Chapter 100
Chapter 100
Zhu Yin had spent two days at Dingtian Sword Sect.
As a master with two disciples, she understood the importance of treating them equally, so she remained at the Dao Sect for two days as well.
The Dao Sect and Dingtian Sword Sect had entirely different styles.
Everyone in Dingtian Sword Sect was a sword cultivator, and martial prowess was highly valued. Outside their regular lessons with sect elders and instructors, the disciples’ favorite pastime was challenging one another.
Classmates exchanged pointers.
They sought guidance from senior brothers and sisters who had joined earlier.
Those senior disciples also enjoyed instructing the newly admitted novices.
In any case, aside from the heavy air of violence and the sect’s medical and pill cultivators being excessively busy, Zhu Yin felt quite reassured about her younger disciple’s life there.
Unlike the relatively straightforward Dingtian Sword Sect, the Dao Sect was clearly far more complicated.
The Dao Sect resembled a cultivation world in miniature.
The major peaks competed both openly and secretly, and some groups became mortal enemies the moment they met.
The sect maintained the Storm Rankings.
They were divided into the Heaven Rankings, Earth Rankings, and Rising Cloud Rankings.
All new disciples remained eligible for the Rising Cloud Rankings during their first ten years. Whether they could enter those rankings within a decade was an important measure of their talent.
The Heaven and Earth Rankings, meanwhile, were open to all Dao Sect disciples below the Spirit Transformation realm, who competed through strength.
The Heaven Rankings held thirty names and the Earth Rankings seventy, for a total of one hundred.
Every Dao Sect disciple strove to appear on one of the two.
At the end of each year, the Dao Sect’s grand competition became a major event for the entire sect, Central City, and even the whole cultivation world.
Major trading houses and gambling establishments throughout the cultivation world opened wagers on who would enter the Dao Sect’s Storm Rankings.
Yun Lie had gained considerable fame almost immediately upon joining the sect.
He came from an abandoned land deficient in spiritual energy.
He possessed a top-tier mutated spiritual root.
He had refused a sect elder’s offer of discipleship.
These three factors made everyone curious how far this boy without any background could go in the Dao Sect, where geniuses were everywhere.
Beyond that, various factions among the Dao Sect disciples also competed with one another.
Qilin Pavilion, which Xiao Daowei belonged to, had extended invitations to Yun Lie more than once.
…
After roughly skimming A Detailed Guide to the Dao Sect, which had cost her fifty spirit stones, Zhu Yin cast her eldest disciple an affectionate look.
For a child with talent but no resources or background, life in a sect like Dingtian Sword Sect would plainly have been easier.
Yun Lie suddenly tilted his head and looked precisely in her direction.
Zhu Yin was surprised. Were both little ones this perceptive?
Yun Xi had sensed her, and now Yun Lie did too.
She was certain she could not possibly have exposed herself. Were protagonists simply born more perceptive than ordinary people?
Hidden in the void, she watched Yun Lie approach and carefully search the area. Naturally, he found nothing.
After a moment of silence, Yun Lie called clearly, “May I ask which senior has honored my humble residence with a visit?”
Zhu Yin did not move. She was completely certain the boy was bluffing.
Sure enough, after waiting several breaths and detecting no movement, Yun Lie looked puzzled.
Had he truly sensed something by mistake?
He shook his head and prepared to return to his room, only to hear a hoarse voice behind him. “Boy, you are remarkably perceptive.”
Spiritual power gathered at Yun Lie’s fingertips almost instantly. He spun and stared warily behind him.
Black mist rose from the ground, and a gray figure emerged from within it.
The visitor was concealed entirely beneath a gray cloak. Only half a pale face could be seen, painted with strange, bright-red symbols.
At a glance, this was clearly no good person.
Yet Yun Lie inexplicably felt a trace of familiarity.
That strange familiarity made his heart leap into his throat.
He soon realized it was probably because the strange cultivator’s attire reminded him of Uncle Heiwu and Uncle Heipao.
“A ghost cultivator?” Yun Lie frowned. “The Dao Sect does not welcome ghost cultivators.”
Because of their strange cultivation methods and mostly exaggerated or eerie attire, ghost cultivators were not condemned as unorthodox villains and hunted by everyone, but neither were they welcome in the cultivation world.
Zhu Yin had not originally intended to show herself. Yet her eldest disciple looked so endearing as he grew suspicious and carefully tested the air that she could not resist emerging to frighten him.
She had always acted on whatever impulse occurred to her.
Thus, she appeared and, just as expected, startled Yun Lie.
Faced with Yun Lie’s challenge, she fell silent for a moment and swiftly invented an explanation.
“Heh.” She laughed hoarsely. “I heard the Dao Sect recruited several promising seedlings this year, so I came to have a look out of curiosity.”
She smiled at the youth before her. “Boy, your talent is decent. I still need a disciple. Would you like to cultivate under me?”
Hidden inside her wide sleeve, Barbara shifted, wanting to speak but holding itself back.
When this person admitted she was not a Dao Sect cultivator, Yun Lie became even more alarmed.
He had joined the Dao Sect several months ago, long enough to understand objectively just how powerful his sect was.
Yet this ghost cultivator had silently evaded every barrier and guard in the Dao Sect to reach his residence.
What… was her cultivation level?
He remained silent for a long time. Zhu Yin, who had raised him by hand, saw through his thoughts at once.
Forget it. He was her own child; she would stop teasing him.
The gray figure gradually faded as a chilling voice sounded beside his ear. “It seems you are unwilling. What are you afraid of? Countless people wish to become my disciple. If you refuse, do you think I would seize you by force?”
After leaving Yun Lie’s residence, Zhu Yin intended to depart immediately. After a moment’s hesitation, however, she turned toward another area.
Never mind. She could not invite trouble for the child.
And so, on that same day, several of the most gifted new disciples in the Dao Sect–including Xiao Daowei–were harassed by a mysterious ghost cultivator in gray.
After making her presence thoroughly known, Zhu Yin was stopped beneath the Dao Sect’s mountain gates as she left.
The person blocking her was a white-haired young man wearing a feathered crown.
His voice was clear as shattering jade. “You entered my Dao Sect and disturbed my disciples. What do you intend?”
Zhu Yin said, “Oh, this is what happened. I had nothing to do and suddenly thought it might be amusing to accept a disciple. I happened to hear that your Dao Sect recruited several geniuses this year, so I came to see whether I could lure one away.”
The white-haired young man: “…”
Perhaps no one had spoken such brazen nonsense to him in many years. He remained silent for a long time.
After that silence, he seemed to accept her explanation.
“Then did you obtain what you wished?”
Zhu Yin spread her hands. “Can you not see? If I had, why would there be no one beside me?”
Her hands, too, were covered in blood-red symbols, eerie and unnatural.
The white-haired young man fell silent again.
He naturally knew the disciples were all unharmed. Sect elders had personally examined them and found no injuries, soul spells, curses, or anything similar.
This ghost cultivator of unknown origin truly seemed to have come merely to choose a disciple.
And oddly enough, she had been quite courteous. She respected the disciples’ wishes completely and did not force them when they refused.