After walking aimlessly for a few minutes Naath realized something crucial that he had overlooked. What were the rules for disciples in the sect? Naath chuckled at his own lack of diligence and asked Baal for an answer.
“Ah Brother Naath, the sect rules for disciples are… Well, they typically follow the law of the jungle until one reaches core disciples. Outer and inner disciples do have some tasks that they have to carry out for the sect each month of course. On the first of every month they will send the tasks out through a formation attached to our title plates. Each person is given an individual task, rarely group tasks are given and the other members names as well as a meeting place are given. As long as we outer disciples do these tasks the sect pretty much doesn’t care what we do or what goes on. In the area for outer and inner disciples the strong rule over the weak with an iron fist.
The sect lets this go on because it is what the sect founder taught, to filter out the weak and the untalented such brutal callus methods are necessary. In a place like this there is safety in numbers so brother Naath, we should probably stick together for the time being. With your talent you should be the one in charge so, you lead, I’ll follow. I know next to nothing about the internal layout of the sect’s land after all, I’m just as blind and clueless as anyone else on such matters.”
Naath nodded his head, it was indeed a bit of a brutal system, but it would indeed filter out the people who didn't add up. Naath also smiled and unbeknownst to Baal, he tested out a method to map out the sect. Using his True Void Arts creation energy he made some ultrasonic sound waves and tried to use echolocation to learn the terrain. But all that happened was that Naath heard some sound echo back into his ears and absolutely couldn't make any sense of it. Swearing lightly under his breath he started to walk in a random direction with Baal and Brutus right behind him.
After wandering for a little while the trio came to the edge of a wooded area, here Naath swiveled on his heel and turned around completely. All he said when he saw the woods was “Nope!” He had spent almost an entire year in the forest coming here, he was completely sick of the forest now. As far as he was concerned it was only good for lumber and food! After nearly six hours of wandering around as a group they still hadn’t found a good place to settle at and make houses. Due to this Naath was getting irritated, so when a group of other disciples showed up and started to cause problems he was less than polite.
“Hoho, look some rich kid with a moon-wolf tamed beast. Hey rich kid, why don’t you hand over your wolf and we will act like we didn’t even see you. We’ll even point you in a good direction for a place to bui-.
He was unable to finish his sentence as Naath rushed over at top speed and directly punched him in the face. A loud cracking sound was heard and the other four in the group with this disciple all had mocking looks on their faces. Each and every one of them firmly believed that Naath had just broken his hand punching their senior brother. After all, Naath was only in the fourth level of bone hardening and their senior brother was at the 6th level. It was only natural for Naath’s bones to be completely shattered by this blow.
However when their senior brother began to howl in pain and fell to the ground holding his now broken face they were dumbfounded. They all glared at Naath and charged over planning to overwhelm him with numbers. When they started to hit him though they felt like they were hitting a fortress made of solid steel! Very quickly all of them were rolling on the ground balled up around broken appendages. Naath develop a mocking smile at all of this, he had even let them throw the first punches to be nice! But even with that they were still on the ground hurt from their own attacks.
“Hmph, trash like this thought they could hurt someone who practices true bone hardening not the fake bullshit of this world? What a joke!”
Naath shook his head at King’s words, after all how could they even know that their cultivation was wrong from the word go? While they were all on the ground Naath just stared at them like they were idiots before speaking.
“Okay one of you cut the shit and tell me where I can find a good place to build a few houses, preferably the base of a mountain or cliff. Seriously how did all of you cultivate this far? A little pain and your rolling on the ground like a deer thats been shot? How the hell did you tolerate the pain of your bones turning to powder?”
Despite his words all of them remained on the ground howling in pain. Finally, Naath got annoyed and tired of waiting so he went over to one of them and kicked him in the side, not holding back. The shattering of ribs was obvious to everyone and the disciple went completely quiet, he was instantly knocked unconscious from the sheer pain.
“Again, one of you give me some directions or you will all end up like him.”
After this showing and threat finally one of the disciples stopped rolling around. He clutched his left hand he used to throw his punch close to his body and grit his teeth as he answered.
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“That way, about an hour away is the base of the mega plateau that the core disciples and elders as well as the main sect buildings are on top of. A lot of inner disciples build near there and make homes. Please spare us, we were wrong, we didn't realize you were such a profound young master. We can even lead the way their for you.”
“Good, then start walking. Oh right, and spread the word, if anyone tries to come after Brutus here again, I will cripple them! This is a nerve that really shouldn't be touched, be lucky I’m not torturing you out of consideration for the sake of martial brother Baal’s sanity. My methods are a bit ruthless to show someone who isn't even a teenager, speaking of aren’t you lot ashamed. The youngest of you all should be 14 why are you picking on a couple of eleven year olds?”
“Yes young master, of course young master! We are ashamed, truly ashamed! Us five will learn from this lesson and better ourselves!”
The disciples attitude changed immensely, when he saw the look in Naath’s eyes at the mention of torture he felt a very ominous feeling. It was a type of gut instinct that the person in front of him was less like a child and more like a vicious combatant from some battlefield where killing people was like harvesting wheat and that it meant nothing to the young man. His sect brothers looked at him angrily for saying this and being so cowardly in front of an 11 year old kid. But they didn't feel what he did, this kid was not to be messed with! Finally after everyone was done rolling on the ground the small group of five began to lead the way for Naath, Baal, and Brutus.
They complained the whole way though and still tightly clutched their broken appendages. At this point it was almost funny seeing them act so dramatically over some broken bones. Naath truly wondered how they cultivated at all if they couldn't even handle this slight level of pain. After leading the way for about an hour, just like they said. There was a large sheer rock wall going directly up to a height Naath couldn't make out. The wall stretched on for a long ways both left and right giving Naath a sense that this plateau took up many kilometers of space. Once they stopped, the one leading spoke up.
“Young master, as promised I have led you to the sects central plateau. Can my brothers and I go now?”
“Hmm, sure, but first what is this plateau and how big is it exactly?”
“Ah young master, this plateau is the River Stone plateau. It is where the sects infrastructure such as stores, hunting hall, and other facilities are held. It has a diameter of about 30 kilometers and is about half a kilometer in height. For outer and inner disciples there is a stairway and a ramp to go up to turn in tasks for points and such. It also serves as a test of sorts, inner sect disciples who wish to become core disciples when they reach the fifth stage of muscle hardening must scale it alone with no tools. If they reach the top are they qualified, if they fail then they are stuck as inner sect disciples.
This sounds easy in concept but this plateau has a formation on it, as you go higher without using the stairs or ramp, there is a pressure that increases. This pressure makes it difficult for even cultivators to climb upwards. At lower heights it is almost unnoticeable at all, at higher heights it is enough to crush the bones of a peak bone hardening expert! Unless one has a certain level of talent and will power climbing to the top of this plateau is nothing more than a pipe dream. Not only that but even muscle strengthening disciples are completely unable to even chip a pebble off the rock face. Lots of people have long since wanted to carve out a cave dwelling here but not a single one has been made!”
“Hmm, interesting, that sounds like a fun challenge for my innate body of devour. Okay you four can go back and pick up your unconscious friend, I wont bother you anymore if you don’t bother me. Baal, Brutus, lets set up camp here, I like this cliff face and I should be able to carve out a cave, even if it takes me a while. At first though, lets go get some lumber and build up some basic dwellings.”
“Y-young master, excuse me for impolitely asking, especially since we even tried to ask for Brutus earlier. But I was wondering if I could perhaps join you here, if you form a faction I would be more than happy even just being you errand boy. My talents are limited and I know I wont make it too far passed inner disciple here. My best chance here is to find a person with stronger talent than my own and do my best to learn from them.”
“Argh, if you want to settle down near us fine, but it needs to be at least several hundred meters away. I’m not exactly going to trust you but I was a bit ruthless earlier, as an apology I will let you all stop by now and then. I will give you one more chance to gain my trust, consider yourselves lucky. Now explain factions for me please.”
“Young master, thank you! Ah, factions are groups formed by outer inner and even core disciples of the sect. It is essentially groups of disciples who can work together to complete tasks and split resources internally to help one another. As outer and inner sect disciples ones faction represents their status below the plateau. The big names are the bladeless faction, the dazzling flame faction, and then the shining blades faction. They each have their own insignias, the bladeless faction is a fist holding a sword hilt with no blade. The dazzling flame faction has a simple blue flame in a circle. The shining blade faction has a blade with light ray reflecting off of it.
The faction logos are usually just carved wood tokens as the factions are unofficial and the sect just doesn’t care what the disciples do, giving almost complete autonomy. But the sect absolutely will stand behind us for big matters and provide us resources to cultivate with according to our tasks done. Does that explanation suffice?”
“Yeah that’s fine, Starting a faction huh? That sounds like a good precursor, I do want to later on start my own sect after all. Hmmm okay, the True Void faction will be born today. I guess I need to make a logo but what to use?”
With that Naath finally dismissed the group of four who went to go collect their friend. They let him know everything that happened while he was unconscious as they carried him back to the area near where Naath planned to build.