Tang Zen waited and chatted with the Fang Clan’s juniors for a while longer, and by the time she had become well acquainted with them, she could see that, though they were oddly fanatical when it came to their childish sages, they were otherwise ordinary teenagers.

In fact, for a group of kids from a cultivator clan, they were oddly humble and restrained in their behaviour.

“There’s something strange about you guys,” she said.

“Strange?”

“What would that be?”

“I don’t know. It’s just… other kids from cultivator clans usually have a certain arrogance about them. They walk around thinking they’re better than everyone else. How come you guys aren’t like that?”

“That’s because of the childish sages, of course,” answered one of them. “You can’t have known them for very long and still conduct yourself like that.”

“But, doesn’t’ that give you even more of a reason to be arrogant? You’re the followers of those amazing childish sages, right? Don’t you view yourselves as the chosen ones or something?”

“The chosen ones? What an amusing thing to say,” answered Fang Yijun. “I wonder, have any of you thought of yourselves that way before?”

The rest of the juniors pondered over the matter for a while but none of them responded in the affirmative.

“That’s the thing,” said one of them. “Sage Hei will iron out such thoughts very quickly.”

“It’s true,” added another. “Most of us used to be arrogant young masters or haughty young ladies, but Sage Hei quickly put us in our place.”

“Yeah… that first lesson was pretty brutal.”

Hearing that young man’s comment, the rest of the juniors recalled Hei’s harsh words and couldn’t prevent their mouths from twitching.

“We’re all the better for it, though.”

“Mm. Without Sage Hei’s lessons, who’s to say what kind of people we would become?”

“And who is this Sage Hei?” asked Tang Zen. She had heard the name quite a few times now. “Is he the leader?”

“Sage Hei is Sage Tianlan’s younger brother. As for being the leader, the other childish sages seem to defer to his judgement on a lot of things, so I suppose you could say he operates in that capacity.”

“So, you’re telling me that all of these childish sages are part of the same family?”

“Mm. Sage Tianlan, Sage Hei and Sage Bai are siblings of the Shao Clan. Together, we call them the childish sages. Sage Mei, however, is a childish sage in name only. We only gave her the title because she’s Sage Hei’s fiancée. As for her capabilities, we don’t know very much other than that she’s extremely powerful.”

Hearing that explanation, Tang Zen started to see some incongruencies between what Tianlan had told her and what she was hearing now. He claimed that he was a simple baker’s son, and yet, he and his two siblings were such accomplished cultivators that they had a group of devoted followers.

And on top of that, his younger brother had a fiancée who definitely didn’t have a simple background either.

Things just weren’t adding up.

“Shao Tianlan told me that his was a clan of bakers; that he had a simple upbringing.”

Fang Yijun could see the doubt in her eyes.

“That’s true to a certain extent,” he said. “The Shao Clan is indeed a clan of bakers, but it is their maternal clan. Their paternal clan is a cultivator clan. As for why they use their mother’s family name, it’s not my place to say.”

“It’s not a big deal, Yijun,” said one of the young ladies. “It’s simple. The childish sages denounced their paternal clan for their wrongdoings and cut off all ties to them. They then returned to their home with their mother and lived with her and their grandfather as bakers.”

“Oh. I see.”

It was now starting to make sense. Shao Tianlan was from a powerful clan, but he couldn’t stand the way they abused their strength, so he decided to return to the simple life of his mother’s family. It was just that he couldn’t hide his roots, and as a result, the ignorant common folk from his mother’s hometown saw him and his siblings as divine beings.

It was a crude guess, and there was a lot of room for error, but Tang Zen felt it was close enough to the truth. It also explained why she had never heard of his clan before even though she was familiar with Ming Hong’s Ming Clan.

And if it was true, then it meant that Tianlan felt the same way as she did about people who would abuse their strength to the detriment of others. It also meant that he probably didn’t try to start this cult on purpose. These juniors were likely moving on their own and weren’t being coerced into anything. It was just that Tianlan was accommodating them, even going so far as to share his qi gathering formations with them.

Of course, she could be wrong, and this may have all been an elaborate ruse, but Tang Zen wasn’t so cautious. In truth, she was starting to think that Tianlan wasn’t a bad person after all.

There was a brief silence as the conversation came to a pause.

With the aid of the crackling sounds of the small fire that was burning in the middle of their circle, Tang Zen recalled that her original purpose for coming here was of little importance. She was letting precious time burn away just to find out what kind of person Tianlan was.

It truly wasn’t worth the sacrifice.

As for the questions that were wracking her mind, she would just have to let them go or force them down until after the initiation.

“Since Shao Tianlan can’t help me with my technique, I don’t have any more business here,” she said, as she made to stand up.

“That begs the question,” said Fang Yijun. “Why did you want help in the first place?”

Tang Zen furrowed her brows. Was that a rhetorical question? The answer was so obvious.

“To perform well at the initiation, of course.”

“Ah, right. The initiation. That’s happening soon, isn’t it?”

“You aren’t concerned about it?”

“Not really.”

“… You’re okay with not being chosen by a master?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, we’re only here to ease the burden on our clan to provide resources for us. As for tuition, the childish sages will provide that for us.”

“Right… Anyway, I must be going now.”

“Not so fast.”

“…”

“If what you want is to learn new techniques, then Sage Tianlan can’t help you, but do you need to learn new techniques in the first place?”

“What are you talking about? Of course I do. That’s how they’ll judge us. By how much we were able to learn in this week.”

“But I heard that there’s also a combat component to the initiation.”

“That takes place after they evaluate our progress.”

“How far have you gotten in the Lotus Series?”

“I’ve gotten up to the second stance, Dancing Lotus. It’s the third stance that’s giving me trouble.”

“The second stance, huh? Could you show us some of your moves?”

“What’s the point of that?”

“Well, we’re all sword cultivators who have received instruction from the childish sages. We can give you some feedback on your current progress.”

Tang Zen thought about it for a moment.

It wasn’t a bad idea. She usually practised on her own, so most of her feedback was self-derived. But if she were to get input from a number of different perspectives, she could potentially find areas for improvement that she previously overlooked.

She nodded her head and walked to the middle of the circle, near where the fire was and drew the sword they had given her, tossing its sheath to one of the juniors.

She placed one hand under her sword’s hilt and gripped it with the other, entering the first stance of the Lotus Series: Standing Lotus.

With her eyes closed, she said “This is the first stance, Standing Lotus. It’s a reactive stance which is meant to respond to the opponent’s moves, so there isn’t much to demonstrate without a partner.”

The Fang Clan juniors watched closely as she calmed her breathing. She took shallow breaths at first, but they then started to become deeper and deeper, until her skin started to take on a red hue.

As she breathed out a powerful breath which stirred the dust on the ground, she said “This is Dragon Breathing, and it boosts one’s blood flow, allowing for quicker reactions and more explosive power.”

Her voice was warped by a low growling sound reminiscent of a spirit beast. It held a certain level of majesty, representing its namesake well.

One junior took a stone from the ground and threw it Tang Zen’s way.

At first, it seemed as if she hadn’t noticed it, but when it came within striking distance, her body shifted almost instantaneously, and with a clanging sound, the rock was knocked to the ground.

In the next instant, Tang Zen was back to her Standing Lotus stance.

The Fang Clan exchanged glances before one of the young ladies, Fang Hua, stood and walked to the centre of the circle, standing opposite to Tang Zen.

She drew her sword and threw its sheath to one of her cousins, then entered a ready stance.

Hers was more orthodox than Tang Zen’s and she didn’t employ a breathing technique, but her ability to instantly switch her mentality was something Tang Zen noticed.

Fang Hua shifted her feet along the ground, slowly making her way around Tang Zen who remained still.

She chopped her sword vertically, intentionally distancing herself such that the attack wouldn’t hit, and Tang Zen didn’t respond.

She again swung her sword, again missing Tang Zen by a mile, but this time, Tang Zen’s eyebrows twitched.

She immediately side-stepped, moving from her previous position.

Behind her, one of the other juniors swung his sword into the open air, an act that wouldn’t make sense to an ordinary onlooker. But a moment later, a scorching heat spread throughout the area, radiating out from a few metres in front of him.

Those two attacks had been the modified form of Inferno Blade that Hei had taught them and had Tang Zen not moved out of the way, she would have been severely injured.

The fact that she was able to sense the danger and react appropriately showed just how solid her Standing Lotus stance was.

Fang Hua stepped in and swung her sword horizontally toward Tang Zen who had stepped back a moment earlier. Tang Zen adjusted her grip on her sword and met Fang Hua’s attack, siphoning its momentum and using the force to propel herself further away.

Fang Hua gave chase, leaving trails of frosty footprints in her wake as she approached Tang Zen, who had already returned to her Standing Lotus stance.

She froze the ground in front of her, aiming for Tang Zen’s feet, but Tang Zen jumped into the air and flipped her body upside down before stabbing her sword into the ground, using her left hand to hold herself up.

“This move is called Stinging Lotus, and it’s from the second stance of the Lotus Series,” she said as she opened her eyes and faced her opponent.

Fang Hua’s ice began to climb up Tang Zen’s sword as she skated toward her. Her sword had now taken on a white hue and leaving a trail of condensation where it passed.

Tang Zen pulled on her sword, binging her to a rapid descent. Once she reached the ground, she quickly placed her right palm on top of her sword’s hilt and sent her qi through it, causing it to turn pink.

The vibrations that came with her partial Thousand Lotus stance shook off the ice, and at the same time, jets of water began to stream out from underneath her feet, propelling her toward Fang Hua.

As she moved, her sword regained its normal colour, and the water under her feet also began to freeze, leaving two trails of thick ice behind her.

Before she could get far, sharp spikes of ice started to rise up from the ground, almost reaching her knees as they intercepted her path.

She stopped her propulsion and instead, jumped back to avoid impaling herself, but once she did, more and more spikes began to appear, sealing off all of her escape routes.

The only choice she had left was to jump over them and get to a level they couldn’t reach.

Fortunately, there was a tree nearby which she jumped toward, but while she was in the air, five larger spikes shot up toward her, leaving her with no other options.

She placed the sword’s hilt into her mouth and weaved several hand signs while in the air, which caused a coat of water to envelop her. That water began to thrash about violently, and as it accumulated, it formed the shape of a giant shark.

That shark opened its maw and bit at the two pillars coming from its front, shaking its tail as it used its serrated teeth to break them apart, creating a path for it to traverse.

Inside the shark’s body, Tang Zen’s fingernails had grown sharp and her face had taken on a ferocious expression, her pupils slit vertically.

She used her hands and feet to grip the surface of the pillars, the violently thrashing water protecting her from being frozen, then propelled herself like a four-legged beast along the length of the pillars, rapidly approaching Fang Hua, who was sending out more and more pillars.

In this form of hers, Tang Zen was far more agile than usual and could jump from pillar to pillar without losing any speed. And as she got closer to Fang Hua, the ice pillars became larger and larger, until they completely encased her in a thick shell.

Tang Zen’s blade was coated in a spinning layer of water, and as she approached the shell of ice, she transferred all of her shark form’s water to the sword, causing it to become much larger, after which, she took it back into her hands and swung it viciously at the ice pillar.

The spinning water made short work of Fang Hua’s defences, exposing her figure.

She was standing calmly in the centre with her sword pointed down to the ground, and as Tang Zen swung toward her, she gently placed her sword’s tip on the ground and uttered a quiet sentence.

“This move is called Sleeping Tundra.”

A circle of snow appeared beneath her feet and expanded outward until it reached a few metres in diameter.

Tang Zen, who was already in its radius, had no way of escaping, and as a result of that unassuming circle of snow, all of the water coating her blade was instantly frozen, causing it to shatter upon contact with Fang Hua’s white blade, turning into a sea of snowflakes which gently fell toward the ground.

Tang Zen retreated and placed her sword back into her mouth before raising her arms to-

“That’s enough,” said Fang Hua. “It’s time for feedback.”

At the same time as she spoke, all of the ice she had formed swiftly melted and disappeared from view, leaving the area looking exactly the same way it had before the fight.

“We’re not finished yet,” said Tang Zen.

“It was never a contest to see who would win. Besides, do you want to keep fighting with that right hand of yours?”

“…”