Night gradually gave way to dawn as the sun spread its sunshine over the land.
Ye Mo was sleeping in his house when he suddenly opened his eyes. He quickly got up, turned around, and walked out of his small accommodation towards the city center.
In the center of the city were established the three martial institutions, the Tiger Martial Institute, the Sky Martial Institute, and the Golden Martial Institute, while the four major clans resided in the north, east, south and west respectively.
They were the Li, Gao, Yan and Shen clan.
These four clans ruled the city together and clashed against each other a lot for resources and territories. Fights would regularly break out between their members, but despite the various strifes, they would never engage in conflict against the martial institutes.
This was due to the institute's strength. Martial institutions were slightly stronger than the four clans as it was a place specially made for cultivation, they had better martial arts, pills and their cultivators were more powerful though the clans compensated this by being more numerous and united.
Nonetheless, the most important reason behind this truce was that martial institutes never tried to enlarge their territories or fight for the city's businesses. They kept a low profile and never participated in the struggles between the powers of Azure Water City as they were wholeheartedly focused on finding promising disciples.
Their only objective was to nurture good seeds and send them to the sect they were affiliated with, which in turn would reward them afterwards. The more talented the disciples the sect received and the more resources they would send to the martial institute, but if they turned out to be a disappointment, the latter wouldn't get anything.
Ye Mo shortly arrived in the center of Azure Water City. The place was filled with wealthy pedestrians and powerful cultivators, and Ye Mo stuck out like a sore thumb among them. He had never been there before, the old man clearly told him it was too dangerous to even approach the area, as there were many strong and influential inhabitants who lived in the surroundings which would toy and torture mortals like Ye Mo simply to pass time and entertain themselves.
Due to these circumstances, he had to ask passers-by the directions to the Tiger Martial Institute.
He somehow found his way taking turns left and right until he arrived in a wide area filled to the brim with thousands of people while incessant chatting resounded everywhere.
Most of them were youths standing on a huge square. Some were excitedly talking together while others were motionless. In front of them were huge iron doors and just above the main gate was a signboard with the three characters, "Tiger Martial Institute", engraved in calligraphy style writing. Each stroke was grand and magnificent making people immediately notice it when passing by.
Beside the square, he could see many stalls with middle-aged men in sleeveless light brown martial outfits sitting behind the counter. In front of each one was a huge queue of around a hundred kids, sometimes accompanied by their relatives or friends, waiting in line.
Despite the large number of participants, it was very orderly and no one was cutting in line or bothering someone else.
This was a special rule of the institution to maintain equity and anyone disturbing or preventing others from registering would break it. This would result in a beating to the brink of death before the troublemaker would be thrown out. They were never allowed to participate again no matter their background or status.
Ye Mo approached the shortest queue and waited for some time. Fortunately, the participants were registered relatively fast and after less than an hour, it was his turn.
"Name and age?" The man in front of Ye Mo had a short beard and lazy eyes.
He didn't even let him say anything as he immediately asked, disdain flashing in his eyes.
"Ye Mo, twelve." Ye Mo saw his gaze but didn't react, he was wholeheartedly focused on the competition.
Without greeting him, he curtly answered.
The man inscribed something on a token and gave it to him. It was just a simple wooden token with his name and age on the back of it.
While handing over the token, the man pointed to the square where all the youths waited and said, "Take this and go wait with the others."
Every time he opened his mouth, he used the less words possible as he quickly moved to the next entrant.
Ye Mo placed the token in his pocket and left. He didn't show it but he was slightly frustrated. He had already been standing in line for an hour and now he was back to waiting indefinitely. It was a waste of time he could use to train and cultivate to reinforce himself instead but he was stuck here and could only put up with this situation.
During their short exchange, Ye Mo didn't show any respect to the stall owner the same way this one's attitude was far from welcoming, but despite that, the man didn't mind Ye Mo's attitude. It might not seem like it, but every member in charge of registering the participants were mighty Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators.
The man could clearly see Ye Mo had no cultivation. Kids like him were cannon fodder who quickly got eliminated by the real experts during the recruitment competition.
Among the thousands of youths coming every time, most of them were in the same case as Ye Mo, ordinary kids with no cultivation. Despite that, most of them had eyes full of dreams and ambition, believing they were destined to break convention and become dragons among men in a single day.
As if doing some push-ups and slashing the wind with a sword was enough to prevail or just determination and a bit of luck would do the trick, but the stall owner knew almost none of those pitiful kids would remain in the end.