In the Human Empire, there was a mountain range called the crystal mountain range in which its mountain peaks were made of crystal. These mountain peaks could be seen spackling from many kilometers away like giant rubies as they reflected the light from the sun during the day or the moon at night.

The Sky Watchers Sect was located in this mountain range. Magnificent buildings and pavilions where built on the mountains and at the base of the mountains was the Crystal Valley which housed the outer court disciples.

The Sky Watchers Sect being one of the strongest spiritual practitioner’s sects in the human empire had tens of thousands of disciples.

In any sect, the majority of disciples were always outer court disciples. Even though the crystal valley housed a lot of disciples, the place was always clean. This was because at any time during the day, disciples in brown robes of the outer court could be seen sweeping and making sure that the place was always in a pristine condition.

A clean environment was conducive for spiritual practice so cleaning was one of the easiest ways for disciples to earn merits and if a disciple was seen doing anything that might make their environment dirty, that disciple was heavily punished and in some cases expelled from the sect. because of these reasons the place was always clean.

In one of the courtyards in the crystal valley, a disciple in brown robes with a sheathed sword attached to his waist was sweeping. This courtyard was called the leisure court and was a place that disciples came to when they wanted to relax. The leisure courtyard was large but the disciple was sweeping the whole place alone. This type of situation was rare as other disciples would not give up an opportunity to earn merit and was only possible because it was very early in the morning and the sun had not yet risen so other disciples were still sleeping.

‘Finally done,’ kai thought, he was happy that he had managed to finish sweeping before the other disciples had woken up.

The crystal valley was divided into areas and each area had a fixed number of merits that could be earned for sweeping it. This number didn’t change so the more disciples sweeping a particular area, the fewer merits each disciple would earn as the merits would be divided among the disciples responsible for cleaning it.

Kai was tired from cleaning such a large area, he placed his hand on his sword hilt and drew some of the Anima stored within the sword vessel into his body. Anima was the raw power of spirit and material that souls are made of. He then circulated the anima according to the foundation cycling technique provided by the sect and he felt rejuvenated.

Kai’s dream had come true and he had joined the Sky Watchers sect six years ago but even after all this time, he was still one of its weakest disciples.

The Sky Watchers sect being a powerful sect usually recruited people with medium grade talent and above. Those with low-grade talent like Kai could only enter the sect if they had been recommended by an Elder or when workers were in short supply. Kai’s situation was not that rare as the sect still needed people to clean, sweep and do some other basic chores and since the sect didn’t hire normal humans, those with low-grade talent were accepted because they were not expected to make to make much progress in their spiritual practice. Still, Kai was a special case as those with low-grade talent who were recruited usually had political connections or had relatives in the sect.

Having finished sweeping and feeling refreshed, Kai started his long journey to Merit Hall to report and get his merits. He had to leave the Crystal Valley because Merit Hall was located on one of the Lesser Peaks of the sect and not in Crystal Valley.

Kai was once again tired and the sun had risen when he reached the top of the peak where Merit Hall was located. Even though the Peak was called a Lesser Peak it was still many kilometers tall. It was only called a Lesser Peak because its top did not reach the heavens and was not covered in clouds like the Main Peaks. Kai had only managed to reach the top because cycling anima had an effect of restoring the body and after years of anima cycling; his body had improved and was very fit while a normal human would find it difficult to reach the top without the help of anima.

The Merit Hall was a big luxurious building. A towering sign boasted its name in bold silver letters that seemed to be shining. If Kai didn't know any better, he would have thought the place dealt with more important duties than assigning merits to outer court disciples. This was just another sign that Sky Watchers Sect was a big sect and it had a reputation to uphold.

Before going inside, Kai drew on the last reserves of anima in his sword vessel in order to recover. One of the rules of the sect was that a disciple should not show weakness even inside the sect without a good reason and getting tired for getting to the top of a Lesser Peak did not count as a good reason.

Inside the Hall, he found Deacon Masau silently meditating. The deacon was a heavily muscled and bald man who was addicted to meditating. Kai kept a respectable distance and started waiting to be acknowledged. It was considered rude to interrupt someone stronger than you when they were meditating as consequences varied and could be dire depending on how far above your station that person was. He had heard stories of disciples being killed in some Sects for interrupting their betters; thankfully the Sky Watchers Sect was a Righteous Sect so killing disciples was forbidden but a disciple could have every inch of his body beaten.

The deacon opened his eyes and held out his right hand towards Kai. Deacon Masau didn’t like talking so Kai knew what the deacon wanted with his gesture. Kai took out his token and gave it to the Deacon. The token was a circular coin which had a bird with spread wings on one side and the other side had the number 580 written there which represented the number of merits kai had.

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When the Deacon had received his token, Kai reported the area he had swept. Kai didn’t try to lie about the size of the area he had worked on, he didn’t know how, but Deacons always knew when someone lied to them.

“I have added the forty merits that cleaning the leisure court is to your token.” The Deacon said and held the token towards Kai.

Kai didn’t take the token but instead said: “I would like to redeem some of my merits for two blood cleansing pills and a pass to get to the trial grounds.”

“Wait here”

The Deacon left the room and when he returned he passed a pill bottle and the token to kai and added “the passage is only valid for one month.”

“Thank you Deacon.” Kai said and left the hall. He didn’t bother to open the pill bottle to confirm if it contained the pills while he was still inside the hall as it would be disrespectful.

Once he had reached outside, kai checked his token and saw that under the bird, the words "Trial" was now written there in silver glowing letters. He flipped the token and saw that he was only remaining with eighty merits. Getting a pass to the trial grounds cost five hundred merits while each blood cleansing pill cost twenty merits.

Kai then opened the pill bottle and saw two blood red pills while a sweet-smelling aroma entered his nose at the same time. The pills could aid during anima cycling, sadly they wouldn’t be aiding him this time as the two pills he had obtained were a tribute to someone more powerful than him.

Kai closed the pill bottle and started his journey back to Crystal Valley. He was thankful that the downward journey was not as taxing as the upward one had been.

***

Crystal Valley was home to thousands of disciples but the one resource which was not lacking was land. This meant that each disciple had his own allocated piece of land and this piece of land came with a small house which can be expanded if the disciple wanted to, though if the disciple wanted to expand their allocated house, he or she must use their own resources.

Land was readily available because of the rule in the sect which stated that if a disciple reached twenty-five years and had not advanced to the second phase of spiritual practice then they must leave the sect. This meant that land was freed once a disciple reached the second phase of spiritual practice which was Soul Awakening and joined one of the Main Peaks or they were expelled from the sect when they reached twenty-five but were still in the first phase which was Blood Purification.

When Kai reached the Crystal Valley, all the disciples he met were all busy doing one thing or another trying to earn merit: some were gardening, others were sweeping and others were on their way to do menial jobs in the Main Peaks. Chores were limited and ones which earned a lot of merits were all occupied by the powerful outer disciples. This was why Kai woke up early to sweep because sweeping was the only chore which didn’t have designated workers, any disciple could sweep as long as they arrived first and were willing to share merits with other sweepers as no one was allowed to stop others when it came to cleaning the environment.

The sect did not force its disciples to work, they even provided free food but resources that could aid in anima cycling could only be obtained with merits. Because of this reason and the age limit of twenty-five years, no disciple was ever idol, if a disciple was not earning merits then he or she was cycling their anima.

Every place has exceptions and in Crystal Valley, there was a group of disciples called "The Chosen," who didn't have to work to earn merits but instead would be rewarded merits every month by the sect.

The chosen were the top hundred strongest outer disciples in Crystal Valley. Any disciple could become one of the chosen if they defeated any of the chosen and took their place.

When Kai reached the Crystal Valley, he did not go directly to his house but went to the house of one of the chosen named Bruno.

Bruno’s house had the same design as all the outer disciples. It looked like squire box from the outside and only had three rooms; a bedroom, a kitchen and a meditation room for cycling anima. Even though the disciples had permission to alter their houses none of them did so. This was because no disciple was foolish enough to waste resources on building something that he or she knew would be left behind in a few years.

When Kai reached Bruno's house, he found Bruno outside training in some martial technique. Bruno was performing different poses and forms with a massive steel hammer in one hand as if the massive thing had the weight of a feather. Kai knew that the hammer was very heavy and the only reason Bruno managed to carry it like that was that the hammer was Bruno’s vessel.

Bruno was the same age as Kai, he had a brown complexion with dark hair and black eyes just like the majority of people in the empire including kai. Bruno was about two meters tall and bulky with muscles which made him look like a bear. This was a common trait among spiritual artists in the blood purification phase as cycling anima had an effect of increasing a person's height and bulk and Kai was not an exception though he was slightly shorter and less bulky than Bruno.

Kai didn’t bother to interrupt Bruno while he was training but thankfully, Kai didn’t have to wait long before Bruno stopped practicing and looked at him. Kai felt pressure from Bruno’s gaze like a hungry beast was looking at him. Kai felt fear and involuntary took a few steps backward. Kai couldn’t believe that Bruno was now capable of emitting spiritual pressure, he remembered that Bruno couldn't do it two months ago when Kai last visited him. This was an indication that Bruno was now at the peak of blood purification phase and was ready to advance to soul awakening.

Bruno blinked and the pressure kai was feeling disappeared. Kai felt envious but he quickly buried the emotion, Bruno’s strength was the reason Kai was there in the first place.

Unsupervised Fighting among disciples was discouraged but the sect was raising warriors so they encouraged supervised competition in an arena between the disciples. A disciple could challenge anyone to fight them in the arena and no one was allowed to refuse once challenged. The challenger could even put up reasonable stakes for the fight. This meant that those who were weak could be challenged constantly for their merits. The only solution for weak disciples was to pay one of the hundred Chosen to shelter them. If the Chosen accepted, then that Chosen could pass the word around to other disciples that those weak disciples who had paid were under their protection. If a disciple challenged a person under a Chosen’s protection and since no one could refuse a challenge, the weak disciple was not stressed even if they lost because they knew that their Chosen protector will challenge their challenger and later the weak disciple would be given back what they lost after their Chosen has won.

Kai was under Bruno’s protection and he was only required to pay a blood purifying pill every month. The two blood purifying pills he had brought meant that for the next two months he would be protected.

The age limit placed by the sect meant that outer disciples spent most of their time cycling anima, this led them to have fewer friends and made them not very good at socializing. Kai and Bruno already had an understanding so Kai didn't say anything and just passed the pill bottle to Bruno. Bruno opened the bottle and later nodded after checking.

This meant that Kai was safe for the next two months so he left Bruno alone and went back to his house to prepare for trial grounds.