After the competition, I did not join anyone else for a big celebration. I didn’t take part in any grand winner’s feast. I simply walked home. On the way, I was stopped by Deacon Ma.


    “Follow me,” he said.


    He took me once more into the forests around the city. The more I visited, the more disturbing the landscape here became. The fact that he only ever walked straight and there were never any hills or valleys in the path felt more unnatural the more I was exposed to it.


    After a short walk, a building appeared in our path. It was a normal building in classical Chinese style. It had gray brick walls and a traditional ceramic tile gabled roof. The only strange thing was that this perfectly normal building was standing in the middle of a dense forest instead of the middle of a city.


    We walked inside, and the sounds of the forest disappeared.


    Inside the building was a small, quiet reception room. A long wooden counter divided the room in half. Manning the counter was an older-looking man in deacon’s robes.


    “Oh,” he said, looking up. “How can I help you?”


    “New disciple for the outer sect. He needs to be registered and given his new jade and robes,” said Deacon Ma before I could respond.


    “Name?” asked the man.


    “Su Fang,” said Ma.


    The man picked up some papers and shuffled them around. “Here it is. Su Fang. Registered as an in-name disciple to Elder Mu. Is that correct?”


    “Yes,” said Ma.


    The man cleared his throat. “Su Fang,” he said, looking at me, “you are allowed to choose any elder who will accept you to be your master or none at all. While he,” he said, pointing to Ma, “may wish to quickly sweep you up, it is your choice to make. Do you wish to be registered as Elder Mu’s in-name disciple, or do you want to take an opportunity to see if a different master is a better fit?”


    “I will stay with Elder Mu, deacon,” I said.


    “Listen for a moment. This is not a decision to be made lightly. Few would appreciate a disciple who abandons one master for another, so after you make this decision, it will not be something you can change easily. I do not know what promises Deacon Ma has made on behalf of the elder, but as an in-name disciple, the resources and training provided to you will be limited. It would be better to find a true master, even if they are weaker than Elder Mu.”


    At this, Deacon Ma began to scowl at the other man, but he held his tongue. There were rules, or at least social conventions, in place that prevented him from stopping this conversation.


    “I understand, deacon,” I said. “I still wish to follow Elder Mu.”


    “Very well,” said the deacon. “Here is your identity token as an outer sect disciple. Place a drop of blood on it now so it recognizes you. After that, no one else will be able to use it.”


    He handed me a palm-size jade token similar to the one I had been wearing as a nominal disciple. The only difference was the character 外, for outer, was carved into it. I took a small knife from the deacon and cut the tip of my finger, allowing a small drop of blood to drip onto the jade. The blood quickly vanished, and I felt a small, nebulous connection form between me and the jade.


    I replaced my old jade token with this new one and was now officially marked as an outer sect disciple for the first time.


    “Here are the robes of an outer sect disciple. Wear them from now on,” he said, handing over a folded pale blue hanfu.


    After I took them, Deacon Ma grabbed my shoulder to guide me out.


    “That''s enough, let’s go,” he said, nearly shoving me out the door.


    The door opened and I stepped out, but I was not greeted by a quiet forest. The entire place transformed into a small mountain village. A low wall surrounded a collection of a dozen or so buildings.


    I looked to my right and saw the mountain the sect was built upon. Before, all I had seen was a blanket of trees that covered nearly everything. Now, the trees had all disappeared. Instead, the mountain appeared as a series of rocky outcroppings. Upon each stood a tall gray brick building. Worn, carved stone paths crisscrossed the mountain to connect all the various buildings, and one large road led down to an opening in the village’s wall.


    After looking at the mountain for several moments, I turned my head to the left. I saw the city I had lived in for so many years. Only a small line of sparse trees separated this village from the city. Standing where I was, I could see no sign of the great forest I had walked through three different times.


    “Welcome to the Twin Mountains Sect,” said Deacon Ma in a gruff voice. “Let’s get going.”


    <hr>


    Deacon Ma led me up the mountain path. We zig-zagged our way up the face of the mountain. At several places, where the path became too steep, it transformed into a small set of stairs to help us maintain balance. Almost no vegetation grew on the mountain, with only a few hardy scrub plants occasionally appearing.


    We passed a few branches in the path. Almost every time it split, one of the branches would have a red paifang arch over it, while the other did not. Deacon Ma never took me down the arch-covered path.


    “Those mark the domain of an elder,” he said while pointing at an archway. “You should never go past that point without the express permission of one of the residents.”


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    There was no talk of penalty or punishment, and he did not say why I should not do so. It was simply a rule.


    A little past halfway up the mountain, Deacon Ma finally led me under an arch. This was the domain of Elder Mu. Along this path, there were several openings into the mountain. They were not simple caves but hand-carved openings into chambers created within the mountain. A few paths led up or down, creating a small network of entrances. In total, I counted three dozen of them, but there were likely more.


    Deacon Ma led me out onto a bluff that jutted from the mountainside. From this vantage, I could see the small village we had just left, the city I had lived in, and River Rock, the town that served as a gateway into the sect.


    Looking at River Rock, I could see the square where all the hopefuls had initially gathered. Two paths led away from it. One path went straight into a dense forest, while the other was a very short path to a large square. The place where I took the alchemy test. Two paths also split from that square. One of them curved around and led back to River Rock, while the other led to the city.


    Each time I had walked any of those paths, it felt like I had been teleported to a brand-new area, but from here I could see that I had just walked a path less than ten meters long. Everything had been an illusion.


    I looked at the second path leading away from River Rock. It looked like it led into a dense forest, but I was sure that wasn’t the case. Likely, this outer sect badge had only allowed me to see through the illusions that existed on the alchemy peak, and I was still blocked from seeing the Martial Peak.


    At the edge of the bluff stood a large, two-tiered brick building. It looked similar to those I had seen in the village, with gray bricks and a yellow ceramic roof. However, the wooden supports and door of the building had been carved into a variety of designs, such as dragons and phoenixes.


    Deacon Ma took me into the building, through a small antechamber, and into a somewhat disorderly office. Paper and bamboo scrolls were scattered around everywhere, with nearly every flat area covered with them. Behind a desk stacked with parchments, Elder Mu sat studying a book.


    The deacon gestured for me to sit across from the elder then left the room and closed the door.


    I waited there for over ten minutes before Elder Mu closed the book he was reading and put it on the desk between us.


    “Your spirit fire is a problem,” he said. “To concoct Rank 2 and above pills, you must have a spirit fire, but you do not have one. You have a fire seed. This should be better, but no one in this sect can teach you to control it. It is only possible to claim a fire seed after you have entered the ruler tier, but even then, a Martial Lord would still have a difficult time surviving the process. So, no one in the entire sect has any experience with them.”


    He looked at me. I waited for him to continue, but it seemed like he was waiting for me to speak first.


    “So,” I said, “what can I do?”


    “I will give you this,” he said tapping the book he had just set down. “It has some information about controlling fire seeds, but it isn’t perfect. This is not a technique scroll. It’s more like the journal of someone learning to use a fire seed. While it should help, it will still take you time to learn, and that is a problem. Until you learn to control it, you will simply be unable to compete in the outer sect, so study fast. If you can create even mediocre Rank 2 pills it will be enough to at least get started.”


    I was disappointed to learn that I would need to learn how to control the seed from this book, but I still held onto hope. I didn’t have enough credits to buy the ability to control the fire seed from the System, that information was too precious, but now that I had this journal, I might have enough to quickly learn everything it could teach me.


    After giving me the book, Elder Mu changed the topic of the conversation.


    “You have lived in the city of the nominal disciples for several years now,” said Elder Mu. “What do you think of it?”


    I didn’t know what he wanted to hear, so I spoke honestly.


    “It feels like a prison,” I said. “It’s a big place, and it provides everything the people need, but the people who live there are stuck there. After so many years, many don’t even think about the outside world anymore. The cultivation technique the people are taught coerces them to be obedient workers, so they lose the true desire to grow.”


    Elder Mu nodded. “And what about the sect rules? Have you considered them? No fighting. No bullying people for resources. No physical confrontations at all. Have you noticed how there are no fighting techniques in the Technique Hall? Have you noticed that no one even talks about fighting?”


    I thought about what he said. I, myself, hadn’t thought about fighting or even improving my martial strength since I left the Su Clan. Part of the reason had to be my negative experiences in the clan, but was that all? I had largely adapted the viewpoint of most nominal disciples, and none of them seemed to even think about fighting either.


    “Why?” I asked. “Why don’t you train us to fight? Is it just so we don’t rise up against the sect? I don’t think that would happen anyway.”


    “Because,” he said, looking me straight in the eye, “this is the path the leaders of the Wastes have chosen for it.”


    He paused briefly to let me consider, but I did not have the knowledge to understand his meaning.


    “There is a saying,” he continued, “wherever there are people, there are rivers and lakes. There is the Jianghu, the struggle to survive. In the outside world, the Jianghu is a simple fact of life, but not in the Wastes. This entire area is extremely useful for growing low-level herbs and training the young. There are no strong beasts to harass innocent farmers and no overly powerful threats for new cultivators. For this reason, the powers surrounding the Wastes have turned it into a playground, and to protect this resource, they have worked hard to stop the Jianghu from infecting it.


    “The city is a pure expression of this desire to eliminate the Jianghu. You may pity those who have chosen to live there and never strive for more, but those people would never survive the Jianghu.”


    Was this also the explanation for the actions of the Su Clan? While the Wastes might be protected from ‘infection,’ if that protection didn’t extend inside the sect, it likely didn’t extend to the Su Clan either. The Twin Mountains Sect provided a place for those who couldn’t survive in this world to live and prosper, but the Su Clan had decided to ruthlessly discard those who could not walk the Jianghu.


    “You have risen to the outer sect,” said Elder Mu. “You are now part of the true sect. That means you have made your first step on the path of the Jianghu. Inside the sect, it is still tame. As your in-name master, my presence will provide you with some protection, but it will not remove the necessity to strive for advancement. If you stumble here, you can get back up, but if you fall, you may still die.”


    I nodded. In truth, I knew I needed this. Ever since leaving the Su Clan, the only thing pushing me forward was a personal desire to improve. But by walking the Jianghu, everything and everyone would serve as intense motivation.


    “So, am I to be taught fighting techniques now? Will I need to fight to defend myself from others?”


    “No, you walk the Dao of alchemy. That will be your focus, and that is how you will fight with others for resources. You will be given limited access to martial techniques so that you can learn to defend yourself if you leave the sect, but you do not walk the Martial Dao. You will never be able to defeat someone who has committed themselves to that Dao, so do not spend too much time on it. If you try to learn everything, you will learn nothing.


    “Deacon Ma will get you started, but he is my eyes in the city and cannot attend to you any longer. You will need to rely on yourself from now on.”