Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance Chapter 301 Expedition Part 1

Chapter 301 Expedition Part 1

Six months passed in the blink of an eye and Quake City along with its citizens have undergone several changes during this time.
,m Ever since Robin announced that each mission will give out 10% more contribution points, more people started taking missions. Don't look down on such a seemingly small number because for most of the mercenaries, this amount is huge.
One must remember that the people of Quake City aren't the most ambitious, power-hungry, or strongest people in the world. Most people in the city would rather murder or steal their resources rather than do some silly missions that could potentially put their lives at risk.
That's not to say that they won't take missions from the Mercenary Association, just that they would prefer not to do them.
While that may be their general outlook on life, everyone in the city understood that if they wanted to get a little stronger while living a decent life in Quake City, they needed to take missions from the Mercenary Association.
So, when the Mercenary Association announced that there will be an increase in Contribution Points, the residents immediately jumped at the opportunity like a bunch of rabid dogs.
This, in turn, made the city even worse than it already was. Stealing, murder, and fights were more than twice as prevalent as they were before Mira showed up. People were slowly accumulating more resources to grow stronger, therefore they had more to lose, but that also means that others have more to gain should they kill you.
From the minds of the people of Quake City, they only needed to rob or kill 10 people and they'd get 11 people's worth of resources! Not only that, but many people were doing this, so chances are that a single person might have stolen the resources of several other people making it so that a single robbery might net them several times more than what it normally did.
This caused a palpable tension to rise in Quake City as the people were fearing for their lives and resources.
This went on for around a month after Robin made this announcement, but everything changed after Mira came back from one of her mission runs.
When Mira came back to turn in the missions that she completed at the medium-sized chasm, she was pleasantly surprised by the increase in Contribution Points. She was a bit skeptical of the reason for the rise in Points, but in the end, she didn't really care. As long as she can get the items she needs, the Mercenary Association people can do whatever they want with the chasms and the city.
After Mira received her Contribution Points from both the missions she consciously and subconsciously completed, she ended up with around 100,000 Contribution Points just as she assumed.
Normally, this would be a huge number that should be able to last Mira for a while, but that wasn't even 10% of what she needed. No, it was closer to 5% of the total amount of Contribution Points she needs.
That amount was barely enough to purchase the cheapest of the items she needed from the Mercenary Association. That item being the [100-year-old 7-Colored Lotus]. Yes, that amount of contribution points only allowed her to purchase the 100-year-old version of the flower she needs.
She didn't even have access to a 1,000-year-old 7-Colored Lotus and Mira assumed she needed to be a Silver Rank Mercenary to get it, but she didn't care. She wouldn't have bought it even if she had access to it. All she needs is the 100-year-old version so she can toss it into her Infinity Garden to allow it to age over the next year until it becomes a 1,000-year-old 7-Colored Lotus.
Then, she took as many missions as she possibly could, to which it seems she was allowed to take up to 20. This made Mira extremely confused and when she asked Robin, the latter said that they've removed the cap on missions for the next 6 months or so.
This made Mira quite happy because that meant she didn't have to make as many trips back to the city in order to turn her missions in. Essentially making her Contribution Point farming much more efficient.
After Mira accepted 20 missions all in the same area, she immediately departed and holed herself up there for around a month.
After a month of constant slaughter, Mira returned in a decent mood. She was content with how fast she could complete each mission and she figured that it would probably be tough to beat her current efficiency. She could complete a single mission in around 36 hours which was neither fast nor slow considering how strong she is and the types of missions she is taking, but that's if you don't consider the type of environment she's in.
That kind of pace is extremely fast considering the lack of intel on the missions, the overabundant amount of psycho beasts there are, and how tedious searching the chasms can be.
Normally, missions like the ones she's doing would take at least 3-4 days and that's with a group of at least 3-5 people.
One must also remember that those people would end up splitting the reward when they return which further decreases how fast someone in Quake City can gather Contribution Points. Then, those people might be forced to spend some of those Contribution Points on healing items while they spend the next few days resting and recovering. In the end, for the types of missions Mira is doing, the average person might only make around 1,000 Contribution Points per week while most of that goes to healing items and Spirit Stones, leaving very little for other cultivation resources.
On the other hand, Mira's out here doing around 5 missions per week and doesn't need to share the reward with anyone. She's effectively earning 25 times more than the average person in Quake City. The number of contribution points she earns in a month might be several years' worth of Contribution Points for someone else.
Thus, one can only imagine Mira's good mood when she returned to Quake City after completing 20 missions in only a month.
However, her good mood was instantly ruined when some idiots tried to rob her! It wasn't just a few either! She sensed a bunch of people eyeing her as if she was their golden goose!
Mira wouldn't care about this unless they actually acted on their thoughts, but these guys apparently had a death wish and felt it was worth the risk.
Obviously, Mira cut them down mercilessly, but that wasn't the end of it as these thugs thought that teaming up on her would be enough to take her down.
Needless to say, Mira 'politely' led them on their way to the underworld. After having to deal with tens of these people and noticing that many other people were still eyeing her, she had a sudden thought.
'Why don't I just make an example out of the rest of these people so they don't bother me with this nonsense in the future?'
So that's exactly what she did, or more precisely that's what she tried to do.
As she was in the middle of her murder spree, Robin ran out of the Mercenary Association and stopped her from running amok and killing off the rest of their mercenaries.
Honestly, Mira didn't really care about these people. Whether they lived or died mattered very little to her and it's not like she had some grudge against them either. She just wanted them to stop annoying her and seeing that she got her point across she decided to stop causing trouble.
However, later that day Mira decided to place the heads of those that tried to kill her on stakes all over the city as an example and a reminder. A reminder to everyone that it will be their heads on those stakes should they decide to mess with her.
It may have been a bit brutal and unnecessary, but it worked. The whole city was horrified when they noticed those stakes and from then on nobody dared to mess with her. Not only that, but the crime rate in the city plummeted as the residents were terrified they would offend the 'little demon' with their actions.
The months continued to tick on by as Mira was quickly accumulating more and more Contribution Points and she became more accustomed to the environment causing her to earn Contribution Points even faster.
She and Rhydian also started taking a few slightly more difficult missions to not only hone their battle prowess but to earn a few more Contribution Points as well.
For that very reason, over the last 6 months, through constant battles and even a few life and death situations, Mira started feeling like she was on the cusp of something profound. Something she assumed to be Weapon Intent, but couldn't be 100% sure because her knowledge of the subject is very shallow and she's never seen anyone using Weapon Intent before.
Naturally, this discovery caused Mira to be ecstatic and she completed her missions with even more fervor than before.
However, when she returned back to Quake City to turn in her missions and take some more, Robin informed her that the Mercenary Association is going on an expedition into the deepest and most dangerous cavern in two months.
When Mira heard this, she immediately lost interest. Why should she waste her time going on an expedition into one of the most dangerous places in the area when she can just steadily earn Contribution Points steadily over the next few months without any issues.
That is until Robin informed her of a few things that changed her mind.