After elder Fisco left few inner sect disciples separated the crowd in to groups with Jack for some reason pulling Leo into a particular one.
The mentor of their group turned out to be a girl named Barbra at approximately twenty years of age, dressed in a gray robe and relatively attractive. Unfortunately there was no chance for Leo to pass her a towel after she took a bath – exactly the opposite. The moment she noticed one of the boys staring at her ‘nature’s gifts’, she pulled his ear so hard everyone thought it’ll get screwed off the poor guy’s head. Afterwards the male part of the crowd dared to look at her only when specifically ordered to.
All in all even though Barbra was a bit mean she could be considered competent and during the next month she taught her group several basic breathing exercises, defense staff techniques and guided through the concepts of differentiating spirit herbs from regular plants.
The last part bored Leo out of his mind and he barely could keep himself from falling asleep. All the plants she spoke about looked identical – just like regular grass and the precious sprouts seemed to be the regular ones he used to eat while living with the apes. At some point he even considered to drop the whole thing, but when Barbra declared that all the plants she spoke of were necessary for him to go through the body refinement stage, Leo decided to give it a try after all.
The so called ‘staff self defense techniques’ in Leo’s opinion turned out to be waving around a long stick while from time to time smacking the ground with it. In his eyes it was an embarrassing exercise even though it should help them to protect themselves from wild animals or low ranked beasts. In the end he mostly ignored this part since learning such stuff was beneath any man from the Renaud family who had at least some amount of self-respect and he intended to exchange the first earned contribution points for a decent sword.
Breathing exercises turned out to be a something Leo could work with. In fact, this was the first real, albeit simple, cultivation technique he learned in his life and since he actually had been in the Qi gathering stage for some time already, his body was starving for the influx of large amounts of Qi.
Back in the Voodoo sect the medicinal baths Bimpo and Onataka made Leo take somewhat strengthened his damaged Qi pathways and now the very basic exercises allowed him to continue the healing process. If he used an actual technique that was meant for Qi gathering realm cultivators his Qi pathways would’ve most likely ruptured and he would've died in agonizing pain, but now the flow of Qi passing through them was like a gentle morning breeze and slowly helped to repair them bit by bit.
During the process Leo felt like he was itching all over on inside, but Barbra was certain it was a good thing and strongly advised for him to continue. She said he would definitely pass the body refinement stage after taking couple of baths and all he had to do was to gather the necessary herbs.
The problem was that the annoying purple lightning bolts within his consciousness for some reason kept multiplying and at some point he was ‘forced’ to go back to gathering them in the garbage can of the body – the dantian. Because of this he had to spend most of the nights ‘sitting and cleansing’ while the others soundly slept, but fortunately for some reason he always felt refreshed and full of strength in the morning.
The rest of the group watched the boy practice with envy what he, of course, assumed to be stares of contempt because of the potential mutation. The ‘contempt’ increased even further when they had to start to spar and Leo, who was by far the youngest of them all, could go head to head with the rest with relative ease.
Of course, it was to be expected from someone who had stepped in the Qi gathering realm, but no one, including the boy himself had a clue he was at that level and everyone simply assumed he was a freak of nature.
When the month of lessons was over, Barbra ordered everyone after taking a day to rest to report to the Alchemy subdivision.
Unfortunately when boys arrived their faces turned as sour as those of the crowd of the outer sect’s disciples who were already gathered.
“Hahaha!” Barbra along with few other mentors who taught during the previous month laughed, “Don’t tell me you expected to start brewing potions or concocting pills? You haven’t even gotten to the Qi gathering stage, junior brothers and sisters! Work hard and maybe one out of ten or twenty will be working with us in the future!”
The excitement died down quite a bit and after everyone was distributed a large basket and a stick that for some reason seniors insisted on calling a ‘staff’, the groups of twenty with their respective seniors in the lead were brought to the main square. Few moments later when the first group was led into the building with the teleportation platform, the rest realized what was about to happen and the crowd burst out in cheers.
Leo was the only one present who had ever teleported, but even he was expectant to try it out one more time after learning from Jack during the past months what the teleportation actually was.
On after another the groups went inside and got transported to a different mortal realm. Upon arrival Leo found himself in the middle of a large green field surrounded by bamboo groves. He felt so nostalgic he even began to look around for the familiar silver-backs, but unfortunately the only wildlife that greeted him was a myriad of little birds chirping and singing nonstop.
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“Group thirteen! Keep together and follow me!” Barbra shouted and her group of twenty obediently followed.
Other seniors had already began to instruct their junior brothers and sisters and Barbra followed the suit when they had found a nice spot in the shade.
“For the next two months we’ll be staying here.” She said in the usual stern voice, “This region has wast bamboo groves and practically no ranked beasts. That has allowed for few sorts of spirit grass to grow freely, so every morning you’ll be assigned to a specific area that you’ll forage clean while I’ll stay in the vicinity to make sure you’re safe.”
Seeing the displeased looks on the faces around her, Barbra furrowed brows and snickered, “You don’t get it, do you? This is an amazing opportunity! Not only you’ll be able to gather the resources for yourselves to get to the Qi gathering realm faster – you can earn huge amount of contribution points if you get lucky and find especially rare herb! Your prospects within the sect could become endless! Alright, enough! No slacking around – follow me!”
It was not too hard to manipulate the outer disciples who had always dreamed of suddenly raising in ranks. To the most the idea of switching the residence to the inner sect was already amazing, to not speak about actually starting to cultivate.
They walked for two or three miles until Barbra was satisfied with the location. Leo was confused how she chose the way to lead them, but the few herbs she found on the way served as the confirmation of her competence.
“All of you! This is important!” Barbra drew everyone’s attention with a shout, “Spread out, but stay in the vicinity so you don’t get lost. No one will look for you if you do and you’ll stay in this damned mortal world forever! Disperse and return before the sunset!”
On the way she explained and showed one more time what spirit grass everyone should look for and Leo was pretty certain that the job was not too difficult. Unfortunately his know-it-all buddy blew him off.
“Sorry man.” Jack said and winked stealthily pointing at one of the girls in their group, “I’ve got to help her, you know. See you in the evening!”
Leo didn’t really ‘know’ what Jack meant. The girl, Luna Moss, was a bit taller than him, but besides nice curly hair she had nothing that caught his eye. Her chest was flat and so was her bottom and he definitely would not dream of passing a towel to someone who basically had similar body to his.
In the end he didn’t bother with the two and after scratching the back of the head he shrugged and strolled directly in to the bamboo grove looking for spirit grass.
It was not midday yet when Leo realized the value of his rules. The rule number two – always carry something to drink turned out to be golden. Without being wasteful the gourd he had held enough water for him to last through the day and the task he was given turned out to be a leisure pass of time.
He wondered around, picked a stalk of grass that seemed to fit the description of a spirit grass, snacked on some berries and sprouts on the way and basically felt like home. He did miss the apes a little bit, but after remembering the final threat of their leader, Leo could only shake his head and sigh in relief.
Unfortunately the evening didn’t go as well. Leo was lucky enough to find the way back, but when the group gathered and afterwards returned to the main camp site, he was bound to experience quite an embarrassment.
Outer sect disciples one after another turned in their half filled baskets and the only elder, elder Clark, who arrived with their group quickly sorted out and registered the haul.
During the process Leo mostly gawked at the oversized eagle that sat next to the elder and while this one was of a gray color, for some reason it strongly reminded him of the eagle who saved him from the ape patriarch’s wrath.
“That’s silverwing eagle.” Jack competently commented.
He was standing in the line in front of Leo and next to Luna, but for some reason their conversation didn’t go too well.
“It’s a rank five beast. Imagine having it as a mount!” Jack fantasized, “Sacred Order also had rank seven goldenglow tiger, but the word on the street is it died and because of that we eliminated the Voodoo sect.”
“Does elder Clark use it to fly around?” Leo asked, “Can it fight?”
“No idea, but it sure is strong. We probably haven’t seen any beasts because its present.” Jack explained, “Sigh, unfortunately we can’t reliably use beasts in a war otherwise our victory would’ve been much cleaner.”
“Why?”
This time it was Luna who asked and Jack happily answered, “The beasts are too unpredictable – the possibilities of friendly casualties is too high. Imagine what a random cleave from rank five tiger would do on the battlefield!In confusion of a mass skirmish they can even kill their master! That is why high ranked beasts usually only play the role of guardians of the sect.”
“Next!” Elder Clark interrupted the conversation and Luna proudly passed over her basket.
Within five breaths of time elder quickly sorted her haul and while half of it was useless, it seemed that she had gathered more compared to the most.
“Fifteen contribution points!” Elder registered the result expressionlessly, “Next!”
At first the crowd gasped in surprise, but soon everyone realized the reason for her success. The amount of spirit grass Jack turned in amounted him laughable six contribution points – obviously the boy tried to woo her and conceded quite a few herbs to her.
Jack didn’t mind though. His sweetheart was happy and so was he.
“Motherf … You got to be kidding me!” Elder’s curse suddenly drew attention of the crowd, but then after closing his eyes and taking a deep breath he asked, “Who’s the leader of your group?”
“Senior sister Barbra.” Leo answered not having a clue why elder behaved so weird.
“Alright. Go to Barbra and ask her to explain what herbs are spirit herbs again.” Elder Clark patiently said, “If you won’t cover the expenses of the teleportation during this month I’ll leave you here! Zero points!”
When Leo turned to go he heard elder say, “Pass this pile over to the cook. He’ll use it for the stew tomorrow.”
The laughter that reverberated through the camp made Leo wish he had never listened to Jack and joined the Combat division instead. He would’ve gone with the other guys and cultivated his combat skills like a real man, but instead he was reduced to a laughingstock while already doing woman’s work.