We walked into Zisan city as a group to much less fanfare than I expected. We were greeted at the gate by someone who looked like an official and introduced himself as such.
“Hello members of the Blooming Violet sect, I am administrator Huang. I will be showing you all to your accommodations today, please follow me.” He said.
He gave us all a once over with his eyes and then turned his nose up at us! He was treating us like some two-bit sect in the boonies or something. He spent a little time lingering on my spirit locus when he saw it, but he moved on regardless.
I was seething, and looking around at the other members of our sect that came with us, they were all angry too.
Most of the sect members we had brought were unknown to me. I didn’t spend a lot of time socializing while I was in the sect. I recognized Heng Jian, the lightning cultivator, and Ji and Cassandra were here too! Sometime during the time Jia and I were away he had sprang up to a core disciple of quaking petal peak.
Jia and I checked in with him and he told us he had improved leaps and bounds in his cultivation after hearing how both Jia and I had been improving steadily. He was already in the foundation establishment realm while his body cultivation had already reached the viscera training realm in both earth and metal. He was working on mastering his techniques when the time came for us all to leave for the competition.
Administrator Huang led us through the bustling city. I marveled at the new sights and smells. Rough and tumble looking adventurers and cultivators walked across the street or manned the various stalls set up on either side of the road. They shouted out to us, recognizing our background as a prominent sect on the continents.
“Young cultivating geniuses, come see my wares!” one shouted.
“Cultivation pills guaranteed to help you breakthrough to the next level!” Another shouted to us. Some of the other sect members walking with us looked over interestedly at the shouts. One of the elders in charge stopped them from stepping out of line and kept them traveling with the rest of the group. I enjoyed the cacophony of the marketplace and was disappointed when we walked into a quieter part of the city. It felt a lot more orderly, but it felt a little solitary and lonely.
We were brought to a large manor allocated to our sect. Administrator Huang had led us to the open gates of the manor and then quickly left, as if he couldn’t stand being with our group any longer.
We all went into the manor and divvied up our sleeping arrangements. Jia and I of course decided to share a room, despite the sect leader suggesting I be allocated my own room alone as his personal disciple. I just put my hands on my hips and put down my foot on the issue. No one was going to keep Jia and I from staying together.
We had arrived in Zisan city a few days before the competition was officially set to start so we were allocated some time to go out and see the sights of the city, though we were all put on a strict curfew on the day before the competition. The elders were all taking the competition very seriously, the sect leader included.
I didn’t really understand why this competition was so important, but I knew it was important for them, so I would do my best!
Me, Jia, Ji, Cassandra, and Heng Jian for some reason all ended up traveling through the city together the day before the competition was set to start.
Over the past few days we had gone out in smaller groups and toured around the city. There were always small little fights and spars going on across the city on these interesting little pop up arenas that would spring up out of nowhere.
We stayed and watched fights between cultivators of the qi condensation realm all the way up to the nascent soul realm. I had yet to see anybody at the domain creation realm let alone someone at the domain solidification realm. Even our sect leader of the Blooming Violet sect was only at the Nascent soul realm, though I hadn’t seen him fight since the outer sect competition that felt like it happened so long ago.
As a group we walked through the town together, visiting an area we hadn’t been to before when we were waylaid by a voice calling out to Jia.
“Miss Lian, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” the voice I recognized as young master Yao of Cheng Lian city called out to the ice princess. Her face hardened and we turned as a group to see the gathered Righteous Fury sect members standing on the street from the direction we had just come from.
“Ah, young master Yao, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Jia said, the ice qi accumulating around her body brought a chill to the area.
“Oh come now, I’ve come to give you one last chance. Leave that pathetic group of weaklings the eastern continent calls a sect and join me in the Righteous Fury sect. I’ll ensure you’re given a place suitable to your heritage and best of all, you wouldn’t have to hang out with those bumpkins over there.” he said. Then he saw me and looked above me and frowned.
“Well, I see one of you has a locus as well, maybe you aren’t as useless as I thought you were. You, blue haired girl, you’re worthy to become my concubine. Come to the Righteous Fury sect and I’ll make sure you aren’t bullied at least” He continued.
We all seethed, and Shimmer growled, though Heng Jian seemed the least bothered by his words, only quirking an eyebrow.
“Wow, these cuties are not cute at all!” Cassandra said, unsheathing her sword.
“Junior brother Yao Zen, is this truly the girl you’ve taken a fancy to, she doesn’t seem worthy of you at all.” A voluptuous young woman on the left side of the group of Righteous Fury sect disciples said as she preened herself.
Yao Zen chuckled and simply smirked at our group. I could feel the temperature drop precipitously at her words but before Jia, Cassandra, or Ji could make a move, Heng Jian stepped forward. Heng Jian had changed a lot since the outer sect competition. His hair had grown out and he now kept it in a ponytail behind his head. He now wore a headband with a symbol on it reading ‘Thunder’ that sat askew over one of his eyes. That didn’t seem very practical to me, but maybe he got hurt? He wore loose cultivators robes and underneath the robes I could tell he was wearing a skin–tight full bodysuit. His silvery white hair flowing in the wind, he looked kinda cool standing there in front of the group.
Jia was looking at Heng Jian with a puzzled expression on her face and Cassandra was smiling when I looked over to her.
“If you’re so eager to get her to join your sect, why don’t you prove that we’re just a bunch of weaklings by fighting us?” Heng Jian said, his hands still stuffed into the pockets of his robes.
Yao Zen, as if finally noticing Heng Jian, looked him up and down and scoffed.
“I wouldn’t lower myself to fighting a peon of the Blooming Violet Sect. I’ll let Hector fight you.” He motioned behind him and a short blonde haired boy walked up to the fore of the group. He was very ordinary in appearance but the look in his bright blue eyes was a little manic. He was standing still but suddenly stumbled where he was standing and nearly fell over.
“Whoops!” He said in a chipper, almost rushed voice.”
“I’m Hector, I’m from off world if you couldn’t tell. Oh, hi cousin!” He belted out before finally waving at Cassandra. We all looked back to Cassandra and she cringed away before answering him.
“Hi Hector, I didn’t know you had joined a sect on Dou Can. What brought you here?” She asked in a polite tone that reminded me of someone uncomfortably making small talk.
“Ah, you know, got exiled from the family for killing too many of those stupid mortals. Sent me here to Dou Can to ‘let off some steam’ or something like that. I like this place, the sect doesn’t mind when I kill mortals as long as I don’t kill too many.”
I shivered at the offhand mention of slaughter and ended up just shaking my head.
Heng Jian didn’t look bothered and he nodded.
“Very well. I’ll fight this small hellion.” He said.
Hector cocked his head and smiled.
“What’s a hellion?” He asked.
“You are.” Heng Jian said.
“Oh, I see.” Hector said before again stumbling where he stood.
“Hey everyone, there’s going to be a fight!” Someone in the gathered crowd shouted. I looked around and more people were gathering. Someone was setting up a small table and started taking bets and a group of cultivators carried out a small fighting platform like we had seen across the city over the past few days. Where had they gotten this stuff? I hadn’t seen it when I was walking around.
I watched as Cassandra ran over to the betting table and presumably told them they shouldn’t be betting on something so serious.
Heng Jian and Hector walked onto the small fighting platform and one of the onlookers agreed to act as the referee.
Cassandra returned with a little slip in her hands and jumped excitedly up and down.
“Did you get them to stop the gambling?” I asked her. She looked at me confused.
“No? Why would I stop them, it’s all in good fun, plus I can win easy gold betting on Heng Jian.” She said. I looked at her, abashed. I didn’t expect this from her.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
She rolled her eyes and then smiled at me.
“Oh Astra, it’s cute how innocent you are!” She said before turning back to watch the start of the fight.
I didn’t know what she meant by innocent, but I suppose I couldn’t fault her for joining in on the betting, though why was she so confident in Heng Jian?
Heng Jian and Hector were standing across from each other about ten meters apart. The referee threw his hand down and Heng Jian launched himself at Hector. Hector put up his arms to guard, and Jian landed into him, the smell of ozone assaulted my nose as they intercepted each other. A layer of earth had come up between the two cultivators and Jian’s hand was punched through the wall.
Hector had disappeared and I could no longer catch sight of him. Jian seemed to be confused as well but not for long. Earthen hands erupted from the ground and grabbed onto Jian’s legs.
Lightning crackled and the earth around his legs exploded outwards, pelting the onlookers in earthen shrapnel.
Hector appeared then, flowing out of the ground behind Jian. I wanted to shout out to warn him, but before I could make a noise, he had already whipped around and launched himself at the small blonde boy. Before they could clash, one of the Blooming Violet Sect elders and another cultivator I didn’t recognize who wore robes matching the Righteous Fury sect disciples appeared.
Elder Ping, one of the newer elders of the Blooming violet sect, grabbed Jian’s arm and stopped the attack he was launching while the other elder stood in front of Hector, who wasn’t defending himself whatsoever, presumably protecting him.
“That’s enough of this, save your fighting for the competition.” Elder Ping said. The gathered crowd booed and I watched out of the corner of my eye as the person running the gambling stall did their best to slink away without notice. They failed however and were soon mobbed by spectators wanting their money back, Cassandra included.
After the elders broke up the fight, it was our group with elder Ping and the Righteous Fury sect group with their elder standing across from us.
“Ah, Ping Yuan, I see you’ve lowered yourself to looking after trash since we let you go from the sect” The Righteous Fury sect elder said. I looked to elder Ping who now had one fist balled up, and I could see blood dripping down from where he was clenching.
“You must be mistaken.” Elder Ping said.
“None of the disciples we have brought this year can be considered as ‘Trash’ they are all very promising seedlings.” He put his arm around my shoulder then.
“Astra here is the personal disciple of the sect leader.” He finished, turning his nose up and smiling smugly at the Righteous Fury sect Elder.
The Righteous Fury sect elder looked at me up and down and then at the locus behind my head. His eyebrows rose slightly at the sight but he caught himself and returned back to his previous demeanor.
“So the sect leader of the Blooming Violet sect took in a replacement for Tang Wei. It seems he couldn’t rid himself of the shame of losing one disciple so he got another one just like Tang Wei to lose after this year’s competition.” The elder said.
“I’m not going anywhere!” I told him, fury in my heart. He just looked at me coldly.
“You’re not the only one capable of manifesting an elemental locus, despite the rarity of a six pointed locus. Our sect leader’s personal disciple will be competing this year, I can tell from your cultivation levels that none of you shall be his match, even this Astra girl.”
“I guess we’ll just have to see during the competition then!” I told him in the haughtiest voice I could muster.
The other elder simply smiled and chuckled.
“Indeed we will, girl. As will everyone else.” He said mysteriously before turning around and ushering his charges away, presumably back to their lodgings for the duration of the tournament.
I frowned.
“Now, now, kids, worry not. I will be watching over you for the duration of the day so nothing else like this should happen. I only noticed you all had gone out together a little late and caught up just in time to stop that fight before it escalated.”
“Why did you have to stop the fighting?” I asked Elder Ping.
“One of the rules of the sect competition is that should anyone intentionally harm and injure a disciple from another sect before the competition begins, their team will be penalized during the competition in a manner commensurate to the injury inflicted to the other sect.” Elder Ping said.
“Thus, should I not have intervened and allowed young Heng Jian to complete his attack on the other disciple, who I might add had no intention of defending himself from the strike, then our sect would be punished during the competition.”
We all paled and Jian looked pensive at the elder’s words. We had easily fallen for their provocation and had it not been for the elder we would have fallen into their trap and possibly ruined our sect’s chances of winning the competition.
We endeavored to be on our best behavior for the remainder of the day and spent the time walking around the town and seeing the sights, partaking in the various stall food, and even checking out the multitude of wares being hawked by the vendors on the sides of the street.
We didn’t encounter any other issues and all made it back well before the curfew. We went to our respective rooms and rapidly went to bed, though Jia and I spent some time talking and gossiping about how close Cassandra and Jian seemed to be during the day.
The next day we woke up and gathered in the main courtyard with all of us to listen to the instructions of the elders. They went over the normal instructions of not making trouble, we represent our sect and our actions are being noted by the spectators and the arbitrators.
We walked as a full group to the arena for the opening ceremony of the games. The administrators were running around hurriedly dodging in and out of the myriad spectators walking to their seats. We hailed one of the administrators who begrudgingly pointed us in the direction of the meeting area for the sects.
We entered a large room where multiple groups in various colored robes were currently gathering. I recognized the Sword Dao Palace disciples and I looked around for the red haired young man who had saved me inside the hidden realm, but I couldn’t see him within the throng of people.
An administrator came up to us and indicated where we should gather. I could feel the eyes on our group from all around the room and even felt a small amount of bloodlust leaking out from somewhere, but I couldn’t pinpoint where. We grouped up at our designated place in the room and we waited for about an hour before it was time for the opening ceremony to start.
I could hear the muffled announcer hyping up the crowd and explaining how this was the eighty fifth inter continental sect competition, and it had a long and storied tradition. I eventually zoned his voice out until I heard his tone change a few minutes later.
“Now, it’s time to introduce the grand sects competing in this year’s competition!
As is tradition, first up is the sect that came in last last inter-continental sect competition, give it up for the Blooming Violet sect from the eastern continent!” He shouted. As a group we exited the underground room and entered the large arena, the sun shining down on us from above as we walked out to a modest amount of cheering from the spectators. We were ushered to one of the platforms in the middle of the arena. There were eight platforms in total. I mentally counted off the sects I knew were competing and wondered where the remaining number of sects was going to be made up from.
After we settled on the platform the announcer began listing off the remaining sects in order from worst to best from the prior competition.
“Put your hands together for the Qiulong sect from the eastern continent!” He said and a group of cultivators in deep velvety green robes exited from underground. I didn’t know there was a Qiulong sect on the eastern continent. I would have to ask the sect leader about them when we returned to the sect.
“Next up is the Golden Buddha sect! They have always made a good showing at the inter-continental sect competition. They hail from atop Mount Tianshi on the western end of the western continent.” He said. And a group of men and women wearing gold and bright red robes walked out from the darkness. They wore beads around their necks and were all bald for some reason. I could never join them, I liked my hair plenty, even if it was getting a little too long for my liking. I should work on cutting it soon.
“Next, coming in third place in the last inter-continental sect competition, put your hands together for Serene Soul Garden!” He said. This time, cultivators in light blue robes exited from the darkness and I noticed all of them were women. I didn’t know there were sects that discriminated on gender. Or maybe they allowed all genders but their best disciples happened to be all women?
“Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the second place sect that astounded everyone with their mixture of spiritual cultivation and swordsmanship. Give it up for the Sword Dao Palace!” He said and the familiar white robed cultivators I remembered walked out from below. The cheering for each sect since we were announced had been more and more raucous, but the cacophony that resulted when the Sword Dao Palace disciples showed themselves surprised me. The crowd went wild and the Sword Dao Palace disciples waved at the crowd, egging them on even more.
“Last, but not least, we have the winners of the last inter-continental sect competition. They need no more introduction, it’s the Righteous Fury sect!” He said. Cultivators in blood red robes left from beneath the stadium and showed off their techniques as they walked.
My vision was drawn to the young man leading the group, he walked in front of even the elders of his sect. My vision wasn’t drawn to him because of his position in the crowd though, nor was it due to his handsome face, but the shining locus with six points floating behind him. I didn’t take my eyes off of him until I heard a cough from next to me. I looked over to see the sect leader holding a hand over his mouth. He pulled his hand away and I noticed blood on it.
“Master!” I called out and fussed over him while the other elders approached us and took over for me. I glared back at the young man from the righteous fury sect to find him looking at me with a complicated expression on his face. I turned my nose up and stared back at him defiantly. He finally noticed I was staring back and turned away, not giving our group another look as he led his sect over to their platform. Once they were situated there was a silence that overtook the whole arena before the announcer’s voice popped up again.
“Now, the more observant of you may have noticed that we have eight platforms but only six sects compete in this competition. Well this year is a little special. We received a petition from two forces on the northern continent that requested the chance to compete in our competition. They were very persuasive so I would like to now introduce to you the disciples and members from these two powerful forces on the northern continent!
Firstly we have a group of Mertalians from the northern seas. They’ve established the Coiling Sea Dragon sect on the western edge of the northern continent and have astounded all of Dou Can with their martial prowess.” He said. And like he described, from the opposite side of the arena we had entered from, a large group of Mertalians walked out and made their way to their platform.
When they were situated, the announcer’s voice appeared again.
“And lastly, hailing from the center of the northern continent where the ever-erupting volcano Vulcanor lay, we have a sect that was revitalized last year after their long thought dead sect leader returned!” He said.
My blood immediately ran cold at the announcer’s words. I looked over to Jia and she was just as worried as I was.
“Give it up for the Inferno Scorpion sect!” The announcer finished.
A group of cultivators then walked out from where the Mertalians had entered and when I saw the man at the front of the group, I felt like my whole world was turning upside down. There walked Azoreth of Flames, waving his arms exuberantly toward the crowd to minimal applause. He looked over to Jia and I and glared for a moment and I shivered involuntarily. He immediately went back to his normal facade and led his sect of dark purple wearing cultivators to their assigned platform. Once they were on their platform the announcer spoke up for the last time.
“There you have it ladies and gentleman! These eight sects will be competing for the coveted prize and status commensurate to the winner of the inter-continental sect competition!” He shouted and the crowd went wild.