Chapter 34: Diamonds in the Rough

Chapter 34: Diamonds in the Rough

Despite Liming’s best efforts, Paike mostly kept them out of trouble for the rest of the day. Only a few of the other newly initiated disciples received challenges from her, but they were quickly dispatched. Liming soon realized that challenging someone beneath them in rankings was not beneficial and only made them appear like bullies. So, even that stopped.

They sat in the center of the sect compound by the fountain, waiting for people to challenge them. While they waited, they talked, but no one seemed willing to try their luck and unseat either of the two siblings. This was somewhat surprising to Paike. He would have expected someone like Han Saiyan or Ren Shu to come and try him again. But perhaps they had learned their lesson last time.

To her disappointment, Liming couldn’t even find any of the seven or so disciples that outranked them. She complained about it constantly and worried about their positions slipping. Paike wasn’t particularly worried about anyone leapfrogging them in the rankings, at least among the newly initiated disciples. Besides, there was a long way to go, and they didn’t even know what the rankings were really worth yet, either. It seemed his sister cared a lot more about the public perception than he did. She might have had a point.

Perhaps they could have started to look at the overarching outer-sect rankings instead of just the newly initiated. However, they weren’t ready to fight peak Ruby cultivators yet, let alone Topaz ones. So, it was the list of the newly initiated disciples they were concerned with for now.

When evening came, Paike found himself back in his slightly damaged house. Guan Li was already slumped in his bed, the door propped open after a brutal bout of training.

When Paike asked how the physical education classes had gone, he only received a grunt in response. Apparently, it had been a special day with basic weapons training, which wouldn’t happen again for a while during the physical cultivation sessions.

The following day, bright and early, Paike and Guan Li set out to meet Liming and the other seventeen members of their class in the field where Elder Ji had them gather.

Paike recognized many of them. There was Li Feng, the number one ranked disciple. He was some sort of swordsman that Paike kept an eye on. Just the way he moved, told Paike that he was dangerous. He didn’t know his story, but he moved like some of his older relatives who saw serious combat. That couldn’t be the case, though, right? He would have heard about him if he was that remarkable.

Some of the other notables were Mei Lingchi, who did well in the spirit cultivation class. She came from a clan that was notable for their healers, if Paike recalled correctly. Han Saiyan and Ren Shu were both there, but they ignored the Kongs.

Zhao Liantian was the only other disciple from the top in the class. Still, that made seven of the top ten in the class. Only Yue Mingli and Wu Chen were missing. Those two were likely noncombatants.

That still left thirteen others who passed their trail that he didn’t know anything about. Twelve, excluding Guan Li. Paike was almost as wary of them as they weren’t people he knew yet. He would have to learn about them as if they were talented enough to make it here. They wouldn’t be irrelevant for long.

The twenty of them milled about, waiting for the elder to appear. Before he did, though, a section of the forest shimmered and vanished. In its place, a series of large constructions appeared—obstacles that stretched nearly 100 meters long and 50 meters wide. There was a duplicate set on either side, and Paike couldn’t help but wonder what kind of pain this course had in store for him.

Everyone around him was also staring at the course. The first obstacle was a towering wall made of shimmering, translucent crystals that reflected and refracted the early morning sunlight in dazzling patterns. The crystals slowly shifted and ground against each other, bits of dust falling to the floor, the sound of grating stone filling the air. Each crystal wall mirrored its counterpart across the two lanes of the obstacle course.

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After that came a narrow, glowing beam of light suspended over what looked like a bottomless chasm. But every once in a while, ripples in the dark told Paike that it was likely just deep water, with something swimming beneath the surface. The beam of light pulsed and shifted, apparitions appearing from it and floating into the sky before disappearing half a meter above the beam. Beyond that was a strange-looking forest, and further ahead, Paike couldn’t see the remaining obstacles. Already, they looked daunting.