Walking through the elegant streets of the Inner Sect, Han Wenyan spoke casually to Jun Li about a number of subjects, especially remarking on rumors and hearsay regarding her escapades in the Outer Sect.
Supposedly, she was a common subject of argument in the Inner Sect.
Some prouder disciples described her as the shame of the Glass Cloud Sect, and that she never should have been let through the entrance test.
Some of the more level-headed disciples insisted that attempting to distinguish her common origins from those of the wealthy merchant children of the Sect was baseless.
Compared to the Outer Sect, the disciples of the Inner Sect were generally older and had more of an appetite for arguing back and forth about their beliefs, especially when they weren’t willing to change them.
“It’s been interesting, watching my peers slowly become quieter about you with the news of each Outer Sect Trial’s results. I can only wonder if they’ll go completely silent, or raise a big ruckus when they hear you’ve entered the Inner Sect?” Listening to Han Wenyan’s gossip, Jun Li felt slightly uncomfortable, realizing how many eyes were truly on her.
Sighing heavily, Jun Li realized that if she was going to continue accelerating down the path of Cultivation, being heavily judged and scrutinized would be inevitable. ‘If I end up becoming a ‘genius’ like Master Zhu said… I need to get used to drawing attention, both good and bad.’
“Oh, right! Junior Disciple Jun, you wouldn’t happen to have a weapon, would you?” Hearing Han Wenyan’s sudden question, Jun Li was a bit confused. “Well, not really… The closest thing I have right now is a carving knife that I kept from one of the Outer Sect Trials.”
As far as weapons went, Jun Li had only used a normal awl previously, and it simply wasn’t able to withstand the effort of killing dozens of Magical Beasts, eventually dulling and warping over time, so Jun Li had set it aside in favor of fighting with her body alone.
“That’s no problem. In fact, it’s a good opportunity!” Han Wenyan seemed quite eager all of a sudden and pointed a bit further into the Inner Sect, near a split in the road.
Encompassing an entire corner of the wide street, a huge stone building stood out from its surroundings, the sturdy construction of massive stone blocks giving a domineering impression to those who looked upon it.
For the Zhao Kingdom, this building would have been deeply impractical to construct with a mundane workforce.
Looking at the stones that weighed many tons piled into tall walls, it was clear that whoever the creators of this building were, they were at least Cultivators of the Crimson Palace stage, if not higher.
Beholding the imposing building, Han Wenyan happily introduced it to Jun Li. “This building here is the Glass Cloud Martial House, where the Inner Sect disciples come to practice their Martial Arts. Furthermore, it serves as an armory of sorts, where a huge variety of weapons are stored.”
“Ah, I see…” Jun Li’s gaze shifted for a moment as she thought about picking up another weapon. As she was, Jun Li was perfectly capable of killing weaker Magical Beasts with her bare hands.
But for a Martial Art like the Sparking Thorn, where the unarmed Techniques relied on piercing an enemy with your fingers alone, there was a thin line between success and self-destruction.
“Do you need to pay anything to get a weapon, or is it free like stuff from the Repository?” Taking advantage of her tour guide’s knowledge, Jun Li freely asked a few questions as she made her way to the Martial House.
“Don’t worry, normal weapons are free for disciples to take as long as they record it with Elder Kong inside. Oh, Elder Kong is in charge of maintaining the Puppet Array inside the Martial House. He rarely ever leaves the Inner Sect, so you've probably not met him yet.”
Walking alongside Jun Li, Han Wenyan made a small noise of realization as he remembered something important. “Ah! Right, I almost forgot. The main reason why I recommend picking up a weapon.”
Looking himself over, Han Wenyan frowned. “I, uh, left mine at home, but a large advantage to learning to use a weapon is being able to take advantage of Treasure Weapons.”
“Treasure?” As Jun Li stepped into the Martial House, her attention was piqued by Han Wenyan’s comment. “I’ve heard about the Inner Sect’s missions awarding treasures for completion. Is that like one of the ‘Treasure Weapons’ you mentioned?”
“That’s right.” Han Wenyan nodded along with Jun Li’s question. “They’re special weapons designed with Formations and Arrays that allow you to reinforce and manipulate them with Qi. Some of them even have more specific and advanced functions.”
“For example, my bow is a middle Mortal-grade Treasure. The more Qi I put into it, the higher the draw weight becomes.” Realizing he said something odd, Han Wenyan specified, “Oh, right, when I say ‘middle Mortal-grade’ I’m referring to the quality of the Treasure. Treasures are graded between Mortal, Spirit, Earth, and Heaven, with sub-grades of low, middle, high and peak.”
As the pair stepped further into the Martial House, they noticed the sound of crashing and clanging coming from further inside, and Han Wenyan led Jun Li further inside, towards the noise.
The building around them was rather rustic, with high ceilings and the pelts of Magical Beasts spread across the ground.
A dozen meters from the entrance, just past a large hall, the building widened open to reveal a massive circular room, embedded into the ground like a gladiatorial arena.
Stepping closer to the overlooking balcony, Han Wenyan spoke. “Someone’s using the Puppet Array, this is a good opportunity, Junior Sister Jun, take a look!”
Beckoned over to the edge of the balcony, Jun Li looked into the wide arena. Below, a tall disciple wearing the yellow robe of the Inner Sect was standing against a group of puppets that appeared to be cast out of bronze.
Slowly, the puppets clattered around the arena, circling the disciple to cut off every avenue of escape.
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Seeing the puppets vacuously waving blunt swords and staves, the disciple idly spun his spear in his hands, lowering into a solid stance.
As sudden as thunder, three puppets shot forward from different angles, reeling back their weapons, seemingly intent on battering the disciple bloody.
Narrowing his baggy eyes, the disciple took a long step backwards.
Without turning his head, he wrenched back his spear and forced it into the puppet approaching from his rear, the force sending the puppet sailing backwards as its bronze torso warped from the blunt force of the spear.
The calculated step backwards narrowed the trajectories of the remaining two puppets to a cone in front of the disciple, and he took a deep breath upon seeing the rapid approach of spear and stave.
“Dark Cloud Art - Purifying Deluge…!” Bracing the long spear against his waist, the disciple reached his off hand out in front of his body.
With a sudden rush of air, one of the approaching puppets went flying, now severed from its sword arm.
The other puppet had reached closer to the disciple before his Martial Technique activated, and fared much worse, its arms being crushed into warped scrap, and its head having been torn from its body and sent sailing across the arena.
Observing from above, Jun Li was completely incapable of making out the disciple’s movements in that moment, only having seen his spear flash out of visibility before the puppets were crushed.
“What a Technique…” Eyes sparkling at the superb display of skill, Jun Li felt fascinated by the artful display of mastery she had seen. “Ahh… I really want to reach that level…”
Looking at Han Wenyan, Jun Li suddenly noticed that his expression had become ugly, and he sent an apologetic look towards Jun Li. Confused by the sudden change, Jun Li’s eyes were drawn back down to the disciple in the arena, before her expression too changed.
The disciple was now looking up towards his spectators with a sharp expression on his face, and the moment Jun Li saw him head-on, the sight of his sharp, baggy eyes and tall silhouette suddenly struck Jun Li’s mind like a hammer as she realized she was looking at Ren Liwei.
Sharply averting her gaze, Jun Li prayed that Ren Liwei didn’t realize who she was, now without the patchwork hat she had passed on to her younger sibling.
Luckily, after she stepped away from the balcony for a moment, nothing seemed to go awry. He hadn’t called her name, or left the arena, or even stopped fighting the puppets below by the sounds of things.
Exhaling the stress of suddenly encountering the person she least wanted to see, Jun Li felt a bit deflated.
“S-sorry about that, I uh… wouldn’t have brought you here if I thought Ren Liwei was going to be here.” Han Wenyan made his way over to Jun Li’s side, scratching through his hair uncomfortably.
Generally speaking, Han Wenyan was a considerate person, and having seen the outcome of Jun Li’s duel first-hand, he felt a bit of guilt at leading her to Ren Liwei, even unwittingly.
Jun Li began to make her way back to the entrance, offering a halfhearted excuse. “Let’s uh… leave picking up a weapon for another day.”
Joining Jun Li in leaving the Martial House, Han Wenyan kept quiet for a long moment, waiting until they had reached a crossroads outside before pointing down a street the pair hadn’t yet traversed. “Right…! I should introduce you to where you’ll be staying in the Inner Sect.”
Guiding Jun Li down the street, Han Wenyan began the most important part of his tour. “Down this road is where the Inner Sect disciple manors are. There are six manors right now, and four of them are occupied by a small number of disciples. Any disciple is free to live in any manor, or even take a single manor all for themselves if they want, but most live with peers in their immediate social group.”
“There are about twenty disciples in the Inner Sect, and two manors are completely vacant, if you wanted to take one for yourself.” Han Wenyan turned to Jun Li. “Though, if you wanted, you’re free to join my manor, the folk there should absolutely be willing to welcome you.”
Hearing this invitation, Jun Li felt a bit uncertain about grouping together with a bunch of strangers under the same roof.
As she thought about just taking a manor for herself, Han Wenyan spoke up once more. “Ah, here we are!”
Raising her eyes, Jun Li saw a wide octagonal courtyard of sorts stretching out before her, interwoven with greenery and comfortable-looking seating arrangements.
At six of the octagon’s edges, imposing manors gazed towards the centre of the courtyard, where a stage lay in front of an enormous stone noticeboard.
The manors themselves were each and all massive edifices of glamorous artistry, each one's foundation sculpted from a beautiful, red-tinged wood, and covered in intricate yet tasteful carving.
By her estimate, her entire family could comfortably live inside just one of these manors even if their number had doubled.
Just looking at them, Jun Li’s expression went stiff, considering the thought of taking a single manor for herself. ‘Honestly… no wonder some of these manors are vacant, it’d be more trouble than it’s worth living alone in one…’
“You were interested in the Inner Sect missions, right? The noticeboard for them is just over here.” Quickly following after Han Wenyan, Jun Li looked about the courtyard; every inch of the courtyard seemed elegant and clean, and Jun Li might have thought it a good place to rest, if it wasn’t for how disconcerting she would find the six overlooking manors.
“Junior Sister Jun, take a look.” Looking up at the massive stone noticeboard, Han Wenyan explained the missions of the Inner Sect.
“You can feel free to take on any mission you want, whenever you want, but you’re restricted to just one at a time. The rewards are typically stuff like Medicinal Plants, Treasures, Purple Jade, that sort of thing.”
“As for the missions themselves, let’s see…” Looking at the individual mission postings, Han Wenyan listed off a few. “Find and hunt a boar-like Magical Beast spotted off the road south of the capital…” “Gather a bundle of Grey Bone Roots from the marshes west of the Glass Cloud Sect…” “Find and clear out an encampment of bandits reported west of the Ren Province…”
“…hmm?” Noticing Han Wenyan had suddenly paused in his reading, Jun Li spoke up. “…Senior Brother Han?”
Snapping out of his haze, Han Wenyan slowly responded to Jun Li. “Oh, it’s just… I just spotted a particularly odd mission… in my family's territory.”
Following Han Wenyan’s gaze, Jun Li spotted the same mission. “Investigate loss of contact with a village in the Han Province of the north Zhao Kingdom…”
Even stranger than the mission itself was the reward. “…reward to be determined by a Sect Elder based on reported findings?” Jun Li found the mission odd, and more than a little foreboding.
Han Wenyan, on the other hand, seemed to grow more serious as he looked it over a few more times. “Sorry, Junior Disciple Jun, but I’ll have to cut the tour short there. Don’t worry, just head to the leftmost manor in the courtyard when you want to settle in. I just… it would be irresponsible of me to ignore this mission, as the man who will eventually inherit the responsibility of the Han Province.”
Jun Li was a bit surprised, realizing Han Wenyan’s social stature. Even so, that wasn’t enough to stop Jun Li from noticing his subtle distress. “...Elder Guo said disciples usually take on missions together, is that right?”
Hearing Jun Li’s implication, Han Wenyan flinched a bit. “Well… yes, they do, but… I’d hate to bring you along on a mission that might turn out to be dangerous.”
“Huh? I figured most missions would be dangerous?”
Faced with Jun Li’s innocent befuddlement, Han Wenyan stammered to correct himself. “Well, I mean, uh, more dangerous than normal, is all…”
Jun Li gave a somewhat unconvinced look, but before either could speak, a crisp voice rang out from a short distance away. “Ah, Senior Brother Han, I don’t suppose you’re taking a mission today?”
Just a few steps away, Zhao Xiaoli stood and looked over the pair at the noticeboard, wearing a smile that dulled the harshness of her trained, royal demeanor. “Junior Sister Jun, I’m happy to see you accepted my invitation to the Inner Sect.”
