It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, birds were chirping, and children were looking at an Adept going through the basic motions of swordplay. Di Niu demonstrated the movements, while all the children copied them, and sometimes he would shout out corrections.

It was almost meditative to Ren, just swinging the sword over and over again.

While the other disciples were obviously stronger than him, both in body and the amount of spirit they held, Ren could easily contend with them when it came to technique.

After his demonstration, the Adept told them to keep practising while he would spar them, one after the other, to see where exactly they stood, skill wise.

The sheer mass of the Adept was not inspiring confidence, to say the least. And though he told them, that he would of course not harm them, some were still jittery at the prospect of facing him.

Ren mostly just tried to ignore the hubbub caused by the other disciples excitedly talking among themselves. He was instead concentrating on getting the motions of his sword just right. It was not to say, that none of the other disciples did the same, Zhen Jian for example was still swinging his sword animatedly while wearing a determined expression.

Clapping his hands, Di Niu began to talk with a booming voice. "Good, all of you will continue practising the sword forms. We will start the sparring with the youngest and end with the eldest. Now come forward, disciple Ren. The rest of you continue!" His voice was commanding, and everyone continued swinging, but most still had one eye on the Adept and Ren, wanting to know what they had to expect.

Ren followed their teacher, so the two of them would have enough space to swing their swords, nervously gripping his own.

Up until this point, Ren had mostly been praised for his progress, and while Adept Di had not told him that he was doing a good job with the water bowl, Daiyu instead gave him praise on it. He had also only ever sparred with Ai before. And while she did beat him down mercilessly, showing him areas to improve over and over again, there was no one else to observe him doing so. He felt self-conscious and a little vulnerable, having all the others look at him. Being the youngest and having to go first made him want to curse Adept Di.

"Be at ease, Disciple, I only want to get a general idea of how to proceed with your training. Just give it your all, I will match your strength and speed. Master Darkhaven had given myself to understand that you have been mentored by Sister Xiao, thus I hope you will not disappoint." He began his reply in an encouraging tone, but when he mentioned him being tutored, his voice somehow turned almost eager.

'What do you mean "I hope you will not disappoint", it is not like I am an Adept or studied the blade for ten years. You are supposed to teach me!' Ren thought furiously.

"Ready yourself!" Di Niu cried out. While Ren put up his sword, the Adept already lunged at him, sword under his body, ready to bisect him from the hip up, were it not just a practise tool.

Blood pumping and all of his senses kicking in, Ren tried his best to parry the instructor's move. And though it was telegraphed, Ren still had to focus as if his life depended, to pull the parry off. Swords crossed, he instinctively drew his left foot forward, wanting to counter the slice, that came from his low right directly.

As the edge of his sword closed in on Di Niu, and Ren could already smell victory, eyes alight, spirit roaring across his body, his sword left his hand.

Looking down, and blinking without understanding, he saw that the Adept's weapon had come around again from the other side, even before he could connect, baffling him.

"Quite good for someone of your age, Initiate." The man looked satisfied and proud, though he had not really taught him all that much about swordplay yet. "In time you might become truly formidable. Practice diligently! Now join the other disciples in training again." He said without any preamble that would indicate what he could have improved upon. But, Ren supposed, they would have enough time to remedy this is the future.

When he returned, and the other children looked to him for any indication as to what they should do, Ren had already forgotten his initial misgivings concerning his early performance, trying to figure out what he could have improved while swinging his sword again.

As the others realized that he was not going to talk about it, nobody tried bothering him further, as the next disciple was called upon immediately.

All of them soon settled into swinging their swords in companionable silence. As more and more disciples came back from their spar with Di Niu, looking defeated and battered, some gave Ren a respectful nod, making him think that their shared class could maybe even result in him gaining more friends.

After finishing up the last spar, Adept Di came back in quite the good mood, a big grin on his face, while the unlucky Novice who had the displeasure of the last spar of the day, looked like a beaten dog, dragging his sword after him as if he could no longer hold on. Not only one disciple looked on with a wince.

Having finished their 'torture', Adept Di decided that they should all run for half an hour to, round out the day, as he put it, smiling all the while.

And so they ran, complaining to each other about the injustice of it all, though it was more in jest than any actual discontent, Ren thought. While talking to the others, Ren learned more about each one of them. One diminutive boy wanted to prove himself to his family by becoming a sword wielding cultivator, despite their insistence on him joining either the illusion- or alchemy division. Multiple people joined in, saying that they wanted to achieve all kinds of different things, that their families were either influential or otherwise outstanding. This was only the case for the younger disciples, though, all the older ones did not boast such background. One or two of them came from bigger cultivation families, but only distant branches, still they had dreams and did not hesitate to make them known. Even Zhen Jian joined in and mumbled something about his honour.

The funniest, to Ren, was one disciple who proclaimed that he knew every single member of the outer sect by name and even proudly introduced himself as little Fatty. He was neither little nor was he fat, and in fact he was the oldest of their bunch, having faced Di Niu last.

The boast of little Fatty did make Ren ask him if he knew a girl called Ning with no family name, around sixteen years old.

Thinking about it for a bit, fingers stroking his chin, like he was an old man, the boy replied. "Ning, Ning, Ning... Yes I remember her! Of course, she joined the puppet division one year ago if I am not mistaken. Why do you ask little brother, she your sister or something?" His voice was exuberant and expression friendly.

"Ah, well kind of. I have never met her, but I would like to meet her as she came from the same orphanage as me." Ren said with a smile, while waving his hands in front of him as if it would help the explanation.

Little Fatty goggled at Ren, as if he had just seen a unicorn. "Orphanage? You are not from like a big family or the child of a Grandmaster or something? Wicked." He exclaimed in astonishment, and some other students joined him in his puzzlement. "Well now I have seen it all." Little Fatty even added on, shaking his head.

"Is it really such a big deal, that I'm not originally from the mountain?" Ren had to ask.

Before little Fatty could respond, Zhen Jian interjected, "Of course it is, you dolt! You are maybe seven, and the Adept and Master expect you to catch up to us in no time at all! We are at least three years older than you and there are heavy expectations placed on most of us. Some among us were even hailed as prodigies!" He almost cried out, with a disbelieving voice, as if he could not believe Ren's ignorance.

"I guess I didn't really think about that." Ren said in his defence, and he really didn't. It only made sense to him that there would be others like him, that also didn't come from the sect. He also thought that Zhi Mu was such a case, but apparently his father was a Master and his mother a very successful artefact crafter and also a Master. It was expected that he would crush his competition, though maybe not to the displayed extent.

This gave Ren even more food for thought, and just as they were about to end their run, he picked up some kind of black ball of spirit appearing in the clearing next to them. It confused Ren greatly and focussing more on it revealed that it was in fact a person, but their spirit was somehow muted as if they were trying to hide under all the surrounding spirit.

When the class disbanded and everyone left amicably, Ren decided to search this hiding person out, but he didn't even need to, as soon as Ren was by himself the ball moved. Now instead of an obscure shadowy shape Master Darkhaven stood next to him, wearing a white robe with golden embroidery, his hand folded behind his back.

When Ren didn't react to his sudden appearance like Darkhaven thought he would, Darkhaven looked at Ren with an asking expression.

"Why didn't you startle at all boy, got no reflexes left after class?" The man said in jest.

"I mean, I was expecting you to come and talk with me, Sir. It has been one month, after all." Ren replied, a little taken aback.

Darkhaven just nodded, as if it was only natural. "Of course, let us away then!"