Lex’s purpose in giving out quests to River and Pearl was twofold - and no, it wasn’t because he was getting sentimental and missing his system. That was totally absurd.

The first reason was because over this period of time he’d basically figured out their personalities to a certain extent. They were both ambitionless homebodies who wanted to cultivate, live a comfortable life and overcome their difficulties. Such personalities weren’t too bad - at least they wouldn’t develop strong yet random tendencies or go off on revenge arcs.

Heck, even with strong motivations for revenge, they hadn’t thought about it. If Lex were in Pearl’s shoes, he would have already been planning how to make Baron Nester regret ever being born, and then discover who was the mastermind behind him.

Instead, the two of them were content to simply survive and not get found out. With such personalities, they were suitable to act on his behalf without triggering any kind of unnecessary trouble. He had to say, without the influence of the system causing him problems on every turn, life was quite easy. Heck, he hadn’t even gotten involved with any of the major local conspiracies going on.

In short, with easy going and unproblematic personalities, Lex could use them to fulfil his own tasks without raising any suspicions or needing to act directly.

The second reason was that after years of consideration, Lex had created the framework for his plan at saving himself. For that, he would need to prepare a number of things, and for that he would need resources. While even the most valuable resources in the Land of a Hundred Rivers wouldn’t be worth much to him normally, he had to start from somewhere.

From trash he would make treasure, and from treasure he would buy workers, and through workers he would create a wonder!

A mere Sovereign dared to look down on him? Lex did not take that as a sign that the Sovereign was arrogant, but that he had been incompetent, and had not adequately prepared himself. If any random, peak Celestial level, Sovereign, system user could conspire against him, then he should be ashamed of himself.

"You are limiting your achievements based on your imagination," said Cliff as he looked at the young couple. "Dare to imagine the impossible, and I’ll show you how to do it. But the steps still need to be carried out by you. These ten years are your chance, as well as your last opportunity. What you do next will determine the rest of your lives."

River and Pearl looked at each other, feeling conflicted. Cliff was very up front with them about everything - excluding his notorious bragging which could directly be ignored. After all, even now, years later, he still claimed to be 25 years old, which basically told him all they needed to know about his bragging.

When confronted about it, he would say stuff like they wouldn’t understand, and his age was relative to the flow of time of a different realm, so in that realm he was still 25. Ridiculous claims like that caused the couple to roll their eyes.

Yet in most other things, he was incredibly reliable. Knowing that they would be losing him in ten years filled them with a bit of reluctance. They almost felt like... trying things out. Who knew? Maybe they really could reach the Golden Core realm in ten years if they tried hard enough. Cliff had never led them astray in terms of cultivation before, at least.

Yet compared to Pearl, River was the most conflicted. Improving his cultivation was the hardest simply because of how difficult the standards of his oath were.

Still, that was something that they could work on later. For now, River and Pearl discussed amongst each other, and decided on a number of easily fulfillable quests.

Among the quests, many of them had to do with acquiring various raw materials and ingredients. As it happened, some of them could only be found in the elven territory. Since they were here, they might as well aim for them.

For example, one quest that Cliff had given was for three hundred bulbs of the Yellow Petal Gladiola. That was a very specific number, which was not easy to fulfil. Fortunately, there was one point per bulb, so they could at least make some points from that quest.

Getting their hands on a few dozen was fine, but so many were impractical because of how difficult it was to plant and grow them.

Another quest was to collect the molted skin of a Twin Tailed Tiger Python - a type of snake that could be found in the elven forests. While they could not fathom what Cliff wanted with these materials, what mattered was the points submitting them would give.

With the decision made, the two of them got to work, and immediately started asking around for how to get their hands on those items. Since they didn’t have the money to buy them, they could only work for them.

Fortunately, there was no shortage of work. While they, as students, couldn’t work as doctors, they could still do other tasks around the village. Over the next week, the two of them did all sorts of odd jobs just to raise enough money to buy enough materials to raise 15 points.

When they brought all the stuff together to submit, Cliff absorbed everything into the necklace itself, as if it held infinite space, and then he looked at them. Although he could guess what they wanted to do, he still asked them.

"What reward do you want to redeem?" Cliff asked.

Pearl glanced at River who nodded at her.

"I want to redeem the option to raise my cultivation to the peak of the Qi training realm," she said.

Cliff only smiled softly. There was a reason he had made that reward cheap - he had anticipated that the couple would be sceptical of his rewards, and wouldn’t take it seriously until they tasted the benefits.

Lex flicked his finger and set but a single speck of the energy he had purified himself into Pearl’s body. Something like that... was really too easy.