Chapter

1

What Could Go Wrong?

I

Spiritual pills. Paper talismans. Sealed items.

After organizing the contents of his sealed-space pouch one last time and making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, Lei Shan firmly nodded to himself and tucked the pouch inside one of the folds of his robe, securing it near his chest.

He didn’t think he was ready, but then again, he doubted he’d ever be. He had prepared himself as well as he could, going as far as to use up his remaining contribution points and essence crystals. He was penniless now, but it was a good investment. Success would net him far more than he had spent.

Resisting the urge to go through his pouch again, he turned around to leave, but before he did, he glanced at the mirror, and frowned upon seeing his image. His bun was half-undone, with loose dark-brown strands sticking out. With a weary sigh, he retied his hair with practiced ease, made sure there were no other glaring problems, and made his way to the entrance. There, he hesitated for a moment before opening the door and stepping out of his house, a simple two-room building issued to all outer disciples.

It was still dark outside, but he could see the first rays of sunlight. He seldom went out so early—he preferred to spend the better part of the morning meditating—but he didn’t have much of a choice in this situation. At least it wasn’t too cold. The sect-issued robe he wore was thick, but he found it lacking in particularly cold days.

Lei Shan made his way around the many houses randomly scattered over the gentle slope of the mountain. The Eternal Will Sect had over twelve thousand disciples and so much land that even if that number tripled, it would still be able to comfortably house them all. That meant that unless you were a second-realm cultivator, who could fly, you would have to spend a lot of time walking.

By the time he finally reached the stone stairway that led down to the main gate, the day had brightened up slightly.

After another brief moment of hesitation, he sighed and began his journey down the mountain. Every once in a while, he’d see someone he knew and exchange greetings. The main stairway was filled with people even this early in the morning. He doubted he would ever find it empty, what with how little sleep and rest cultivators needed and how many disciples the sect had.

For a sect, having many disciples—even untalented ones—had several advantages. The relationship between sects and disciples was pretty straightforward: the sect housed, protected, and taught disciples; in return, disciples would have to constantly carry out tasks—missions were their official name, but most of them amounted to nothing more than chores and errands—for the sect.

Lei Shan saw a golden point in the distance, gradually increasing in size. Moments later, he could see it clearly: a golden cloud zipping through the air. He could only vaguely discern a person sitting on top of it before it disappeared in the distance.

Right. Not all disciples were glorified errand runners. That only applied to outer disciples, who had low aptitude and weren’t much more than glorified servants. Inner disciples, like the one who had just flown past him in that fancy golden cloud, posted missions more often than they completed them. Unlike outer disciples, they had enough aptitude to amount to something in the future, so the sect took good care of them.

And then there were the mysterious core disciples. According to the rumors, they had their every need met and then some more. Despite having lived for almost half a decade in the sect, he had never seen one. As far as he was concerned, they were no different from the immortal spiritual creatures spoken of in myths.

Before long, Lei Shan’s thoughts strayed to the mission he was about to set out on. His mouth felt dry. As he stared down the stairway, painfully aware that he was coming closer to leaving the sect with every step he took, he concentrated on his breathing in an attempt to quell the anxiety building up within him. This would be his first time leaving the sect since he had barely passed the entrance examination four years ago. He usually only took in-sect missions, but when he saw how high the reward for this mission was, he had no choice but to select it, even though it’d require him to be away for at least a week. He would have needed to complete more than a dozen in-sect missions to accumulate the same amount of contribution points and essence crystals, and that would mean delaying his advancement to the next realm for at least half a year.

His spiritual aptitude was left much to be desired, so if he wanted to have a chance of becoming one of the sect elders—the cultivators who managed and ran the sect—in the future, he would have to take more risks. Outer disciples got the safest missions, and casualties were few and far between, but no mission that required a disciple to leave the sect was free of risk.

There was a semblance of order within sects, but in the outside world, chaos reigned supreme. At least he wouldn’t be going alone. Missions that required the disciple to leave the sect were often taken in groups and led by inner disciples. The one he took was no exception.

A week, he reminded himself. A week was manageable. He reckoned he could survive that long.

II

Standing on the last step of the stairway, Lei Shan stared at the gate that marked the entrance of the residential area. He looked around, but almost everyone there seemed to be going somewhere. Then his eyes fell on a twosome standing beside the gate. A man and a young woman. Seeing no other groups that appeared to be waiting for someone, he made his way over to them. As he approached, he noticed that the man’s robe wasn’t the same color as his, but instead a shade darker and devoid of wrinkles or dirt. Seeing that, he grew confident in his judgment and hasted his pace.

He couldn’t see on the man the silver-colored badge inner disciples usually wore, but he wasn’t wearing his bronze-colored badge that marked him for an outer disciple either. There was little point in having sect badges on display outside the sect.

When he drew near, the pair turned to look at him. After he introduced himself, they exchanged greetings, and it turned out that he had judged correctly: they were indeed members of his team.

The man, Yang Yi, was an inner disciple—as he had expected—and in charge of leading the team. He was handsome, with bright, clear eyes, but not to the point of standing out. The girl, on the other hand, was a fellow outer disciple. Like Yang Yi, she was attractive, but not to the point of drawing the eye. She didn’t seem much interested in him and had mostly remained quiet after introducing himself. Lei Shan didn’t blame her; he didn’t find himself particularly interesting, either.

Once the formalities were out of the way, Yang Yi looked him up and down and offered him a small smile. “Is this your first mission outside of the sect?”

Lei Shan blinked. Then he felt his face grow warm. “Was it that obvious, Senior Yang?”

Sects placed great importance on terms of address and seniority, and rank took precedence over age. Even if he had been older than Yang Yi, he would have still needed to call him Senior Yang.

Yang Yi chuckled. “A little,” he said. “A week may seem like a long time, I know, but we’ll be back before you know it. And despite its length, it’s a pretty safe mission.”

“I’ll try,” Lei Shan said, offering him an awkward smile.

As Yang Yi had said, the mission was one of the safer ones. They just needed to find a specific spiritual plant. The location where the plants in question grew was still within the sect’s sphere of influence, so there was little risk of being attacked by loose cultivators or members of other sects, and it wasn’t in a location known for housing spiritual creatures. He had spent a few hours yesterday researching everything he could about the mission.

“Anyway, you can relax. You just need to…” Yang Yi trailed off, his eyes focusing on something in the distance.

Lei Shan noticed that Duo Lan was looking in the same direction. Following their gazes, Lei Shan saw a boy walking over to them. When his gaze fell upon the newcomer’s face, he blinked. Then he noticed the golden bracelet on the boy’s left wrist and realized who it was. That bracelet was famous, but not as much as the person who wore it.

Song Tian—whose name he must have heard at least a hundred times this week alone—approached them with an easygoing smile on his face.

He came to a stop a few steps away from them, and Lei Shan found himself looking up a little. Even though they were the same age, Song Tian was taller than he was by at least a head—and Lei Shan had never been considered someone small.

Song Tian’s gaze lingered on Lei Shan for a moment before he turned to look at the other two members of their team.

Lei Shan did his best not to stare. He had heard many rumors about Song Tian’s appearance, but he had thought them exaggerated. Now he was forced to admit that he had been mistaken. Song Tian did look as if he had stepped out of a painting, and the taller boy carried himself with confidence Lei Shan doubted he would ever have.

He couldn’t stop some bitterness from welling up inside him. Standing next to Song Tian only emphasized how plain he looked and how little presence he had.

“Song Tian,” Duo Lan said, stepping forward. Where she had looked at Lei Shan with disinterest, she looked at the last member of their team with palpable hostility.

“Duo Lan,” Song Tian said dryly. He didn’t seem to pay any mind to how she looked ready to attack him at the first opportunity she got. “Fancy seeing you here.”

She glared at him but eventually shook her head and looked away instead of responding, a scowl on her face.

Yang Yi stepped forward, putting himself between the two of them. He still had a smile on his face, but Lei Shan thought it looked rather forced. Yang Yi then exchanged greetings with Song Tian, and after confirming that everyone had made adequate preparations, led them over to a deserted spot before flicking his arms forward.

Lei Shan watched in awe as a stream of green substance rolled out from within his sleeves before coalescing before them into a green cloud. He had never been so close to one of the clouds inner disciples rode. He had seen them being summoned before—inner disciples leading outer disciples on missions often did it next to the gate of the Outer Sect’s residential area—but he had never been an arm’s length away from one.

A few outer disciples had stopped to gawk at the scene, while others, who had probably been in the sect for a longer time and were used to such scenes, ignored them.

Without preamble, Yang Yi hopped onto the cloud, making no sound as he landed. Duo Lan leaped into the air a moment later and landed softly on the cloud, followed by Song Tian. After a moment of hesitation, Lei Shan reached over and touched it. It was solid in a cushiony way. He then climbed on top, feeling it shift and curve slightly under his weight, but otherwise remain firm. It reminded him of a mattress—a very soft one.

He couldn’t imagine a better surface to sleep on. Never before had he felt so envious of inner disciples.

“All right. Here’s how this works,” Yang Yi said once they were properly seated. “A spiritual cloud needs a steady supply of spiritual essence to power them. To do that, you can just channel spiritual essence into it as if you were using a spiritual item. We’ll take turns. While one of us is powering it, the other three will be replenishing their spiritual seas. When you feel like you’re about to run out of spiritual essence, we switch. I’m up first.”

With that, Yang Yi sat down cross-legged in front of them and smiled. “I’d brace myself if I were you.”

And then they were in the air. It rose slowly at first, but it soon picked up the pace and started rising faster and faster until all he could hear was the howling of the wind. This high, the disciples on the face of the mountain looked smaller than ants.

After a while, their speed stabilized, and Lei Shan finally let out the breath he had been holding. He tried to keep his racing heart under control. He was probably as white as the clouds above them. He stole a glance at Song Tian and Duo Lan and saw that they looked unfazed.

No doubt this wasn't their first time on a spiritual cloud.

He tried not to dwell too much on it. He turned his head back and saw the outline of the Eternal Will Sect in the distance. It disappeared before long, swallowed by the horizon.

He took in a deep breath.

One week. He could do this.

What could go wrong?