Powerful Stones And The World Of Cultivation

Within the Warmlord City's president's office. Early in the morning, but not even close to the beginning of sunrise in this part of the world.

Sitting behind his desk, the president was smiling all candidly and fawningly despite the huge bags hanging from his eyes, light pale countenance, and sick and tired whole body from tonight's happenings. But, right now, if he wanted peace or at least to live, he had to be the best boy 'in town' and do and say as this handsome, gentle, and good natured chivalrous man in front of his desk, also sitting, wanted him to do or say.

“...Well, of course, this is the cooperation that someone like sir can ask for any time he wants! Haha…” The president nodded his head subserviently, with weight, towards the gentleman before him and spoke with such a strange soft tone. The gentleman, in retrospect, gave a hearty, light smile and returned the gesture with the same tone in his voice. “You were surely given a scare, heh? It only happens to the worst of us, you have not to worry about it.”

“Ah- hehh, sure yes… aha…” The president lowered his head, not willing to let the gentleman before him see his reddening face. Though it was a sign that he was still healthy, though someone of his level in this Region shouldn’t even have to worry about such, it was also a big humiliation before this unknown gentleman.

“Well, then. Don’t feel that troubled, even he surprised me with how he did it, ah…very clever and skilled.” The gentleman praised a little monster. One whose message was perfectly conveyed with his actions and warning. Afterward, the gentleman looked directly into the president’s eyes and said in a flat tone, “Just like how I would’ve done it, though much older in age.”

“...” Seeing the gentleman even nodding and reassuring himself with his eyes flashing glints of agreeing to his own words as if they were just talking about tea. The president gritted his teeth but remained silent.

“You see,” the gentleman continued, seeing no further reaction from the ‘poor’ president. “Since I’m leaving soon, I’m a man of my word and like to leave things done right.”

The gentleman looked at the president, his eyes serious. “The contracts, now.”

“Ah, yes of course. For this sir to have come for them, I can see they are really good, heh he-”

Pam!

Though not a single movement was discernible, the president was dead sure that it was the gentleman’s doing. And as the president was shellshocked by his whole desk crumbling into two, his whole room began cracking, bit by bit, from below the crack all the way to the door through the floor and ceiling of the office.

“Here they are!” The president had no more shit to say, the documents in his hands directly being shoved in front of the gentleman’s chest, but instead of raising his hands to this filthy president, space itself was directly opened without any damn sound being heard and almost scaring the president to death; chubby cheeks trembling wobbly.

From an oval shaped hole in space, a bright, blue marine hand came out, picking those documents with the tips of their index and middle finger. The hand didn’t bring the documents away though, and instead ‘clicked’ those fingertips with the documents in-between, shattering them to pure ash before wholly retracting back into the oval shaped space hole and leaving as if it had never even been there in the first place.

“That will be all.” With his left hand covering the left side of his face, his left elbow supported on his crossed leg’s knee, the gentleman then had a pair of ruthless eyes glaring at the stunned president, paler than ever before. All the presi could do was to-, “GULP…”

***

Back at the Arielende Sect, in front of its gate.

“...” Hundreds and hundreds of new recruits were awaiting, now seated behind a small desk for one person and with their arms resting on the desk as if they were little children waiting for the teacher to arrive into the classroom in boredom. In this, Ciemnosc couldn’t be blamed for being one of the youngest of everyone around here.

In silence, the kids ranging from a child’s age to even adults of about 21 years old and even older could only wait for the Elders of the sect to decide and do something at last. For now, the ordinary people could only do their best to wake up. They didn’t have strong capacities for sleep-movement and remaining alert when asleep, so they had a hard time waking up fully at these hours.

Finally, when the sun was already making the desks of the new recruit clear enough to see even the smallest of inconsistencies in the making of these desks, there was a loud ‘bang’ from a diurnal pyrotechnics-like instrument that attracted the faces of every new recruit towards the north - right behind their backs.

Immediately, the new recruits saw a small group of men and women, some middle-aged looking and only 3 of them with white hair leading a much larger group that could easily be seen as the current elite of the Arielende Sect. As every new recruit saw these older young people standing with superiority and showing off stronger gleams in their eyes, they became awed by the sight.

‘...Not even the Spiritual Condensation Realm?’ Thought Ciemnosc as he looked at the elite of the Arielende Sect, feeling even more down. Yet, compared to other organizations that went to the gathering, it was a huge difference, especially when the other organizations’ ‘elders’ were of the Spiritual Ligament Realm middle stages at best…

‘It must really be difficult to raise an organization…’ Ciemnosc thought, a bit lost when the shouting voice of Loro reached everyone’s ears by his ‘potent’ Power Energy enhancing such a little act, not even fully waking up the ordinary people among the new recruits. He had already recovered after almost 2 hours went by after arriving at the sect.

“Now, every single one of you will go through an exam to understand your level of comprehension! Each of you will be given the same exam, but if any of you dare to try to cheat, you’ll be thrown out of the sect! Good luck traveling back those few hundreds of kilometers on foot.” The moment Loro finished his words, the ‘elite’ of the Arielende Sect began distributing a single piece of paper to each new recruit.

“Do not start until I say so, those who do will have their answer invalidated!” Loro warned, meanwhile, some new recruits directly slammed their faces with either their hands, their pens, or the desk in front of them. On the other hand, Christian was sweating a little as a tiny dot was written on his exam piece of paper.

Looking at this, Ciemnosc blinked a few times innocently eh. Cristan naturally felt such a glance, to which he directly looked back at the kiddy boy and lashed out in a rare intelligent whisper. “What are you looking at? I’ll shout ‘you’re cheating’, piss off!”

…blink blink.

After innocently letting his eyelids fall and rise, Ciemnosc then looked down at his own exam, scrutinizing it as he blinked some more to the…uselessness of such questions?

One of them was ‘describe your experience in breaking through the stages of the Spiritual Ligament Realm’, ‘how long did you take to cross 1st, 2nd…’, how was your experience becoming a cultivator for the first time?’... It made Ciemnosc quite a bit speechless, and he really couldn’t be blamed for it.

“Okay now, everyone, start writing on your exams!” Loro shouted at this moment, giving birth to the sound of hundreds of scribbles echoing across a few hundred square meters with everyone seated semi-together furiously writing, thinking, and looking around without being too stupidly ‘attempting’ at it.

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But just as it all began, a cute and sweet voice sounded out as a slightly pale arm was lifted. “I’ve finished~!”

“Oh, come here, Little Ciemnosc!” Loro’s voice came from behind, allowing Ciemnosc to stand up with his exam paper being taken by an elite of the sect. Ciemnosc uncaringly trotted to Loro, his appearance to the older ones in the group of the back is more than concentrated on. But he only showed them a pair of venerating, respectful eyes before coming to stand a few steps before Loro.

“Mn, how did it go, kid?” Loro looked down strictly at Ciemnosc, and nodded before asking. Ciemnosc looked up and smiled lightly, outstretching his arms before saying with a carefree tone, “I did my best.”

“Alright, stand beside me. Let’s wait for everyone else to finish.” Ciemnosc’s answer made the man become much more soft. His gaze relaxed as he then moved Ciemnosc to stand on his left before patting his head once and going back to having his arms crossed in front of his solar plexus.

“Elder Loro,” Ciemnosc lifted his head and asked after a few minutes went by, the questions weren’t hard, and even though he downgraded each of his truthful answers a whole damn lot, it was bound to take about 10 minutes at most for anyone. Loro lowered his gaze after trailing his head a bit, giving Ciemnosc the ‘what is it, kid’ face in good nature to go on.

“Will there be a fierce, fighting competition?” Ciemnosc’s face was a bit nervous when he said it, Loro was just about to encourage this boy’s guts when he remembered the cases that Ciemnosc brought with him, and he also realized of this kid’s cleverness. “No, Ciemnosc. This is an exam to see the recruits’ potential, not to see who has the highest cultivation, it’s not like that here.”

After saying those comforting words, Loro patted Ciemnosc’s back very lightly, afraid of hurting the boy’s back and not knowing that he saved his own hand instead, before adding. “You won’t have to take any more exams. Your cultivation is not only the highest, but you are also quite smart, aren’t you? The Sect Leader and Grand Elders have decided to nurture you in about a month. After a month, make your way to the largest building in the sect, and you will begin to be trained in some techniques and hone your skills, alright?”

Ciemnosc looked down, both ‘nervously’ and in anticipation, making Loro grin a little. The boy then responded with his darkest pools as his eyes remained hidden, sweetly and cutely. “Okay.”

…After a little while, everyone finished their exams, with the exceptions of cheaters who were literally kicked and thrown out of the sect’s territory and nearby lands, directly becoming exiles without anywhere to go, not having been fed, and having not a single settlement in more than a few hundreds of kilometers.

Some were rich, ordinary people, and some others actually managed to cultivate with the help of medicinal herbs and eating Creatures’ meat since young, as well as Powerful Stones at the moment they became cultivators. Some others were just random people from any and all possible kinds of backgrounds. But every single one of them was treated like shit the moment they disobeyed the sect’s rules.

‘Not a bad brainwashing method.’ To show such might and reveal insulted faces and acts by how hard and how ruthless they were to them yet not ending their lives or crippling them, those that managed to get through the exam and be selected to be more than a servant would then become more obedient than their nature might have wanted them to be.

In the end, when the last few people finished writing on their exam, the ordinary people naturally had other kinds of answers that replaced those relating to cultivating and were more of a test of one’s resilience and points of view - the people were selected differently depending on their exams and hence took longer. As they were called name by name, they were told of their status and then sent to stand behind the respective people in charge of different affairs.

Cristan ended up becoming an Inner Disciple, along with Ciemnosc and another 7 who were selected through time, the other 7 also had of the highest cultivation base but not the highest of them all, showing the importance that the Arielende Sect places on their recruits other than just mere cultivation.

After being looked at by Cristan some more, more more; Ciemnosc and the outer, inner disciples and the servants were all walked into the Arielende Sect. Hundreds of people made their way into the sect with the most renowned sect members behind them leading them from the back. The brand new members of course felt proud and even of slightly blood 'boiledness' - so to speak.

When Ciemnosc entered the sect, his previous thoughts were ascertaining as it was very early morning, and the large tents had a lot of spots where one could see several kinds of items that were not in Warmlord City. There were no price tags but one could imagine how costly they’d be as they seemed much better fabricated and useful even.

On the other hand, with the large tents being ‘stores’ and the smaller tents being the servant’s homes, acting as dorms of varying sizes, the outer disciples and inner disciples of the sect were brought further into the sect’s territory, which was about 10 square kilometers in total.

Once arriving deeper than where the tents were located, the outer disciples were accommodated, each on their own 4 x 4 meters big barren houses with a bed for each and a smallish praying mat for each as well. While looking at the poor dorms of the outer disciples, Loro’s hand landed on his right shoulder supportively. He had thought that Ciemnosc was feeling pity for them; aw.

Walking further ahead, Ciemnosc saw the even deeper territory of the sect, it was better than the previous ‘deep’ section where the outer disciples lived but still not that good. The inner disciples’ section was at least now counting with barren pathways that led from in front of each little cave-like room to the ‘main road’ that led to the gates of the sect or to the very center of the same and so on.

It also had an individual room for each inner disciple of the sect. And they would even have servants clean around their dorms, with most inner disciples being allowed to have up to 3 servants at their disposal if they wanted to.

Such a thought made Ciemnosc think even more of the rare, great opportunity that servants had in the sect, and possibly in all other organizations!

Being a servant meant the possibility of being selected by an inner, core disciple to even the Sect Master themselves, such an obvious, opportune random lottery was bound to give anyone ‘a chance’. From then on, it would depend on their luck and capability to stand out or have enough charm, to benefit from their ‘temporary masters’.

It wasn’t a mastership of tutelage but of servitude, and one where the ‘master’ wasn’t in any way obligated to teach or even protect their servants, it was just a master-servant relationship of the dullest of types. Just when they arrived at the inner disciples' dorms, Loro left their side and announced that there would be a bit of a checkup on them every day for the following weeks, Cristan came up to Ciemnosc with the cute girl from before holding her right hand with his left hand.

“Hey, Little Ciemnosc, Imma show her my room. Would you like to come in? Heh.” The cute girl blushed and lowered her head to Cristan’s words, but her lips were ‘pouted’ as if she would be ‘mad’ if Ciemnosc didn’t want to, while Ciemnosc himself was looking at them with a pair of bored eyes.

Step, step, step.

“Mm, no.” Responded Ciemnosc before turning his body towards an empty little cave and entering it, leaving the cute girl looking at his back somewhat predatorily and Cristan with his eyes becoming both half-angry and half-derisive. His thoughts were just like that, too, ‘So, it turned out to be a little chicken, not even daring to touch or look at a girl, huh?’.

Pah!

“Mmmouh, not here please?” The cute girl said as soon as she felt the harsh palm that slapped her bums begin to knead them ostentatiously and with strength, her little moans showing how wet she has gotten. Cristan licked her right ear squeaky-red clean, and moved her right hand to no, into his crotch in his pants with his right fingers, her right small and fair hand tremblingly getting in and becoming ecstatic once a hot piece of meat entered its palm.

“I am just promoting you to possible clients and users…” Cristan whispered into her ear, making her grab not just his thing and making her gasp even more, “To those who will, use you.”

“Angh…” Cristan and the girl quickly got to his little cave, right at the right of Ciemnosc’s little cave. And before long, as if wishing he could hear them, especially from the part of the cute girl, they were hella loud, which would’ve been a problem for everyone around to sleep without some ‘handy’ ritual before bed.

But, for Ciemnosc, he was already numb to the sound of teenagers ‘moaning’ as if they were even doing enough for that matter, his eyelids were closed, and his hands on his stomach intertwined with one another as he reviewed the contents of the books he has read inside his head. He had left them with his girls, Aola and Samina, so he didn’t have any to read.

As for his cases, he was left with still 7 of them but now had only 8 Mortal grade blades. They will have their use in the future but, for the moment, all he had and could do was to wait for tomorrow once again.

“...” Suddenly, as the sounds from the ‘moving’ neighbor were nicely muffled and not even that intrusive at all, Ciemnosc’s eyes were slowly opened with a devilish charm, those darkest eyes appearing as if made fully of dark without a tiny dot of sclera remaining. He looked at his little cave’s ceiling, the temperature was nice, his bed was okay, and it was fully dark; it was completely fine.

Before, in the village and with his Sister, Ciemnosc would always see a bit of light turned on during the whole night on her side or on her own bed in later years. Only when Ciemnosc was able to walk on his own and do much more with those little legs of his, close to 3 years old, did he turn those lights off every night after his Sister slept for about an hour and a half.

Be it a candle, the switch, or even just a little flame inside a glass container, Ciemnosc would take care of it so it wouldn’t be wasted too much, and she could continue on to use it the next night and the nights after; so that much less money would be spent on it so that she wouldn’t feel bad exactly because of that and so that she wouldn’t feel pain when spending money for it.

And, of course, he wasn’t doing this unbeknownst to her. His Sister was really fortunate, too.

…