My time at the Blue Wind Pavilion was like a vacation. I had been on the brink ever since my first rebirth, and I finally had some honest-to-gods downtime. Typically at this point, I would be forcing myself to cultivate as rapidly as possible, but right now I didn’t even have a cultivation technique I was willing to use.

My only ongoing obligation was to make a few pills a day. I couldn’t do much with the little energy in my body, so my routine was basically just two or three pills then rest until the next day.

Originally, I had planned to take some time and explore the city, which I learned was called Dragon Gate City, but thoughts of the Su Clan dissuaded me. I didn’t know if they would be looking for a disappeared pill boy, but it wasn’t worth the risk. Better to just stay inside and relax.

As far as I was concerned, the Pavilion was relatively generous. Peonies, 50 copper. Workshop, 2 silver/hour. Room, 5 silver/day. Food, 1 silver/day. I wasn’t sure if the room was over or underpriced. 5 silver felt expensive for a small bedroom, but it was located in the fanciest building in the city, which wasn’t really a hotel. In any case, a single High-Purity pill a day more than paid for all my expenses. The rest was pure profit.

During my rest, I took some time to learn a bit more about the world around me. The most surprising thing was that while the Su Clan was the complete ruler of this entire part of the world, they were actually quite weak. I didn’t quite understand it, but it seemed like any of the surrounding powers could easily crush the Su Clan. They just didn’t. This gave me hope that in the future, if I decided to go on a revenge killing spree for some reason, I would actually have a chance of success!

Other than plotting the inevitable downfall of some evil overlords, there was one more task I had to take care of.

Previously, I had stashed a pill in my storage space for when I started cultivating. After my first week here, I decided to go ahead and sell it to boost my cash flow. I came to find out, its medicinal power had been all but destroyed. It was completely worthless. I needed a pill bottle.

Pill bottles were typically very cheap. They were made from low-grade jade and roughly cut into a bottle. The low-grade jade wasn’t a great insulator of medicinal energy, but it was good enough. Make the bottle walls thick enough and it would work. This kept costs low enough that bottles were not even factored into the price when buying and selling pills.

I needed something special though. My storage space was a box two centimeters in each dimension. Pills were spheres roughly one and a half centimeters in diameter. That meant I needed a ‘bottle’ with walls no thicker than two millimeters. This needed special craftsmanship and high-grade jade to be effective.

I was averaging about 12 silvers a day in profit at this point. This bottle cost over two gold, wiping out nearly a month’s worth of savings. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Having a pill ready to go at the beginning of each reset would easily make up for the one-time cost.

Following that, guaranteed safe transport to the sect was another 50 silver, taking another large bite out of my finances. All told I left Dragon Gate City with a little over 3 gold to my name. Not a fortune, but far more than I had entered with.

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The Twin Mountains Sect recruitment was to be held in River Rock, a small town directly controlled by the sect located right outside its gates.

The Twin Mountains Sect was the closest sect to Dragon Gate City, and the city was the closest large population center to the sect, but ‘closest’ is a relative term. It still took several days in a carriage to reach it from the city.

The trip to River Rock was relatively uneventful. The Western Wastes was already considered a ‘safe’ place, and the trip was made safer by traveling in a coach marked by the Blue Wind Pavilion, who no one wanted to offend.

The only troublesome thing came up at the tail end of the journey.

The carriage made a couple of stops in towns along the way. This was a regular supply and delivery route that I just happened to get a seat in, not a personal carriage service. At these stops, the driver would get down and exchange various goods with people in town. I did not pay it much mind. However, near the end of the trip, something different happened—a young man entered the carriage and sat across from me.

“What? There’s already someone in here?” he said, giving me a look of disgust. “Hmpf, my father will hear about this. I was expecting a private journey to the sect.”

I gave a slight nod of apology but tried to not engage.

We sat in silence for only a short while before the child decided to speak at me again.

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“Boy, are you going to the Twin Mountains Sect? I doubt someone like you would be accepted. Sects only accept talented disciples.”

I didn’t respond, but that didn’t faze him. “Hah, very well, you shall be my lackey. Follow behind me when we arrive, do what I say, and maybe my father will allow you to become a servant. My family is the Wang family of Prospering Prosperity Village. You should know that we are the most powerful force for miles around.”

The child continued to talk, but I did not pay much attention to him. I think he even started threatening me at some point, but I can’t really remember. The thing was, he wouldn’t dare to actually do anything in a Pavilion carriage anyway. I had paid for safety.

Looking back at this, was it stupid to antagonize him for no reason? Yes, but I had perhaps become complacent over the past month. My time in the Blue Wind Pavilion had made me feel like I was in a functional society again, not the horror show of the Su Clan.

Three days after we left Dragon Gate City, we arrived in River Rock. The selection competition would begin the next day.

The carriage took me to a secluded little inn. The young master of the Wang family had exited the carriage a bit earlier, which was nice. I didn’t really want him to know where I was staying. When we arrived, I said goodbye to the driver and went to rest up. Tomorrow would be a busy day.

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The number of people that lived in River Rock was rather small. The town was nothing more than the gateway to the sect, so the only work in town was trading things to and from the sect. Usually, it was a sleepy town on the edge of civilization.

This all changed during the sect’s disciple selection.

Starting roughly a week before each selection, thousands of hopefuls from all around the Wastes would flood into town. They were a mix of both alchemists and fighters, the two specialties of the Twin Mountains Sect.

Cramming countless young men and women into a small area and giving them little in the form of entertainment is never a good idea. Turns out, when those young men and women are cultivators, it is a recipe for disaster.

This was all part of the selection process for the sect. The sect did nothing to stop the cultivators from fighting each other. Anyone who could not survive until the selection was someone they didn’t want. However, there were likely some elders guarding the town to at least prevent too much harm to the locals.

Because of the precarious situation, I decided to wait in my inn room and stay hidden away. When the time was right, I left my room and headed towards the sect. This day was much calmer than those preceding it. Everyone was filled with nervous anticipation for the events ahead.

I was walking down one of the town’s small dirt roads, well-maintained wooden storefronts on either side of me, when I heard a shout.

“That’s him! That’s the cur that insulted his betters yesterday!”

I looked in the direction of the shout and realized it was a young man pointing directly at me. He was standing with a group of maybe five other thugs. It was the child from the carriage that kept talking about how great his family was. But… I didn’t remember insulting him. I was pretty sure I only ignored him. Maybe that’s enough for some people.

“Brother TianLei,” he said deferentially to the man standing at the front of the group, “let’s teach him a lesson. He didn’t care that I am your little brother. He didn’t give you any face at all! If he doesn’t kneel down today, I will write my name backward!”

I took a closer look at ‘Brother TianLei’ and was shocked! It was the same young man Rudy brought with him right before I was tortured to death. He looked almost exactly the same. What was he doing here?

‘Brother TianLei’ gave me a look of disgust. “Kid, do you know who you’ve offended? I am about to be the number one new disciple of this sect, and you dare disrespect me?”

As he said this, his arms exploded with lightning. Bright flashes of electricity crackled up and down his arms.

How was I going to handle this? These two young masters were intent on using me as a stepping stone. What was the right way to respond and get out of this in one piece? The night before, I heard a few people shout “A man’s knees are coated in gold. A real man kneels only to his parents!” I’m sure everything worked out great for those people.

I went up to this Brother TianLei and bowed. “I have long heard Brother TianLei’s great name. I would never disrespect him. I am very sorry for offending you, Brother TianLei.”

I wanted to push the blame on this Wang kid, but quickly realized that was not a good idea. It might be easy to drive a wedge between the two of them, but they would almost certainly deal with me first.

A cruel smile spread over the faces of all the boys.

Brother TianLei looked down at me. “Very good. You know your place. You will follow me from now on.”

“Brother TianLei, I am not worthy,” I said, dropping into a kowtow. “I am not worthy of following you. I will just disappear from your sight.”

“Are you questioning me?” TianLei sneered.

“No, no sir. I am just not worthy of following behind you.”

TianLei kicked my shoulder, knocking me to the ground. “If I tell you to follow me, you follow. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir, yes sir, but I am not worthy. I must not follow you.”

TianLei kicked me in the gut. “Still not listening?” He kicked again.

TianLei gave me one last hard kick in the side. “Fine, you don’t want to follow me, then you don’t have to. All you have to do is crawl under my crotch!”

Weakly, I pulled my battered body forward. TianLei spread his legs and I crawled under them. As I did, his entire group burst out in laughter.

“Come on, we’ve wasted enough time. Let’s go to the selection!” TianLei said laughing.

After they left, I just lay there for several minutes. First, because I actually was injured pretty badly and needed a moment to gather myself, and second, because I didn’t want my movements to draw their attention back to me.

When I did stand up, I found that my clothes were torn and covered in dirt. I didn’t have much time before the sect’s disciple selection began, and I didn’t have any spare clothes regardless. At this point, I personally didn’t care much about my appearance, but it was going to be unfortunate to arrive at the sect in such a state.

I was left with no choice, though. If I didn’t hurry, I was going to miss it.