Chapter 13
By this time, Lyu Liang had left Siji Village, nevertheless, the map of Wufang Territory was still of great use to Lyu Liang.
There were five smaller nations within Wufang Territory, namely the nations of Tianshui, Sishui, Qilian, Jiepan and Chilei. Siji Village was actually situated in the insignificant nation of Diqiu at the border of Wufang Territory. There were very few sects within this nation and the strongest of them was lead by a master who had only attained the middle-stage of Nascent Soul.
The most powerful forces within the Wufang Territory was a subdivision of the "Immortal Allies", the most powerful force in Mortal Realm. The "Immortal Allies" was a powerful force which started around 10 thousand years ago. It was formed from the nine Great Luo Celestial in the Mortal Realm. It had subdivisions in the various territories. Not only was it the strongest protecting force in the Mortal Realm, but it was also the department of justice which maintained the balance and peace between the various nations. It was precisely because of the constraints under this Immortal Allies that there was room for smaller nations such as Diqiu to exist.
The focus of the Immortal Allies was the dealings between nations. Basically they did not meddle with matters pertaining to the conflicts between different clans and sects in general. The Immortal Allies division in Wufang Territory was not under the jurisdiction of any particular nation. Although its headquarters was within the nation of Tianshui, it was merely for convenience of use of space.
The most powerful sect of Wufang Territory was also stationed in the nation of Tianshui and it was none other than the "Xuan Nyu Sect". It was said that the sect was founded by a powerful female supreme of the human clan who was also one of the contributors in Immortal Allies. From the day the sect was started, she had set the rules for the sect to recruit only talented females, regardless of which clan she came from. Males were strictly prohibited from entering even their gates, with exception of a few prominent male supremes. Until this day, the sect was considered the most powerful suzerain among all the sects in Wufang Territory. Lyu Liang did not research further into this information. There was no point in him trying to get in even if it was the most powerful among the Mortal Realm!
The second most powerful sect was also in the nation of Tianshui and Lyu Liang found out that it possessed all the conditions he was looking for. The name of the sect was Sword Character Immortal Palace, which meant the sect was especially skilled in their sword and characters. It only takes in mortal humans, regardless of gender. The most challenging part of joining the sect was the stringent entry selection. It was rumored that the sect only recruit members once in 10 years and usually there would be numerous candidates who came for the selection, but only around 10 of them would eventually be selected. Apparently, the criteria was extremely difficult to meet. The founder of the sect was in fact a powerful figure in the Immortal Allies and it was said that this powerful figure was a very severe man and was exceptionally demanding on the disciples’ Spiritual Root quality and character. From the time the sect was founded, it had always stood by the principle that rather than having many low-quality disciples, they would have fewer but higher quality disciples.
The highest presence in Sword Character Immortal Palace was naturally the Great Luo Celestial, who was also part of Immortal Allies. However, he did not usually concern himself with the matters of the sect, but was merely there by name. The overall leader of the sect at this time was Hunyuan Sword Immortal, who was also a powerful figure, who was a Great Luo Celestial who had attained the Peak standard. There were eight powerful figures of immortal standard, subordinated to him and they were collectively called "Eight Great Immortals". With this proportion, the sect was a superior force in the entire Mortal Realm, given the high concentration of powerful figures.
The destination Lyu Liang was flying to at this moment was the nation of Tianshui and his goal was to enter Sword Character Immortal Palace. He was mainly relying on his sword fighting skills to make a living so basically this sect was his first choice. With respect to the third most powerful sect in Wufang Territory, it infuriated Lyu Liang even when he looked at its name. It was none other than the Blood Divine Sector, which had been blacklisted by Lyu Liang in his mind.
As for the rest of the sects that were ranked lower, Lyu Liang thought it was not worth his consideration. He was still reasonably confident of his abilities. After flying for almost a month, he finally bumped into a wave of cultivators for the first time since he left the village. They were a pair of Tao partners. Through them, Lyu Liang received a piece of good news, which was that the Sword Character Immortal Palace would be conducting the entrance selection, which happened once every decade, in three months’ time! Going by his current progress, Lyu Liang would arrive at the nation of Tianshui in a month’s time, which meant he would have plenty of preparation time!
The pair of Tao partners came from the nation of Chilei; the man’s name was Li Zidao and the woman’s name was Li Yun’er. Both of them had attained the Peak of Qi Refining and they had come to try their luck this time. When they saw how Lyu Liang’s looked like an honest lad who came from a farmer’s family, they had a special affinity to him and they invited Lyu
Xuanyuan Mantra was similar to Devil Reshaping Technique in that it consisted of the method to cultivating aura. Throughout his entire journey, Lyu Liang had been controlling his cultivation at the Peak of Qi Refining. As for the Devil Qi, he did not allow any of it to leak out.
Lyu Liang was happy to comply as he did not think they would be able to see through him. After flying for a month, they arrived at the nation of Tianshui one month and a half before the recruitment ceremony. As they approached the nation of Tianshui, they met with more and more cultivators which consisted of most candidates who had reached Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining stage. They were likely heading to the Sword Character Immortal Palace.
Once they entered the Tianshui, Lyu Liang and the pair of cultivators went their separate ways, because there was this part of him he did not want to be revealed. Moreover, he had wanted to go around the place before the recruitment ceremony to see if he might stumble upon something he could buy which could be helpful to him.
Lyu Liang asked around and without much effort, he found the most famous market place in Tianshui where he gathered information as well as acquired treasures. It was truly worth making a trip to that market place. Lyu Liang did not waste any time in getting there.
The market place was as good as how people described it to be, being crowded with many people, among whom were many cultivators in the stages of Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment. Since Lyu Liang had achieved the early-stage of Gold Core in terms of his Divine Sense. Those cultivator’s whose level of cultivation he was unable to discern would have at least achieved the stage of Nascent Soul and above.
Apart from the larger-scale shops along the streets, there were numerous smaller individual stalls the cultivators freely traded with. The busy scene reminded Lyu Liang of the seasonal market in Qingluo Town he used to frequent.
After asking around, Lyu Liang entered a building named "Tianshui Court" which was said to Tianshui’s most well-known shop. The moment Lyu Liang entered the building, he was immediately drawn to a loud sound.
"Come over quickly! Come over quickly! Here’s the manual for the entrance test to Sword Character Immortal Palace’s recruitment ceremony! Don’t miss it! Selling for 500 lower grade Primordial Stones!" While Lyu Liang could hear the voice, he could not see the person shouting because the entire place was crowded with cultivators.
Some of them were complaining that the manual was too expensive. One could use the 500 lower grade Primordial Stones to buy a magic treasure for Middle-stage Qi Refining! However, those people complaining were among the crowd, trying to get to manual!
Without hesitation, Lyu Liang joined the crowd in trying to obtain a copy of the manual, since everyone was cheating in this sense. Who would want to miss the manual that prepared them for the test to come?
After an hour, Lyu Liang finally got his hands on a copy of "Manual for qualifying for entry into Sword Character Immortal Palace" and was making his way through the crowd out of the building. Like the people who bought the manual, Lyu Liang flipped through the manual there and then.
The format of the test was rather simple, consisting of only two items.
The first item was a test of Spiritual Root. In a stricter sense, this was not a test, but rather, a selection. The method of test in the past was for the each candidate to touch a testing stele at the gates of Sword Character Immortal Palace. The candidates were required to mobilize their willpower and the stele would be able to gauge the nature of his Spiritual Root. If he possessed more than one Spiritual Root or a special Spiritual Root, he would move on to the next higher level in the test. If he possessed a special bodily constitution, he would be exempted from the rest of the tests and directly becomes a disciple. Candidates who possessed a single Spiritual Root would have to draw lots for the duals which would allow the victor to proceed to the second item of test. The Five-element Bead in his body had provided him with five body constitutions, which would categorize him as having a special body constitution. Lyu Liang did not want to be high-key about his body constitution, so he hit four of them straight away, leaving only the Fire Spiritual Root for use.
The second item was a trial which involved risks to one’s life. At the start, each candidate would be given a token. There would then be a powerful figure to lead them to the hills behind the suzerain where the practice field was. The field would be filled with monsters and beasts which had attained the Late-stage of the Foundation Establishment. However the exact spots where these Foundation Estalishment level beasts and monsters were, were already been sealed up, so the candidates could be at ease. Within a one-month period, the candidates were to obtain as many tokens as possible. At the end of the month, the candidate with the most number of tokens would be considered as successfully passing the trial.
To Lyu Liang however, these tests and trials were not the most challenging part. In fact, the most difficult thing was written as a line of tiny characters at the last page of the manual, which said that the requirement for qualifying disciples would be one cultivator who had attained the Qi Refining stage.
This requirement was new to Lyu Liang, who whose confident was instantly dampened! However, since he had come all the way here, and had made it on time, Lyu Liang was determined to give it a try. His plan was to conceal cultivation level and keep it at the Peak of Qi Refining stage. He was not going to be put off just by a line of tiny characters, to give up so easily!
Calming his nerves, Lyu Liang turned in the other direction. This place was rightfully called the number one shop in Tianshui. It carried goods such as magic treasures needed for the Early-stage of Qi Refining all the way to the Late-stage of Void Return. There were all kinds of rare treasures, talismans and medical pills. There were even immortal standard magic treasures! Lyu Liang’s eyes feasted on all these treasures. However, he was wise enough not to squander his money although he could well afford a Gold Core stage magic treasure. However, if he were crazy enough to buy one of those treasures, people would start noticing him and that would disadvantage him.
Eventually, Lyu Liang decided to buy some talisman. The talisman was graded into five standards, namely the beginner standard, low standard, medium standard, high standard and immortal standard. The beginner standard talisman was at the Middle Qi Refining stage, and was therefore most suitable for Lyu Liang’s use, without it piercing his eyes.
Although the power of attack of a beginner standard talisman was limited, the good thing about it was that it would not exhaust any of the user’s magic powers, therefore the user’s capability would not be revealed and exposed. Anyways Lyu Liang had already thought through his plans. He would use the talisman to defeat his opponent later on. At most, people would just think that he was just some rich man’s son.
He bought 100 fire-natured beginner standard talisman using 500 lower grade Primordial Stone from 10 different talisman counters. Thereafter, he emerged from Tianshui Court and bought 400 more fire-natured beginner standard talisman using 2,000 over lower grade Primordial Stone before he left, feeling contented.
Once he was out of the market place, Lyu Liang found an inn for cultivators and resided there. Lyu Liang had to spend 800 lower grade Primordial Stone over the next forty days because Tuishui was overwhelmed with cultivators who came to attend the recruitment ceremony.
Left with a month, Lyu Liang had practiced very hard and manifested the effect of the moves belonging to the Peak level of Qi Refinement. The effect was acceptable. Apart from Joyful Sword Essence, the second move of Heart Swordsmanship, the rest was satisfactory. Once he mobilized the second move, his cultivation level would naturally be elevated to the Early-stage of Foundation Establishment. As for his Devil Qi, Lyu Liang continued to conceal it. The only thing he was unable to eliminate was the passive Steel Nerves and Iron Bones which came about from cultivating Devil Reshaping Technique. If someone ever started to be suspicious, he could explain the effect away with his coincidental ingestion of an unknown fruit.
A month’s time passed in a flash and finally the day for the recruitment ceremony arrived. It was extremely crowded on the town square outside the Sword Character Immortal Palace since early in the morning. Scanning the area, Lyu Liang estimated that there were around 10 thousand people! In terms of the strength and capabilities of the cultivators, they were all at least at the Qi Refining stage and this had made Lyu Liang anxious.
"Snort! Don’t be deceived by what you see. There are also quite a number of candidates who are at Foundation Establishment level, some are at Gold Core level and some even came from the Devil Clan and Demon Clan. How dare these candidates with such basal aura had also come. Did they really think that the Sword Character Immortal Palace was that desperate!" Blackie’s voice sounded from Lyu Liang’s sea of consciousness.
So this was the truth! Not everyone who came abided by the rules. There were actually many among them who thought they could just sneak in! At the thought, Lyu Liang regained some of his confidence. Lyu Liang could see that from afar, the Tao partners, Li Zidao ad Li Yun’er were also among the candidates.
Following three long sounding chimes of a bell, a great pressure came upon all the participating cultivators. Some among them could not bear the pressure and fell to the ground, spitting blood. At the moment they fell to the ground, numerous cultivators cladded in yellow robes flew out from the Sword Character Immortal Palace to pick up those who fell and carried them afar off in a flash.
"A warm welcome to the palace’s recruitment ceremony which is held once in a decade. Those who fell to the ground just now were not qualified to enter for the tests. I have sent my Gold Core disciples to clear them away. Following this, we will begin the first item, which is to test of Spiritual Root." An authoritative voice sounded between the heavens and the earth. Simultaneously, the entire audience on the square became silent.