawless quality is too large. One wisp of Innate Qi probably isn't enough. But even if I can't reach the sky in one step, it can greatly improve spiritual qi quality and get me closer to flawless-quality spiritual qi."