Time seems to stretch abnormally as the old cultivator woman’s and my eyes lock onto each other.

I quickly remember in this culture, staring so intently at your elders and not moving your eyes away is exceptionally rude.

By this time, she’s already moved her eyes away, and the damage is done. I can see the slight shaking of her head before she does so. She seems to be quite magnanimous for the standard of cultivators in this world.

That would make sense, as something horrible would have already happened to me when I first came here, if she hadn’t had that type of personality. I really was placed in a good position when I got here.

If I remember correctly, her name should be Senior Song.

Without skipping a beat, she looks out towards the crowd of people here and everyone falls silent as a subtle pressure lies on them. It wasn’t spiritual pressure, but just the one that comes up with people when they know someone important is about to speak.

The cultivator near her steps forward.

“Hello everyone, and congratulations on making it to this point of the testing. By making it this far, you’ve shown you have either the physical ability or resourcefulness to make it this far. The Elder who will oversee this will be Senior Song, beside me.”

He quickly steps aside to allow Senior song to step forward. A raspy, but strong, voice sounds out over the area.

“As you’ve all likely already been told, we will test your spirit root. Get into a line, so we can proceed.”

Contrary to the cultivator before, her word to curt and simple. She appears to want to move through this quickly.

That’s probably not going to happen. Not if I have anything to say about it.

She takes out a mirror. My scan immediately shows that it’s made of some type of metal that is like bronze.

One side of it’s just like a normal mirror, while the other has a picture of a sun in motion. The patterns subtly move across its surface, while the entire object seems to shimmer with a strange glow.

Senior song heads to the middle of the courtyard, and orients the mirror towards the sun so it reflects on the ground in front of her.

Strangely, the pattern on the back reflects on the ground before us.

It looks to be similar to the Chinese magic mirrors from my world. The same thing can actually happen there, except the patterns moving on the back, of course.

Honestly, I was expecting an orb of some kind. Though, I should probably keep reminding myself not to rely on stereotypes from another world…

My scan informs me that the method that this sect uses differs from ones that others use. With everything prepared, everyone forms into a very long line that stretches around the courtyard.

Negotiations between different people begin in setting up where they will go in the line. There are political advantages and disadvantages to going before or after someone.

Quite a few people are watching me to see where I’ll place in in the line. I wait outside the line until mostly everyone goes in. This takes quite a while, as quite a few people really wanted to go behind me.

Once the line is set and everyone’s inside it, I step out of it and head to the back of the line. Immediately, looks of dissatisfaction fill everyone's faces, especially the person who is already in the last place.

He quickly masks this and falls silent.

The first person walks up to Senior Song, and she directs him to step into the reflected light from the mirror. It appears to be a young master of some sort, who I haven’t seen. He took the carriage on the way up.

I can hear someone whisper regarding his identity.

“That’s Xhao Tang. His family is one of the major clans in this country (The Chiu Continuum). He may not have much power and is low in his family, but his backing is so large. I might need to introduce myself later, regardless of the result.”

The noises around dim down as he moves into the area.

As he does so, the light around him shimmers and moves.

The pattern of the sun that was first on the back of the mirror, and then on the reflected ground around him, rises and begins turning into an illusory sun that shines with its own soft heat and light.

It emerges while revolving around him three times, before stopping in front of his face. A deep, but ambiguous voice comes out of it.

“7 Peony Earth.”

It falls silent. And holds still.

Excited muttering come out. This is an exceptionally good spiritual root, especially with his backing.

In terms of the rankings, this automatically puts him at a rare genius status, able to cultivate 750x faster than an ordinary cultivator. Pairing this with his background, he will probably grow even faster than that.

The people who gave him face to go first are pleased with their decision as it let them get even slightly closer to him.

After that, though, things move quickly. People just step into the reflected light circle; the sun revolves a few times before stopping and stating an answer.

While this happens, I desperately am using my scan to determine the best way to not get killed with my plan to get into the inner court.

The reason I’m so anxious about it is because I’m dealing with an extremely strong cultivator and an elder of my sect at that.

Back when I first started in this world, the old man who had helped me had noticed that I had was considering using my scan on him. It’s very likely he didn’t have mind reading capabilities, but once you get to a certain level as a cultivator, your mind works differently than normal people. You sense connections and things that just aren’t right. Like the fact someone may know a tiny bit too much about you.

This alone automatically increases the difficulty of manipulating a person like that, with the scan at least.

That doesn’t even consider if they do have some type of emotion or mind reading abilities. While I’m completely sure that true mind reading isn’t possible until extremely high levels, that doesn’t mean that weaker variants of it don’t exist. When I become a cultivator, there are simple ways to defend against these, but I’m currently not a cultivator. I need to be careful.

I’m currently using my scan to fill in the gaps to make a pre-planned approach rather than using much of any knowledge at the moment. The reason I rarely do this is that it takes a long time, and still holds a risk of the situation changing negatively, without being able to adjust.

In this case, I will need to risk that. Especially with all these cultivators having a low spiritual sense on us.

Because of this, I’m not fully listening to each person’s spirit root reveal. I just have a background awareness running to make sure that each of the people I know are still within the range of my estimates.

Just as I had determined earlier through the scan that observed it, each ranking is exactly right.

The mirror seems to be above the average for most spirit root sensing qi treasures. It is accurately stating the exact ranking for each person. While it is to be expected for a sect of this size, it shouldn’t be understated how powerful and rare such an item is. Most qi treasures that perform a similar function are correct, but this one actually easily hones in on the true level of a person.

As it goes through all my people, all I need to do is mentally check off on where they are. I make a personal note to chat with them about it later and make a list of where they stand.

I just don’t have the spare capacity to focus on it right now.

Of course, when you desperately are hoping for more time, time seems to fly by even quicker.

It is not until I am up and I push the slightest bit more into my scan that it finally completes.

It gives me an idea of what I need to say.

Being the last person, she seems relieved to finally have this group over with. Her eyes are clear as she looks into mine uncaringly. She doesn’t seem to have held onto my words and looks earlier, but I make sure to look away properly this time. I can sense a nod from her.

No need to antagonize her more than necessary.

I say nothing, but just step into the circle of reflected light, with the sun now spinning around me.

It revolves once.

Twice.

Three times.

And continues on and on. With no apparent stop.

This is strange, as every previous person got between 1-4 revolves around them, before an answer.

It reminds me of the circles you would see on the computer as it’s trying to figure something out. We stand there for 30 seconds before I feel her laying a low scan on me to determine the issue. She doesn’t go far with it, just enough to see if there is an issue. She removes it just as quickly.

After two minutes pass, it’s clear she is about to say something when it stops suddenly before my face. Like it did for the others, but much more suddenly.

“Temporary. Peony Earth 4. Actual above three ranks worth. Unable to determine.”

There’s just silence before her eyes reveal pleasant surprise.

Her mouth opens to say something.

Is there a chance for her to push me into the inner court without making the requirement?!

It looks like I might be able to make it without…

However, another cultivator is moving at high speed, his arms moving in straight lines, with his eyes locked on Senior Song.

Clearly about to tell her something in relation to me.

… Sigh.