Merit and Reward
"Hah… hah…"
They had all poured every last scrap of spiritual power into a single technique, and now they collapsed where they stood, gasping for air. Even so, their eyes kept rolling, scanning one another for anyone who might still have the energy to put a knife in someone's back. Cultivators, through and through.
"None of us has the strength left to move. How about we wrap this up peacefully?" Ye Hyeon-gwan said. Everyone raised a hand in agreement as if they'd been waiting for someone to say it.
"Fine."
"Yeah. The rewards aren't exactly meager, either."
The inner disciples settled things among themselves. Han Yuhyeon, stuck at Qi Condensation 4-star and in no condition to backstab anyone, was naturally left as the odd man out.
"Junior Brother Han, are you all right?" Jeong Cheon-o asked. Every inner disciple's gaze swung toward Han Yuhyeon.
Being the center of attention was a little awkward, but it was also only natural. Clearing this mutated monster cave safely had been almost entirely thanks to his efforts.
"I can still move well enough."
"So what kind of sorcery did you pull off back there, exactly?"
Curious, the inner disciples edged closer. They had killed the cave lord, but even they had no idea how it had actually been done. In truth, Han Yuhyeon had handled nearly everything himself.
"Nothing special. I used a Concealment Talisman and the Adhesion Art to stick to the ceiling, then prepped the stalactites over the life gate. That was the only fixed position the cave lord ever used."
"…Well, damn."
The way he explained it so lightly, as if it truly were nothing, left the inner disciples clicking their tongues. Being able to describe it that simply was one thing. Thinking up the entire strategy and executing it in the split second after facing the cave lord was something else entirely.
Even the four inner disciples of higher realm than Han Yuhyeon had gone completely blank the moment they confirmed the cave lord was a Jesu.
"You've got something beyond mere realm. I always thought nothing but realm mattered in the cultivation world. I ought to reconsider."
"I learned a great deal myself. That was incredible."
The inner disciples spoke with genuine admiration. Han Yuhyeon found their sincere awe a little embarrassing.
"Shall we get to dividing the rewards?"
"Ah, right. The most important part."
At some point the Jesu's massive corpse had vanished, leaving only its claws, its hide, and a few pouch-like objects in its place. It was blatantly a game system mechanic, but the inner disciples treated it as perfectly normal.
"Just this hide alone is worth more than every reward from a normal monster cave put together," Jeong Cheon-o said, lifting the Jesu hide with greedy eyes. Light yet tough, it was ideal material for defensive artifacts. In a low-tier region like Yeongil-ju, that kind of durability was rare and precious.
"First, let's dump everything we picked up in the cave."
Ye Hyeon-gwan, who had been in charge of looting junk items, opened the storage pouch he had set aside for this mission and turned it upside down. Herbs, spiritual stones, and crafting materials poured out.
"Is that still coming?"
The inner disciples, who had initially taken it in stride, started gaping as the materials kept spilling from the pouch.
"We made more than I expected."
Even Ye Hyeon-gwan, who had flipped the pouch, was startled. He had only picked items up without counting them, so the sheer volume caught him off guard too.
"Isn't this at least three times a normal monster cave?"
"Three? Try five."
"Even for a mutated cave, this is ridiculous. We got insanely lucky."
The inner disciples were shocked, but delighted. The more they had acquired, the bigger their individual shares would be.
Then Ye Hyeon-gwan's last remark — that they had gotten lucky — snagged something in Han Yuhyeon's mind. Lately he had been so absorbed in the Mongan Hyeolseo that he had almost forgotten: right now, he was all-in on Luck.
Looked at a certain way, a mutated monster cave was lucky — provided you could clear it. Stronger beasts meant better drops, both in quality and quantity.
Don't tell me this cave mutated because of my Luck?
The old scars on the corpse might not have belonged to the Jesu either. Beasts with claws that size were a dime a dozen.
No official rate had ever been published, but players who had researched it put the base mutation chance for monster caves in Yeonhwa Seonrok at about 0.5 percent. One mutation every two hundred runs.
Yeah. That tracks.
Luck did not simply make things easier. It made the rare things more likely to find you. By that logic, Han Yuhyeon himself was the culprit behind the cave's mutation.
"Not a single person died even after the cave mutated. That's a miracle."
"Without Junior Brother Han, I don't even want to think about what would have happened!"
The inner disciples, blissfully unaware, clapped Han Yuhyeon on the shoulder. Even he felt a slight twinge of guilt.
"Ha, haha. Well, all's well that ends well, right?"
"This guy's generous, too!"
"Hahaha!"
"Hahaha!"
And so, amid warm laughter, the clearing of the monster cave came to a close. Jeong Cheon-o received a pouch from the village head of Cheonbang-jin and confirmed for the other inner disciples and Han Yuhyeon that it held exactly thirty low-grade spiritual stones. True to Ye Hyeon-gwan's guess, nothing had been skimmed off the top.
The reward accounting went astonishingly fast. Han Yuhyeon had assumed they would wait until they returned to the Baekun Sect and take their time, but cultivators were an impatient breed.
"All right, let's divide it already."
Both the mission reward and the byproducts from clearing the cave were currently in Ye Hyeon-gwan's possession. Ordinarily the team leader, Jeong Cheon-o, would have handled the distribution — but he had effectively been stripped of that position for responsibility over the cave's mutation. In reality Han Yuhyeon's Luck was almost certainly to blame, but there was no reason to confess that.
"First, these thirty spiritual stones. Originally you were going to give the other four five each, and take ten for yourself, right?"
"…According to the mission terms, yes."
Jeong Cheon-o chewed his lower lip, looking uncomfortable. As a cultivator himself, he seemed well aware of how this was going to end.
"Those ten should go to Junior Brother Han. Any objections?"
Ye Hyeon-gwan secured Han Yuhyeon's share first, of course. Han Yuhyeon had no intention of playing modest here. His performance had genuinely been outstanding, and none of the other inner disciples were going to argue.
"Thank you."
Han Yuhyeon casually slipped the storage pouch holding ten low-grade spiritual stones into his own.
"The rest, five each."
At Ye Hyeon-gwan's words, everyone's eyes went wide. They had expected further penalties, but an even split from here was surprisingly merciful. An irrepressible smile tugged at Jeong Cheon-o's mouth.
"Ahem. Well. Daoist Ye does know how to be fair."
The other inner disciples looked a bit dissatisfied, but they had already handed the distribution rights to Ye Hyeon-gwan. It was too late to protest.
Lightning, however, has a habit of striking twice. That was not the end of it.
"In exchange, Daoist Jeong will be excluded from the rewards that came out of the mutated cave."
"What."
The smile froze on Jeong Cheon-o's face. Smiles bloomed across everyone else's.
"No — wait a second!"
"You entrusted me with the distribution rights, did you not? It's all recorded on the memory crystal."
"Even so, this is—"
"Why?"
"I mean, just a little—"
"What?"
Faced with Ye Hyeon-gwan's absolute firmness, Jeong Cheon-o's mouth snapped shut. There was not a hair of room to negotiate.
The truth was, even at a rock-bottom estimate, selling just the rewards from the mutated cave would fetch fifty thousand spiritual stones. The mutation had made the byproducts far larger than the mission fee itself — the tail wagging the dog. Cutting Jeong Cheon-o out of the cave loot was far more efficient than docking him on the mission reward.
"All right. No complaints now?"
Ye Hyeon-gwan said it casually, having already crushed any complaints that might have existed.
"The biggest prize, the Jesu hide, should go to Junior Brother Han."
"Ah. Thank you."
Once again Ye Hyeon-gwan prioritized Han Yuhyeon. He gave him first pick of the materials, herbs, and spiritual stones that followed as well. Han Yuhyeon only took as much as people would reasonably accept. Excess was always the enemy of success. The atmosphere was good right now; getting greedy would only snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
After Han Yuhyeon had claimed a sensible share of the remaining rewards, Ye Hyeon-gwan divided the rest evenly. All told, Han Yuhyeon had come away with the most from this mission. His storage pouch — essentially a spatial inventory — already felt faintly heavy. That was no illusion; it was a real signal that he had nearly filled its capacity.
Nice and solid.
Jeong Cheon-o, having surrendered the distribution rights, could only watch the cave rewards being divided with a bitter expression.
The cave's mutation had been Han Yuhyeon's Luck, and even if it hadn't, the whole situation was a hard-luck story. Han Yuhyeon felt a little sorry for him.
Of course, that did not mean he planned to share any of the loot.
"If we're done, let's go."
Jeong Cheon-o's voice was drained of all strength as he unfurled his flying artifact. Time to return to the Baekun Sect.
"What on earth is this?"
"What does it look like? A memory crystal."
"You know that's not what I mean."
The Sect Master snapped, and Baekri-wan, who had needled him, pouted. Across from them, Mun Il-pyeong covered his mouth with clasped hands, wearing a grave expression.
Baekri-wan alone looked thoroughly unimpressed. The other elders all sat humming and muttering under their breath.
What they were looking at was the memory crystal Jeong Cheon-o had submitted — the one recording the entire Cheonbang-jin mission.
Projected on the wall, the crystal's footage showed Han Yuhyeon's exploits in full. It even captured him coaching the other inner disciples on how to deal with the mutated beasts.
"This is truly absurd."
One of the elders let out a hollow laugh.
Naturally, the elders did not normally gather as a group to review every mission memory crystal. This time the Sect Master had been skimming them out of routine, noticed something off, and urgently convened them all.
"Elder Mun, what is going on here? Wasn't that boy trash spiritual roots?"
That Mun Il-pyeong had brought Han Yuhyeon in and then discarded him as trash roots was already common knowledge. Mission Hall administrator Daoist Yun had gone around bragging that Han Yuhyeon was Qi Condensation 4-star, but few cultivators had taken that claim at face value.
So the realm they were watching Han Yuhyeon display now was pure shock.
"Realm is one thing, but his instincts are incredible. Watching him fight, you'd think he'd been clearing monster caves for at least a hundred years."
"More than the instincts — he knows every trait and weakness of those beasts. That's the real surprise."
"Both are impossible."
The elders clicked their tongues over Han Yuhyeon's combat. From a pure fighting standpoint, it was flawless. And at the end he had even shown the creativity to drop the ceiling's stalactites — something beyond flawless.
"Talent like that is something our Baekun Sect must hold onto. That young man may well be the one who lifts us out of Yeongil-ju."
Mun Il-pyeong raised his hand to speak. Everyone looked at him strangely. The very man who had discarded Han Yuhyeon was now arguing on his behalf; of course it looked odd. Separate from that, another elder pushed back on the substance of the claim.
"But if he remains an outer disciple, he will hardly feel any real bond to the sect. No sense of duty, either."
"Which is precisely why we cannot leave him as an outer disciple."
"You mean hold the inner disciple selection early? That is still half a year away."
"Then we move it up. Talent of this caliber is more than worth it."
Mun Il-pyeong pressed hard.
"What do you say, Sect Master?"
The Sect Master stroked his chin, considering. In truth, the inner disciple selection was a hot topic only among the outer disciples; for the sect as a whole, it was not a particularly important event. Moving it up a little would cause no real problem. And from the Sect Master's perspective, Han Yuhyeon's growth rate was genuinely tempting.
"Do it."
Approval came easily, and Mun Il-pyeong grinned. Baekri-wan, who had been casually tending her nails, lifted her eyes just enough to glance at him. Seeing his expression, she gave a short, quiet laugh.