A week peacefully passed and Wei Jun was assigned his first C rank dungeon. Wei Jun wasn’t particularly thrilled about this but at least it beat the E and D rank dungeons. Five days of the week Wei Jun spent on them and the points he obtained were just 4500 from his scheduled dungeons.

He wanted to increase the number but he wasn’t sure his squad could keep up with that and since he wasn’t a tyrant, he decided to keep the number same. If only he knew that the number, he was keeping to a minimum, was a hell level difficulty for his squad. They had to clear five E rank and two D rank dungeons in a day for five days straight. Wei Jun decided to give them the Saturday off to prepare for the big game the next day.

The C rank dungeon.

Still, he wasn’t impressed. The things inside were wolves, or at least they resembled wolves. They were smaller in size and filthier. Way, way filthier. The stench emitting from them was enough to even make Wei Jun frown so it was very easy to assume what the squad was going through.

[Swamp Jackals]

[Tier C]

[Strength: 71]

[Agility: 82]

[Stamina: 69]

[Miasma: 119]

For Wei Jun these stats weren’t anything too difficult but for his squad, the wolves were opponents one up their levels.

Still, Wei Jun didn’t care. They had to fight them or die trying. Of course, he wouldn’t let them die but he wasn’t going to take it so easy on them as well. He was going to let them deal with the wolves to the point they were almost dead and then heal them back to full health using a health pill.

The fight was… anything but professional. Wei Jun couldn’t decide whether to be angry that they forgot all techniques in the face of the stronger opponent or understand their circumstance since the wolves were quite stronger than them.

‘Should I provide them with resources…’ Wei Jun had a thought as he observed them all fight. Every time the jackals appeared, they would be in groups of five or six. Since his platoon consisted of ten, including him, nine of the soldiers were left to fight the wolves.

By hook or by crook, they all managed to fill up their points and once their contribution points form this dungeon were maxed out, Wei Jun pulled them back from the fights. He still hadn’t done a thing so he was still at zero but he could feel that the boss was very close.

He didn’t want to waste contribution points so he took the battle into his own hands. Of course, in his hands, there was anything but a battle. It was a one-sided massacre that even scared these hungry wolves.

For the first time, they tried to run away. However, there was nowhere to run away. They’d die before they could even turn around to run.

[Contribution points: 2116]

Wei Jun nodded. There was still the boss left and the boss was a lot of contribution points. He waved his hand and stored all the bodies of the monsters in his inventory.

He didn’t do so before but now he was doing it because according to Yue Peng, the black market required the corpses of monsters. That was how she made so much money. So she asked Wei Jun to get her some if he could and if by chance there was a crystal in them, it would sell for quite a penny.

Since there were rarely any E rank miasma crystals, and since they couldn’t increase his Qi because of how massive it was as well, so he decided to save all of them for her. He did the same for the D rank ones. But the C rank ones were different. They could still increase his Qi by a few points, not to mention, he needed his squad to raise their levels as well.

So deciding to keep the C rank miasma crystals for himself, Wei Jun stored everything else for the past week in his inventory with the intention of delivering them to Yue Peng.

The soldiers were asked to bring some monsters with them if they could but once the dungeon was cleared, there was enough time to take all of the bodies and run so the soldiers were asked to bring out as much as they could.

Since most of them went to waste, it didn’t matter if Wei Jun took a lot of them. As for his squad, they thought that it was the ring on Wei Jun’s finger that did the trick of storing the monster corpses.

As for the greed in their eyes. Well, there was none. Even though they that they had also killed these monsters, they also knew that the military would take them anyway and would only give them scrubs in return for it.

However, even then they didn’t rat Wei Jun out because they feared him more than they dreamed of being rich. Not to mention that fact that Wei Jun made them stronger every day while the military didn’t even pay them minimum wage for risking their lives.

“Good.” Wei Jun said and then stopped just before they arrived at the boss area. They could see the boss in the distance, sitting in the swamp, asleep.

“Are we surprise attacking it, boss?” One of the girls asked. While it was mandatory they called Wei Jun by his appropriate title and rank, Wei Jun had asked them to address him like so, so they did as they were told.

Wei Jun shook his head and said, “No, you’re not doing anything.”

Wei Jun turned to them and then pulled a set of pills from his inventory and handed it to them. “What you’re doing is consuming all of those.”

“What are these, boss?” One of the girls couldn’t help but ask. While they did almost anything Wei Jun told them to without question, they still hesitated before consuming something strange.

“These will make you strong.” Wei Jun simply said before he asked, “Are you sure you just want to remain here and probably die one day? In the military, you are bound to die facing these monsters because you’re not strong enough. Even now, the monsters that couldn’t even stand a wave of my hand were too much for you guys to deal with. Sooner or later, you will die. Wouldn’t it be better to become strong, reach the rank you need to, and be done with this?”

“And then what?” one of the soldiers asked, looking at Wei Jun with an expectant expression, he asked, “What do we do once we’re out of here?” Continue your journey on empire

“Do whatever you want.” Wei Jun simply said. He didn’t invite them to join him. Granted he needed cultivators on his side as well, but he wasn’t going to make them stay by his side. If they wanted to stay, they would have to choose to do so out of their own volition.

But for now, if Wei Jun wanted them to follow him to a higher point in the military, he needed them to be strong.

So for that, even if he had to spend some money, he’d gladly do so because the things that made cultivators strong at their base were quite cheap in the shop but very, very necessary to the cultivators.

So…

“But brace yourself,” Wei Jun said when they were about to eat, “The path to strength, as I’ve learned first hand, comes from pain.”

A choice. That was what he was granting them. He was giving them an option to give up. Because while he did hope they would join him after their military service, he also wanted dependable people on his side.

People who would cower from pain weren’t worthy of being his followers. He didn’t want someone like that in the first place.

But to his surprise, none of them chose otherwise and swallowed the first pill without hesitation.

Wei Jun didn’t know what would happen if they were to take them all at once but he wasn’t curious to find out as well. He was more than happy with spending some time in the filthy, smelly dungeon rather than save time and traverse into the territory of the unknown.

[They’d die]

‘That’s what I thought.’

As expected, the system knew better so Wei Jun just went with the longer way rather than take an unnecessary risk.

And soon, the swamp was filled with screams of the pained ones but Wei Jun simply remained in his place and observed. The screams did wake up the sleeping jackal, but one gaze from Wei Jun, it remained in its spot, too scared to even move.

If the boss were to die, they would have to move out of the dungeon. But as long as the boss was alive, they could take as long as they needed.

Fortunately, they didn’t need a long time because, in just an hour, nine men and women, swimming in their own filth were heavily breathing but also…

[Qi sense realm]

They had all entered the realm of the third stage of Qi. Wei Jun smiled while they were panting, “Welcome to the world of the strong.”

He paused for a little before he said, “Let us begin in the earnest.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep