Year 658 of the Stable Era,

Fourteenth day of the fourth month

Chao Ren took a step towards the back to solidify that he wasn’t going to get involved in hierarchy fight for line supremacy, and then several more to join up with the half of the group that seemed content to spectate. As he had so many times in the past, he thanked his lineage for sparing him from this conflict. As a middle son of a middle branch of a middle family, nobody was relying on him to maintain the family’s reputation.

In a way it was a very freeing existence. Unlike the one possessed by the fellow in the yellow robe, who was currently trying to push a blue haired rival out of the line. It took Ren a few seconds to place the crane crest. Yes, he must be from the T…

“Who are you to place yourself before the Zhao family?”, the lad that soon declared himself as Zhao Lan snapped as he attempted another shove.

Ah, that was it. The Zhao family.

They’d been making waves lately with their newly developed fire talismans, which had propelled them from countryside nobodies to a name known up and down the coastal cities. Their strength was still dubious though, as most of their success was owed to the direct actions of their current patriarch, and they were desperate to produce an heir capable of proving that his talent wasn’t generational. They could have done a better job preparing this one though, as Ren had finally recognized the young man that he was currently attempting to push around.

One always had to beware of bigger fish, after all, though Ren would sooner slit his owns wrists than call him one aloud.

“You presume too much,” the Bailong heir said, as he slapped the approaching wrist aside. “It would seem that even a frog trapped in a well would know more of the sky than you.”

“Pah, who are you to claim that you deserve to stand before me?” Zhao Lan spat, one drop coming suicidally close to actually making contact. “Do you really think your family possesses the prestige to be placed before my Zhao family?”

“If your family was twice as renowned as it is, you might have had the chance to be invited to the least of my family’s banquets,” the young dragon snorted, knocking Lan aside with a contemptuous flick. “But I suppose that’s to be expected from a bumpkin such as yourself. So quick to mistake money for class.”

Despite being at the same early stage of the Qi Gathering stage as the rest of the applicants, Lan was barely able to resist the force, stumbling backwards a good four feet before he was able to catch his balance. The physique of a dragon wasn’t to be underestimated, Ren thought to himself, even if they didn’t truly begin growing into their power until well past the Qi Refining stage.

Ren reckoned Bailong Shen was cultivating a body technique, likely a potent family technique, and that he was currently somewhere in the middle of the Body Tempering stage. Zhao Yan, on the other hand, seemed to have been under the misassumption that his peers had all been focused solely cultivating their qi to reach this stage in the tests. It might have one been born of arrogance, but Ren supposed that given his family’s focus on a more scholarly aspect of cultivation it might have just been the product of his environment.

After all, what benefits did a stronger body offer a talisman master, especially ones that made their fortune selling their craft? The ability to better lift all those heavy pieces of paper? More qi, on the other hand, meant more production, more powerful wares, and the ability to more directly explore the arcane mysteries that infused the paper they inked. It was likely that Yan was also cultivating his mental strength, the often underestimated third pillar of cultivation, but at this point there was little it could do to help him.

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“Ah, Shen, I see that you have somehow managed to grow more imperiously impetuous since we last met,” another youth in a red robe said, unsleeving a fan. “But then again, it’s about what one would expect from a snake with delusions of grandeur.” He opened it with a quick snap, red chrysanthemums and peonies undulating as he gently fanned himself.

“Han Lee,” he breathed, eyes narrowing. “I’d assumed that you’d kept quiet because you remembered the way our last encounter ended.”

“Only a fool would expect such a dubious fluke shake my resolve,” Lee laughed back. “My dao heart remains firm.”

“So quite unlike your leg then?”

“I could say the same about your wrist.”

“If that’s the best you can do, I can see why you think you could have won.”

“Only a loach like you would cling to a single victory like-”

“And only a stray cat would claim that refusing to change its stripes made it more like a tiger,” Shen interrupted, “and yet here you are.”

Han Lee snapped his fan shut at this remark, his face moving a shade closer to the flowers that decorated it. “You dare!?”

“Oh, I do dare,” Shen replied, azure silk flowing as his stance slowly shifted, his right palm rising in front of him in a taunt that seemed ready to change into a fighting stance. “So, do you want to continue sparring with words, or perhaps you’d like to give your fists a chance to lose.”

Han Lee growled at this, ears flattening as he tossed aside his fan and lunged at Bailong Shen. The latter laughed, catching his hands as the two began trying to outmuscle the other. Things only devolved from there, as Zhao Yan tackled Shen from the back, and three tumbled into another group of arguing applicants, all of whom immediately took great offense with the interruption.

And that, Ren thought to himself, as the rest of the applicants began to egg the combatants on, was why having no expectations was so great.

Aside from avoiding scandal and diplomatic incident, the only thing that he needed to do was diligently cultivate to the best of his ability. After all, he was just one of many members of his clan training with the sect. His family was always in need of more cultivators, so there would always be a role waiting for him should he, no, once he reached the beyond the Qi Refining stage. And should he reach even further beyond, past the Golden Core stage? Well, those thoughts of influence and status could wait for once he broke through. Then, he’d have a few centuries to think it over.

At the moment, he was content to take his time and enjoy the fact that he had little to lose, and everything to gain. That, and maybe the sight of Bailong Shen and Han Lee trying to grab at each other in midair. The cultivator guiding them seemed to have tired of their struggle and had trapped the squabbling lot in translucent jade bubbles. Ren hadn’t seen the man deploy any sort of artifact, so unless his sleeves were concealing it, that placed him solidly in the Golden Core stage.

That was quite a bit higher than what he’d been expecting from the guide, though given that half the group seemed to be some flavor noble, it had probably been in the sect’s best interest to do so. A Qi Refining disciple might have had the strength to subdue a pair of combatants, but would have been unable to neutralize this many without someone getting hurt. And given how temperamental clans tended to get when their kids were involved… Well, Ren wouldn’t have wanted to be the poor messenger that had to bear that news.

“Children, I would like to remind you that this isn’t your yard,” Yeung Lin said calmly, barely needing to raise his voice over the silent yells of the bubbled boys. “The Teal Mountain Sect takes its application test quite seriously, and while it is not so rigid as to punish a single act of youthful… enthusiasm, it would do you well to not confuse leniency with passivity. Should you fail to heed this warning-” With a short clap of his hands, he cracked the jade bubbles open, sending their contents spilling onto the ground like flailing yolks.

“-you won’t like the consequences.” He ended the threat blandly, turning to start leading the way again. “Now, we don’t want to be late to register, so we’ll have to walk briskly. Try to keep the person in front of you in sight, and avoid walking more than two wide. We don’t want to crowd the paths.”

That last part came off a bit odd to Ren, as the garden path they were currently standing on was wider than some rooms he’d been in. Though, he reasoned as he formed up towards the back of the line, they probably weren’t all going to be this wide. The rest of the recent rivals reluctantly spaced themselves out, doing their best to avoid getting too close to each other.

As the group set off, at a pace that was definitely closer to a jog than a walk, Han Lee went sprinting back to retrieve his fan.