"Really, Xuhan? What were you doing last night if you weren't studying THIS?" Xiao Wu grumbled in a displeased tone, his hands constantly moving around trying to point at the entirety of his handiwork at the same time.
As it had turned out, the strange details Han Xuhan had noticed on his way to Xuan Zi's residence were of significant importance. And as a model disciple of the Crimson Snow sect, Xuhan should have been aware of what was going on. However, he had been far too busy concocting far fetched business schemes the previous evening, after which he had focused on one of his newly gained personal treasure, namely the 'Hand that Holds Treasure' technique he had gotten from Kong Ye. Later that night, Zhanxian's breakthrough and brother BB's visit had wrapped up his schedule quite tightly.
In short, he had forgotten to study what he should have been studying that whole time, The mass integration type cultivation technique that had been imparted to all disciples of the sect, the Celestial Gateway technique.
"I had urgent matters to attend to," he answered in the end evasively. "Give me the general overview, martial brother."
Xiao Wu sighed and began explaining in a tired tone.
"As you can remember from our exchange with master the other day, sister Zhou explained that this Celestial Gateway technique is a mass integration type technique, meaning that we all have to practice and reach a certain degree of proficiency in it in order to properly execute it togther.
The concept sounds simple enough at first, but the technique itself in particular delves a bit deeper in terms of complexity before execution.
The Celestial Gateway technique has three levels, or minor realms, whichever title you prefer to use. Accordingly, our entire sect shall have to divide itself into three levels of practitioners soon. In each realm, a certain number of participants can take their positions as the practitioners of that particular realm. This is usually done to filter out the talented ones from the mediocre and make the competition fair and transparent."
"Wait a minute," Xuhan interrupted Xiao Wu with a frown forming on his face.
"Doesn't that mean only a fixed number of members of the sect can take part in the execution of this technique? I remember our sect master saying that our entire sect will be performing this technique."
Xiao Wu nodded. "Yes, exactly. The number of disciples practicing this technique right now is more than twice the number of possible positions in each minor realm provided in the technique. This is actually the main part of the test.
Every sect that has recieved this technique will allow their disciples to practice it, as well as the elders. In fact, anyone who wants to go to the venue of the tournament will have to learn this technique and execute it with the rest of us. Even our sect master himself is not an exception to this rule.
I do not need to remind you that the elders, teachers and sect masters are all quite talented at cultivation. They'll definitely be able to learn the Celestial Gateway technique within a few days, far faster than most of the normal disciples. The same goes for the super talented disciples. So what do you think will happen if a vast, particularly powerful, resourceful sect takes part in the tournament? "
Han Xuhan carefully thought for a second and found the obvious answer.
"They will have the advantage of raw talent. . . . ? Their slots in the technique will be filled up with too many powerful elders and talented disciples compared to the rest of the sects. They can bypass the rules by just controlling their proficiency in the technique. Some talented cultivators will stop at the first realm and fill up the slots for mediocre cultivators. Some will do the same in the second realm."
Xiao Wu nodded in response. "Of course. And that raises the issue of safety for the regular sects. It'll be impressive enough for most of the sects to be able to train enough disciples in the technique so that they can reach the basic requirement of filling up the slots. But who'll guarantee their safety in the tournament when they'll face those giant sects whose least impressive participants are disciples at the peak of physique transformation realm? Will they feel comfortable going up against their opponents? Will none of the top sects take advantage of the situation to get ahead during the later rounds? Might makes right in these competitions, after all. The rules of the alliance will not stop most sects from trying to take the shortcut, intimidate the talents from smaller sects when they're out there without the backing of the rest of their sect, bully the weaklings, you know the drill," Xiao Wu said with a rather evil laugh.
"Damn, least impressive disciples at the peak of physique transformation realm? You're scaring me, brother Wu."
Xiao Wu's laughter died down. To Xuhan, he too seemed to be worried over the issue. After all, the Crimson Snow Sect fell into the catagory of the mid level sects, from what they'd learnt. It would certainly not have any advantage in that situation and was more likely to end up becoming a prey. However, Xiao Wu's next sentence broke his assumption.
"That's not exactly an issue we need to sweat over right now. Because this phenomenon has been discovered long ago. The alliance has even came up with a solution for this half a century ago. Otherwise, no small sect would dare to participate in the tournament. That's not a good thing for the alliance."
"Oh? How did they solve it?" Xuhan asked, feeling increasingly fascinated by the entire concept.
"They introduced a new element into the fold, a new variable named 'weight'," Xiao Wu said with a dramatic flair, his voice solemn and hands outstretched.
"That sounds pretty discriminatory toward fatties, brother Wu. No wonder you looked displeased!" Han Xuhan exclaimed.
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I'm a fattie? " Xiao Wu asked gloomily.
"Ahaha that was a joke, come on!"
Han Xuhan waved his hands emphatically, a wooden smile struggling to stay afloat on his face.
"Now what's this weight thingy? How does that change the predicament of the smaller sects?"
Xiao Wu took a deep breath and seemed to restrain himself from throwing a fit. Han Xuhan found the whole matter quite strange. The current Xiao Wu was quite aggressive, unlike his usual easygoing self. What could be reason behind his change?
"As I was saying, the factor called weight doesn't really refer to physical weight, but the weight of their dao bases. Basically, the higher your cultivation is, the bigger your weight. Now every slot has a fixed amount of weight that it will carry. So if the weight of your cultivation is more than the standard set for each slot, it will be transferred over to the slots nearby. Think of the entire integrated spell during its execution as a bunch of interconnected pitchers. Whenever each pitcher receives more water than the rest, the water will slosh over to those connected to it. The logic behind the Celestial Gateway spell works just like that. So if there are too many talented, powerful cultivators in one realm of that spell, they'll be forced to sacrifice many more slots to accommodate their weight. Following the same logic, if a small sect doesn't have too many talented, powerful cultivators, it'll still be able to house numerous average or below average disciples who'll at least give them the advantage of numbers. The top level sects aren’t going to do anything rash when they're outnumbered by a ratio of five to one, get it?"
"Ohhh! That's....that's pretty clever. I didn’t expect the system to be so sophisticated," Xuhan muttered in wonder.
"So what's the standard cultivation bar for each slot?"
"Seventh layer of physique transformation for the first minor realm practitioners of the Celestial Gateway technique."
"That high?!" Han Xuhan exclaimed in disbelief.
Seventh layer! He himself hadn’t even broken past the third realm of physique transformation realm! Seventh layer opponents would lynch him in a matter of seconds. It would be no different from a serious fight between an adult boxer and a child wearing rubber gloves.
"Yeah, they need to skew the balance in favour of the smaller sects, don't they? Fixing the bar at seventh layer means you could share the empty space in your slot with roughly two more disciples in your current realm."
"....Brother Wu, the number of disciples in our generation still stuck at my realm shouldn’t exceed two."
Xiao Wu fell silent. Han Xuhan then recalled that Xiao Wu himself had just reached the fifth layer, during which his current foundation had started showing a lack of stability. He was probably feeling pressured as well.
Seeing that the atmosphere was turning rather dark, Xuhan quickly prodded him for more information.
"What about the later realms of the technique? What are their standards for each slot?"
"The second minor realm has the standard of third layer of soul reformation realm. The third minor realm's standard was not mentioned in the manual we recieved. But it's very likely to have a standard at the peak of soul reformation realm at least. The third one is mostly reserved for the elders of each sect and the sect masters themselves," Xiao Wu said.
Han Xuhan suddenly had a realization.
"Wait a minute, in that case, if a sect has a peerlessly talented disciple who can master the Celestial Gateway technique to the highest minor realm despite having low cultivation...."
"Yeah," Xiao Wu nodded solemnly. "It will take some hands on calculation to find the exact answer, but I'm pretty sure one anomaly like that can create enough space for more than a hundred regular disciples.
But that's not a loophole the top sects can exploit. Because, only people who have reached the third minor realm will be able to occupy that extra space. So unless they have a hundred of peerless talents lying around in the bushes, those slots won't be of much use. The elders will fill up their own slots. Maybe if their cultivation is particularly high, they'll borrow some of the empty space to balance things out. That way, the top sects will be able to carry along some elders with higher cultivation compared to the rest. That much of an advantage has to be allowed, after all. What would be the point of becoming a top level sect if your elders can't even throw their weight around in social events like these? The worldwide tournament will not only host competitions between the disciples but also various business deals between sects, exchange of precious materials, political schtick that I don't really understand....you get the idea. The amount of empty space each sect goes along with also works like a badge of honor, signifying their bravery and how awesome their disciples and elders are to have reached a high proficiency in the Celestial Gateway technique."
As Xiao Wu rambled on about how some top sects had executed impressive political maneuveres in the last few tournaments, Han Xuhan's thoughts drifted off.
Although his experience from reading xianxia novels weren’t proving themselves to be of much use these days, some cliches could definitely come true. Even if they didn’t turn out to be true, Xuhan would be better off taking ample preparation for them. The price of his carelessness could very well be a horrible death.
In every tournament, peerless talents, dark horses, sinister schemers would pop up like cabbages in winter. Mu Ran, the protagonist, was about to face some real challanges. Judging by their experience in the holy land of laws, if Mu Ran's story was a classic xianxia, it would fall under the catagory of extremely brutal, gory, protagonist-barely-saves-the-day type of stories. The authors of these novels mostly tended to be sadistic fellows with terrible personal lives. Han Xuhan didn’t quite like being associated in a story like that when it was real.
Yuen Zhou was another issue he needed to keep in mind. He couldn’t quite decide whether she was a female protagonist herself or just one of those mysterious overpowered love interests of the protagonist who would stay relevant for a couple more arcs.
Maybe he was reading a bit too far into everything. Maybe, just like his past, his current life was full of delusions too. Maybe all of his assumptions of this entire world being a mishmashed xianxia, Mu Ran being a protagonist and cliches following him were just part of his delusions. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t considered the possibility in the past.
But one thing was for certain. This was a world where supernatural powers existed, and he had a chance to experience what it really feels like to be on top of the world, grasping power that only belongs in myths. If his delusions helped him on the way, he could live with that. Even if they didn’t, there was no reason for him to stop going about his life as a cultivator, as a disciple of the Crimson Snow sect, as a human curious to see where it all leads to. To Xuhan, life as a cultivator tinkering with various forces of nature and rules of physics was worth the risks it came with.