“Why don’t you want me to challenge him, Master?” Ruby asked, her body lowered but her eyes staring straight at Elder Formation. “I was supposed to challenge him after the newcomer competition ninety years ago, but he was thrown into isolation. Now that he’s back, don’t I have to prove myself?”

Elder Formation shook her head. “It’s pointless now,” she said. “He’s only just entered foundation establishment. He hasn’t even formed his first pillar. You, however, are at the golden core. If you challenge him in front of the sect, it’ll be considered bullying, and you know how the sect master has been behaving when it comes to bullying.”

Ruby frowned. “In the library, there are tons of books about nipping talents in the bud,” she said. “To secure your place in the world, you have to be ruthless to yourself and to others. I’ve severed everything important to me to get ahead of him, but now I can’t even prove it?”

Elder Formation sighed. She did feel like Rachel was showing favoritism towards Vremya. When oppression was a natural matter in the world, telling someone they couldn’t oppress others was, in a sense, oppressing the oppressor. Some people had high talent but low potential, growing at fast speeds but hitting their limit early on. Other people grew slowly but steadily, eventually surpassing those with the early lead. Should only those who grew slowly and steadily be allowed to have a place in the sect? The sect leader thought she was being fair, but in reality, she wasn’t. However, what could Elder Formation do about it? The sect leader as one who ruled through strength, and she certainly didn’t care about breaking her own rules about oppressing juniors. “Vremya should be applying to become an inner disciple. You’ve already waited this long, you can wait a few more months until the year-end competition.”

“The inner-disciple promotion exam?” Ruby asked, her brow furrowing.

Elder Formation nodded. “Do you remember the special privilege you received during your inner-disciple promotion exam? At the end, you were allowed to duel a core disciple.”

Ruby pursed her lips. “Do you really think he’ll be granted the special privilege?”

“If he can’t even reach first place during the exam, then he isn’t worth your time,” Elder Formation said. The special privilege was reserved for the first place of the inner-disciple promotion exam. It was a clause added for the occasional monstrous genius who was capable of fighting people above their cultivation level. If an outer disciple thought they were capable of becoming a core disciple in one year, instead of waiting a year as an inner disciple, they were given a chance to prove themselves. Of course, monstrous geniuses didn’t pop up that often. In the past three thousand years, only Rachel, the current sect leader, had defeated her opponent during the special privilege.

“I understand, Master,” Ruby said and bowed her head. “If he doesn’t make it, then he wasn’t a worthy opponent. If he does make it, I’ll be sure to crush his hopes and dreams.”

Elder Formation nodded. It didn’t count as oppression if the weaker person was the one who challenged the stronger one. Now, the only thing determining whether or not their plan would work was luck. As an elder of the sect, Elder Formation hoped Vremya would grow successfully. As a master of an ambitious disciple, she hoped Vremya would fall to her disciple’s hands. She shook her head. Perhaps this was why it was so difficult to advance beyond the nascent-soul stage. Severing emotions included removing ambition, and which cultivator could truly claim to have no ambition? The desire to live longer, become stronger was what drove many cultivators. Without those feelings, what was left? A logical husk that knew everything would die someday, so was it even worth it to cultivate?

***

In the eyes of a cultivator, a year could pass by as quickly as a day. For Grandpa Vremya, that was the case. He cultivated, brewed wine, sold wine, and learned formation creation under Azalea’s guidance. Outer disciples were forced to become apprentices for their seniors in the sect, which was one of the original reasons why Grandpa Vremya stayed as a newcomer disciple for as long as possible. Luckily, Azalea was an inner disciple and was qualified to take on apprentices. Well, it was lucky for Grandpa Vremya, not so much so for Azalea. Outer disciples were generally treated as slave labor, forced to do the monotonous tasks like unpaid interns at a company, but how could Azalea treat Grandpa Vremya like that? If she dared to order him around, her own father would give her a stern talking-to.

“Are you going to take the inner-disciple promotion exam seriously?” Azalea asked while drawing out a formation on a piece of paper.

“You made a mistake here,” Grandpa Vremya said and pointed at a symbol on the page. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose. A moment later, he exhaled. “The benefits of being a core disciple are too good to pass up. I’ll definitely beat everyone.” In his original plan to becoming a godly avatar, he wasn’t supposed to become a core disciple so soon; however, his original plan also didn’t include greatly profiting off of the lower lifeforms’ love of losing themselves through alcohol. Thanks to the timely sales, his first foundational pillar was already formed. The original plan was to form one pillar every fifteen years, making full use of the one hundred fifty additional years tacked on to his lifespan by reaching foundation establishment. Now, it seemed like he could spend less time on the pillars and more time on the golden core itself.

Azalea glanced at Grandpa Vremya. How was he able to pick out her mistakes when his eyes were closed? It didn’t make any sense; she was supposed to be the teacher, not the other way around. As for his words about beating everyone, she believed them. Out of curiosity, she had fought the golem he had created out of her empire’s armor. She exchanged three moves with it before it kicked her ass both figuratively and literally. Despite its noble appearance, it didn’t fight fairly at all. However, she didn’t think a golem created by a foundation-establishment cultivator could last long against someone with a golden core. “Are you confident in becoming a core disciple?”

Grandpa Vremya grunted. “Of course,” he said. “I’ve built my first foundational pillar. You know what that means.”

Azalea’s expression darkened. How did one pillar bring about so much confidence? If he had created two pillars, would he claim to be stronger than nascent-soul cultivators? A cultivator’s foundational pillars were built upon their techniques and understandings of them. At most, a foundation-establishment cultivator would have nine techniques they were proficient in, each technique being one of their pillars. Generally, it was much more common for a cultivator to split one technique into nine parts and use those parts as their foundational pillars, eventually forming the whole skill upon reaching the peak of foundation establishment. Azalea was taking the latter path, and she couldn’t help but wonder how Grandpa Vremya would do it. “Did you create your pillar based on one technique or nine?”

Grandpa Vremya opened one eye. It was considered rude to ask someone about their cultivation, but he and Azalea never really cared for social norms, mainly because Grandpa Vremya didn’t understand them, so Azalea didn’t feel uncomfortable breaking them around him. “One technique, nine parts.”

Azalea nodded, and a bit of relief blossomed in her chest. At least she was taking the same path as Grandpa Vremya. Even though he was weaker than her at the moment—not counting the golem—he seemed to know what he was doing when it came to cultivation. Unfortunately, it seemed like he didn’t know what he was doing when it came to anything else. “Blockhead.”

Question marks appeared over Grandpa Vremya’s head. He didn’t say anything to trigger criticism, did he? He shook his head and closed his eyes, focusing on his cultivation. It was much easier to ignore things than to figure them out.