As usual, the school bus was packed. The usual crowd of students were already seated as Cody walked up the bus. He passed the driver, a man named Luis, without a glance and went to his seat.
Cody has been riding the bus since he was in primary school and the seat, the third seat from the front on the right, was his. It was an unwritten rule. All the other students on the bus were familiar faces, even if Cody don't know most of them by name, and everyone has their own seats. Cody had the same seat since he started riding the bus in primary school. He sat down and turn his head towards the school gate.
School was out and numerous students were already streaming out of the gate. Most of the students were going home, and Cody saw a few of the richer kids getting in separate cars once they were out of the school gates, but there were always a few students who would stick around the school. Students who were had after school activities like clubs and sports, a gang of delinquents who usually loiter around the area before heading out to look for trouble, and the students who do their own self-practice. The last group usually do their practice at a park near the entrance of the school.
Cody looked over and could recognize a few of the students there. Most of them were seniors like Cody, putting in the hours to get as high of a cultivation level as possible before the end of the year. Like Jenni and Kitty, they were ambitious, only they were doing it by the book. Cody wished his talent was high enough to join them but as he is, he would only be wasting his time.
Cody mentally sighed and looked away. The students on the bus were doing their own thing while waiting for the bus to move. Some were playing games, some were listening to music, and some were gossiping. Like the two girls sitting behind him.
“Hey, did you see the latest news released by the Cultivation League?” said one of the girls.
“Of course!” replied her friend, a girl with a high-pitch voice. “I can’t believe Kyotara Chikyo finally managed to crack the top five of the Glory List. She is the first woman to enter the top five in over three decades!”
“Well yes, that’s big news but I am talking about Blaze Guile, the Wandering Fire.”
“Who’s that?”
“He is a cultivator running the Silver Circuit this year. He just beat the Spinning Fist Dojo last week. That’s a Five-star dojo. He is going to the Mid-Season Conference next month.” The first girl said excitedly.
“Spinning Fist? That’s that dojo in Snake's Canyon, right? It is known to be a tough one, and a lot of cultivators on the Gold Circuit avoid that dojo for that reason. Why is a cultivator on the Silver Circuit challenged that dojo? Five-star dojos are only for cultivators on the Gold Circuit.” The second girl asked in surprise.
“Who cares? Any cultivator on their Cultivation Quest can challenge any of the Masters. You know that.”
“That is true,” The second girl conceded. “Well, this Wandering Fire guy must be good to beat the Spinning Fist Master. Who is sponsoring him?”
“No one!” The first girl almost squeal in excitement. “He is a Ronin, without a sponsor or any major backing. Isn’t that exciting?”
“No chance of that,” the second girl scoffed before continuing. “That’s impossible. He must be a disciple of some hidden master or keeping his sponsor a secret for the moment.”
From her tone, the second girl did not believe Blaze Guile was a Ronin and Cody shared her feelings. The first girl did not.
“Nope, he is a true Ronin. The net is saying he got strong the old way, going out into the wilds fighting spirit beasts and rogue cultivators.”
“No way that is true.” Cody could almost feel the second girl shaking her head as she said that. “No one get strong that way anymore. Even his name, Blaze Guile? That sounds so fake, it’s more likely he’s a bandit cultivator who stolen his cultivation system. Maybe he has a criminal record and changed his name to hide his real identity?”
“What? What are you talking about! You don’t even know about the guy, and you are accusing him of being a criminal? What is wrong with you?”
“I am being realistic. My idea is far more likely than a no-name cultivator managing to enter the Mid-Season Conference on his own power, right?”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The two girls continued talking but Cody ignored the rest of their argument. If history was any indication, it was going to go nowhere before the girls go on to argue about the latest teen dramas on television. Sometimes, Cody wonder why those two are even friends.
Cody opened his transceiver.
The transceiver is a cultivation device designed as a communication tool like the ancient mobile phones of the humans. First designed as a means of communication, the latest version of the transceiver comes with myriad functions, one of which was the ability to access the Cultivation Net.
The Cultivation Net was a global network of cultivation arrays built and maintained by the Cultivation League to provide people with information but like most people, Cody did not really care how it works. He just knows that it does and uses it.
As he was still on school grounds, Cody could use the school arrays to access the Cultivation Net, and he went to the main site for the Cultivation League. The Cultivation League was the main authority of the world and the group’s main aim was to maintain peace while encouraging the rise of powerful cultivators. To that end, the League release the Glory List, a monthly list showing the strongest cultivators in the world, strongly support the research and distribution of cultivation knowledge, and created the Cultivation Quest.
Cody went to the Glory List first. The Glory List was a simple list showing the top hundred cultivators in the world and Cody saw that Kyotara Chikyo was ranked in the Top Five. That was impressive as it means she was one of the strongest cultivators in the world, but Cody was more interested in Cultivation Quest.
Unlike the Glory List, Cultivation Quest was more like a sporting event. A yearly contest that lasts for about nine months every year, there were three tiers in the Cultivations Quest. Bronze, Silver, and Gold, with every cultivator starting from the Bronze tier before working their way up to Gold. Before the start of each season, cultivators need to register with the League to take part. Once the season start, they were on their own.
Styled as a cultivation journey undertaken by a cultivator to grow stronger, the participating cultivators, unofficially called ‘Wanderers’ by fans, would need to travel to the various dojos certified by the Cultivation League and defeat the masters there. There are numerous small cultivation dojos all over the world, and most big towns have one. Cities usually have several, and Cody knows that Venspur City has at least three that are part of the Cultivation Quest.
Wanderers can decide which dojos to challenge but all dojos are ranked between one to five stars, and the ultimate goal of the Cultivation Quest is to gain enough stars to qualify for the End-Season Conference where they will fight each other for big prize money and the right to go up the tiers. If a cultivator wins the Gold Tier of the End-Season Conference, he is crowned as the Champion of the region.
In many ways, the participating cultivators act like a wandering cultivator in a story, challenging the ‘Masters’ of every town they go to. The leaders of the dojos are known as the ‘Masters’ and it is an important and prestigious position. The Master of Spinning Fist Dojo is famous for being a strong fighter and he is the only reason most people even knows that there is a town called Snake's Canyon in North America.
Although it is considered a sport, Cultivation Quest is also a dangerous event and numerous cultivators die every year. However, the romance of the event makes Cultivation Quest easily the biggest sporting event in the world and there were numerous channels dedicated to the sport on television. The sport is so popular, some dojos even have their own television programs showing their Master smacking down any Wanderers who dared challenge them.
Cody checked for information on Guile Blaze and saw that he really was listed as a ‘Ronin’. This was unusual as most successful Wanderers were sponsored by a Sect or dojo. Despite the romance, Cultivation Quest is a serious business and most successful Wanderers travel with an entourage consisting of their trainers, coaches, nutritionist, physio, and anyone else who could help them win. To be a successful Wanderer, you need money. To have money, a Wanderer need a sponsor.
The current three-time Champion of Cultivation Quest in North America, Craig Ellis, was a good example. He is the son and heir of the School of Dragon’s Fist, a dojo currently run by his father, Jarrick Ellis. His father’s dojo sponsored Ellis’s championship run and Ellis’s entourage was filled with members from the dojo.
Sponsoring a Wanderer is expensive, but most sponsors considered it a good investment, especially if the Wanderer is successful. Admission to the School of Dragon’s Fist has surged since Craig Ellis won his titles and the dojo is now one of the biggest and most famous cultivation dojos in North America. The successes of their champion have allowed the School of Dragon’s Fist to expand into other business ventures and rumours are that the dojo was now big enough, and successful enough, to be considered as a Sect.
This is the reason why most Sects and dojos sponsor Wanderers.
Blaze Guile has none of that. His biography on the Cultivation League site only shows the primary and secondary schools he attended and a series of dead-end jobs he had before entering the Cultivation League four years ago. He was no rookie, but Cody never heard of him before so he couldn’t be that successful. Something must have happened this off-season because Blaze Guile started the current season with a bang. He defeated all three dojos in the Port of Nice before travelling to various dojos along the western coast of North America. Blaze Guile was very successful in his challenges and has done well enough on his circuit to qualify for Mid-Season Conference. He did it without making much of a splash.
Then, he defeated the Master of the Spinning Fist Dojo.