Chapter 50 - Unexpected News

As the training’s intensity increased, Hei and Lian found themselves in an infernal situation - the poison they were injected with, was being given in ever higher quantities. At the same time, it was increasing in intensity. It was because Ye and Xing were unconsciously enhancing their poison as they continued to exhaust it, arriving at an apparently endless cycle.

The first week was the most intense and brutal of all - Hei and Lian came to have convulsions and drool in their mouth until they fainted regularly. If it hadn't been for Bao Bei to intervene in those moments of crisis, they would surely have died if left alone.

But even when they weren’t training, the two of them were in a pitiful state. The pain and the poison that was still present in their bodies made it difficult even to walk or eat. Frequently, during the evening, they were victims of nausea coming to vomit or to have intense stomach attacks.

Fortunately, Bao Bei didn’t request for them to continue their usual muscle strengthening exercises, leaving them some time to rest. However, she was uncompromising on one aspect - even in that state, they had to cultivate.

Cultivation required a clear mind to move one's inner spirit power but, exhausted by their training as they were, it was an arduous task to accomplish. Regularly, it happened that they would spend hours managing to complete only a couple of cultivation cycles.

In addition to cultivating, the two of them also had to participate in their alchemy and formation classes. Still, they weren’t absolutely in an adequate mental state to concentrate and follow the arguments explained. Luckily for them, there were Ye and Xing with them who took care of taking detailed notes as they had done before.

During that time, the two little spirit beasts were feeling more and more uncomfortable because they could see the conditions in which Hei and Lian were and how, even during their moments of rest, they weren’t free from the torment of the poison. They hated themselves because they were hurting two loved ones intentionally.

However, Hei, who noticed what they were feeling, began to console them every day with Lian, who started to caress the two little spirit beasts of her own accord. One positive thing about the training was the fact that she was showing a bit of her feelings, and at night, the four took the habit of sleeping all close together to encourage each other through that infernal period.

Bao Bei also felt terrible for the pain she was causing to her son, but she had already decided and had no intention of going back, she could only hope that the two of them would be able to overcome this training as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Shui, the buffaloes, and the bees looked after the fields and the greenhouse with theYe and Xing's help. Every day, they would go to the river to get water and take care of the plants following the instructions left by Hei. Especially for the greenhouse, the presence of bees proved to be fundamental given that they were small and were experts on flowers. However, just in case, they didn’t deal with the poisonous flowers that were left to the little spider and the little snake.

Mi, too, the little bee spiritual beast, helped in that work. By now, she had learned a queen bee's duties, how a beehive was structured, and what were its activities. So she could finally go out with everyone else to help, even if it was an unusual behavior for a queen bee. She was then entrusted with the team of bees that was working on the greenhouse. In that way, she could improve her skills as a leader. In the evening, on the other hand, she entered the spiderweb house and ended up sleeping together with all the others.

But if the new training had put a strain on the spiderweb house's residents and their neighbors, it also affected the sect leader who became increasingly more concerned as the days went by.

She had left special orders to monitor Hei and Lian during their visits to the inner sect. However, not only did the two of them come only to attend lessons, when they attended the classes, their state was easily visible from their ashen and sickly faces. She didn't know what was happening to them and she didn't know if they would answer her questions. The only thing she could do was hope that the one who was training them knew what they were doing.

Fortunately, as the weeks went by, the situation gradually improved as the endurance level of the two youths reached a level where they were allowed to be able finally to perform some of their daily activities.

Since they were still small, Ye and Xing’s poison, after being increased by a little, didn’t undergo further improvements and wouldn’t have done so until they had increased their spirit power with the cultivation used by spirit beasts.

At that point, Bao Bei stopped their training, believing they had reached a sufficient level of poison resistance and left Hei and Lian a couple of days of rest. So the two youths collapsed into a peaceful sleep for the first time in several weeks.

Whether it was a case or a sign of fate, that happened just in time because, during their days of rest, the dates for the inner member annual trials that would decide the ranking for the younger generation were declared.

Such trials were fundamental for the future of each younger generation’s inner members because it would see the first 50 seats awarded with special rewards. It wasn’t a euphemism to say that the younger generation’s inner members trained themselves for all the year only for this event.

"Evaluation trials?" Hei asked the sect leader who had gone in person to inform him of the news.

In the end, the sect leader hadn’t managed to contain her concern and had gone in person hoping to stop whatever Hei and Lian were doing so that they would be ready for the trials that would come soon.

"Yes, they are trials we do every year to evaluate the younger generation's inner members’ progress. Those who don’t show improvements or do not reach the minimum standards according to their individual age are deprived of the privileges for the younger generation and must apply to one of the sect’s divisions and start working for the sect.

Those who fall within the minimum standards may remain to focus on their cultivation. Moreover, the first 50 are rewarded according to the results obtained. In particular, this year's top seven rewards are unique because they come from the private collections of each sect elders. There is no need to tell you the importance of these rewards and how they can help you with your cultivation."

The sect leader looked carefully at Hei and Lian outside the spiderweb house. After several discussions, she was indeed able to convince the seven elders to accept that proposal with the excuse that it was to promote the growth of the younger generation in view of the future events that the Flower Sect would participate in. Obviously, she too had to concede something.

“The first place also has the possibility to request a second prize among the objects present on the ground floor of the exchange point. It can be anything from manuals to rare pills and other things. This proposal was put forward by the first elder as a price to increase the rewards for the first seven places."

Hei, listening to those words, immediately understood what the sect leader was implying and answered quickly.

"Basically, you sect leader has increased the rewards for the first seven places. It is no coincidence that you chose this number - excluding the personal disciples of the third, fourth and fifth elders, who are engaged in secondary activities, in the younger generation, there are your personal disciple plus those of the remaining elders, for a total of 5 people. With Lian and me, we get exactly seven."

"Exactly, I see that despite the little time spent in the inner sect, you have learned many things, I am pleased. However, this was also noticed by the elders who didn’t show reluctance to my proposal. Except for the first elder who added this clause. "

"Yes, I heard various conservation here and there, and I was able to discover some things," Hei commented to the sect leader's statement.

Despite these weeks, he and Lian had been in a very battered state, luckily Ye and Xing during their lessons had written everything they had heard in their notebook, and with everything, they also included flashes of conversation between other inner members. Since they had been told to write everything, they had done it to the letter. Unexpectedly this turned out to be useful to Hei, who was struck by his little sisters' ability to hear other people's conversations.

Hei continued to talk,

"Since there are seven places, it is possible for all five personal disciples to be rewarded. For that reason, they accepted your proposal peacefully, the first elder should be the same, but if he imposed this rule, it is because he has absolute trust in his disciple, right?"

The sect leader sighed and nodded her head,

"Yes, it's like you said. His personal disciple is his son. Of course, the sect's rules forbid to excessively favor your own children and other close relatives. Since we have limited resources, we need to focus only on those who are really talented. Personal emotions shouldn't guide us. Therefore, the only way the younger generation has to get prizes is to show off their skills on various trials prepared by the sect. His son is indeed among the most talented geniuses we have ever had, and you would have no hope against him right now. But fortunately, the evaluation trials were designed to make a fair competition among the inner members of the younger generation. "

Then the sect leader raised two of her fingers,

"There are two evaluation trials - Combat Trial and Mind Trial. They are tests carried out through particular formations that will send images to your mind; you can think of it as a kind of illusion. The combat trial consists of fighting against imaginary opponents for a total of five waves. With each wave, the number and strength of the fighters will change. Obviously, their strength will be based on your age, the more years you have, the stronger they will be."

"Based on age?" Hei asked doubtfully.

Although he was a bit older on the outside, he was only thirteen. He had indeed asked the sect leader not to investigate that aspect, and she had done it so far, just like the other elders.

"I know what worries you, but don't worry. The training has an automatic feature that allows it to read your body information and assess your age. Furthermore, it isn’t something that we can openly tamper with, nor can we read, since it was given to us by the empire on the continent."

"Empire? Continent?"

"I guess you heard about the war between humans, demons, and divine beasts about a hundred thousand years ago, right? According to the records of that time, during the final battle, there was a spirit power's reaction that affected the entire continent. It was violent that some portions of land were broken. Those more fortunate ended up just be separated from the main Continent while others disappeared entirely. The Rainbow Island is one of those lucky ones in which we humans could continue to live.

After tens of thousands of years, we have been contacted by the newly formed Sun Empire on the Continent. They provided us with various things to increase our society’s pace of development. Still, there was a problem - the amount of spirit power in the environment was significantly lower than that on the continent.

For this reason, the maximum rank that can be reached on Rainbow Island is the spirit soldier. Furthermore, considering that the minimum age at which one awakens one's spirit power in the islands doesn’t go under the age of 15, the empire has therefore deemed us unfit for cultivation and had left us alone as long as we stay on the islands. Although we are formally empire’s territory, it is as if we weren’t part of it."

At that point, the sect leader sighed for a long time before continuing. Hei could read the sense of disappointment and helplessness within her. Probably, as a young woman, she had the desire to go to the Continent to show her talent and prove the islands’ inhabitants could be as good as those of the main continent. But from her face, Hei could guess that she had slammed against the wall of reality and failed in her intent.

"It is possible to go to the continent, though, and it is through the combat test. If you break through the five waves, you will be given another test in which you will face an opponent according to the standards of the continent. If you pass it, you will get permission to go there; but since the day we have received these formations, there has never been anyone who was able to do that, whether it is our sect, the Rainbow Island’s setcs or any other sects on the other islands." While she was saying that, the sect leader was looking at Hei with a bizarre look.

Even if she didn't know the exact reason and it was a crazy idea to think, her heart told her that maybe these two mysterious youths would be able to succeed where she and all the others had failed — showing the empire that islands’ martial artists weren’t insignificant trash but real cultivators like them. To show that they were also struggling to improve themselves and reach the peak of cultivation - the god rank.

"Anyway, I am digressing. If you can overcome the five waves, it can already be considered an exceptional result. As for the dream trial, you will be subjected to a series of illusions that will show you everything that can become an inner demon in a martial artist. Since that was also given to us by the empire, we aren’t exactly able to predict what it will look like, so the only thing I can advise you is to prepare yourself mentally for anything. The result will be determined based on how quickly you can get rid of illusions and regain consciousness."

"Alright, I understand. Lian and I will keep it in mind and get ready for it. We thank the sect leader for having warned us."

Hei and Lian bowed their heads in respect and saw off the sect leader who left the two youths to return to her residence. The news of the trials had taken Hei by surprise. And although they were an excellent opportunity, Hei and Lian had to consider how to deal with them, especially the test to access the main continent.