The path up the mountain was longer than Yan Qiu expected.

  “Where are you from?” he asked Sun Hao as they walked.

  “Clearwater Town, up in the west near the border.”

  “Sounds like a nice place.”

  “It is. The food there is amazing, my mother makes this fish soup that…” Sun Hao trailed off and shook his head. “I am already getting homesick. That is embarrassing.”

  Yan Qiu laughed. “I have been away from home for a while now. You get used to it.”

  “How long?”

  “Few weeks. I was working at an inn in Dusthaven.”

  Sun Hao looked at him with new interest. “So that is where you learned to fight?”

  “The innkeeper taught me some things.”

  They kept climbing. The path wound through pine trees and past stone markers carved with sect symbols, and other new disciples were on the same path. Everyone looked tired.

  “I think we are here,” Yan Qiu said.

  Stone Sparrow Hall was a large wooden building with three floors and a sloped roof. The paint on the walls was faded and the steps up to the entrance were worn smooth.

  “My legs are dead,” Sun Hao groaned. “Why is everything so far up the mountain?”

  “Look there.” Yan Qiu pointed at the entrance. “Are those our seniors?”

  A group of older disciples stood near the door. Yan Qiu felt his stomach tighten. He had heard stories about how seniors treated newcomers in sects, and none of them were good.

  There were four of them. One was big and broad-shouldered. Another was thin and stood with perfect posture. A third looked average in every way, and there was one more standing slightly behind the others.

  They reached the bottom of the steps.

  “Welcome, juniors.”

  The voice came from the big one, and he was smiling in a way that did not look forced. Yan Qiu blinked. That was not what he expected.

  “I am Peng Hu,” the big one said. “Third floor, same as you. This is Tao Wen.” He gestured to the thin one, who nodded politely. The other two introduced themselves as well, but Yan Qiu’s tired mind only held onto those first two names.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “I am Yan Qiu, from Blackroot in the north.”

  “Sun Hao, Clearwater Town in the west.”

  Peng Hu grinned. “Good, more people for the third floor. It was getting boring with just us.” He clapped Yan Qiu on the shoulder hard enough to make him stumble. “Come on, we will show you where to sleep. Do not worry, we are not the type to make juniors suffer. Life here is hard enough without that.”

  Yan Qiu exchanged a look with Sun Hao. Maybe this would not be so bad after all.

  The third floor was a long room with beds lined up along both walls, each one with a thin mattress, a folded blanket, and a wooden chest at the foot for belongings. The ceiling was low enough that Peng Hu had to duck when he walked between the beams.

  “Pick any empty bed,” Peng Hu said. “The ones near the window are colder at night, but you get the breeze in summer.”

  Yan Qiu chose a bed near the middle and Sun Hao took the one next to him.

  “Food is your own problem,” Peng Hu continued. “There is a kitchen on the ground floor, you cook whatever you can get your hands on. Morning bell means wake up and training starts after, so do not be late.”

  “What about the restricted areas?” Sun Hao asked.

  “Do not go past the inner court gate, do not climb Guying Peak, and do not touch anything in the medicine hall without permission.” Peng Hu thought for a moment. “Actually, just do not touch anything that is not yours. That covers most of it.”

  Yan Qiu sat on his bed and set his bundle down. The mattress was thin and the blanket smelled like dust, but it was his. He put his things in the wooden chest and closed the lid.

  Sun Hao was doing the same on the next bed over. “This is not exactly what I imagined when I thought about joining a sect.”

  “What did you imagine?”

  “Something better? Silk sheets, maybe.”

  “Maybe the elders sleep on silk sheets.”

  “Probably.” Sun Hao lay back and stared at the ceiling. “My ribs still hurt.”

  “Go to sleep then.”

  “I am going to.”

  The seniors had already gone to their own beds, and the room went quiet. Yan Qiu lay down and pulled the blanket over himself. He had slept on worse than this. The floor of the inn in Dusthaven had been harder.

  He thought about his parents. His mother was probably awake right now, sitting by the fire and wondering if he had made it. His father would be pretending not to worry, keeping his hands busy so he would not have to sit still with his thoughts. He wished he could tell them. Third place. Their son had placed third.

  He grinned into his pillow. All the running and the training and the hunger and the bruises and the copper coins he had saved one by one, it had been enough. He was here.

  He fell asleep to the sound of wind outside.

  The morning bell woke him, loud and close, and Yan Qiu sat up before he was fully awake. The room was grey with early light and the other disciples were stirring around him.

  “That bell is going to kill me,” Sun Hao said from the next bed with his face still buried in his pillow.

  Peng Hu was already up and dressed. “Get used to it, same time every day.”

  Yan Qiu got out of bed. His ribs still ached from yesterday’s fight and his thigh was sore where Sun Hao had kicked him, but he could move fine. He changed into the grey outer disciple robes that had been left folded on his chest during the night and tied the sash the way Peng Hu showed him. When he looked down at himself he could hardly believe it. He was actually wearing sect robes.

  “Come on,” Peng Hu called from the stairs. “If you want to eat before training, you better start now.”

  Yan Qiu followed him down with Sun Hao stumbling along behind, still half asleep. The mountain air was cold when they stepped outside and the sun had not yet cleared the peaks. Tomorrow he would know what to expect, but today everything was new.