At first, I thought I was so amazing that my awesomeness preceded me. But this was too much.

Those kids gave up after seeing my face? Ridiculous.

The type of kids who made it this far would never do that. At the very least, if they knew that they were going to lose anyway, they’d try to show off to gain some points with the watching sect elders… Then they’d give up.

I could only come up with one reason. Someone out there was trying to prevent me from displaying my badass skills.

Maybe it was Fairy Verdant Bamboo’s plan. Or it was a nefarious plot cooked up by whatever demonic cultivators had infiltrated the sect. Frankly, it could even be some asshole kid who wanted to weaken their most powerful rival in the eyes of the Sect Elders.

Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.

I sat back in my spot and watched Little Spring start fighting against a child with a hammer spiritual weapon. After just a few moves I could tell that Little Spring would win.

This late in the day, even after some of the outer sect disciples served us lunch, all of the kids were starting to flag.

The cultivators running the tournament would probably allow us to rest after the sixth round.

At least, that was how they did it whenever the eccentric master who’d decided on using this split style tournament was in charge.

I crossed my arms and looked toward Xiao BaiBai — the first person to go against me. Perhaps he could tell me more.

When I walked over to him his back straightened. He looked up at me, nervousness clear on his face.

His friend beside him handed him a cup of water. I waited until he took a sip.

“Daoist Xiao BaiBai, when you fought against me, why did you withdraw?”

He spurted then coughed. “Ah…”

“Because I keep thinking about it. I’d already told you that I would go easy on you.”

He rubbed his palms on his silk robes leaving a smear of sweat.

“Am I really that scary?”

“Of course not, Senior!”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Then who told you to give up? What are you getting out of it?”

His eyes darted to the kid beside him. His friend shook his head.

As if going to his death, Xiao Baibai said, “I was going to lose anyway… and we haven’t had much of a break during the sect trials, so I thought I would save my energy for the next rounds.”

I… couldn’t even fault him for that logic. But that didn’t mean that the others were the same.

I glanced at all of my opponents who had the audacity to quit without even trying to attack me. The few who were looking my way, turned their heads away when our eyes met.

I swung back to Xiao BaiBai and whispered, “If you tell me who gave you that sound advice I can give you a few dozen spirit stones and I’ll even make you a dozen pills that you can use to increase your cultivation.”

His hands tightened. “No one told me. That idea was my own.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Now, if you don’t mind, Senior, my friend is about to go up and I’d like to watch him fight.”

The friend beside him stood up and waved before heading down to the arena.

Whatever.

If I couldn’t ask him any more questions then I’d have to do it the old-fashioned way. It was time to do some detective work!

***

After interviewing (or attempting to interview) each of my previous competitors, I discovered that their answers were the exact same as Xiao BaiBai. That could only mean that there was a conspiracy afoot.

Of course, I also knew that I was not Sherlock Holmes. Not even a little.

Not if I couldn’t get answers out of 7-13 year olds.

Even Little Spring didn’t stand a chance at cracking the wall these children set up.

“Fairy Lin!” The referee called me up for my sixth round.

I once again collected a new token and headed to my assigned ring.

This time I was up against a girl that peered down her nose at everyone and everybody. She looked like she was from one of the larger clans. But she likely wasn’t a member of one of the Great Clans or I would have heard of her.

As soon as the referee cleaned the stage, I jumped onto it. I had little expectations by this point. This girl, Li LanFen, would likely resign right away — just like the others.

The referee said, “Fight!”

Patiently, I waited for her to give up, not even taking out my sword.

She pulled a dagger and used a movement technique to close the distance between us. The point of that silvery blade aimed toward my heart.

On reflex, I grabbed the arm aiming for my chest, side-stepped it, then used my considerable strength and knowledge of martial arts to throw her ass.

She went flying… right off the stage..

Ah, I used too much strength. “Oops.”

The referee coughed.

Even the annoying unofficial announcer had paused his description of some other fight as if he was also shocked.

“Fairy Lin wins!”

I looked sheepishly at the Li LanFen. The girl stood up and blew a lock of hair out of her eyes in annoyance.

After bowing politely, she huffed and walked away.

Well, she hadn’t given me any warning! If she had, I could have made the fight last longer.

I returned to the stands and rubbed my temples even though I didn’t feel a headache coming on.

Little Spring attempted to comfort me. “As quick as it was, that was a very impressive fight!”

I sighed. “It’s fine. At least we both made it to the finals. That will be the real test of strength!”

He smiled. “As long as your opponents don’t keep conceding.”

This brat!

***

Once the sixth and final part of the round-robin came to an end, the peak masters revealed themselves.

Previously, they had been mere shapeless forms hidden behind an obfuscation array. Now, they looked like majestic immortals and an impossible to reach goal… well, to the kids anyway.

To me they were just the younger versions of the peak elders I’d watched these tournaments with.

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Daoist Red Bear stepped to the middle of the arena. “You all did so well and had such a long couple days with very little rest. Because of this, the Peak Masters agreed to allow the finalists time to sleep tonight instead of going directly to the end.

“But this means that, aside from the finalists, it’s time to see who will become a disciple of which peak.”

There was a pause in the crowd as these new disciples who worked so incredibly hard to get to this point trembled with excitement and exhaustion.

Honestly, watching the kids get chosen was one of my favorite parts of these tournaments.

Because during these past two days, they climbed stairs that measured their worth, but didn’t let that stop them from pushing forward.

They faced strange dangers unimaginable to them previously but didn’t let that deter them from trying.

These children looked the face of malice in its cold stone eyes and slapped it.

They had fought each other with respect and vigilance in an effort to prove to those above them that they belonged in the inner sect.

These adorable kids were finally going to see which peak master or elder would take them in.

Some would even find a master.

One of the inner sect disciples who had refereed a ring, took out a brush and began using it as a flying spiritual tool. She flew high in the air and wrote the names of the eleven peaks that were taking in diciples during this sect trial.

A lot of the kids stared at her with slack jaws. I guessed they’d never seen a Four Arts cultivator at work. Or at least not one with a focus in calligraphy.

The names of the contestants began to quickly appear under the name of the peak.

I paid close attention to the five people who went against me and backed out.

Two of them were taken in by Mystical Bamboo Peak, where Fairy Verdant Bamboo resided as the master.

This wasn’t unusual since her peak had the most amount of cultivators residing on it. Frankly, I would be more suspicious of her if she didn’t take any of the kids who gave up when facing me..

Another sword cultivator was taken in by Majestic Sword Peak.

And the last two were taken in by Four Arts Peak.

And Li LanFei, the girl who had attacked me with the knife, was shockingly taken in by Body Peak. I eyed Peak Master Enduring Peach Blossom. What the hell was she thinking? Well, whatever. Maybe she had a plan or saw something in the girl’s body proportions I hadn’t.

It took a good twenty minutes for each of the regular disciples’ names to be scrawled across the air.

When it looked like the names stopped, Elder Steel Teeth from Body Peak flew down from his box seating and loomed above Yang ShanShan.

“You have promise. Are you willing to accept this Daoist as your master?”

The child hesitated for a second. “Peak Elder, if I go with you, will I have to practice grain liberation?”

Elder Steel Teeth gave the child a wide gleaming smile. “Absolutely not.”

“Then please make me your disciple!”

Oh, that poor kid. He didn’t realize that Elder Steel Teeth would let him eat whatever he wanted… as long as he survived a hellish training regime. At least that’s what I remembered about this elder from my past life.

A few more peak elders came down and asked various kids if they would like to take them as their master.

Of course, none of the kids said no.

Then, finally, the calligrapher wrote down a column for finalists while the announcer’s voice echoed with each name called.

“Zhang WeiWei.”

The bodyguard of the Zhang Clan. Not unexpected.

“Zhang QiangQiang.”

Young Master Zhang, of course, would be on the list.

“Zhao XiuYing.”

The Icy Tsundere Fairy had a pretty decent showing so it wasn’t a surprise to see her up there either.

“Fairy Lin.”

Damn straight!

“Little Spring.”

Did anyone expect anything else?

“Liu ChuHua.”

I was a little surprised McTraitorFace made it to the end. I didn’t remember her being that strong. Maybe it was because everyone was a year younger?

“Hu Bolin.”

The remaining tiger brother made it! I almost wanted to clap in approval.

“Wang Chunyu.”

Who the hell was that again? Was he so unimpressive that I hadn’t even remembered his face?

I wondered how they would set up the single-elimination tournament. If I had to fight Little Spring during the first round…

Well, I would find out tomorrow.

“Congratulations to the finalists. Please follow the disciples next to you to reach the rest area.”

***

A few disciples brought the eight of us to a table where a meal of simple spiritual cuisine had been prepared. Judging from the quality of the meal, the immortal chefs forced their youngest disciples to make this meal for us for training purposes.

I wasn’t hungry since I’d basically been resting this whole time, but Little Spring needed the energy.

We took a seat at the table. I scanned each dish for impurities before pointing the best ones to the kid.

He took a little of each and handed me a plate. Then he made himself one.

I refrained from telling him that it wasn’t necessary and instead nodded my head.

This kid was always trying to get me to eat something.

Young Master Zhang and Zhang WeiWei sat down next to each other while showing the grace and etiquette of the Great Clans. Zhang WeiWei tried each dish, probably testing it for poison, before serving it to his young master.

Surprisingly, McTraitor Face sat down next to me, and Icy Tsundere Fairy sat down next to Little Spring. The last two, Hu Bolin and Wang Chunyu, grabbed seats at the end of the table, the farthest from us.

I had no doubt that this meal was another type of test. But the question was, what kind? Perhaps they wanted to see if we could befriend the competition knowing that we’d be in the same sect. Or, they wanted to know if we could dig out information to use against each other in the competition.

There wasn’t a correct answer here.

Regardless of what the sect intended, this was a chance to learn more about our opponents, one way or another.

Besides it was good to show the observing sect elders that I was not going to be a complete antisocial dick llama.

Each of these kids had the chance to become important to the sect through their masters’ influence.

What choices they made here and how they acted could tell a prospective master a lot about them and if they even deserved to be in a higher position. A Peak Master’s disciple could wield a lot of influence in the sect.

Of course, not all Peak Masters were like that.

Fairy Verdant Bamboo mostly relied on her gut feeling and sense of karma to decide decisions like this. Her approach wasn’t an unusual way to choose a disciple. Though, it was a bit on the eccentric side.

Personally, even though I knew karma was very real in this universe, I didn’t think that someone should make all their big decisions based on it.

That said, I wasn’t going to be chosen by a sect elder since I already had a prospective master. But I would still be in a high position within the sect and I wanted to show these juniors that I could handle it.

To do that, I needed to be friendly and dig for information. That meant, I’d have to actually talk to these brats and get a conversation started.

I turned to the seemingly friendliest person here aside from Little Spring, Liu ChuHua (McTraitorFace), “That Pinnacle Earth rank spiritual whip of yours is unique. Did you get it at an auction?”

Her face went bright red and the piece of meat she was about to eat hovered in front of her lips. Her chopsticks trembled.

Why? What did I do? Was my plan already backfiring?

“Ah, yes, Senior Lin. My mother gave it to me when she sent me here.” She hesitated.

“It’s a fine weapon for a Qi Condensation cultivator.”

“The sword you used to cut down 888 arrows was so pretty!”

I grinned. “The sword I use is a superior weapon.” I wouldn’t bother mentioning that it wasn’t actually mine. “However, it is the cultivator who wields the weapon and not the weapon itself that is the most important. A knowledgeable swordsman can even use a blade of grass as a sword.” By using the Any Blade is my Sword technique.

Young Master Zhang scoffed from across the table, “You’re saying you could have defeated all those arrows with a blade of grass?”

I rolled my eyes. “Did I say that?”

“You implied it.”

I smirked. “The arrows they used against me had a higher quality than the mundane arrows used against you. If I were using a blade of grass or even a mundane sword against those, I might not have lasted till the end.”

The brat looked a little too relieved. “However, if the arrows had been mundane, then yes. Even given a blade of grass, I could have lasted.” Though I would have had to use a shit ton of Qi Replenishing pills or spirit stones but I was trying to be impressive here.

The room grew silent. No one even touched their food for a second. Well, this was awkward. Maybe I was being a little too impressive.

McTraitorFace looked like she was about to ask me something but Little Spring asked her, “Why are you joining the Indomitable Will sect?”

She sent him an irritated glance. “It’s embarrassing but my mother wanted me to. I’m not going to talk about it. Especially since I don’t agree with her reasoning. Not after seeing Senior Lin here.”

Wait, what did I have to do with anything?

“Senior Lin, I’ve decided that I want you to become my older martial sister. Whatever master you worship, I want to worship too!”

Little Spring clutched my sleeve, causing it to wrinkle. Then he glared at McTraitorFace.

“No! She’s my sister. You can’t have her.”

She rolled her eyes then leaned toward me to whisper, “Listen. I would be a much better little sibling to you than Little Spring.”

The hell is going on?

“Hey!”

“Plus, wouldn’t it be nice to have a sister you can talk to instead of a dumb little brother?”

Little Spring looked like he was about to stand up and throw down. I did not want the kid to start a fight and get us thrown out of the tournament.

Very calmly, I said, “Only my teacher can decide to accept more junior siblings.”

“Then you can put in a good word for me, right?”

“Do you even know who our teacher is?” Little Spring asked. His hand tightened on my sleeve to the point that it showed the shape of my whole arm.

She smirked. “The master who can teach Senior Lin to fight as well as she does has to be someone amazing!”

Okay, maybe starting a conversation here was a mistake. I had better stop this before my robes ripped.