“Young Mingwei.” Elder Qing said as Mingwei stepped out as a mid 3-star for the first time. “It seems you have a particularly good talent for dodging problems.”

“I was just cultivating for a few months, what did I miss?” Honestly, a few months was short.

She smiled, and led him through the door. He noted a bunch of letters, all stuck at the bottom of the door. Mingwei noticed that some of the other disciples have been leaving letters at the door, but certainly he wasn’t aware of how much.

And outside, a few of the inner disciples were practicing combat.

“We’ve received word that the tournament would be brought forward by a bit. It’s going to happen in 3 months.”

He mentally calculated the time. It was supposed to be 1 year away? But so what.

“And a new category, for all disciples below 4-star. Each sect will now send 5 candidates. It seemed the Heaven Sword Sect would like to admit some promising young disciples and has decided to do so via a tournament.”

“And the sect is fine with it?”

Elder Qing smiled. “It is just the way of the world that our disciples grow up and move to larger sects. As a hunting sect, we are used to being stepping stones. Perhaps Core Disciple Keying will go to one of the larger sects too, instead of staying here and be one of our elders.”

“Then why don’t you join them?” Mingwei blurted. “Ah, apologies, Elder Qing.”

“No matter. Ah, there are some advantages as an Elder, that’s still better than what a Core or Inner Disciples get in a larger sect. Anyway, your batch leader Yuehao already made it to middle 3-star a month ago and now he’s planning to move up to pinnacle 3-star. I’ve given him some of my 5-star pills to push him along.”

“Ah, that’s his good fortune.” A 5-star pill would add at least 10,000 Qi, but would he be able to do it? The cultivation method he practiced, the Junior Bow method should have a daily Qi processing cap at about 10,000. So, a cultivator may take a pill that adds more than 10,000 Qi, but if his cultivation method cannot process that much Qi, much of it is also wasted. Perhaps they would have to change to the higher-tier method?

“He would be capped at about 10,000 to 12,000 Qi for a while, but that’s a good speed. He should be at pinnacle 3-star right before the tournament.”

One of the reasons for not using a higher-tier cultivation method immediately, is that they have a higher minimum Qi-gathering point. That meant, a tier 2 cultivation method that can gather up to a few million Qi per day, which would be good for up to the 6-star realm, needs to gather at least 3,000 to 4,000 Qi per day. Below that amount, no Qi will be gathered at all. Of course, the minimum Qi gathering differs by method. Some methods have higher minimums, which they trade for higher maximum Qi gathering.

Both the junior methods have no minimum Qi.

“But certainly, I don’t see how I dodged a problem. A tournament has nothing to do with me.” Mingwei shrugged. A combat tournament, please. He would rather be at the sidelines.

“You’ve been nominated by Yuehao as his assistant and healer if he goes.”

“...ah. That doesn’t sound like dodging problems.”

“If he didn’t, we would’ve asked you to stop your cultivation and leave for Skysword Imperial city immediately.”

“Huh, why?”

“The Skyward Sword Sect, a subordinate sect of the Heaven Sword Sect, raised a small army to fight a beast horde. They summoned a50 of our 3-star disciples to form the general force. It’s... likely to be a death sentence for half of them.”

Mingwei got it. Ah. So he traded one problem for another. That’s like dodging one car to hit a pole by the roadside.

“So... that’s why everyone’s practicing. If they don’t want to die, at least.”

“Then the letters...”

“They want some last-minute cultivation assistance, with death at their doorstep. I’ve given pills to the 50 chosen to go, and they had another chance to raid the warehouse for better soul-bound items.” Elder Qing shrugged. “Some of them came to beg, but we had a choice to make.”

“What if they run away?”

“We exile them, and publish their names with all the other sects as those who deserted their sects.”

“Ah.”

“When are they leaving? The 50 chosen few.”

“In a month. You’re lucky that Yuehao, one of the 5 shortlisted for the upcoming Emperor Tournament chose you.”

“Heh.” Mingwei shrugged. It was really just trading one issue for another, but at least this one didn’t have the risk of death.