Chapter 111

Chapter 111: Why the Sect Grand Tournament Was Created

After Yu Ruan Ruan left, the three played a little longer, then stopped to rest.

Sitting on a ship for so long was exhausting.

Watching the sea of clouds drifting past outside, Cheng Bu Fan suddenly turned to Rong Shu: “We are almost at Cloud Link City. Since this is your first time at the Sect Grand Tournament, I will, most reluctantly, introduce the situation.”

Hearing this, Rong Shu and Fu Yong Kang traded a look in silence. He must have been forced by Peak Master Cheng to memorize this information, and now he had come to show off.

Cheng Bu Fan cleared his throat and began explaining the tournament’s particulars.

The four great sects of the Southern Wilds are Heaven’s Evolution Sect, Sky Piercing Sect, Glorious Radiance Sect, and Giant Spirit Sect.

The Sect Grand Tournament is held every ten years.

Each time, it is hosted in rotation by the masters of the four great sects.

Besides the four majors, all second-rate and third-rate sects also come to compete.

In name, the tournament lets young disciples of each sect exchange pointers. In reality, it is a redistribution of resources.

Disciples who perform well bring their sect more cultivation resources in the period that follows. Young disciples are a sect’s future; if they excel, the sect can rise in a century or less, and if they do not, the opposite holds true.

Of course, where the resources ultimately end up is not a foregone conclusion, but the tournament still gives the smaller sects a chance to climb.

Such chances, however, are often slim.

Even if a small sect somehow nurtures a genius, before the competition ends, the person is usually poached by a larger sect.

People naturally seek higher ground; water naturally runs downhill. For the sake of their own advancement, nearly all disciples who receive an “invitation” choose to switch allegiance.

Examples like these are common in every round of the tournament.

Rong Shu mused: “So the Sect Grand Tournament is not only a sparring meet for disciples, it is also a contest among the powers of the Southern Wilds.”

Fu Yong Kang pulled a small bag of dried fruit and melon seeds from his Storage Pouch, handed some to the other two, then said: “An elder in my clan mentioned a bit about this. In the old days, the sects fought real battles and bled for every scrap of resources.”

“As a result, the demonic paths exploited the chaos and wormed their way in, and the righteous sects suffered heavy losses.”

Rong Shu was not surprised. The cultivation world is inevitably a place where people fight for cultivation resources without cease.

Fu Yong Kang continued: “Back then, relations among the great sects were not as amicable as they are today. Some were practically at a death-feud. When disciples from certain sects ran into each other, they were guaranteed to start a fight.”

“What happened later?” Rong Shu asked at once.

Arms folded, Cheng Bu Fan took over: “Later, leaders from sects with greater say sat down together and concluded that this internal strife could not go on. It harmed the stability of the cultivation world and let the demonic paths exploit the gaps.”

“So after several rounds of adjustment, they settled on the current model of using the Sect Grand Tournament as the mechanism for allocating resources.”

In the sect’s Library Pavilion, Rong Shu had seen only a few cursory lines on this, and never the details. After all, the story was not exactly glorious. No sect would trumpet it widely, and it did not serve the righteous image.

Her eyes brightened a little: “Tell me the other things you know.”

Cheng Bu Fan and Fu Yong Kang had backgrounds higher than hers and could access matters beyond her reach. It was a good chance to ask.

Before joining the sect, Rong Shu had known the secular world well enough, but the cultivation world only half-understood. In her first year with the sect she had poured most of her time into cultivation. Now that she had reached the tenth layer of Qi Refining, she could ease off a little; there was no need to be as tense as before. As for breaking through into the Foundation Establishment Stage, she felt she should wait a bit longer and prepare thoroughly before attempting it.

“All right,” Cheng Bu Fan said cheerfully. “We have nothing better to do anyway.”

Unlike most first-time competitors who were nervously shutting themselves away to train, Cheng Bu Fan had spent these days playing cards and games with Rong Shu and company, with no sense of crisis at all. Rong Shu had tried reminding him a few times, but he only waved it off, unconcerned. Seeing this, she did not press the point.

Meanwhile, at the northernmost reaches of the Southern Wilds lay the Coldlands, ten thousand li of wilderness with hardly a soul in sight.

Few dared set foot there, for it hid the headquarters of the Demonic Cultivators.

The Coldlands were so bitterly cold that even cultivators found it hard to endure; only those of high cultivation relying on spiritual power for protection, or those taking special pills, could enter safely.

Few knew that somewhere in the Coldlands there was a peach blossom grove.

Tender blossoms, sweet fragrance—an utter anomaly in that bone-slicing chill.

From the grove came the sound of strings and flutes. At a private little banquet, songstresses and dancing girls performed, while at the head seat sat a handsome man whose temples were white though the rest of his hair was glossy black.

Wearing a brocade robe the color of pale snow-pine, his eyes were cool as he watched the dance.

On his left and right, two dazzling beauties attended him with quiet care.

Just then, a few dark figures appeared in the distant sky.

The man lifted his gaze slightly. After draining the wine offered by the beauty on his left, he waved the singers and dancers away.

Four people arrived, three men and one woman.

From left to right among the men: the leftmost was a bald monk whose brows lacked a monk’s compassion and were full of lewd wickedness; he was burly and thick with muscle. The one in the middle wore a Black and White Vortex Mask that left only two narrow eye slits; his body was thin as a bamboo pole. The man on the right had a gray, corpse-pale face, as if he had just crawled from a grave, and a faint aura of corpse qi seeped from him.

The lone woman was temptress-beautiful, tall and voluptuous, every movement steeped in seduction.

These four were the power-holders of the Southern Wilds’ major demonic factions, each with cultivation at the Divine Transformation Stage.

Yet all four were punctiliously respectful before the handsome man: “We greet Ancestor Yun Xie.”

The handsome man spoke, and his voice was the rasp of an aged elder, entirely at odds with that beautiful face: “What brings the four of you to this old fellow?”

The bamboo-thin man in the vortex mask replied: “Ancestor, those so-called righteous sects are gathering in Cloud Link City. Would Ancestor, and perhaps Demonheart Valley, have any interest in acting? We could take this chance to net all those so-called righteous geniuses at once.”

The corpse-aura man said through clenched teeth: “Ancestor, a number of Soul Severing Sect’s strongholds were recently uprooted one by one by those damned righteous sects. Our losses are heavy. This is a humiliation that must be repaid.”

The handsome man sat back down and said mildly as he glanced at the wine a maid had just poured: “This old fellow abides by the Central Continent’s interdiction and does not strike at cultivators below the Void Refinement Stage. You have come to the wrong person.”

The four exchanged looks. Then the seductive woman spoke in a honeyed voice: “Ancestor, small fry like that hardly require your hand. It is only… we are wary of any old monsters the righteous sects might be hiding.”

“Though the official line among the righteous is that Heaven’s Evolution Sect’s Jun Xiu Ran, at Divine Transformation Stage, has the highest cultivation, who knows how many ancients lurk in the dark.”

“We beg Ancestor to sit in and hold the line for us.”

The handsome man lowered his eyes to the cup in his hand, his tone cool: “This commotion was stirred up by your four sides—Chenzhi Monastery, Eternal Torment Sect, Soul Severing Sect, and Jade Cauldron Sect. It has nothing to do with this old fellow.”

At that, the four smiled in sudden understanding and bowed: “Yes, we will heed Ancestor’s words.”