Driven by the young man and woman, the cloud-shaped magic treasure flew very fast. Half a day passed, the fear and sadness of Yang Chunbo and the other children except Su Li faded away, and only excitement and novelty were left. Frightened by the young man, however, they behaved themselves.
Glancing at the young man who was concentrating on flying, Su Li showed a faint expression.
Before leaving, Huang took her hands and said a lot.
“My dear, you have to keep in mind that the cultivation sect has never been a place of goodness. When I was in Yuxu Sect back then, I saw many handyman disciples died, even the official disciples of Waimen Branch lived cautiously. They were afraid of losing their lives, too. After joining the sect, remember to be careful with everything and do not act recklessly or offend others. You are a girl who knows her way around. Alas…”
It was obvious that Huang was worried about her. He still had many words to say, but there was no time left for him.
Su Li did not give Huang a promise. Huajian Sect was not out of her capability to control, but not everything was predictable. She was not able to secure herself when living another life in the illusion, not to mention now.
After a while, Su Li lifted her head and, like Yang Chunbo and the others, looked towards the mountains not far below the clouds, where… she could vaguely feel a hint of familiarity.
This should be the entrance of Huajian Sect.
Soon afterwards, the young man and the woman controlled the magic treasure to descend simultaneously. After passing through the heavy fog, the mountains surrounded by clouds came into view. Completely different from the outside world, it looked like a beautiful spring day, with birds singing and flowers giving forth their fragrance.
Occasionally, white cranes could be seen flying up from a peak of the mountains in a graceful and elegant posture. It was really a fairyland.
Several children opened their eyes wide out of surprise.
“What a beautiful place here!”
“Is this where the immortals live?”
“…”
Yang Chunbo opened his mouth wide, and he never thought that there would be such beautiful mountains in the world.
Su Li pretended to be astonished that she had never seen this before, but she was secretly shocked. On the way through the fog, she could feel the defensive matrix of Huajian Sect had been turned to the second stack!
Back then, she became the holy girl of Yuxu Sect, not only because of her great cultivation and super battle power, but also because she was a master in matrix deployment!
When Hua Yan established her own sect, as a close friend, Su Li presented her Triple Star-stacked Defensive Matrix as a congratulatory gift, which, as its name implied, was divided into three stacks.
The first one was to open only the illusionary matrix and the low-level protective matrix, which could be maintained by consuming the lowest-grade spiritual stones. The second stack was to start a part of the killing matrix additionally, which had to be sustained by consuming low-grade spiritual stones. It would only be turned on when the sect was under threat.
As for the third stack, it required the consumption of precious top-grade spiritual stones to enhance the power of the matrix drastically… Being a small sect, Huajian Sect possessed not enough middle-grade spiritual stones, not to mention the top-grade spiritual stones. If the third stack of the matrix was turned on, it meant Huajian Sect was not far from its extinction.
Huajian Sect seemed to be so peaceful, and could have spare time to send disciples for recruitment, but why did they turn the matrix to the second stack?
Although she was full of questions, this obviously did not be the part of those she should ask. So, she had to keep it in her heart and left it for the future.
Not long after, the young man and the woman took Su Li and the others to land on an open square at the top of a mountain. Someone saw them landing and hurried over immediately.
Meanwhile, the young man explained, “There are four mountain peaks at Huajian Sect. The headmaster lives on Baihua Mount and there are not many disciples. The disciples of Neimen Branch live on Fujian Mount and Danxia Mount. All the disciples of Waimen Branch stay on this mount, Qinghua Mount.”
After that, he turned to Su Li and said, “In the future, your name will be Su Yue.”
Su Li was slightly startled, thinking of the figure in Reincarnation Mirror, and she nodded. She didn’t dislike the name.
The real Su Yue should live very well in Qingshui Circle. If fate would make them re-meet… she would not mind.
After hearing the words of the young man, the woman smiled slightly and thought to herself, “Feng (wind), Hua (flower), Xue (snow) and Yue (moon), how romantic. Two maids of Senior Fellow Apprentice Han Feng have coincidently Hua and Xue in their names. Yue in this girl’s new name must come from here.”
As they spoke with each other, two middle-aged men wearing cyan robes came quickly. In the stunned eyes of Yang Chunbo and others, they saluted the young man and woman respectfully, “Greetings, Master Han and Master Ruan!”
Han Feng nodded slightly, glancing at the children who were full of surprises, and he didn’t explain anything. He told the middle-aged men in cyan, “Take them to the testing stone, and I will be there afterwards.”
In the admiring glances of the men in cyan, Han Feng and the woman with Ruan as her family name drifted away.
After a long time, the older middle-aged man in cyan withdrew his gaze, and said calmly, “Come with me. You may have many questions now, but it does not matter. If you stay in the sect long enough, you will understand everything. Now, come with me.”
Yang Chunbo and others did not dare to make a mistake, and immediately followed him. Su Li deliberately fell behind and walked at the end of the group.
When they arrived at a wide square on the mountainside, the two middle-aged men in cyan stopped. Yang Chunbo and others were surprised to find that there were already more than 100 children besides them, aged between ten and sixteen. Many of them were finely dressed. Obviously, they came from noble families.
The middle-aged men in cyan left after sending them there. Without the supervision of adults, the children immediately chatted in groups.
“Sister Su… Su Yue, as for the testing stone the man mentioned just now, have you ever heard of it?”
Yang Chunbo broke out in a cold sweat, for he almost called her real name out.
The other two boys were pale, being too scared to speak a word. Such a big spectacle was beyond their imagination.
Su Li shook her head and said nothing. Yang Chunbo just thought she was nervous either, so he stayed aside.
Su Li looked at the black stone stele in the form of a square, which was as high as a person and had a shine.
It was the testing stone, a low-level magic treasure specially used to test the spiritual root. It could test spiritual roots up to the middle grade. The nimbus in the mountain occupied by Huajian Sect was not abundant, so they would be appreciative of finding a disciple with a whole spiritual root in the nearby area. They probably had never thought of finding someone with middle-grade spiritual root.
The principle of the testing stone was very simple. As long as one’s inner spiritual power resonated with the stone, it could distinguish the quality of his spiritual root according to the degree of resonance.
There was no spiritual power in the mortal’s body. The easiest and fastest way for many sects to select disciples from the mortal world was to rely on the resonance between the spiritual root and the stone.
Thinking of this, Su Li made her eyes flickered lightly. She had now reached the third hurdle of Lianqi Realm, and she could produce spiritual whirlwinds inside her body. She could even imitate the resonance of the super-grade spiritual root if she wanted to. What’s more, she had a body of evil ghost, even natural law would feel terrified by her talent. Using the testing stone to categorize the spiritual roots was too rudimentary for her.
Now, the only thing that embarrassed her was which level of spiritual roots she should revealed.
Certainly, she could set up no resonance with the testing stone at all, making her become one of the handyman disciples in Huajian Sect. But if she wanted to rebuild her cultivation as soon as possible, the resources to cultivate would be inevitable, but only formal disciples could have the opportunity to get the resources.
Moreover, handyman disciples had no human rights in the sect, and no one would care if they were arbitrarily slaughtered. Even if she wanted to re-practice quietly, it wouldn’t be easy.
Suddenly, there was a flap among the children. Su Li looked at the direction the loudest voice came from. It turned out that two new children were approaching, including a boy and a girl. They were well dressed in gold, and behaved with great dignity like prince and princess. The others had a sense of inferiority when seeing them.
The boy in gold was arrogant and glanced over the crowd. A faint sneer crossed his childish fair face. He thought he was different from those poor and lowly people. However, his father asked him to join this test in the same venue with this group of garbage. It was disgusting!
“Okay, I just send you here. Don’t disappoint me.”
The woman, who brought the two in gold here, said that indifferently. The pride on the boy’s face weakened a little and he bowed to her, “Thank you, Eldest Senior Sister Apprentice.”
Eldest Senior Sister Apprentice?
Hearing this, the woman grinned slightly and left without saying anything.
Shortly after she left, the boy in golden suit was surrounded by many boys.
Ganging up to survive just began from the moment they barely joined the sect.
“Shall we go over?”
In the small group from Tiehe Village, one of the rest two boys couldn’t help asking. Su Li vaguely remembered his name as Chen Hu, and the other boy Wang Ci immediately turned to Yang Chunbo.
Yang Chunbo looked hesitated, and glanced at Su Li, but Su Li didn’t move. Then he sighed and did not move either.
“If you guys don’t go, I will go!”
Chen Hu looked at the boy in gold, flashing his longing in his eyes, and pulled Wang Ci next to him. Wang Ci felt hesitated, but he could see the children around that boy were getting more. There was almost no place left. He finally couldn’t resist and left with Chen Hu.
“Erya…”
Yang Chunbo was getting slightly anxious, but he didn’t follow, because he couldn’t leave Su Li alone. Su Li sighed. For the sake of the ring of Reincarnation Mirror, she said, “Wait on. It’s… too early to choose.”
Hearing Su Li’s words, Yang Chunbo was stunned. He was confusedly looking at Su Li.
Was this the same Erya he used to know? This one seemed to be different…
He had too little experience. Except the word “different”, no other specific word came to him to describe it. He just got the feeling that he should listen to Su Li.
Just at this moment, a loud voice, like a thunder, suddenly burst out over the venue, “What are you doing?!”
A bunch of children, who huddled together, got into a panic, and many children were trampled and got injured.
Seeing this scene, the middle-aged man in black descending from the air frowned seriously, and waved at the stewards in cyan beside him. He reprimanded, “A group of good-for-nothings, for you can’t keep the children in order. Move! If one kid died, I will make you responsible for it.”