“Don’t try to force a laugh, its ugly.” Senior Brother Li shook his head while smiling.

Su Yuchen stopped laughing and had an awkward look on his face.

“I need to remind you Junior Brother, guards at every other halls demand stellar rock. You should think about this carefully.” Senior Brother Li said as he stopped his laugh.

He continued, “Otherwise, if you are unwilling to pay them, you can dedicate all your time to cultivation and improving your battle prowess in the next few years. You can think about learning runes when you made a breakthrough to the next realm. Now you need learn how fight, that is more useful for your growth than anything else. Moreover, there won’t be any inner sect disciple guarding the Battle Hall, it is in an open place with three sect deacons in charge of it at any given time, you can go there. However, there might be hundreds of inner disciples practising there. You don’t want to offend any one there, they are unforgiving.”

Su Yuchen thought about the advice from Senior Brother Li and decided to consider it. He clasped his hands towards him and said, “Thank you for this advice Senior Brother, I will carefully consider your advice.”

“It is the duty of the Senior Disciples to help Junior Disciples, I am just doing my duty.” Senior Brother Li said in a very reserved tone. “Next time if you have any questions or if you are in any need of help, don’t hesitate to ask me. If you are embarrassed or remain hesitant you might lose some chances in your cultivation life. Stop doing that.”

Su Yuchen nodded to him.

“I don’t have anything more to say. If you have, speak up.” Senior Brother Li said to Su Yuchen.

“I don’t have anything more to say to Senior Brother.” Su Yuchen shook his head. He bowed to Senior Brother Li, “I have to go to another place, I will take my leave, Senior Brother.”

“Take care, Junior Brother Su.” Senior Brother Li said to Su Yuchen.

…

…

In the Outer sect dorms.

“Good afternoon, Senior Brother Su.” A friend of Su Yuchen saw him appearing near their dorm and greeted him.

“Hey, Ma Tian. Is everyone in the dorms?”

“Yes, everyone is gathered at a place. You can meet them if you go straight. I am going out.”

“Where are you going?”

“I am going to the Scripture Hall. Let’s continue talking if you are still here.”

Ma Tian left after informing the way to Su Yuchen.

Su Yuchen walked some distance and then he heard some sounds, as he walked forward the sounds became loud and clear.

“That was bad, really bad.”

“No fire technique of such method should be placed inside the Scripture Hall.”

“With that method you might not even light up a candle.”

“Hey, Yuchen is here.”

Then eight people turned towards Su Yuchen.

Su Yuchen saw his friends sitting on benches under a large, wide tree and chatting.

His friends gave him a pretentious greetings with no sense of respect for his seniority.

Su Yuchen just gave a nod and asked, “Where should I tie the horse?”

“My dorm is near, follow me and tie it to the post there.” Liao Fang said to him.

Su Yuchen tied the horse and came back. He sat on an empty place.

He became relaxed and calm.

“Hey, Yuchen what did you do today? How is the inner sect?” Li Wei asked him curiously.

“Nothing interesting has happened. I just did morning exercises. Oh! The stances I practised are much harder than what we practised everyday.” Su Yuchen answered him.

“We also practised a new set of stances today. Xiaoyu demonstrate to Yuchen.” Zhao Xiaofan said in a commanding tone.

“You do the demonstration! Why should I demonstrate?” Liang Yu replied to him with dissatisfaction.

“You did better than anyone here today, Xiaoyu. Don’t you think you are more suitable?” Zhao Xiaofan answered him.

“I think you are the suitable one. In the morning, you danced like a monkey and gave a hilarious presentation to us all. Now let our Senior Brother Su also enjoy your performance.” Liang Yu quipped at Zhao Xiaofan.

“Shut up, idiot! Do you want to see my fighting performance? Dare to volunteer?” Zhao Xiaofan cursed angrily at Liang Yu.

“Is that all, did anything else happened in the morning?” Liang Yu quickly turned his head and asked Su Yuchen. The bruises on his face hadn’t healed yet, he wouldn’t fight again!

“Coward!” Cursed Zhao Xiaofan.

Su Yuchen stopped laughing and replied to Liang Yu, “I went to the Rune Hall, but did not enter it, because a inner sect disciple who was guarding the entrance asked one stellar rock to allow entry. Then I came here. Nothing exciting happened.”

“They asked you one stellar rock?” Liang Yu raised his voice in a shocked tone.

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Zhao Xiaofan said, “That’s too much. It is much higher than the 100 gold shells we were asked to pay at the Scripture Hall. It’s even ten times more.”

“With one stellar rock we can have more than enough contribution points to ask for basic rune books and instruments. They are robbing you.” Shen Ying calculated and told Su Yuchen.

“You guys were also asked to pay? What did you guys do? Did you guys paid?” Su Yuchen asked them curiously.

“We hesitated but still paid to them.” Shen Ying answered.

“Xiaofan talked back to them, but in the end still gave the shells.” Wang Daming poked fun at Zhao Xiaofan.

“You didn’t even dared to speak a bad word to them and now you dare to make fun of me, wimp?” Zhao Xiaofan shouted angrily at Wang Daming.

“I was cautious and didn’t have a fight with a senior disciple on my first day in the sect. Unlike a fool who irritated a senior disciple who is in a higher realm on his first day.” Wang Daming shot back at Zhao Xiaofan.

“Don’t give fancy reasons like being cautious when you are just sucking up to a person who is robbing you in daylight. You even tried to make friends with them.” Zhao Xiaofan angrily rebutted.

“Dumb ass, be quiet or I will sew your mouth with gu worms.” Wang Daming angrily threatened Zhao Xiaofan.

Zhao Xiaofan leaned back on the bench and cursed in a low voice, “I dare you to try.”

Wang Daming stopped caring about him.

Su Yuchen made a decision. He wants to follow Senior Brother Li’s advice and work hard on cultivation. He doesn’t want to lose his stellar rocks to those thieves.

Su Yuchen said to everyone, “If what I heard is true, when you want to enter other halls, you might still need to pay them. If I may guess, maybe you have to pay every time you go to one of the halls.”

“Are you really sure about that, Xiaochen?” Shen Ying asked him with annoyance.

“Yes. The Senior Brother from the Mount Stable gave me this information. Apparently, those disciples are just doing guarding missions, but they are unwilling to become guards, and then they started trying to show their power through demanding payment from weak disciples.” Su Yuchen shared the information. “What I said about paying every time is just my guess. The disciples guarding those halls change when their mission is completed, and the disciple in the morning only asked me whether I have a rune apprentice token. My guess might be true.”

Everyone became silent after listening to Su Yuchen.

“Wonderful! Now we must suck more dicks whenever we need to go to those halls. You must be jumping with joy, huh, Wang Daming.” Zhao Xiaofan teased Wang Daming sarcastically.

“Zhao Xiaofan, just shut up. There are girls here.” Wang Daming said in a loud voice. “Can’t you see how we are all feeling about this?”

“You guys are also not accepting this, are you? Listen to me, let us all just cultivate hard and practice our fighting skills. Let us just take missions and earn more contribution points and get resources to improve our cultivation.” Zhao Xiaofan ignored Wang Daming and spoke to everyone. “We shouldn’t dabble into these things like runes, alchemy, formations. We don’t have resources and background to gain useful progress in them.”

“We all understand this Xiaofan. All this time we are just fantasising about learning alchemy and formations.” Shen Ying said to Zhao Xiaofan.

“My first day in the sect is super bad, huh.” Liang Yu exclaimed as he leaned back on the bench.

“You brought nothing good from the inner sect, Yuchen.” Wang Daming said.

“That’s not my fault. We even had the same experience.” Su Yuchen rebutted Wang Daming.

“Did the inner sect disciples do anything to you when you refused to pay, Xiaochen?” Shen Ying asked him with concern. “I heard that the high ranking disciples are very arrogant. Did they trouble you?”

Su Yuchen was troubled by Shen Ying’s question, he just said half-truthfully, “They did nothing Sister Ying. They only cursed me as a trash and then spat on the ground.”

“I will take what you said. Just don’t talk back to the inner disciples.” Shen Ying said to Su Yuchen as if she didn’t believed in him. “From now on try to stay away from them as much as possible. Only try to get close to people who are easy to get along with.”

“Yeah! Yuchen, just listen to what Sister Ying said. Don’t talk back like me. How about this! We will take you with us whenever you need to do a mission, so that you can get real life fighting experience. Is it okay with you, everyone?” Zhao Xiaofan said to Su Yuchen.

“I am okay with that. Yuchen seriously needs fighting experience.” Liang Yu agreed with Zhao Xiaofan.

Everyone also agreed to Zhao Xiaofan’s idea.