Then he saw the list of rewards.

Natural treasures ranged from four points to sixteen, depending on strength, and you could use points to purchase materials like scales, dead matter, simple constructs, and weapons. So far, so expected.

When he reached the end of the list, his heart started to pound.

Limited Stock:

Tears of the Mother Tree: 1500 points

Interior Command elixir: 1000

Gold Lion’s Heart pill: 1400

Low-grade void key (two available): 1250

High-grade void key: 1750

Diamond Veins: 2000

Divine Treasure – Thousand Swords of Binding Light: 2250

“…spent the last two weeks training together,” Pride was saying. “We saw your performance in the tournament, but whatever my uncle says, that’s no basis for command.”

Striker techniques were lighting up the rocky ground around Lindon. Every second, dreadbeasts died.

Points were being taken from his pocket. He had dreadbeast bindings in his void key, but not enough.

If he played this right, he could get these prizes.

He could get them all.

“Pride. One moment.”

The short Akura Underlord bristled, then took a step closer to Lindon. “You seem to have forgotten that I’m the one who—”

Lindon seized him, terror filling his words. “Every second we waste is another point gone. You understand? We’re losing points.”

This could be the greatest harvest he’d ever reaped in his life, and he had started late.

Pride tried to respond, but Lindon released him. “How many of you have Thousand-Mile Clouds?” They didn’t respond immediately, and desperate impatience clawed at his chest. “Your hands! Raise them!”

[I wish you could see how crazy you look right now,] Dross said. [I wish I could see it.]

Hesitantly, everyone but Naru Saeya and the two Frozen Blade women raised their hands.

Naru Saeya didn’t need one, but the other two would need to be able to fly to keep up. Lindon opened his void key, used wind aura to grab the bag of dreadbeast bindings, and tossed the sack to one of the Frozen Blades.

“Turn those in for points. There should be forty-six in there, and the lowest level clouds are twenty. Buy yourselves one each, then go hunting dreadbeasts with everyone else.”

Grace spoke up. “We need everyone for our current assignment.”

“No, we don’t.” There had been a memory embedded in the tablet explaining the details of their mission; Lindon was viewing it already. “Separate into teams of two, and…you two, please leave. Please. I’m begging you.”

The Frozen Blades looked at each other, shrugged, and hopped off the cloudship. Not nearly fast enough for Lindon’s taste. He wished he could loan them madra.

“Teams of two,” Lindon continued. “Pride, take Courage. Grace, take Douji. Go get another assignment each.” Akura Courage controlled a formation of six flying swords, so he should cover for Pride, who used only Enforcer techniques. Akura Douji was a lightning artist who had practiced extensively with Grace.

Lindon had fought them both several times apiece. In his head, he’d faced them hundreds of times. He knew exactly what they could do.

“If they won’t let you take one until our current mission is finished, then hunt dreadbeasts or Forge scales.” Scales couldn’t be exchanged for points, but they might be able to buy things that could be. “Naru Saeya and I will handle the assignment.”

Pride straightened. “This is a task they would normally assign to an Overlord. Don’t let your pride drag us down with you.”

Lindon seized him by the shoulders and shook him. “This is about points.”

Pride looked furious, but he left.

Lindon had already taken over the control panel, shoving his pure madra into the scripts until the cloudship blasted forward. Pride had been taking them closer to their mission, where he had surely intended to land and approach on foot, collecting dreadbeast bindings as they went.

The ship shot over treetops in a blur.

“They won’t like that,” Saeya predicted sourly. “Pride is well-named.”

Lindon’s void key had opened again, and he manipulated aura and extended strands of madra to flip open scripted boxes and pull out bindings and dead matter. “I know what they’re like. I’m sure they didn’t listen to a word you said the entire time you were with them, and that’s why you’re with me.”

Dross was working to supplement his concentration and his pure core was emptying like it had developed a leak as he assembled a construct and piloted the cloudship at the same time, so his attention was barely on his words as he spoke. “You also have the skills I need right now. You’re faster than they are, your perception extends farther, and your Path is perfect for rescue.”

He was as tightly focused as if his life was on the line, his objective all he could see.

Saeya blinked as she looked from him to the construct assembling itself behind him and back.

“You know, you should act like this more often,” she said. “Yerin would love it.”

Lindon wasn’t listening.

Soulsmith products could be purchased for points, which meant that they had Soulsmiths doing that work who must get paid, so he could take on Soulsmithing jobs as well. How many missions could his team complete per day? Two? How many dreadbeasts could they defeat? How many were there?

Saeya pointed him in the right direction, and soon he could see a red flame blazing from the side of another rocky fortress. This one didn’t have the hastily built look of the Seishen Kingdom’s construction, but was as big as a small town, and rose in layers like a cake. The red fire covered half of the structure without going out.

Over a hundred Gold dreadbeasts tore at the sides of the fortress, opposed by sacred artists inside, but it was another humanoid dreadbeast that provided the real threat.

This fat, rotting, man-like creature opened its jaws and spewed red flames across the fortress wall. They splattered like liquid, some fires extinguishing but others burning on.

This creature gave off the pressure of an Underlord. At least. It was hard to rate dreadbeasts like sacred artists, but Lindon wouldn’t be surprised if someone were to compare this specimen to a weak Overlord.

The mission parameters were to rescue a few key members of the sect who had made this fortress their home. Any further sacred artists rescued would mean bonus points, but the situation was more complicated than it seemed on the surface.

A protective script covered the outer wall of the fortress, which was why the Overlord dreadbeast hadn’t killed everyone yet. Neither the fire nor the army of monsters had penetrated the outer wall of the fortress yet, but they would soon.

If he engaged the Overlord in battle, the Golds would make it impossible to win quickly. Already flying dreadbeasts were diving to attack their ship.

Their full team of eight would have surely swept this battlefield clean with minimal risk, but their safest options would have also taken the longest.

Lindon’s dead matter was all in place, and he let the cloudship’s speed fall, devoting himself to Soulsmithing. Every piece of the construct floated in his pure madra, and he Forged them without tools, shaping them according to the image in his mind.

Each binding shone in his spirit like a star, and Dross’ calculations prevented the slightest mistake.