Next Morning, Classroom 4, The Black Dragon Sect Information Library:

It did not take long for word to get around that several Bao disciples had died in the forest. It also took only slightly longer for word to get around that Gui disciples had been seen in the vicinity.

The first class today was interrupted a few times when various Gui and Bao cultivators got into arguments. The topic of the lesson was skills and Elder Yuxi was discussing how they worked.

“Everything in cultivation is measured in way that it can be broken down by quality and strength. In the case of skills, they are given ‘grades.’ They range from 1, which nearly all of you are using, to 7 which none of you have ever seen used. How do I know that? Because a grade 7 skill would kill you if you were close enough to see it. Our sect offers skills up to grade 6, although disciples cannot use those. Only our most senior elders, the vice leaders, and the sect leader himself could potentially use them. So the question is why? What is the difference between grades? Does anyone know or have a guess?”

The teacher called on someone who said, “The number of meridians?”

Elder Yuxi nodded. “That is certainly one piece of it. Who else?”

Someone snorted and spoke loudly to the room, “Figures that a Gui subordinate would give such an incomplete answer.”

The red-faced elder snapped, “Raise your hand if you wish to answer otherwise be silent in this class.”

She then called on someone else who tried a more specific answer. “Meridians, amount of Qi and cultivation stage.”

Elder Yuxi said, “Again, partially correct. All of those do indeed have a measure of impact on the grade a skill is assigned. But that is only a part. Can anyone else provide the entire answer?”

“Seems the Bao are incompetent but like to demonstrate false superiority,” echoed from the front of the room. Once again Elder Yuxi basically told the class to shut up.

Yu raised her hand and was called on. “All of those things mentioned, but also unlisted requirements such as skill prerequisites, affinity strength requirements, if it has warm-up or cooldown requirements and, if so, how long. And other things not technically a hard measurement but that are keys to the skill such as area of effect size, distance, as well the simple assessment of how much damage it does, assuming it is an offensive skill. The same is true for healing and support skills.”

When Yu finished her diatribe at least half the class was staring at her and a number were also muttering and whispering.

Elder Yuxi smiled and applauded Yu’s answer. “Indeed so! An excellent and complete answer. This is what happens when you actually read the text assignments, disciples. You have a clue what in the hells is going on around you.”

Li gave the commensurate “Yu answered a question” shove and Yu pinched her side in response. The girl jumped in her seat, causing Yu to snicker.

The old woman continued, “Unlike demonic beasts, you are not born with knowledge in your heads, disciples. Whether noble or commoner, if you do not look things up, do some research, read about the world, you are destined to fail. You will be overtaken by those that do. Do you think skills are just scrolls you read and suddenly you are a genius? Of course not! You have to work to learn. That is why the gods rate our levels of expertise in skills. And that leads to our next topic.”

The jade board changed and she went on. “Skills, no matter how high or low a grade, require a level of expertise to use. The gods tell you how they view your capability, familiarity, and expertise for each skill. You see that as Novice, Initiate, Adept, Expert, Master, Grandmaster. The specifics for each evaluation are hidden from us, but we know the general requirements.

Novices have just enough basic knowledge of the skill to use and practice it. Initiates have experience using it and at a high enough level of expertise to do so without a struggle, even if the use is of low effectiveness. An Adept is someone who can use a skill with ease and high effectiveness. Experts are at the level where someone might call the skill’s wielding natural or even artistic. Most cultivators are unable to reach this level and very few can exceed it.”

Yu was very excited to hear this next part. She wanted to know what it would take for the gods to consider her a master in her hook swords.

“Masters and Grandmasters are at a whole other level. All we know is that those few who gain the Master level show an understanding of a skill so deep that they are able to make it their own. They take what exists and mold it to be specific to them. And finally, Grandmasters are those few who create new and unique capabilities of the skill. Only cultivators who make it better for themselves and others are viewed as Grandmasters. To my knowledge, there are only a few hundred Masters in the entire empire and perhaps only as many Grandmasters as there are fingers on your hands.”

Yu tried to process what she said. How could she make a skill her own?

Elder Yuxi interrupted the class’s muttering and whispering with a question. “How many here are adept in at least one skill?”

Yu raised her hand, as did two others. Three out of a class of nearly five hundred. Granted, they were all sixteen or under to her knowledge.

“Don’t lie. We know the Bao are so inept they can’t even reach Initiate, never mind Adept. More false superiority.”

The blue-haired hand-raiser leaped to his feet and yelled, “How dare you! Your envy of our capabilities is insulting and embarrasses the throne you claim to speak for.”

Still sitting, Yu heard the Gui say, “Your ignorance of reality is your own fault. Go slunk off to your pathetic schemes and lies. Leave the fighting to the real cultivators, like your clan always does.”

Elder Yuxi yelled at them to sit down and be quiet but the Bao boy ignored her and hollered, “How dare you! Can you back up that bravado? I challenge you!”

The room got silent all of a sudden. Yu leaned her head back and shook it back and forth. What a foolish waste of time.

The white-haired Gui De stood and said, “I accept. Day 2 at 19th hour. See you at the arena.”

All official challenges had to be overseen by elders and, as there were nearly 25,000 outer sect disciples, the days and times were controlled to avoid non-stop insanity. Every Day 2 and Day 5 the arena was opened to official ranking and honor challenges. There were all kinds of rules about challenges in general, but ranking challenges specifically had to be done in a predetermined order. First, one could not challenge a ranking more than once per week. Below 1,000, one could challenge up to the 1,000th rank above them. That meant for Yu, at rank 24,900 something, could only challenge up to rank 24,000. Then the following week, up to rank 23,000 and so forth until rank 1,000.

As this was her third week, she would be able to challenge for the 15,000th place on her twelfth week, which fit into her master’s demanded timeline. A total of four ranking challenges had to be accepted per week, which meant two for Day 2 and two for Day 5. There were exceptions to allow for the ranked individual to challenge as well, but basically, it worked out that Yu could challenge her way up the ranks and meet her master’s demands starting tomorrow.

She just needed to figure out who was at 24,000 and challenge him or her. With 25,000 disciples, it would be far too difficult to find the ranker in person so almost all ranking challenges were made through the large black Ranking Column, which would also tell her who she was challenging. In truth, disciples challenged the rank, not the person as that person could change ranks or leave the sect and such.

Confusion aside, she would just work her way up the same as everyone else. Likely she would keep going after that rank as long it wasn’t a day she had a meridian cleansing, which was her absolute priority. Of course, her plan assumed she won each challenge which was definitely not assured; although she was moderately confident at last through rank 10,000. Nobody in the outer sect outside of the top twenty should be able to seize her Qi so she should be fine there. Her challenge schedule would be dependent upon her meridians and weird formation her master figured out how to strengthen. Speaking of which, the additional routine of taking that pill her master would give her to stretch her formation channels shouldn’t interfere either as she was able to still work on her stepping right after using it, meaning using Qi skills should be fine.

Returning her focus to the classroom, Yu found it was (unsurprisingly) filled with discussion of the challenges. Poor Ai next to Yu was scrunched down low, not wanting anything to do with the foolishness of her family taking place in front of everyone. Of course, Elder Yuxi was beside herself. “That is enough!” yelled out of her mouth. The room winced at the Qi behind her words. “Sit down this instant!”

The pair did and she said formally, “An official honor challenge, not a ranking challenge, has been offered and accepted. There. That done, you can both shut up and stop disturbing the class. Those who aren’t embroiled in your political machinations are here to learn something. We were discussing skills.”

The class ended without any further incidents worth mentioning. Yu did learn quite a bit more about skills though. They were broken down into offensive, defensive and support, which she knew. But what she didn’t know was that some could act as more than one, or even all three, although that was rare.

She also learned about something that had been on her mind, which was overlapping skills. For example, skills of a similar purpose or affinity could sometimes be combined. The example the elder gave was a skill focused on air enhancing a skill focused on creating fire. This was often done by multiple cultivators of higher stages, but dual affinity cultivators did have the ability to do it unilaterally when they were strong enough, which usually started in the Qi Gathering Stage.

Yu had already experienced the like in healing with Wood and Water working together, but healing skills were different because they weren’t really overlapping so much as simultaneous. Yu wasn’t sure about support skills as they weren’t really her thing. Still, most of the disciples in the class were distracted by the upcoming challenge which was too bad for them because the topic was terribly fascinating and important—at least in Yu’s eyes.