After handing over his blank test to a rather stunned looking young woman in grey and silver robes, Jun let the others guide him out of the test hall and through the winding corridors that made up the vast outer compound. As they went, their group routinely passed by outer disciple members.
In fact, it happened with such regularity that he honestly began to question it.
Wonder if, perhaps, they were being strategically funneled there in order to elicit the very response that could be seen on the faces of his fellow applicants.
Dressed in the grays and silvers that had to be the sect's colors, it wasn’t the quality of their robes, their elegant grace, nor the silver pendants they all wore around their necks which elicited a frightful feeling of awe.
Instead, it was their powerful, almost domineering auras which brought them all up short. Jun honestly couldn’t help but applaud the strategic bit of theater. Impressing upon them right away that these were the heights even an outer disciple of the iron fist sect was liable to attain.
Never mind that these cultivators had clearly been cherry picked—likely some of the best, most elegant examples they could find within the general masses.
For some reason, Jun very much doubted they openly advertised the downtrodden cultivator too poor to afford their weekly contributions and daily meal vouchers simultaneously. The struggling men and women which made up the vast majority of their membership, as was often the case with larger sects.
All quiet little observations, he thought to himself, which should’ve been all well and good. Were it not for the fact that he’d, apparently, let too much his thoughts show on his face.
Jun looked away from the obvious farce, as two long necked beauties strode past in their opulent robes—barely giving their little procession of gawping applicants a second glance—only to accidentally catch the eye of Elder Shao, his supposed instructor.
They truly saw one another then, something unspoken passing between them, and if Jun had thought respect would be the man’s response to his seeing through the con, he would’ve been sorely disappointed.
Elder Shao sneered openly, before tilting his chin up a degree and turning away.
Jun could practically hear the scritch of yet another mark against his increasingly unlikely acceptance. Not that he particularly cared if he got to join some make-believe sect he’d never even heard of.
But then again, there was the question of whether his assimilation was somehow dependent upon the results of this exam. Based on how everything had been set up thus far, he couldn’t help but feel it’d be something along those lines.
Eventually they reached the end of the outer compound’s winding corridors and exited out into the diffuse light of an overcast day. Emerging onto a great stone courtyard, at a glance you could immediately tell it was a place regularly used to hold tournaments. If the stands weren’t a clear enough indication, the raised stone stage made it readily apparent.
Taking in the main stage—in all its pockmarked, scored, and scratched up glory—he wasn’t in the least bit surprised to find a massive boulder sitting there prominently, easily occupying the very center of the large platform.
Before he’d even taken three steps into the courtyard, however, a sharp impact from behind nearly sent him sprawling.
Just barely able to regain his balance in time, once Jun finally straightened, he was confronted by three teenaged boys. One tall and rail thin, another short and stocky, and a third who bore a striking resemblance to one Elder Shao.
A handsome young man, likely no older than he was, who was almost certainly the one to shove him.
“Watch where you’re going peasant boy.”
“Oh! Uh-?”
“Listen well you inferior trash,” he continued. “If I find even a speck of your common born filth on my brand-new robes as a result of your own clumsiness, I swear I’ll have my manservant use your tongue for a wash rag. Do I make myself clear?”
Jun blinked in astonishment. The boy and his lackeys loomed tall, stared coldly, sneered openly—each of them clearly chancing for a fight.
He was nearly tempted to laugh out loud.
Of all the cliché…?
This, at least, he knew exactly how to handle. And so, with the perfect rebuttal held firmly in mind, Jun promptly went down on both knees.
“Apologies, elder brother! This one humbly requests your forgiveness! This one would kowtow a thousand times for this one’s many transgressions!”
This was immediately followed by several very poor attempts at obeisance—he’d never actually seen it done after all, only ever read about it in books—forehead striking painfully against the rough tiles more than once.
He’d always believed the stories involving the inner workings of sect life to be hyperbolic in the extreme. And in reality, perhaps they were. Here though? In this fake world hidden inside a very real trial, he figured it was safe to assume everything operated by petty sect logic.
Which, actually, now that he thought about it, made what he was doing now quite possibly the worst thing one could do, given the circumstances. Essentially establishing the pecking order in full view of everyone, with him somewhere near the very bottom.
That said, it wasn’t as if he was going to be here long, and this was far far simpler in the short term. Hell, it’d still be livable in the long term. More miserable maybe, forced into the role of obedient lapdog for much stronger cultivators. Still, it wasn’t as if such a life would come as much of a culture shock. His home life honestly hadn’t been that far off.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
As he’d expected, his over-the-top reaction was first met with surprise, then with suspicion, and finally with embarrassment as the scene went on for a good two minutes.
By the time the three boys, now fully red in the face, finally took the hint and stormed off—some trite comment or another hurriedly lobbed over a shoulder—Jun was quite honestly relieved. He’d genuinely been running out of ways to prostrate himself and had begun to contemplate more… drastic measures.
When, at last, he finally rose to his feet, forehead raw from the repeated collisions, not even his, as of yet, unnamed friend, would meet his eye—this was by no means an uncommon reaction—and was, in fact, in the process of sidling away. Casually distancing himself, both physically and socially.
It was an outcome Jun was entirely too pleased with. No drama, no fuss, only the practical trial to look forward to. The sole reason he’d been sent here to begin with. Or so he assumed.
Elder Shao cleared his throat. Glancing up, Jun found that even the elder’s normally contemptuous expression was warped by secondhand embarrassment.
“If you’re done…?” he let the question linger.
Jun merely nodded, the very picture of quiet dignity. Minus the forehead.
“Good. Now, teacher’s assistant Chen has done you the honor of grading your tests. You will be called up to the trial rock by order of test score, from highest to…” he paused, visibly resisting the urge to turn Jun’s way. “Lowest… Teacher’s assistant Chen, if you will?”
Recognizing that this would probably take a while, as names were called and a rough queue was formed, Jun popped a squat and set his mind to observing. An easy enough thing to do, given the wide birth the other test takers were giving him.
Perhaps…? Could it be that he’d gone just the tiniest bit too far…?
Nah!
“Liu Mei Ling! Please take the stage!”
From the front of the queue emerged a petite young girl with a face as pale and unblemished as porcelain. Over her shoulder she twirled a pretty pink parasol, which appeared to match her overall outfit perfectly.
Lots of differing shades of pink, flower petal designs, and a, quite frankly, absurd number of floating lengths of gauze.
The girl leapt up onto the stage with ease, this despite the three-foot high elevation effectively measuring around three quarters of her height. A few more silent steps and she was before the massive boulder, looking like a child standing before a giant—the towering monolith already heavily marred by generations worth of previous attempts.
Then, without even breaking her stride, Mei Ling reached up and snapped shut her umbrella, took it by the handle in both hands, then blurred forward with such incredible speed that he barely managed to catch the impact of her swing, let alone the flash of silver which briefly enveloped the umbrella from handle to tip.
The end result was rather deafening.
CRACK
Instead of folding in half like any normal umbrella should, after being shown such poor treatment, the precious parasol left an umbrella shaped impression in the rock.
A concavity that was at least a foot and a half deep. Then, as if that little display were nothing at all, Mei Ling proceeded to yank her parasol free, lever it open, then twirl it all the way back to their edge of the platform—a pleased smile on her face all the while.
For the next hour and a half, it was essentially some strange variation of the same. Some used their fists, others used their heads, while still others simply abused random household objects. As a matter of fact, as far as he could tell, the only things they expressly hadn’t deigned to use, were weapons.
Jun had just finished spectating a broad ox of a boy who’d used his sandal clad foot to punch his leg through the stone well past his ankle, when the only name he’d actually been looking forward to was called.
“The honorable Shao Luang! Please take the stage!”
Of course, he was the only one to get an honorific.
Who wanted to guess this test was only for appearances sake. Still, Jun perked up all the same. How would the sect elder’s progeny perform, he couldn’t help but wonder. Breaking away from his two friends, the tall boy easily leapt onto the stage, after which he purposefully marched towards its center—flashing the occasional smile at the odd female attendee as he did so.
Predictably, most either swooned, sighed, or giggled. That or some combination of all three. Even Jun could admit, he’d be a very handsome man someday.
Reaching the looming boulder far faster than any of the others, he was quick to assume a martial stance. He then deftly manipulated his crushing aura. Unlike the others, however, he didn’t strike immediately. Instead, he continued to gather dense clouds of crushing aura—directing more and more of it into his glowing right fist, until that entire section of the arena had been replaced by a nearly blinding glare.
Then, after what had to have been fifteen full seconds of nothing but the oppressive build up, at last, there came a sudden release.
The bang which followed wasn’t just deafening in the figurative sense. Jun had the distinct impression that, if he’d been any closer to the point of impact, it was entirely possible he’d have irrevocably damaged his hearing.
As it was, the physical shockwave created by the attack was enough to roughly bowl him, and several other attendees, over. Sent skidding across rough stone tiles, it was several more confused seconds before he’d collected himself enough to take in the extent of the damage. Once he had, he found he had a hard time picking his jaw up off the floor.
The gigantic boulder… had moved! Where it’d once been, there was now a deep track carved into the underlying foundations. Leading from where Shao Luang took in deep, panting breaths, to the trial stones new place of origin—what had to have been at least ten entire paces away.
Gods above…
Needless to say, everyone who came after Shao Luang somewhat paled in comparison.
“Zhaoshen Junwei! Please take the stage!”
And then, it was his turn.
image [https://i.ibb.co/rw6tMBB/IMG-2711.png]
The newly awakened first world avatar was… unimpressed.
It was something of a novel sensation. Primarily because, purely as a side effect of its superior ninth tier architecture, her facilities did not attract any but the most exceptional. And that standard should’ve applied doubly so for one of the infamous Fen’Reale.
It wasn’t even a matter of selection on its part.
Unbeknownst to many, it was not simply a common turn of phrase, the idea that ‘like attracted like.’ Where the higher realms were concerned, it became a fundamental ruling arbitrated by universal law. By all rights, it should be a statistical impossibility for any but the most gifted to stumble across its station, whether that be on purpose, or by accident.
Which could only mean that, either the immutable rule of law which governed the greater multiverse as a whole had been turned over on its head in the world avatar’s absence, or it was missing something.
More inclined to believe the latter than the former, the first world avatar compartmentalized its doubts, and allowed the trial to play out as it must. And though a part of it recognized the phenomena for wishful thinking on its part, it was entirely possible the discrepancy lay with the hand the trial taker was attempting to conceal within the inner folds of his robe.