Fourth mountain village, Silver Bird Mountains, Shi Prefecture.

Fourth mountain village is the biggest village around the thirty five mountains. This area comes under the jurisdiction of Star Falcon Sect.

The recruitment test for talented children was taking place at the centre of the village, a large crowd was gathered, people from nearby villages were also assembled here.

Adults carried their children and stood in line to participate in the test. Children who didn’t understand the value of the test had expectations to see a new world. Many teenagers had hopeful looks on their faces, most of them had participated in the test before.

Every four years, a test is conducted by the Star Falcon sect to unearth and bring talented children from these villages into the sect.

A fifteen year old teenage boy, wearing a tattered dress with patches sewed on it, was standing in front of the sect disciples and elder of the Star Falcon Sect. There was a large clear crystal ball with gems inlaid on top of it, standing in between the teenage boy and the sect elder.

“Name and age?” a sect disciple asked him.

“Su Yuchen, 15 years old.” the teen answered.

The teen gave his basic information and then as instructed by the elder earlier he placed his hand inside the large crystal ball through the opening in front of it. He held a small metal pole inside the crystal ball.

Then, visible rays of energy passed from the walls of the crystals into Su Yuchen’s hand, who tightened his grip out of nervousness when he saw the radiant energy rays.

The energy flowed through Su Yuchen’s hand and then passed into the metal pole.

The blue gems on top of the crystal ball began to shine brightly, and then the yellow gems followed but with lesser radiance.

The crowd broke into loud noises of exclamations.

A big smile spread on the face of the elder, “Top grade talent with top tier water affinity and medium tier earth affinity. An extraordinary talent.”

The crowd became silent in an instant, even then some people still chose to chat in low murmurs.

He continued, “Su Yuchen, with your talent, I believe a great cultivator can emerge in this land. My sect can cultivate a genius in realising their potential. Here, this is the disciple registration token. You don’t have to undergo anymore assessments. Our sect welcomes you, a gifted child like you can fully display your talent and go further with the help and support from the sect. At the same time if you work hard with discipline and diligence, you may lead the next generation disciples and become the backbone of the sect. I hope you can step into higher realms in the future.”

Murmurs filled the ground.

Su Yuchen excitedly took the token and replied, “I will work hard, thank you, elder.”

A sect disciple led him to the back where a group a children and teenagers were standing. The sect discipline didn’t make him stand with the boys group but stood him up near to his fellow sect disciples. The recruited children and teenagers had expressions of shock, surprise and excitement. Jealousy and envy was also brewing among some of the teenagers as they stared at Su Yuchen.

“Junior brother Su Yuchen, congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“Congratulations, junior brother Su Yuchen. My name is Meng Qi, let's take care of each other in the future.”

“Thank you, senior brother. Let's take care of each other in the future.”

The sect disciplines tried to start a conversation with Su Yuchen.

But they soon retreated after the conversations stopped with only a few awkward sentences being exchanged.

..

.

“Have you gathered the complete information about that child?” the sect elder asked with sharp eyes.

“Yes, elder.”

“Su Yuchen is an orphan. His mother died during his birth and he grew up under the care of his father. His father is a hunter who earned his livings through hunting birds in the mountains. Su Yuchen’s intelligence grew a lot slower than the average kid and he started speaking only from the age of eleven. His father died of exhaustion and hidden injuries that were untreated. His family was in poverty as a lot of money was spent on treating Su Yuchen. His father died a year ago.”

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“Su Yuchen is now normal, Senior Sister Tong made a checkup.”

“His fellow villagers described Su Yuchen as a kind, naive and withdrawn kid. They found nothing wrong with his intelligence in the last year during which he lived by working miscellaneous jobs.”

“No sightings of Fiend cultivators or demons in this area for a long time. No possibility of working undercover for the fiend sects as per the collected information.”

The elder spoke said in a relaxed tone, “A good seedling is found for the sect. We can groom him as a talent for our sect. His affinities are also inline with the elders in our faction, he can be taught.”

The elder was in a joyous mood as he could make contribution to the sect and earn good amount of sect contribution points from this trip.

There were few possibilities that others could bring a better talent than Su Yuchen in this recruitment.

.

.

“It’s really hard to image that he had something wrong with his mind till a few years ago and now suddenly he is on a higher pedestal than us.”

“He was a baby that could be easily frightened. It’s unbelievable that his status makes me timid to stare at him now.”

“Actually it’s relieving to see Su Yuchen sitting there quietly like a doll. I couldn’t forget the arrogant acts of Zhao Feng every time he returns to the village. He returned twice but still made those days the most chaotic days of our villages.”

“Hey, let Su Yuchen sit with us. Someone invite him.”

“The sect disciple made him stand aside from us. Let us follow the same till we reach the sect.”

“Do you think we can meet him again once we are inside the sect.”

“Do you think, will Su Yuchen ever return to our village?”

“I bet he will. He might even want to leave the sect if the people there are too disturbing for him.”

“What you said might even become true.”

A small group of teenage boys sat together on the flying boat and starting chatting. As children from neighbouring villages, some of them are acquaintances and a few of them are even friends. Their conversation naturally involved the teen who was revealed to have the top quality talent.

Su Yuchen sat near to them and was in deep thought.

Some sect disciples had tried to strike up conversations with him and once again had to retreat when the dialogues between them were too basic and awkward.

Su Yuchen could hear some of the conversations between the teenagers as they didn’t try to hide anything from him.

He came out of deep thinking and was eavesdropping on them when they began to name him in their conversation.

This behaviour made him feel funny as he was trying to eavesdrop on the conversations of teens who are mentally 10 years younger than him.

In his opinion, his mental age is older than them.

Su Yuchen calculated his mental age as 25 years old. He combined his previous life on earth with the active time he spent in this cultivation world.

A 25 year old eavesdropping on 15 year old teens is a funny hobby that he developed in the village. He is filled with embarrassment about this hobby.

He listened a lot of about him from them, and he grew to neglect their bad remarks about him. He tried to make some changes to his behaviour. He feels happy when they speak something good about him.

On earth he never cared about what others felt about him. Lack of gadgets to spent his free time on might be the reason for these changes, he always felt.

Still, these teenage boys are his only close relationships in this world.

Among the teenagers in that group there were teens he played games with regularly, some of them even dragged him to do some naughty acts. Almost all of them were his friends and there were some acquaintances whom he met during festivals.

Eavesdropping on them could clear his mind off from disturbing thoughts about his future.

“Move aside, give me some space.” He just stood up and went to sit with them.

The sect recruitment made him think about a lot of things regarding the future.

He was worried about his future after entering the Star Falcon sect. He knew it is impossible for him to stay together with his fellow villagers in the sect, as they all would be allocated to different areas in the sect after they entered it. Right now he doesn’t want to leave his fellow villagers.

More than the joy of entering the sect, this separation filled his heart.

Su Yuchen never expected running to his home in the rain would let a lightning take him away from his father and mother.

And now he had a late realisation that his newfound relationships would be broken after his decision to enter the cultivation world.

He doesn’t know how to deal with this separation and he didn’t even know how he got over the separation from his previous life parents and friends.

The loneliness of separation from his parents should have been unbearable. Glad his mind was in a muddled, confused state for more than a decade to make him numb from the pain of separation.

However, his family in this cultivation world was still filled with loneliness and despair. He failed to improve his family situation and his father had to experience suffering till he died. That man had to pass away without seeing any of his desires and dreams about his son grow in front of him.

He is glad these teenagers took him with them to play, took him away from loneliness and pain.

And now these relationships that were built during the year his father passed away might one day stop suddenly without him knowing.

The children might not think about the separation seriously but he couldn’t stop thinking about this. As he knew that he might not even recognise the last moment that they would spend together.

He still doesn’t want to have this inevitable separation from these 15 years old children.

Once separated they may never interact with the same closeness as before.