Chapter 9
Chapter 9: Entering the Immortal Sect
Shao Heng understood perfectly what that meant.
[What bad taste.]
And she understood something else just as sharply—no one had noticed she’d already entered the Qi Induction Realm.
Her pulse stumbled.
“What’s going on…?”
She immediately looked inward, searching her qi sea for anything wrong.
She found it at once.
The Gray Cocoon floated beside her Yellow Sprout, sending out layer after layer of ripples. When those ripples blended into the boundary of the qi sea, the entire lower dantian became wrapped in dim gray light.
It sealed her aura completely.
Not a trace of her spiritual power leaked out.
Shao Heng’s fist tightened. Her brows drew down hard.
The Gray Cocoon was almost certainly what the Divine Voice had forced into her. And she still remembered the instinct that had risen like a warning blade in her mind: do not expose it.
Now she understood why.
This thing had spiritual sentience no weaker than the blue-gold tree sigil. It was protecting itself, hiding itself from other cultivators’ perception.
[I can’t rush.]
Shao Heng forced her breathing steady.
[First I need to figure out what that blue-gold sigil is. It’s the same kind of thing as the Gray Cocoon. If I follow that thread, I can pin the Cocoon down too.]
With her decision made, she stopped dwelling on it.
After Jiang Yun Jiang was taken by the white light, Lu Shao Jia and the others panicked and demanded answers.
Elder Zhao stared into the distance, envy flickering briefly in her eyes. “Disciples with Mid Grade and High-Grade aptitude are reported in advance,” she said.
“She was taken by an inner sect elder’s technique into the inner sect. If her fate is good, she may even be accepted as a disciple.”
Outer sect elders and inner sect elders were worlds apart.
An outer sect elder was usually an outer sect disciple whose potential had stalled. Once their cultivation reached the Second Realm, they could apply to become an elder—a way to secure stability and the sect’s protection.
An inner sect elder, however, had to be a cultivator who advanced to the Fourth Realm, Rebirth. They were true geniuses with a bright road ahead.
To become such a person’s disciple was to gain a powerful backing.
Lu Shao Jia, Lu Shao Jing, Qin Ji, and Yan Ning all looked downcast. Their shoulders sank, their eyes dulled with unwillingness.
Shao Heng stepped forward and asked directly, “Elder, then what arrangements are there for us outer sect disciples?”
A middle-aged man with thick brows and dark hair beside Elder Zhao answered. “First, go to the Law Enforcement Pavilion to register. Record your native place and background. Once you officially enter, you can receive the first year’s cultivation resources and be granted your technique.”
“New disciples must attend three months of lessons,” he continued. “Every day from Chen hour to Shen hour, on the fourth floor of the Wondrous Dharma Tower.”
“Whether you attend or not depends on your own discipline. If you miss a teaching elder’s guidance and fail to complete Qi Induction Realm entry smoothly, you will bear the consequences yourselves.”
His gaze hardened. “Remember: the True One Yuan Sect does not keep idlers. Each year you must take a certain number of sect tasks, or you will be expelled.”
“And some of those tasks are deadly, even for cultivators.”
Shao Heng inclined her head. “Thank you for your guidance, Elder.”
Yan Ning shot Shao Heng a look, snorted, and turned away.
Elder Zhao guided the spirit ship into the sect barrier. Before long, they arrived before a tall tower.
It looked built from jade bricks, blue-white throughout, five stories high, with octagonal eaves. Glass lanterns hung below, catching the light.
A black plaque was mounted above the entrance, bearing two large golden characters rendered in the sect’s script. Beneath them, in clear strokes, was the name: “Law Enforcement.”
“Follow this elder inside,” Elder Zhao said.
The interior was orderly to the point of severity. Disciples in charge moved with practiced efficiency—recording backgrounds, lighting soul lamps, administering the sect’s oath.
When it was Shao Heng’s turn, she lifted the wolf-hair purple-bamboo brush.
For the first time, she paused.
“Lu Shao Heng,” Yan Ning snapped from behind her. “Hurry up already.”
Shao Heng didn’t even look back. “So impatient?” she said lightly. “What, you won’t live another quarter hour?”
Yan Ning’s face flushed.
Shao Heng wrote her name and origin with calm, even strokes.
Then she took the small needle offered by the law-enforcement disciple and pricked her fingertip, letting a bead of blood fall onto pale yellow talisman paper.
She pinched the paper and held it to a bronze lamp.
There was no flame.
And yet the talisman ignited on its own.
When it burned to ash, white smoke rose and condensed into a solid token that dropped into Shao Heng’s hand. At the same time, the bronze lamp lit with an orange flame.
The token was rectangular. Though it had formed from smoke, it felt as smooth as fine white jade.
Two lines were carved into it.
True One Yuan Sect — Shao Heng.
From now on, her name needed no family title in front of it.
Once all eight finished, a black-robed female cultivator embroidered with phoenixes stepped forward. She looked only in her twenties or thirties, but her expression was cold enough to freeze breath.
“Your identities are confirmed. Your soul lamps are lit. Your oath is set,” she said. “From today onward, you are outer sect disciples of the True One Yuan Sect.”
With a flick of her sleeve, several streams of light dropped into their hands.
“Outer sect disciples receive cultivation resources once per year. Each time, you may take one hundred twenty spirit stones and three bottles of First-Grade pills.”
“Since you have just stepped onto the path of cultivation, you are given Origin-Boosting Pills to aid cultivation. In the future, when you come to the Law Enforcement Pavilion with your disciple token to claim your resources, you may choose the type of pills yourself.”
Shao Heng caught the stream of light that fell to her palm.
A brown ring.
A storage ring—the kind mentioned in the jade slip.
“The storage ring holds your cultivation resources for this year,” the black-robed cultivator continued, “as well as the necessities for new disciples.”
“Once you complete Qi Induction Realm entry, you will be able to use it.”
The woman was named Yue Liu. She looked as though she meant to say more, but the token at her waist flashed abruptly. Her gaze sharpened. After giving Elder Zhao a brief instruction, she turned and left without another word.
Elder Zhao faced the eight recruits. “Come,” she said. “I’ll take you to the disciples’ residence. I’ll also show you the Wondrous Dharma Tower. Lessons begin tomorrow.”
A young man in a faded outer robe gathered his courage and asked, “Elder Zhao, if lessons start tomorrow, we still need time to complete Qi Induction Realm entry. How are we supposed to arrange that?”
“Arrange it yourselves,” Elder Zhao replied, voice calm as still water.
This question came every year. So did the answer.
“The Wondrous Dharma Tower will provide the schedule,” she said. “But in truth, much of what you need is on the first three floors that are open to you. Whether you attend a teaching elder’s lectures or teach yourself is your own choice.”
When she finished speaking, Elder Zhao looked over them.
Seven wore strained, conflicted expressions.
Only one ragged girl seemed unchanged—and oddly distracted.
Shao Heng was staring at the storage ring.
With a thread of spiritual power, she tested it.
The moment her spiritual power slipped into the ring, her perception expanded. She “saw” a small inner space—two or three cubic units, neat and empty, waiting to be filled.
Fascination swallowed her whole.
So when she suddenly realized Elder Zhao was watching, she didn’t know what expression to put on fast enough. She simply smiled.
Elder Zhao’s brows lifted, just slightly. Surprise flickered across her severe face.
She hadn’t expected this newly recruited disciple to look so carefree.
Nearby, Lu Shao Jia stole a glance at Shao Heng.
He knew better than anyone how widely read and sharp she was. Of course she could look relaxed. He clenched his fist without meaning to.
His mind slid back to the two days on the spirit ship—to Jiang Yun Jiang refusing every invitation, shutting herself away in her cabin as though the rest of them didn’t exist. To how distant she’d become, how unreachable.
Lu Shao Jia rubbed his fingers together again and again, unable to scrub the bitterness from his heart.