25. All Under Heaven Competes for One Offer

After the tournament, the major sects set up recruitment tables near the arena. Long banners hang from temporary structures; Crimson Flame’s phoenix emblem, Iron Peak’s mountain crest, Violet Sky’s swirling clouds. Young cultivators line up at each, hoping to catch the eye of a Core Formation elder, dreaming of leaving their minor sects for something greater. We walk past them slowly, Ling’er observing everything. The nervous applicants adjusting their robes. The bored elders barely glancing at qualifications. The triumphant smiles of those accepted, the crushed expressions of those rejected.

It’s exactly like university job fairs, I realize. New graduates in cheap suits, clutching resumes, trying to impress recruiters who’ve seen a thousand faces just like theirs. The same desperate hope. The same casual dismissal. The same politics behind closed doors. Like newgrads looking to impress the recruiter and land an internship. Except here, “internship” means spending decades as a low-tier disciple, and “full-time offer” means a path to Core Formation and two to five hundred years of life.

A Crimson Flame elder tests a girl’s fire affinity. He hands her a flame crystal: a palm-sized stone that glows when channeled with fire qi. She concentrates, and the crystal lights up bright red.

“Adequate,” the elder says, already looking past her. “You may join as outer disciple.”

The girl’s face falls. Adequate. After years of training, of hoping, of dreaming, she’s just adequate. She nods quickly, accepting. Because adequate at a major sect is better than being the core disciple of a minor one. Better than staying in some backwater with no resources, no connections, no future. Outer disciple of Crimson Flame means meals, manuals, a chance to advance. It means escaping obscurity.

Like our sect. Before Ling’er. Before me.

Ling’er watches silently, her expression unreadable. An Iron Peak elder has applicants lift progressively heavier stones. Blocks of granite, each marked with weight. Most fail at two hundred pounds, their arms shaking, their faces red with effort. One boy: stocky, determined, manages four hundred and is accepted on the spot, beaming with pride.

Ling’er could lift that stone with one hand. Could lift the elder who’s testing her. Could lift the entire table he’s sitting at, applicants and all. She says nothing. But I can see the competitive fire in her eyes, quickly banked, hidden behind her servant-girl mask.

At the Violet Sky Sect’s table, a long line waits. Their elder is the severe woman from the demonstration, the one who froze the arena floor and shattered it into crystals. She sits behind an ornate table, interviewing each applicant personally. Her gaze cuts through pretenses, her questions sharp and precise. Most are dismissed with a wave. A few words, a brief demonstration, and they’re sent away, their dreams crushed in seconds.

One girl, maybe sixteen, catches her attention. She’s pretty with delicate features, expensive robes, the bearing of someone raised with resources. When asked to demonstrate, she performs a water technique that’s good but not exceptional. Smooth, controlled, but nothing special. The elder asks about her family. Her cultivation background. Her connections. The girl answers carefully, and something in the elder’s expression shifts. Interest. Recognition. After a brief conversation, she’s given a jade token. Inner disciple status. Immediate acceptance.

Ling’er studies the girl carefully as she walks away, clutching her token like it’s made of gold.

“Her technique is good but not great.” Ling’er’s voice is barely audible. “I’ve seen better today from applicants who were rejected.”

Politics. Even in cultivation, politics.

I nod slowly. “The strong get stronger. The connected get opportunities. That’s how the world works.”

“And the rest?” She looks at the rejected applicants drifting away from the tables, shoulders slumped, futures uncertain.

“The rest struggle. Or give up. Or find another path.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “I’m glad I found you, Master. Before any of them found me.”

I don’t have words for that. So I just rest my hand on her shoulder briefly, then move on. We’ve seen enough. The tournament is over. The recruitment continues without us. Time to head back to the inn and prepare for tomorrow’s journey home.

As we leave the arena behind, the thought flickers through my mind: what if I recruited them instead? Those rejected applicants, those “adequate” disciples, those young cultivators with nowhere else to go. They could fill my sect, strengthen my ranks, give me more bodies to train and resources to manage.

I shake my head.

With what credibility? I’m a sect leader from a backwater mountain with a leaking roof and a dying mine—well, a decent mine and a new roof, but they don’t know that. My robes are plain. My bearing is unremarkable. I look exactly like what I am: a mediocre cultivator from a nowhere sect. What resources could I offer them? A bed in a crowded room. Meals that were gruel until recently. Manuals they could get anywhere. No guaranteed path to advancement, no powerful elders to guide them, no connections to major sects.

They may be desperate, but they’re not that desperate. They’d have to uproot their lives, travel to an unknown mountain, trust a shabby-looking sect leader with no reputation and no obvious power.

This book’s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I wouldn’t accept an offer from me either.

I move on, shaking my head. Recruiting more disciples is for later. Once I’ve built something worth joining. Once I can provide for the disciples I already have. Once Ling’er is strong enough to help, not just be helped. Later. Not now.

The sun sets as we walk through the city streets, painting the buildings in shades of orange and purple. Ling’er is quiet beside me, her eyes distant, processing everything she’s seen today. I don’t interrupt. Let her sort through the avalanche of information. At the inn, she sits on her bed without being asked and closes her eyes. For an hour, she doesn’t move. Her breathing slows to almost nothing. The qi around her shifts subtly as she works through techniques in her mind, practicing without moving, learning without strain.

Then she opens her eyes.

“Master. I learned twenty-three new techniques today.” She counts on her fingers. “Fourteen combat, nine cultivation. I identified weaknesses in all of them—things the users were doing wrong, ways they could improve. And I figured out how the Violet Sky elder’s freezing technique works. The one from the demonstration.”

“You understood a Core Formation technique? From watching once?”

“Mostly.” She tilts her head, replaying it in her mind. “It’s based on the same principle as the Azure Frost method, but compressed differently. She’s forcing ice to form instantly by removing all the heat from an area at once. It’s inefficient, she wastes a lot of qi creating the effect, but it’s dramatic. Good for demonstrations, not so good for actual combat. A more efficient version would use half the qi for the same result.”

I stare at her.

“What? Was that wrong?”

“No.” I find my voice. “It’s just… you understood a Core Formation technique. After watching it once. From a distance. While maintaining perfect concealment under a Nascent Soul’s attention.”