As he left in the morning, Cao Yun saw Wang Mei walking toward Ren Chao's chamber.
"Brother Chen? How are you?"
"Fine, thank you. How is Brother Ren?"
"Very lively! Good day." She just kept on walking toward her goal.
-
The first order of business was to meet with Zhi Yin. Using the map he had gotten, Cao Yun went to the outskirts of the outer yard. There were many great mansions along the way, belonging to all the factions. Finally he arrived before a small courtyard with a short perimeter wall around and a single one-story building within. Over the entrance gate was the stylized drawing of a swallow and the words 'Heavenly Swallow'.
Going near the entrance, he looked around and saw no one.
"Is there anyone here?"
A small face appeared from behind the building. "Who is it?"
"Oh? It's just you... Come in." With an annoyed look, a little girl walked to the front of the building and showed him in. "You've been making Fairy Zhi wait! Who do you think you are ?! You're overestimating yourself!"
As Cao Yun was baffled by this cold and insulting welcome, a sweet voice left the building.
"Sister Ling, be more polite toward our guest. I only asked him yesterday, he's still very fast in his answer."
"If Fairy Zhi says so, it must be true." The girl almost looked twelve but she had the emblem of the second-years so she was probably at least around fifteen or sixteen. To become a disciple you needed to reach 4th-grade Mortal and achieving this before late fourteen or fifteen was impossible. Her demeanor was really what made her look so childish. By looking at her you really thought she was just an insufferable little child. That's the image Ling Hui would have to Cao Yun from now on.
So he dismissed her behavior as a child pestering him.
"Sister Zhi, sorry for making you wait." He said it while keeping an eye on Ling Hui who let out a small "Humph!".
"No, Brother Chen, I was even expecting you way later. Come on, sit down. Sister Ling, could you ask the servants for some tea please?"
"Of course, Fairy Zhi." Unlike with Cao Yun, this Ling Hui was extremely polite and smiling when it came to Zhi Yin.
"So, Brother Chen. Are you here to ask more information or to make a decision?"
"A bit of both to be honest. I'm still not convinced on several points. If I join your faction, how would you ensure that I would indeed keep it alive during my second year?"
"That's easy. You'll sign a written commitment with the Wubei Sect. This way, you won't be able to join any other faction the next year even if you've already left us during the first year. So whether you stay the entire first year or leave midway, you won't have any other faction the second year. That will ensure that you're forced to stay with ours during the entire second-year. And how could you let the only faction you can join die?"
Her wordings was pretty clever. The rules forbade any faction to coerce someone into joining them. But this way, she just stopped him from joining others.
"Will this commitment be public?"
"Not necessarily, no. It would even be better indeed if it weren't." If the other factions thought that they could win Cao Yun back once he joined the Heavenly Swallow Faction, they would probably try to stay friendly. But if they learned that he was committed to them for the entire second-year, the enticement to get him in would decrease significantly. Thus, they may try to suppress the faction even more.
"That's acceptable. What I worry most is on the matter of the points."
As they were speaking, a servant brought them some tea. Ling Hui also came back and sat beside Zhi Yin, with the same annoyed look on her face.
"Fairy Zhi wants you in her faction and you keep nitpicking?!"
"Please, Sister Ling, it's perfectly natural. I probably wouldn't want him in our faction if he was too naive.
On the matter of points, I know that it will still be difficult for you to earn them. So I will give you all the points we get from the sect for our daily needs. You see, we get points based on the number of members and their quality. With you, we would probably earn 30 points by month, so you would get 360 points during the first year, without doing anything. On the other hand, we'll keep all the points we get from our own activities. As you must suspect, we'll go hunt in the wild almost all year long. And when we're here, we'll probably be training to make up for the time we lost last year."
When she mentioned last year, Ling Hui's face darkened.
"These traitors!"
"Last year was very hard on us, as we had to fight off the other factions. We were twenty when I founded this faction, but they left one by one until we were only the four of us. But I cannot blame them, we were all first-years so it really was tough.
The main reason I founded the Heavenly Swallow Faction was because of the unreasonable conditions of the seniors. However, fighting the influence of factions which have existed for decades is even more difficult than I imagined. I won't sugarcoat it, Brother Chen. Joining us will give you less benefits than joining another faction, and you will face more hardships. On the other hand, I'm convinced our conditions are great and that you will enjoy way more freedom. We demand no work from you and your schedule will be entirely free."
Cao Yun thought a very long time under the evil stare of Ling Hui. In her eyes, you could read her mind without any problem 'Fairy Zhi invites you to join her! Why do you hesitate at all?'.
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"Sister Zhi, I'll accept your conditions. I'll join the Heavenly Swallow Faction."
"About time! What did you even have to think about?!"
"Ling Hui, please!" Losing her smile for an instant, Zhi Yin reprimanded the little girl who blamed it on Cao Yun even more. "Brother Chen, this is a great news." She took out a parchment from one of her sleeves. "This is the written commitment for your second-year. Please read it carefully and ask me if anything seems strange."
Clearly, Zhi Yin was prepared and she fully expected Cao Yun to join her faction. He read the parchment several times. It was very well-written without any loopholes. He still looked for any potential trap.
When he was satisfied that the conditions were clear and fair, he signed it.
"Didn't you trust Fairy Zhi that you had to read it so many times?!"
"Ling Hui, leave us please."
The little girl's face lost all life when she heard her fairy. "Yes. Sorry..." She left with her head very low as if she had lost someone dear to her.
"I'm sorry about my little friend. She's a bit too much sometimes. Here take this." Zhi Yin gave him the emblem with the number one and the swallow in the background. "This was my emblem last year. Now it is yours. I'll take care of registering your affiliation to our faction. Do you need anything?"
"I do! I wanted to access an array formation."
"Of course. Our daily quota are of two one hour slots every day in most facilities, a little less in the ones with fewer spots. I'll give you full authority to book these slots when we're out. You can either book them up to one week prior or the very day you use them. For example, if you arrive at a facility with a spot that's already been booked but with no one using it, you can use this quota to take it instead. Just wait till the afternoon for the paperwork to be handled."
Cao Yun took off his emblem and put the Heavenly Faction one in its stead. "Thank you, Faction Leader. I'll take my leave for now."
-
Waiting for the evening, Cao Yun went back to the alchemy pavilion. The receptionist was surprised to see the new emblem on his chest but she did not make any unnecessary comment. She had learned her lesson already.
Meng Jia was as sleepy as the day before. He pushed Cao Yun even further in his flame control as just a warm-up.
"You trained on your own. Good." Even without opening his second eye, Meng Jia could tell.
"As I said yesterday, we'll work on Ingredients Preservation, the second principle of the five.
I imagine that you remember how every ingredient presented in the 'Four Seasons Cycle Classic' should be prepared. These are the most basic of preparations, but for a novice these are the best. You must master the basics before discarding them. When you're a master, you prepare your ingredients according to your state of mind, the season, the day of the week, the hour, the weather, the effects you want from your pill and so on. But if you can't handle the most basics preparation, trying this advanced stuff is useless.
Let's start with a simple one, a Terrified Fox Root. Go fetch one in the cupboard."
When he brought back the small root, Meng Jia continued.
"There are many techniques but this root can be prepared with a good proportion of them and it's very cheap. That's the best ingredient to work on. You'll also take four or five of them with you to train at home. The first step is almost always the same, you must wash the ingredient. The liquid you use must be adapted, for now just use the one that's advised by the book. What is it for this root?"
"The Slow Running Rain."
"Indeed. Proceed then. Remember, you have to wash and rinse several times but you must be very careful so as to not lose too much medicinal essence. Even in the skin of the root there is some."
Cao Yun took all his time to wash and rinse the root, rubbing it with utmost care.
"Fine. Pretty good, you only lost 7% of the medicinal essence. You should aim for 5% as a novice. Here, take this crystal." Meng Jia gave him a small translucent crystal. "Put it in the water, if it changes color, you have more than 5% lost in the water."
And indeed, when he put it in the Slow Running Rain, the crystal turned a little gray.
"It won't react if there's not enough medicinal essence.
Then, the next step is to peel it. We'll prepare the skin and the flesh in two different ways to train your skills. So all the skin must be peeled but no flesh must stay on the skin. I hear you're skilled with a spear and a sword, but handling a knife is somewhat different. By working on it, you'll probably gain some insights into your martial arts as a benefit."
Once again, Meng Jia was right. The precision needed to perform this operation was way different than what Cao Yun was used to. And it made him think about martial arts. This instructor had easily understood him and used martial arts as a way to keep him invested in his work.
After the peeling, Cao Yun practiced many techniques of preparation, mincing, grinding, cooking, smoking, burning, infusing, ... By the end of the session, he had practiced all the different traditional ways of preparation for alchemical ingredients.
"You told me that you wanted to try an array formation in the afternoon so we'll stop here. Train your flame control and your preparation skills for some days. Don't come back before you achieve the goals I gave you. Next week you should be good to attempt your first pill refinement without a model."
"Thank you, Instructor Meng."
Meng Jia gave him some powders, some Terrified Fox Root and Slow Running Rain to train for a week at home.
-
It was finally time for Cao Yun to go back to the training facilities. Like the day before, the Warrior Dream array formation was mostly empty apart from the instructor of course and two disciples training within.
The facility was in fact five identical array formations. So five disciples could train at the same time.
"Instructor, I'd like to use one hour of training."
"Sorry, all the slots are booked, so unless you're from a faction that got one, it's not possible right now."
"I know, Instructor." He showed his Heavenly Swallow emblem more clearly. "My faction leader gave me the authorization to claim our daily quota slot."
"Oh? Wait a second, I'll go check that." The instructor took a jade pendant from his pocket and closed his eyes. After some time he spoke again. "I got confirmation from the sect. As many slots are not currently being used, I can give you one right now if you want."
"Thank you, Instructor." Then Cao Yun walked in and followed some servants. They explained how the array formation worked.
As soon as the servants put a spirit stone in the pedestal linked to the array formation, they would also use incense to measure the time. One incense stick before the end, Cao Yun would be warned to prepare so that he wouldn't be surprised by an abrupt end. Interrupting someone's training right in the middle of it was really frowned upon. If the cultivator was on the verge of gaining a new epiphany, all his efforts would be ruined. Or worse, if he lost control of his Qi because his opponent suddenly disappeared, he could suffer from Qi deviation. The Qi could go in the wrong path or in his own flesh or organs.
The array formation was pretty straightforward and was exactly as Cao Yun had read. A man absolutely identical to him appeared before his eyes. The only difference was that he was translucent. It was a construct made by the energy of the stone used to feed the array formation.
He wielded the exact same spear. Each time Cao Yun attacked, his opponent would block, parry or evade and almost immediately target his weak spot. He was able to detect every weakness in his assaults and every blind spot for his attack.
Cao Yun focused heavily on the Horn Star to try and perfect his 'The Pillar Piercing the Sky'. As he trained, his technique became more and more simple, removing all the useless moves one by one. He also tried to use the moves of the second star from the manual. The first star was firmly established in his sea of consciousness so he wanted to forge the second one.
It would take way more time than the first one, so he wanted to work on it as soon as possible.