Ning was stumped for a while. 'Did they forget to include the book for the bone?' he wondered.
He pointed to the ingredients and asked, "Umm… can I touch the ingredients?".
The woman smiled and said, "If you are sure they are not poisonous then go ahead."
Ning stopped in his tracks. 'Poisonous? Can't be, right? Whatever, I will heal it if I really do get poisoned,' he thought. Then, he walked forward to the bone and picked it up with both of his hands.
He tried to squeeze the bone to check that It really was a bone and not some weird plant in the shape of a bone. Unfortunately, it was as hard as a bone and as white as a bone. So, it was a bone.
'This doesn't look like anything in the book though. Was there a mistake regarding the ingredient?' he wondered. But that shouldn't have been the case. From his understanding, the people here knew enough to not make a single such mistake. Even if they did, by now it would have been fixed.
'So I can assume that it's not a mistake and that this bone really is meant to be here,' he thought and looked through the information once more in his head and recalled every single ingredient in the book.
There was not a single one in there that matched the bone.
'So is the bone not an ingredient? Is that why there is nothing about it?' Ning wondered. 'But no, she told me to name all the 5 ingre—.' His eyes shined brightly as he came to a realization.
Ning decided to take a gamble on what he had just learned
"I am done," he said.
The woman was a little surprised and asked, "Aren't you going to name the bone?"
"No. I have done what you asked and named all the ingredients on the table. The bone is not one of them," Ning said.
"Interesting, very interesting," the woman said. "Good job. We put the bone in the mix to either get people to give up early and know that It's not a good thing to get stuck on something while researching."
"Or, get brave enough to ask us what the ingredient is themselves. We were only looking for people who could either understand there is a limit to what one could learn or could think outside the box."
"You somehow managed to do neither and found out that the bone was not one of the ingredients. Congratulations, you have passed the test," the woman turned to the disciple at the door and said, "He has passed"
The disciple nodded and took Ning to another room. He walked in to see that there were quite a few people there already. Most of them were actually older folks and a very small number of them were young people like Ning.
Ning nodded to the people and went to a corner to wait.
The room was quiet and stayed that way for a while. Some people even started to sit down and cultivate. Ning just stayed there and waited.
People kept coming in one after another and after a few hours of waiting, the examiner entered as well. The test had lasted for around 8 hours and of the original examinee, only 40 people had passed.
"Congratulations everyone for passing the entrance exam. We are happy to see that so many of you didn't get stuck on not being able to answer the ingredients and instead understood your limitations."
"So, starting now you will all be new members of the Pure Cleansing Sect. Welcome everyone," The examiner said with a clap and the people behind him started to clap as well.
"Our sect does not have a distinction between outer or inner sect. Everyone is equal and there to help others. You will get books to read for free and learn the different techniques."
"Our only requirement is that you cut your hair to show that you are one of Pure Cleansing sect's disciples and that you work in the physician's guild after the first month and help us earn some money so that we can keep the sect running. Haha," the examiner laughed.
"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself once again. Sigh, My name is Seband Fiour, and I am the first elder of the sect. You guys can just call me first elder. There is nothing else that you should learn really. You can get to know the rules from the handbook."
"Don't worry, we are not very strict."
The first elder spoke a few more words and left the hall. Ning and the rest were taken to have their identification card made and got their own robes as well as a guidebook.
After that, they were taken to a different room and had their hair cut. They put a special paste on their bald head to stop the hairs from growing back anymore.
Ning felt his own bald head and thought, 'this feels so weird.' However, he had already come to terms with the fact that he would be bald today, so it wasn't all that bad.
They were then let into the sect.
The sect was a simple place with the important buildings at the center and all the residential places around them. They were allowed to choose whichever house they wanted and could live in them.
They were all small cottages, so Ning found himself a simple cottage towards the back of the sect and stayed there.
It was already evening by the time he got to the cottage, so he decided to cultivate for now. For the past 30 days, his cultivation speed had exploded and his growth had become very apparent.
He could already feel the next breakthrough approaching and it was just a matter of time.
Even his body was getting used to the Qi in the atmosphere. He was sure that very soon, his body would be fully adapted to the QI and he would no longer have to be constrained by it.