In the end, Zeng Fei’s trepidation towards Elder Ma turned out to be misplaced as the Elder had been unfailingly polite and easy to talk to during the questioning, not someone harbouring malice towards him, at least not outwardly.
Of course, it wasn’t that Zeng Fei had wanted to admit everything willy-nilly but rather, from the moment Elder Ma had asked who his master was, it had become a losing battle for him.
Naturally, this question had been followed up with where did you get this legacy from; and once that had been answered, there came the question of what the hell happened for your cultivation to drop so drastically?
A body transformation ritual, is that so? Right, who administered it?
It turned out the ever-present fear of what this powerful Elder would do to him if he didn’t answer was effective at teasing the answers out of his mouth.
Even if he wanted to give false details, the fact was that once you’d admitted 50-60% of the truth, it became very difficult to make up the rest and still have it be consistent with what had already been divulged.
So the major facts about his situation had come out quickly enough.
If there was a silver lining to this, it was that Elder Ma had not recognised the Heavenly Demon Emperor, nor the Divine Art. And although the Treading Infinity Sect was one of the foremost Sects on the side of righteousness, there did not appear to be an issue with Zeng Fei’s legacy coming from a Demon Emperor (the interpretation being that the Emperor had been an ancient demonic beast cultivator and not a devilish cultivator).
Moreover, from how easily Elder Ma had accepted Zeng Fei’s claim that he’d been walking through the Crooked Mountains and randomly become trapped in a legacy cave, it seemed he wasn’t the first person to whom such an event had happened.
In fact, Elder Ma had gone further in giving his word that he’d help Zeng Fei get back into the cave and teach that dastardly spirit a lesson; while having someone else do it on Zeng Fei’s behalf would ruin some of the catharsis from the moment, at least it would be a lot quicker than waiting out many years for him to be able to do so personally.
It was this assurance, in combination with the fact that he was being promoted to the Inner Sect, that gave Zeng Fei hope that the sect was planning to incubate him as a talent instead of extinguishing him for being a threat.
Zeng Fei’s optimism lasted less than two hours in total, which was the amount of time it took for Elder Ma to attend a routine meeting with the sect’s top brass.
Zeng Fei smiled on seeing the Elder return, though this quickly wilted when he caught the arrival’s bleak expression.
“What’s wrong, Elder Ma?” Had the divulged information predictably come back to bite him in the arse…
But the Elder did not respond, walking towards him in silence. At least there seemed to be no active threat as the Elder carried his head low, downcast.
Elder Ma stopped at the end and bowed. “I’m sorry, Disciple Zeng. It was not meant to be.”
“Huh?”
“You’re destined for different pastures, so I couldn’t protect you in the end. Just remember that…” the Elder stopped and deliberated. “Sometimes in life you’ll find yourself hanging out with the wrong crowd, and in those situations the best thing you can do is to know yourself at heart and not let yourself get influenced by them.”
“So you mean I should be cautious of people who don’t have my best intentions at heart?”
“Well, even if they do…” The Elder suddenly coughed over himself. “Ahem, what I mean to say is that I know you’re a good kid at heart, so just don’t let others change that, alright? Don’t let them corrupt you, that’s all.”
“I really don’t understand…”
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Unfortunately, the Elder was in no mood to explain himself any further as he promptly made for the exit.
With no time to think, Zeng Fei blurted out with the main thing on his mind. “What about the cave, though, Elder Ma? Are you still going to help me get break down the barrier?”
The Elder stopped at the callout with a shiver and hung his head a bit lower. “You won’t be needing me anymore.”
And so, Zeng Fei was left blinking in confusion, wondering why on earth the vibe felt like the Elder had just broken up with him…
Clearly something must have happened in the meeting the Elder had just attended, and whatever it was, it didn’t portend well for Zeng Fei’s future.
Should he leave the sect now and lay low somewhere until the heat died down? Probably best that he didn’t notify the sect either, in case they’d try to stop him.
He was beginning to seriously consider doing this when two Enforcers rocked up in his room, their arrival making it all too clear that it was too late for escape plans…
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The announcement of which Outer Sect Disciples would be advancing to the Inner Sect was given on the same day as the tournament. Almost all of the names had been expected, except, of course, Zeng Fei’s.
People had witnessed his bizarre technique and his summon’s strength, even managing to squeeze out a win against Dong Fu (who, while also on the list, was not someone others could complain about given the repeated provings of his strength), but it was also clear to everyone that Zeng Fei’s single victory had relied heavily on pulling multiple rabbits out of the hat.
They couldn’t help but feel the decision to elevate him now was premature given the numerous others who’d performed better than him in the tournament; indeed, now that he’d exhausted his element of surprise and become a known quanta, many ninth and eighth layers felt they could take him on without much difficulty.
Moreover, didn’t his hasty elevation go against the Treading Infinity Sect’s dogma of waiting around to see what the disciples made of themselves? So how come someone of his talent and status was receiving preferential treatment instead of having to slog up the muddy hill like the rest of them?
This was the general gist of comments made within the Outer Sect regarding his elevation. But so what?
Even if the result was senseless and dissatisfactory to them, it was nonetheless something their voices had zero sway over.
Besides, they all understood the implications: from this moment on, their fates had diverged from Zeng Fei’s who’d effectively just won the lottery.
This, in turn, encouraged many disciples stuck at the lower layers to re-engage with their training; all this time they’d been discouraged by their slow pace of cultivation, having long acknowledged that there was no hope of them ever making it into the Inner Sect… but Zeng Fei had just a set a precedent for them to follow, showing how the tortoise could beat the hare as long through pure dogged determination.
News began to circulate that Zeng Fei was the disciple with the lowest cultivation base to ever ascend to the Inner Sect, though this was quickly shut down by the stewards - former disciples who’d chosen to stay with the sect in lieu of returning to the mortal world, now charged with taking care of the Outer Sect.
Every intake, there were a small number of disciples gifted with celestial constitutions that were placed in the Inner Sect from the get-go, but these lot weren’t counted as they’d never been in the Outer Sect to begin with.
Rarer than them were the instances of people who the sect hadn’t thought too highly of during the initial screening, yet who’d gone on to display overwhelming power in unexpected areas shortly after.
These individuals were the reason that the Treading Infinity Sect kept recruiting talentless losers into their Outer Sect that other Immortal Sects wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, as well as why the Outer Sect Tournament was held a half year after the intake.
Although Zeng Fei hadn’t managed his ascension within a half year, he could be counted amongst this lot due to his ability to fight ordinary eighth and ninth layers with a fifth layer cultivation.
The last person before him had been several decades ago, a girl skilled in alchemy who’d achieved similar feats but from the third layer! In fact, two of the stewards had gone up against her in the tournament back then and still received nightmares about it to this day.
As for the record holder, he wasn’t someone whom any of the stewards had personally witnessed since his accomplishment had been several hundreds of years ago - Qi Refining cultivators typically had a lifespan of c100 years - but the legends went that a sword-fighting disciple had won the tournament at the first layer of Qi Refining!
As unreasonable as it sounded, the reason why this claim wasn’t disputed was because that same individual was now a forefront disciple in the Inner Sect.
While Zeng Fei’s achievement wasn’t nearly as striking as these two, it was impressive all the same, especially because it’d been facilitated through his talent in spirit beasts summoning, which itself was a rare enough Dao School that the simple news there was another one of them in the Treading Infinity Sect caught interest around certain corners of the world.
Of course, this was nothing more than minor curiosity, no different from noting down a fact of trivia, as nobody who was a somebody within the cultivation world would pay attention to news about measly Qi Refiners.
Well, almost nobody.