“What do you think of the new batch of trial disciples?”

“Hm… there were a few promising prospects, like that youth with the large frame.”

“Ah, the elder has a good eye, his name is Wang Yating, he is already in the late inner aura stage even at such a young age.”

“Yes, yes. He might be able to make it as an inner sect disciple if he gets the right mentor. Is the elder thinking about making him his disciple?”

Two men were walking together. One was a somewhat older-looking old man, while the second was a taller-looking middle-aged man. It was clear that the older man was a more important member of the Thunderball Hall.

“Perhaps, if he shows me that he is worth it…”

The old man rubbed his beard while hoping to snag a promising youth for himself to guide. He was only an outer sect elder and was far too old to progress into the inner sect. The only hope of getting his foot in there was to shepherd a promising disciple.

It would be quite the honor to produce a powerful member of the sect. Even if he wasn’t able to make it, he would always be his master.

He wasn’t the only outer sect elder that was eyeing the young prospects here. The sect recruitment drive happened rarely and there was a limited number of seats in the outer sect for them. Each elder could take on multiple disciples and even if one made it into the inner sect it would be enough.

“Greetings Elder Yusheng.”

These two were greeted by another outer sect member that was waiting for them. It was time to inspect the youths and send them off on the morning training. Yusheng was responsible for managing several buildings filled with trial disciples.

There were about five hundred new recruits and he was responsible for a third of them. There were two other elders with the same status as him. The three would need to somewhat contend with each other.

From these five hundred youths, maybe one or two would be selected into the inner sect. If one of these outer sect elders would be able to guide such a disciple it was seen as someone that they could brag about.

Thus most of the time, these elders would pit their trial disciples against the other ones. It was seen as a game between the elder generation, the side that had the better disciples would be praised. The losers would in turn have to contend with being laughed at and seen as failures.

“How did the trial disciples fair during the night?”

“There was a fight as usual… one of the disciples showed promise, he managed to defeat multiple opponents in his own realm.”

“Oh, is that so?”

Yusheng asked while chuckling. The first day at the sect was always like this and the sect seniors allowed the disciples to take care of things with their fists. It was a good way to see which of the prospects were fierce enough to come out on top.

The life of a cultivator was a harsh one. The masters of this sect did not want anyone that was unwilling to fight. In the future, they might need these youths to help them in combat. Keeping cowards around would only weaken the sect.

Things were slightly different for the women cultivators though. They had a separate section at the Hall and were managed by their own female elders. The men did not intrude in their affairs too much but this did not mean that they would not be asked to fight when the time came.

“Good, have the disciples line up!”

The old man nodded and the junior that he was talking with entered the barracks. He began shouting and soon the trial disciples started appearing outside. There were supposed to be about forty new prospects here but the number had dwindled by some. This was acceptable as during the night fight some of the youths would be carried away to the infirmary to mend their injuries.

Even with some of them missing there were quite a few, they would all need to meet up with all the other young prospects. They all stood at attention with one youth, in particular, standing out. It was clear that this one was the winner of the nightly rumble, he stood in the front and the other young men were afraid to look him in the eye.

“Hoh, that must be that Wang Yating that you spoke about?”

“I… That’s not him… that young man was much larger and sturdier-looking… I don’t recall anyone like this being here. Don’t worry elder Yusheng, I’ll go ask right away!”

The elder looked to the junior and was now confused. The person that was rounding up the disciples was one of the Martial Masters that was here yesterday, thus a question was posed to him. Yusheng waited for the junior to go ask while the disciples waited without speaking.

“Big news Elder! Something unfathomable happened last night!”

The junior returned and started making a fuss about the previous night. Yusheng was informed about the big turnaround and how the best prospect was now getting his broken fingers mended.

It seemed that there was a hidden gem in the rough here who could easily beat a dual cultivator at the late inner aura level. This of course made this elder’s eyes shine with hope, there could actually be a genius in his batch of trial disciples that could help him raise his status.

“Yes, his name is Dai Rong, he comes from a smaller clan from the south… brother Lin Qiao was the one that brought him over… not much is known about him or his clan…”

The junior was a bit confused as this youth was nothing special. The young man had to have hidden his potential during the scouting process.

“Dai Rong… good… keep a close eye on him, report to me later.”

The elder rubbed his chin while also skillfully handing a spirit stone into this junior member's hand. Time would only tell if this Dai Rong was truly worth investing in. The young members would be taken through some physical tests first.

While this elder was thinking about what the future had in store for him, Zhang Dong was trying to avoid his gaze. He could feel the old man scanning him from head to toe which felt uncomfortable.

The previous night he had lost his cool slightly and beaten up three youths. He felt a bit bad for them but thanks to that the others were evading him now. Some of them were even trying to kiss his ass, calling his senior brother Rong.

The funny thing about this was, that the two from the trio that he fought were kissing up to him as well. They seemed to change their tune rather quickly after getting one-shot by him. He even expected them to want a rematch or say that he was lucky by sucker-punching them. Instead, he was now the top young master.

“Is that it? They just see me as another young master… so they are fine if someone from their group takes over…”

If he was seen as some kind of commoner not even coming from a clan, then maybe they would be playing a different tune. On the other hand, he did have some status, these lesser clans were at similar levels with Martial Grandmasters being a limit. It looked like this would make things easier, at least till the next youth came along to try to steal the crown.

“We will be running today, follow me, whoever can’t keep up will not receive any rations for today!”

Finally, the physical training portion of this boot camp was on the way. The person leading them was a Martial Master. With most of these disciples being in the middle inner aura realm, they would have a hard time following after the instructor. For Zhang Dong, this was nothing but a light jog.

He used this opportunity to look around this place. They were situated on the base of a mountain with not much around them. There was a forest further below but there was a protective formation before it.

Some beasts roamed those parts and isolated this sect from the outside. It was a peculiar decision to surround the sect building by untamed beasts but it did keep the lower level cultivators and mortals away. The only way to get it was to be either a strong cultivator or have some kind of flying treasure like those boats.

‘I’d need to get closer to this formation… but I don’t think that I can disable it with my current cultivation, at least not fast enough for them not to notice me…’

He possessed a lot of knowledge in disabling and creating formations. There were certain ways of opening in backdoors to them. They would require a certain password that he would have a limited time to deduce during an attempt.

This was an invasive process and required him to use his spiritual energy. It was similar to hacking as he had a limited window and power. This protective formation was your usual shield formation at the core formation level.

Luckily for him, this training jog took him through a large chunk of this sect. He was not impressed, this place was lacking in many places.

The buildings here were shabby and the servants seemed malnourished. It didn’t seem that the sect cared about these mortals that were probably taken here by force. These people took care of things like cooking and cleaning. They were also responsible for repairing things and keeping the whole place somewhat presentable.

The group of youngsters even passed by a couple of repairs in progress. These mortals instinctively bowed their heads the moment they saw the outer sect instructor.

When he compared this place to his United Element’s sect it was night and day. In his city, most of the people were smiling while working for the future in mind. With the merit system in place they had a clear goal ahead of them and were always rewarded for their troubles.

Here on the other hand the future was unknown. Even if they gave their all they would not be thanked. The Thunderball Hall owners probably thought that it was an honor for mere mortals to work for them.

‘I hope my sect hasn’t changed since I left…’

He was a bit concerned about what trajectory his faction would go towards. There were some people that he didn't see eye to eye with. He also kept to himself not really tying himself down by sect politics. Only when the elders could not come to a consensus would he give his opinion.

‘I need to gain access to a cultivation cave… I can’t cultivate like this…’

While everyone was trailing behind he remained about ten meters behind the Martial Master. He was clearly showing off his skills while quite a few young masters had to give up while trekking through these snowy paths.

It didn’t seem that Zhang Dong would be able to get away from here at a short notice. One problem was the protective formation and the second one was the beast-riddled forest. He needed to weigh his options before making his decision.

For now, it seemed that the Thunderball Hall had gained a genius new disciple that at the inner aura level was able to keep up with a Martial Master. This, of course, brought along some problems of their own...