Liu Wei was at the edge of his seat – literally.

At the back of his mind, he noticed that he had lost control of his facial expression, his surprise having slipped out for all to see. He was too preoccupied staring at the disciple he had trained to address that right now though.

It didn’t really matter either, because all who could have seen it were the other elders, none of whom had any capacity to pay attention to him right now. For all of his bewilderment, Liu Wei was still the least confused amongst all of them.

Chonglin had just accomplished something should have been impossible, sending a wave of pure shock through the entire audience that had gone completely silent, watching him with bated breath.

Then, as if a spell that had been silencing all of them had been broken, they roared.

From one moment to another, the arena was filled with cheers louder than ever before. As medical staff rushed forward to treat the two fighters, Liu Wei finally forced himself out of the stupor that he had fallen into.

Watching as the scene continued to unfold, Liu Wei tried to comprehend what he had just watched happen. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Chonglin had been attentively observing every one of Qiao Bai’s fights from the beginning, while not paying any attention to any of the other contestants besides his friend Zixin. Now it was clear, why.

The boy had been working on a strategy to face her. What he had come up with was exactly what Liu Wei would have advised him to do: She was superior to him in every way. As such, the only option was to play for time and bet on her hubris to deliver him an opening.

That was exactly what had happened. The girl, while incredibly well trained in both strategy and swordsmanship, clearly had the same issue of character that many powerful cultivators with inadequate combat experience tended to have. Had she not continuously all of her effort on trying to find an opportunity to finish the fight with a single, clean blow, she could have ended it long ago.

Even then, she wouldn’t have lost without her massive blunder in the end. She had disregarded her opponent so completely, she hadn’t even accounted for the position of his weapon. It was ridiculous.

It wasn’t her shortcomings alone that had decided this fight though. Even with all of them, she was still an opponent far outside the reach of anyone in her group. It was Chonglin’s meticulous planning and his incredible persistence that had led to his victory. He had absorbed what Liu Wei had taught him to absolute perfection, going above and beyond what he had expected of the boy.

Deep inside him, alongside his beaming pride, Liu Wei felt something stir. That something immediately caught part of his attention, even as another part continued to observe Chonglin reunite with Zixin down in the arena, the latter throwing the former to the floor in an explosive hug.

Liu Wei tried to prod whatever he was feeling, but failed to comprehend what it was. A few moments later, it was gone. As much as his curiosity perked at this, he shelved his questions for now. Right now, what was happening here was more important.

…

“You did it! You fucking did it! You won!”

Zixin shook his friend by the shoulders again and again. Watching that fight had stressed him out terribly, especially after he had realized that Chonglin was actually keeping Qiao in check. Its conclusion had Zixin absolutely exhilarated. The last time he had been that pumped up was when he had been accepted into the sect.

All Chonglin could manage to answer Zixin’s cheers was a tired smile. In the immediate aftermath of the fight, he had struggled to even stand up, all of his energy used up.

It had already been about fifteen minutes since then and the atmosphere of the crowd still wasn’t showing any signs of calming down, even though there were no more fights happening. All of the other groups had finished earlier than them, Chonglin’s and Qiao’s fight had been the very last to conclude.

Now that he was thinking about it, shouldn’t the elders be addressing them by now?

As if they had just been waiting for someone to think of them, multiple figures levitated out of the elders’ loge and towards the center of the arena. Zixin could make out Elder Wei as well as the sect patriarch, but strangely not Elder Bai.

Once in place, the patriarch began to speak, the crowd immediately going quiet in order to listen to his words.

“Dear disciples, dear sect members, this round has officially concluded and it has been determined who will qualify to participate in the tournament. Unfortunately, an urgent matter has come up, demanding Elder Bai’s immediate attention, hence I will be the one to announce the winners.

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Before that, I want to congratulate all participants for their excellent performance today. Please honor them with me through a round of applause.”

As the noise of the crowd returned to once again wash over the disciples, Zixin couldn’t help but wonder whether the absence of Elder Bai was connected to the fact that Qiao, who was also from the Bai family, had just suffered that defeat.

An elder like him wouldn’t feel shame over something like that though, would he? I can’t really think of any emergency that would require one specific elder to act while the others can continue to lay back though… But what do I know.

He was just an outer disciple after all, ignorant to the sect’s inner workings. It was most likely just a weird coincidence.

“Well then, I don’t want to make you wait. One last thing before announcing the winners: Every participant who has made it to the second round and secured at least one victory for themselves will receive a reward, determined according to their ranking in the group. You will be informed of the details later.

Let us begin then, with the winners of group one. The most wins, eight to be exact, have been gathered by Inner Disciple Qiao of the Bai family. The second place is shared between two disciples, both of them having achieved six wins: Inner Disciple Guozhi Zhao and Outer Disciple Chonglin.”

Zixin froze up. He had completely forgotten about that. In his head, he had already put Chonglin in third place before the last battle had even begun. He hadn’t expected to need to take another victory into account. But what did this mean? Who would qualify?

He wasn’t the only one to feel the suspense apparently, as murmurs traveled through the otherwise silent crowd.

“In cases such as this, the elders have decided to hand the victory to whomever beat the other person in their direct confrontation. In this case, this means that the second disciple to qualify for the tournament is Outer Disciple Chonglin!”

The crowd erupted into cheers once again.

…

A pretty hard push had been needed in order to get the other elders to agree to this resolution. While the fact that it was objectively the fairest way of doing things had been helpful, the central factor had been the fact that a boiling Ning Bai had kept angrily demanding that he alone should be allowed to decide who was most worthy to represent the sect. The otherwise so calm strategist had not taken the hit that his granddaughter’s defeat had dealt to his pride particularly well.

The end result was one that Liu Wei was utterly satisfied with. Beyond all political calculations, Chonglin genuinely deserved to qualify. Liu Wei thought so and as did the crowd, as was evident by their cheers. Whether the reason was that they perceived Chonglin as an underdog, or simply that he had won the most climactic battle of the day, they had clearly taken a liking to him.

He would congratulate him and the other disciples in person later. For now, the true purpose of his little training program needed to be accomplished. As the patriarch finished his speech, Liu Wei went over the wording of his announcement once more.

Then, he rose through the air to the level of the patriarch.

“Dear sect members, dear disciples, dear contestants. I, Liu Wei, have an announcement I would like to make from my position as leader of the Training Hall.

For a long time, the Training Hall has stood in the shadow of the other halls, its sole purpose being the training of the sect’s outer disciples. But times change.”

Yes, they did. At least Liu Wei hoped that they would and he would give his everything to ensure so.

“I believe that the Training Hall carries with it much untapped potential in its ability to benefit our sect. As many of you may know and as you have also been able to perceive during today’s competition, I have already implemented a program to improve the education that it provides to the disciples, hoping to strengthen our future generations of members. Now, I would like to inform you of another project that I have been working on.

From today onwards, the Training Hall will start offering services to all willing members in the form of professionally supervised combat training and consultation in all matters of cultivation. I hope that this will help improve the sects combat capabilities as a whole as well as fund additional measures to improve the training of our disciples.”

Liu Wei paused for a moment to give everyone time to grasp what they had just heard. It didn’t take long for the whispers in the crowd to grow louder and turn into vivid discussions. People were at the very least curious. Before the atmosphere could grow too out of control, he resumed talking.

“The basic of our program is simple: we will generally offer our services to anyone below the Dao Attuning Realm. The prices will vary depending on your realm and on how advanced the help you seek is.

If demand turns out to be beyond our current capacity, we will work to increase it while those who can’t be handled yet will be put on a waiting list in order of their application. We have positioned personnel at the exit of the arena to brief you on the specific pricings and more, should you be interested. Otherwise, all information can be found by visiting the Training Hall directly.

For those within the Dao Attuning Realm, there is also the option of attending a reoccurring group session where I will be personally advising you on cultivation, though the number of seats for this will be very limited.”

Gasps could be heard throughout the arena. This was his final trump card. It didn’t matter that most members of the sect would not even be eligible for this program, the simple prospect of being able to receive personal attention from an elder was enough to lend credibility to the entire program.

Members who didn’t belong to a pillar family often fought for their whole lives to be noticed by an elder. It was something they perceived as a chance to achieve glory and power beyond their wildest dreams. Much of it was just that – dreaming, but it was a great motivator nonetheless.

Liu Wei didn’t have an issue with spending a few hours every month teaching sect members – he had just spent the majority of the last month training disciples after all.

“That was all I had to say. I hope to see some of you come to the Training Hall and try out our program. Beyond that, I hope you enjoy the remaining days of the competition. Thank you for your attention.”

As conversations were reignited, Liu Wei descended to go and congratulate his disciples.