Then she will be having cold rice and some kind of mysterious cultivator chilli oil that she hopes isn't more expensive than her house for lunch, sitting wherever nearby seems like a reasonable place to sit down. 

And then, assuming that she isn't interrupted in her lunch plans, she will go looking for the refining hall. 

People mostly aren't going to interrupt her; They have their own plans to advance, with many going straight for intensive training.

One of the scribe types will only condescend at her a little bit while pointing out the path to the refining hall.

It's a large place, but looks comparatively humble when positioned next to the fancy houses and fancy intake hall. More practical; Heavy stone construction, mostly unadorned, no windows. There's a small office with a bored looking Senior manning a desk. She raises an eyebrow at Mei Cao. "What's a new outer disciple who's barely even awakened properly doing all the way up here, hmm? I don't suppose you have the necessary sect points to rent a production space or get someone to teach you already, do you?"

"I have not." What's a suitably subordinate way of saying she wanted to stickybeak. "I have never before had the chance to witness how cultivators refine. I felt it behooved me to see what the this place was like. It seemed like it might be the work most similar to the work I have done previously." 

Siiiigh. "Have some spine, kid. You're a cultivator now too, you know? What work was that? Smithing? Herbalism?" She sniffs the air. "...Charcoaling? Yes, charcoaling. Huh. Well, you're not entirely wrong. Listen up because I'm feeling teacher-like today! The two main production arts for cultivators are arrays, which consist of writing, weaving, drawing, or carving meaningful characters in very careful patterns on appropriate materials to achieve useful effects. This is also known as talismanry. And the other is our art, refining, the art of breaking up and mixing qi-rich materials into more useful and potent forms. It's something between cooking, alchemy, and bears more than zero resemblance to charcoaling. The refiner's art is the very foundation of a cultivation sect's prowess! We make the pills that talented cultivators eat to cultivate even faster! We produce the medicines that our dear friends in the Medicinal Department use to repair cultivators who have managed to injure themselves through ignorance, ineptitude, or ill luck! We even produce the qi-rich alloys, inks, and mixtures that talisman and array artists use for their own arts! It's a noble art you're interested in! But you're not going to be able to learn it as you are. Get to high red soul at least, and open an arm, head, and lung meridian first - and then you'll be fit to study the Argent Refining Art, basic form."

She pauses.

"Though, I suppose you might find someone willing to teach you the non-spiritual parts of the work, gathering and grading spirit herbs for example, before reaching that point, likely in exchange for performing their chores, or sect points. I, myself, am not interested in such an arrangement."

Refining sounds interesting, in a way. Like charcoaling but for everything. 

"Thank you for your guidance. I will return when I have met this standard, or when I am properly able to purchase teaching." 

She's unusually enthusiastic about it; she wants to match this senior's enthusiasm.

The desk minder stares at her for a moment, then chuckles and shrugs. "I could ask around for you if you like? Not even a favor. I'm bored and might get credit for it if there's a good match. Have you spent any time in wilds? Got any special skills aside from the patience and diligence of charcoaling?"

"I would appreciate it if you could! I am a capable enough hunter and forester, by the standards of my village if not by a cultivator's standards. I never left the wardstones. I tried to fight a spirit that snuck through the wards once? It went badly." 

"As a mortal? I'd imagine so! Okay... I'm Lia Hejin and if I send someone to ask after you they'll make sure to mention 'rubies and lilies'. So you know it's not someone bullshitting you to get you alone or anything. Might come to nothing, might not."

"Well, it was threatening the burn." She says in a tone of voice that implies she understands how unreasonable this was in retrospect. 

"I appreciate it!" She makes sure to memorise the sign, and also the idea that using signs to secure messages is a thing she should be considering doing. It's nice how helpful people have been for her even though apparently in a few weeks people will also be trying to get her alone to mug her.

Next thing on her todo list: the archive. She can't read that well but it seems like an important thing to visit and comprehend at all. 

But, see, the helpful people have mostly been seniors, who have less reason to care about petty first year rivalries.

The archive is also findable! It looks like a big library. The disciple minding the front desk doesn't look up from his book the whole time he explains the place. They, again, charge Sect Points for entry unless you have a permanent pass. And even then some parts of the Archives will be off limits depending on one's access level. One sect point for a week's pass, or one red spirit stone for a day pass. This is to pay for maintenance, staff, hiring combat focused disciples for the periodic purging of ink spirits, and so on.

The usual use case is to swiftly explore the archives for whatever information you need, be it on history or cultivation or arrays or refining, and then either write down copies yourself or pay for a copy to be scribed for you (which is more expensive). They do also offer employment for scribes if your writing is good. There's also a service where the front desk disciples will allow you to order copies of specific books, if you know the name already, without needing to pay for the day pass to go fetch them, just the scribing fee itself. A copy of Argent Refining Art, Basic Form, for example, is five sect points or twenty five spirit stones. She can sign up to earn sect points at the mission hall, he mentions idly. Or sell things at the disciples' market.

That is ... way too much money. She doesn't even know if she's literate enough to benefit. She knows she has to go in just to learn what exists at some point, but she needs to have a better sense of her money situation first. 

She politely thanks the disciple and returns to the sect hall. She's going to spend a while going through all of the work and options they have for sale there. She wants to know what work someone with her skills could even do right now to earn money, and also how much it costs to hire tutors in mundane skills you need to catch up in fast, like literacy and etiquette and qi theory and fighting, but the most important thing is making it so that when people say "or you could buy it" she knows how much that would actually cost, at least approximately. 

Well, the actual missions offered at the sect hall are mostly intended for either permanent outer disciples or those with a little more advancement under their belt; There is all-but-mundane work available for one or two sect points at a time: Chop wood, carry water. Fill all the lanterns around the main training grounds with oil. There are a variety of requests and missions posted by other disciples, mostly requesting specific beasts be hunted or specific locations visited for specific valuable materials. Who knows what a crafting disciple wants with the bark and needles of the Lakedew Pine? But the sect is offering five points for a basket full of each, and it is described as not especially dangerous. Then there are tasks that are out of her league, or require extra permissions- Missions to investigate disappearances, or hunt specific menacing beasts, or harvest materials from actively dangerous places, or to teach other disciples a valuable skill.

The options for a new disciple to earn Sect Points are pretty much limited to, essentially, chore duties, but it seems to be kind of a waste of time? The rates are fantastic for a peasant but won't buy much at all here. One or two points for a whole week's worth of work. Earning spirit stones, it is gently suggested to her, might be a bit more attainable at yet another location: The disciple market. Sect Points can be exchanged for spirit stones, but not vice versa, generally, and the stones are what very young cultivators tend to need, not points. As for academic tutoring, the cost to hire a permanent outer disciple to handle the low-level skills tends to be a few spirit stones per week of tutoring- The sect hall can match you to very good tutors in exchange for sect points, but the prices are out of her range. Negotiating with older disciples directly would be more attainable.

Oh look, it's that one fox-tailed girl from the intake lecture. She still looks oddly scruffy, though something about her is different - scruffy in a pretty way, somehow? She's clean, now, and wearing one of the sect robes, but her mannerisms are still the opposite of noble as she paces and considers the work postings.

"Tch. Can't earn points without advancing, can't advance without earning points. I'd be better off just going off and hunting... Need beast cores anyway, and like hell am I going to buy them at those prices... Five red stones are gone so quickly. Right?"

"I have been a disciple for one day and I seem to have run through half my month's allocation already." She commiserates. 

"I am extremely unsure of every detail of the money situation here." 

"I think they treat spirit stones like silver, mostly. I visited the market and everything was priced in stones, or occasionally fractions of stones."

"As terrifying as that is, what I mean is, like. What level of implied difficulty should I be assuming from the fact that I can apparently get five weeks pay in an afternoon collecting pine needles? Who is paying for that? Why? What work actually pays a reasonable amount considering the other demands on our time?"

She looks at the pine needle task.

"Oh yeah, those are poisonous. Not that poisonous as poisons go. They make you stupid happy and mess with your appetite and make you see things that aren't there, so bad you can't defend yourself. Get gloves. Actually, I might take this one? The premium is because these trees are halfway up a mountain and only cultivators can get them without taking a week about it, I'd bet. Or maybe because only cultivators are permitted on the sect lands?"

"I don't believe I've acquired the ability of cultivators to hike more swiftly than mortals at my current level of progress, or else I would offer to aid you in the task. It sounds illuminating and profitable." 

"Some of the tasks are implicitly intended to give young disciples an opportunity for challenge and growth," the attendant interjects. "We even have some standing policies regarding the maximum number of low-level assignments per disciple, to support this aim."

She's even more confused! 

"I appreciate the clarification. I am sure the sect has structured these offers with our best progression in mind. Nonetheless, at this moment, I do rather have to agree with the sentiment that I lack the resources to progress and the progression to obtain resources from sect missions, which means I will need to look elsewhere when it comes to obtaining resources." Her tone indicates that this is just a true fact rather than something to complain about. 

"That's because it's, what, your second day here? Be more responsible about spending your stones, I guess."

(...Wen Huli mutters something sarcastic, too low to hear.)

Well, not all the attendants can be clever and helpful, she guesses. 

"I will make the best decisions available to me with the information that I have access to. I look forward to the day when I am strong enough to complete these missions. Thank you for your assistance."

She's going to leave now. 

Wen Huli puts down her name for the pine bark and needles task, then quickly follows her out.

"Are you doing anything in particular right now? You're one of like five people who haven't sneered at me on sight, which leaves me favorably inclined. Actually, do you know how to fight? I'm... Miffed, worked up, antsy, annoyed, wroth, aaaaaand teaching might help with that."

"I thought of myself as being able to fight. But let's say no, I can't. I don't have any urgent plans and would be delighted to take pointers from you."