The people left in the square started looking at each other while murmuring. Most of them were still stunned after getting healed by the nascent soul cultivator who was the sect leader. Their chatting got interrupted by a loud voice and the appearance of more people. These people were all wearing gray robes and were wearing emblems fit for the elder generation.
“Quiet down! You are all trial disciples now, you are not yet fit to be considered true disciples of the sect! You will now follow us to the dorms, this is where you will spend the next four years of your life.”
The man was an old-looking cultivator with an eyepatch that wasn’t able to cover the giant scar on his face. There were other members from the seniors with him and they were mostly composed of the three clan’s side family members. Those occupied the spots of the outer sect members while the main family branch was all composed of the inner sect members. Of course, everyone from them could be promoted to an inner sect elder if they worked hard. The reverse would also be possible and everyone could be demoted.
“Listen up, we don’t have the whole day. Your emblems are the most important item you could have in this sect. It stores all the information about you, your merit points, and also allows you to freely move through select parts of the sect…”
The man explained how the emblem they were carrying work as a sort of key. It stored their data that was then saved in the sects database. The trial disciples had free access to some training facilities as well as the new dorms where they lived.
“Remember the 100 merit points you needed to pass the trials? Those points can be spent on cultivation resources.”
He gave them an explanation about the merit point system. The points weren’t just for show, everyone was going to keep those 100 merit points. They would be able to spend them on various things as it was considered money around the sect. They would be provided basic living and food but if they wanted more they would need to use them.
There were various ways of earning merit points. The easiest one was attending classes and passing the tasks that were given by the teachers. Rising your cultivation level gave you points, getting through challenges or performing tasks for the current sect members was another one.
The biggest reason for gathering more points was pointed out here. If your points dropped to 0 you would be thrown out of the sect. If they ever fell so low you had a month’s time to gather more in any way possible. You could even battle other disciples and get their merit points. This was the easiest way of getting them and the sect allowed friendly competition. This was also the best way to take care of the disputes between disciples.
The explanation was cut short as the elders needed to segregate the people into five schools. Each camp would start out with trial disciples of similar strengths all calculated through the scanners and the tests the participants went through. All of the academies would be mixed as their Patriarch didn’t feel like splitting the male and female population of the sect would be a good idea. This was in opposition to the Feng side of the sect that liked keeping their Matriarchal ways.
“Listen well, the emblem you have received has a number on it.”
The elder said while people looked to the emblems that they were previously assigned. He also explained that they were required to never lose them. They all already knew that this little treasure would allow them to walk around the sect.
“You will be assigned to an academy by your number, look here.”
The man said while pointing to the side. The moment he did a large flat contraption started rising out from the ground. The youths had never seen anything like this before so they were quite curious.
It was about twenty meters wide and fifteen meters high and attached to some thick columns. Soon they figured out what this was for as the treasure flickered on with light and showed many numbers.
This was a giant screen that Zhang Dong had based on his old world’s flat-screen TVs. It had brackets that split into five academies, each one had a name.
“Find your number on the list and then follow the path to your academy, the seniors there will guide you to the dorms. You will be spending at least four years there. You have two days to look through the academy before the lessons start.”
The introduction soon ended and the new disciples moved forward, curious what this ‘academy’ that they would be living was. The two youths from the Tatar tribe pushed forward to look as well, luck was on their side as they ended up in the same academy.
“The Primal Dragon academy? What a ferocious name, it must be the very best one!”
Yang Rong proclaimed while Cheng Yun nodded, the two youths were very excited. They were just itching to get their hands on the sects cultivation techniques. Their moment of happiness was interrupted by the three tribe members from the enemy village.
“Heh, Primal Dragon academy? My Regal Phoenix academy will crush your smelly Dragon academy!”
Enemies were already forming as these five people glared at each other. Fighting was forbidden for now though so they would have to wait. Slowly people started clearing the square and moving towards the academy grounds. These ‘academies’ were more akin to small cities as each one of them had to contain at least ten thousand disciples along with the teachers and other staff.
The two youths were guided into the dorm district of the academy. These buildings were quite plain to look at and were just built with simplicity in mind. They were rectangular in shape and were many stories high. Each floor could fit hundreds of disciples in small rooms meant for two people.
At the reception area, the new trial disciples had the choice of finding their own roommate or having the sect choose a random one for them. The sect leader was all for mixing people up but even he knew that it was better to keep the girl’s dorms and boy dorm rooms separate. He knew how the youths were and it would probably cause less of a headache if they didn’t live so close to each other.
The two Tatar tribe members decided to live together. The new room they received was quite small. There were two beds on each side with two dressers and two desks by a window through which they could see outside.
They were used to straw and wooden huts, so this building that was made from stone and bricks was already an upgrade. The beds that they received were also a lot softer. Both of them felt tired after all of those trials. The moment they sat down on their new beds to test them out, they both fell asleep instantly.
The
Announcement
that the new sect’s recruitment drive had ended reached outside. From the million or so people only about fifty thousand remained. This wasn’t actually such a lower number as some other sects accepted far fewer disciples. This was due to them already having millions of disciples and thousands of elders in their camp.
Some of the people thought that the new powerhouse would accept more people under their umbrella. They clearly needed more people below the nascent soul level. Apparently, this sect was going for both quantity and quality.
While the youths were resting the sect leader was back at his home. His beautiful wife and his child were both fast asleep so he had time to ponder the next big event. This was him leaving the sect to attend some kind of gathering of the more powerful sects.
He already knew the structure of this empire by this point. Even though sects like the Dragon Gate Sect seemed like real powerhouses, they weren’t. They were only considered middle-sized sects when pitted against the real titans.
There weren’t really that many that were considered ‘large’ though. You could divide them into three camps. The first one was the Long Clan with the Azure Emperor at the helm of it. It might have been a clan and not a sect but they were gigantic with many branching side families. They were considered the strongest power in this empire.
Next were the two giant sects that kept them in line, the first one was called the Soaring Dragon Sect and the other the Blood Sabre sect. These factions were similar in power to each other and slightly lagging behind the Long Clan.
This trinity of giants were keeping each other in check. None of them could act against the other in fear of getting wiped out. If one of them was seen to be weak the other two factions would swiftly finish them off.
The trust between the three was paper-thin. Neither of the three powers was willing to risk making a deal with the others. They knew that they could get backstabbed in the middle of the fight. They were all greedy and wanted to be the sole ruler of the whole empire but had to divide it between each other. The Azure Emperor was deemed the strongest cultivator but even he didn’t have control over the whole empire.
There was also another reason why these three weren’t willing to fight. This wasn’t the only country on this giant planet. There were other kingdoms and similar empires bordering with them. If one of the giants was slain and their cultivators vanished then the other superpowers could try their luck and invade.
So a shaky period of peace was now in place. Everyone could be attacked at any moment and no one knew when war would break out. The battles mostly happened at the core formation level with the nascent soul powerhouses rarely making an appearance. At least not the ones that were part of the big three.
Battles between the middle-sized sects were still ongoing but unless you were someone at the very top of the nascent soul, you weren’t a problem in those giants’ eyes. Matt didn’t know if there existed anyone at the immortal realm of power.
His own cultivation method would bring him to the very top, but there were no upgrades before he reached the great circle. He felt like it was a bit odd that no one had gotten to this level yet. If he managed to do it, then he would probably be considered this king of this giant planet but that was something quite distant.
He had also studied some of the texts that Feng Liena gave him. The ancestor that lived in that clan had long left this place and there were some records. He believed that they had ascended to that fabled immortal realm. The problem was that there wasn’t any information about that, it was as if they just vanished.
This made him think about them moving on to another realm like in some of the works of fiction that he read. If he reached the immortal realm, would he also get ejected from this world and forced to live in another one?
This was something he feared, he didn’t really want to leave his place. He had his sect here as well as his wife and kids. He wasn’t a person born here and he didn’t really care about being the strongest person in the world. He also didn’t mind staying here while not reaching the pinnacle of cultivation like most of the other cultivators that lived here. He already had a hard time believing the fact that he would live for a thousand years with his current cultivation level.
‘I should stop worrying about those things. I need to look at the current problem first. Who should I bring together with me…’
Zhang Dong thought about the gathering that he would be supposed to attend to. He needed to take some people with him as he couldn’t just show up alone. This was an event where sects were supposed to show off their power. Normally he would go there with his most powerful members and disciples. This was something he was afraid of.
‘I’ll need to change the scenario a bit here…’
He smiled a bit as he was going to try not to stand out, he knew how gatherings like those always ended. Someone always got offended and fights broke out, he just needed to take the right people with him so that they didn’t stand out too much…