For Jun Li, the night was a peaceful one, and she happily spent her time steadying her Cultivation after the minor exertion of refining pills throughout the previous day.

  As she patiently waited in her room for the next day, a line of thought born of caution continuously nagged at her. 'How strong will they be? The disciples who actually make it into the Earth Dragon's Grave. Will the average be closer to Qin Yihua? Or closer to my last customer?'

  'It doesn't matter...' Jun L's eyebrows furrowed, her internal clock telling her the sun was finally rising. "...Even if I end up not being strong enough to win in a fight, I'm fast enough to escape.'

  Jun Li did not have a 'plan,' but she did carry with her a series of 'layered intents,' designed to guide her path reactively. This sort of 'flexible game plan' was not taught to her by her master, Zhu Enlai, but was something she had developed on her own.

  'What if the Sect Elders ask for my identity? I'll provide Kang Shi's Jade Slip, considering he lost it after being tricked by some mortal bandits… I doubt he's a well-known disciple.'

  'What if the Earth Dragon's Grave is an enclosed space with no secondary exits? Perhaps I could remain inside and fake my death?'

  'I certainly can't walk out the same way I came in. I'm betting on the Sect Elders seeing me as more than a nobody with the luck to fill in for an empty slot, if I come out having claimed some extreme benefits, they're going to start asking questions…'

  'Supposedly, the Earth Dragon's Grave only opens once a decade. What would I do if I can't exit until that decade is over?'

  At the thought of that worst-case scenario, Jun Li's expression darkened. 'Well, then I'll have to spend ten years training to outrun the Sect Elders that oversee the next opening.'

  Jun Li palmed her eyes and let out a sigh. '...This really is absurdly dangerous…' Standing up off the ground of her lightless room, Jun Li placed a palm over her mouth and began reforming her mask.

  'Even so… This opportunity is just too good to pass up.'

  … … … … … …

  "Tell me, cousins." A bulky Elder of the Tiger-Slaying Sect spoke up, grabbing and sipping directly from the cha hai of the tea set that sat between him and his peers. "Who do you think will claim this decade's drop of blood?"

  Observing the vulgar manner of their distant peer, the Elders of the Emerald Blade Pavilion and Frost River Sect exchanged a glance between one another, put off by his inelegant manner.

  The first to speak up was the Elder of the Frost River Sect. "Well… I'd like to say that our Yuelin would win, but she's so young, it's hard to imagine." The Elder who spoke, a woman who appeared no older than twenty, spoke of her Sect's disciple in words that sounded unfavorable, but with a tone and expression that were filled with pride.

  This time, it was the Elders of the Tiger-Slaying Sect and Emerald Blade Pavilion who exchanged glances, thoroughly annoyed by the shameless bragging of their peer, hidden behind a thin and moth-eaten veil of humility.

  The 'Yuelin' of whom she spoke was one 'Bai Yuelin.' A somewhat famous disciple of the Frost River Sect, the likes of whom they miss no opportunity to parade around.

  The reason for this is simple; She reached the Crimson Palace realm at the age of thirteen and the Middle Crimson Palace stage by the age of fifteen.

  In terms of cultivation speed, she was peerless among the three Sects. Furthermore, she had the martial skill to hold her own among even talented disciples of the same realm. Even with all the resources of their three sects, it wasn't an easily replicable feat to raise such a disciple.

  "Indeed." The Elder of the Emerald Blade Pavilion eagerly affirmed the Frost River Sect Elder's fake humility. "I'm afraid it might be impossible for such a young talent to match up to our Qin Yihua."

  Before the Frost River Sect's Elder could even snipe back, the Tiger-Slaying Sect Elder cut in with his own anecdote. "Well… He's strong, but to be honest… I just can't see anyone in the Crimson Palace realm defeating Guan Heng anymore…" As he spoke, the otherwise rugged and indomitable man seemed almost downcast.

  The other two Elders looked at him with both surprise and skepticism. "What do you mean by that…?" It was one thing to vouch for and talk up the disciples of one's own Sect, but his expression made his statement seem almost forboding.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Guan Heng was always a monstrous genius, favored from birth by the Heavens." The Tiger-Slaying Sect Elder spoke quietly. "We simply never realized how true that was."

  Letting out a great sigh, the Elder kicked back in his seat. "Ahh well… the Tiger-Slaying Sect is going to change a lot in the next century, knowing him. Keep an ear out."

  At their peers' bizarre manner, the other two Elders could only remain silent, digesting his words, which almost sounded like a warning.

  … … … … … …

  Jun Li had left her room early in the morning to wait outdoors for the gathered disciples to be escorted to the Earth Dragon's Grave.

  Even that early, however, many disciples had already gathered outside, having been there since before the sun rose.

  Over the open grounds of the encampment, eleven disciples were standing or sitting in place, steadying their cultivations diligently in the time they had left. In the morning breeze that swept gently through the forest, these disciples stood as still and straight as tombstones.

  Observing the rather solemn-looking group, Jun Li recognized some familiar faces. 'The duo I met in Lanxiu managed to get their hands on a pair of invitations? Ah, and that Gao Feng guy I gave medicine to is here as well…'

  Among those gathered, three figures drew Jun Li's eyes even more than her own acquaintances.

  One was a young woman, seemingly no older than Jun Li was when she left the Zhao Kingdom. She wore a neat and form-fitting variant of the Frost River Sect's robe. Where other robes would extend down to below the knee, hers was cut off where it met the pants, so as not to obstruct the movement of her legs in even the slightest way.

  Other than her surprisingly young age, and unique style of clothing, Jun Li could perceive abnormally little from her.

  Another was Qin Yihua, whom Jun Li had witnessed the previous day. His height and posture drew the eye, making the disciples around him seem like blades of grass before a great tree.

  He wore the traditional robe of the Emerald Blade Pavilion, and behind his body loomed the silhouette of the immense sword he carried at all times, reminding Jun Li of that split-second of expertise he displayed the day prior.

  Despite these acquaintances and captivating persons of interest, there was one individual Jun Li could not keep her eyes from returning to. A disciple of the Tiger-Slaying Sect. Tall, with pale skin of an abnormally grey tone.

  Although he had no greatly dense or perceptible aura of Cultivation as Qin Yihua did, the man whom Jun Li had found her eyes drawn to felt somehow unlike anyone else present.

  He stood with his eyes closed and arms crossed, at a height not much less than Qin Yihua, though his body seemed far thicker and more dense. If Qin Yihua was akin to a great tree of oak or cypress, this man was an immense, granite boulder.

  For someone of such an immensely muscular physique, his appearance seemed somehow unnatural, even lifeless, as though he wasn't quite human, but something in the rough shape of a human.

  Jun Li had briefly encountered this man the previous day as one of her many customers, and had exchanged nothing but the briefest cordialities in their meeting. Yet, since then, a nagging feeling had tugged at her mind at the thought of him, as though some part of his appearance was 'shifted' out of normality somehow.

  'I suppose those three are each Sect's 'seeds,' so to speak…'

  … … … … … …

  Barely an hour of Qi Circulations later, all three Sect Elders appeared at once in the encampment, having appeared there from precisely the same direction as Jun Li had expected, and landing on the stage that had been used for those disciples competing for Entrance Slips.

  By now, Jun Li had become able to notice their near-silent arrivals without even needing to open her eyes.

  "The Earth Dragon's Grave will open momentarily!" The Elder of the Emerald Blade Pavilion spoke up, her voice travelling evenly throughout the encampment, strong and clear, yet even in volume to every ear that heard it.

  "If you are not prepared to enter, relinquish your Entrance Slip to a peer, and return to your Sect! Otherwise, follow us to the Grave's entrance! You have one minute to decide!" At those words, although some disciples had gathered near the edges of the encampment, looking on in vague hope towards the privileged few, none of those few spoke up, and no Entrance Slip changed hands.

  'There's no backing down now…' Although many there had similar thoughts, Jun Li's own conviction carried a uniquely grim weight.

  "...Then, follow us!" Ordering those proudly silent disciples, the Elder of the Emerald Blade Pavilion jumped from the stage she and her peers had entered from, landing between the gathered disciples and the path to their destination.

  By the time Jun Li had looked to the stage again, those other two Elders had vanished once more, and the small crowd of one dozen had already begun to move in pursuance of the Emerald Blade Pavilion's Elder.

  'A dozen, huh? Four disciples of each Sect…' Jun Li quenched the anxiety in her heart with a quiet analysis of her surroundings, her peers, and her circumstances.

  As the crowd of a dozen moved quickly through a forest path that bore no meaningful sign of being trodden before, Jun Li considered the disciple of the Tiger-Slaying Sect, and continued to glance towards him from behind, attempting to figure out what was 'wrong' about him.

  '...Ah…?' Within moments, Jun Li realized it wasn't that he bore some unnatural feature, but that he lacked a very basic aspect of any living being, something that, with this man's muscularity, became even more apparent in its absence.

  'He has… no veins?'