The Outer Sect refectory was a cavernous hall of noise and steam, filled with the clatter of wooden bowls and the low hum of a hundred simultaneous conversations. The air hung thick with the scent of simple, hearty fare—steamed spirit grain, braised root vegetables, and weak herbal tea. Jin Chen picked at his meal, the food tasting like ash in his mouth, his mind still circling the peaks high above.
His brooding was interrupted as a group of disciples at the next table leaned in, their voices a conspiratorial buzz that cut through the general din.
"Forget trying to catch a glimpse of him," one said, a lanky boy with fingers stained from herb-grinding. "No one gets within a hundred paces of Veiled Silence Peak without feeling the air itself grow teeth. Elder Lan's gaze is like winter frost—it sees everything and permits nothing. But the girl! Meixiu!" He leaned closer, his eyes wide. "She's not hidden away. She's right there in the chaos, and Elder Tao already let her polish his primary cauldron yesterday! The Seven-Flame Inferno vessel his own senior disciples aren't allowed to touch! They say she doesn't even use tools—just her hands. She can sense ingredient affinity by touch alone. She called a five-century-old Blood Ginseng 'sleepy' and a common Frost Moss 'excited'—and the Elder just nodded like it made perfect sense!"
Jin Chen's chopsticks stilled. He didn't turn, but every fiber of his being focused on their words.
"That's the real question, isn't it?" a third disciple interjected, his voice dropping lower. "They arrived together. They were placed in the same courtyard before the selections. He's a ghost in the highest peak, she's a prodigy causing chaos in the alchemy valley. What is the connection between the monster hidden in the mist and the girl who makes Elder Tao's tea change color?"
The theories began to fly, each more elaborate than the last.
"Childhood friends, sworn under a twin moon or something poetic like that?" "Secret siblings,separated at birth by some grand clan tragedy? It would explain the protectiveness." "A political marriage pact between two hidden clans no one's ever heard of.He's the weapon, she's the key to some alchemical inheritance."
One disciple smirked. "Or maybe it's simpler. Maybe she's his good luck charm. You see the plush rabbit she carries? They say it's a divine artifact that absorbs misfortune. He can cultivate that terrifying pitch-black qi because she holds all his bad luck."
Jin Chen stared into his bowl of grain, his food forgotten. The envy that had been a sharp, personal blade now twisted into something more complex, a tangled knot of fascination and resentment. They weren't just two separate mysteries anymore; they were a combined entity, a single story unfolding in two parts. The untouchable genius and his inexplicable, chaotic shadow. The conversation solidified what he had only sensed: to understand the monster on the peak, one had to first understand the girl with the rabbit.
The gossip swelled as more disciples edged closer to the table, drawn by the tantalizing speculation. The focus widened from the two central mysteries to encompass the other bizarre talents who had ascended to the inner peaks.
"It's not just them," a new voice chimed in, a girl with her hair tied back in a practical knot. "The whole selection was filled with freaks. That Yan Lihua, the one with the white eyes? Elder Xiu took her. They say the Silk Phantom calls her, her 'perfect canvas'. That she can weave illusions so real they steal the breath from your lungs."
"And what about the twins?" another disciple added, shuddering slightly. "The white-haired ones who share a shadow? Jin Lei and Jin Mei. No one's ever heard them speak apart. They answer questions in perfect, creepy unison. Rumor is Elder Yue, the Dreammirror Blade, claimed them. Calls them his 'living mirrors'. I saw them once, just standing and staring at a wall. Together. Didn't blink for an hour."
A boy with broad shoulders snorted. "At least they're quiet. Have you seen the Black Tortoise girl, Shui Daiyu? The one with the scales on her back? She licks everything. I saw her taste a training post. Elder Ru has her now—they're calling her the Iron Widow's 'living fortress experiment'. Probably trying to make her poison-proof from the inside out."
"Don't forget the mute," someone else muttered. "Jian Nian. The one who communicates through sword-scratch. Word is Elder Bao took a liking to him. The Laughing Blade is teaching him some chaotic Drunken Sword style himself. Now he's stumbling around the training grounds, swinging a blade like he's fighting off invisible bees."
"And Feng Yan!" another piped up. "The flamboyant one with the red-gold hair? Even Elder Ru is molding her. They say she's teaching her a secret body cultivation art that makes her more beautiful with each stage while her skin becomes as tough as mountain jade and her bones unbreakable as the deepest bedrock."
The table fell into a momentary, overwhelmed silence. Jin Chen listened to their prattling, their wide-eyed amazement at these surface-level oddities, and a curl of disdain tightened in his chest. Fools. They were all new, himself included, but these disciples were blind. They chattered about these freshly selected novelties as if they were the main event, gawking at the first strange fish in a pond without realizing the true leviathans that lurked in the depths above.
They hadn't witnessed the true Inner Sect disciples, the seniors who had been cultivating for years, whose auras could crush a man without a thought, whose movements were less like practice and more like natural law. These new oddities were just that—new. They were nothing compared to the established monsters who truly defined the Celestial Sword Pavilion's terror.
But high above the valley, on the tiered sparring grounds where the air itself thrummed with a sharper intent, the conversation about the new disciples was not one of overwhelmed gossip, but of cold, strategic calculation.
The mid-morning sun beat down upon the tiered sparring arena carved into the mountainside, a domain far above the valley's dust yet still beneath the true celestial peaks. The air here thrummed with a sharper, more refined energy, and the sounds were not of grunting effort but the clean, precise ring of steel and the controlled hum of released qi. Two figures, their Inner Sect robes of fine grey silk marked with the subtle insignia of their rank—somewhere respectably within the top forty—moved through the closing forms of a duel.
Disciple B, a young man with intensity burning in his eyes, lunged. His blade, sheathed in a whip-like coil of water qi, sliced through the air toward his opponent's neck. It was a move that would have ended any bout in the outer grounds.
Disciple A didn't block. He simply wasn't there anymore. His form blurred, not with speed, but with a calculated misdirection, a subtle bending of light around him. He reappeared a pace to the left, his own sword, its edge shimmering with a faint, distorting heat, already resting gently against Disciple B's ribs. The match was over.
Disciple B lowered his blade, the water qi dissipating into a fine mist. He breathed heavily, not from exhaustion, but from frustration. "This new disciple of Elder Lan's..." he began, his gaze drifting upward toward the highest, most silent peak. "The whispers are everywhere. Should we be concerned? For the Grand Assembly?"
Disciple A retrieved a silk cloth from his sleeve and calmly wiped the sweat from his brow. His expression was one of cold, analytical dismissal. He followed his partner's gaze for a moment, then offered a thin, knowing smirk.
"A shadow," he said, his voice low and devoid of concern, "is only a threat if it steps into the light. Until then, it is merely a trick of perception. Let the outer fools gawk and gossip. Our focus remains on the opponents we can see, not the phantoms they invent."
He sheathed his sword, the click of the guard final. The sun climbed higher, promising the day's true heat.
"Elder Lan keeps her secrets. That is her way," he stated, his voice as cool and level as his gaze. "Our focus remains on the known quantities."
His eyes, sharp with calculation, scanned the bustling arena, lingering on other ranked disciples whose techniques ripped through the air with visible, terrifying potency. "Him," he nodded toward a youth whose fists crackled with lightning, "and her," his gaze flicked to a girl weaving blades of solidified wind, "and the twins from the Jin clan... they are the real competition for the top ten seats at the Grand Assembly. Not phantoms."
Disciple B followed his look, the frustration easing into strategic thought. "And the alchemist girl? The one connected to the phantom? Such talent is its own kind of variable."
A slow, predatory smile touched Disciple A's lips. "That... is the more interesting question. Talent like that is a resource. A prodigy who can polish Elder Tao's primary cauldron and sense ingredient affinity by touch is a treasure, regardless of her associations."
He watched a senior disciple shatter a training dummy with a single, qi-infused punch. "If the variable on the peak proves irrelevant, the resource remains. And resources can be... acquired."
The Grand Assembly, now a little over a year and a half away, loomed in every inner disciple's mind—not a test of brute force, but a supreme evaluation of foundational purity. It was a contest of qi essence: to demonstrate the absolute purity of one's cultivated energy, utterly free of the spiritual impurities that plagued most cultivators, and to exhibit flawless, microscopic control over its flow.
The prize was legend: immersion in the Sect's Heart of the Mountain hot spring. The waters didn't just cleanse; they rewrote a cultivator's potential. The qi-saturated essence could scoured the meridian channels, expand the dantian's capacity, and reforged the body's connection to the spiritual world. It was said a mortal could emerge from the waters a cultivator. For those already on the path, it was a once-in-a-lifetime leap toward immortality.
The top fifteen of the Inner Sect would not be competing. The highest five, monsters whose meridians were already perfected to a legendary peak, had no need. The next ten, the Sect's most prized existing geniuses, were barred by decree—the leadership sought to forge new champions, to elevate fresh talent into their ranks.
This Assembly was for the rest. For disciples like them, ranked in the thirties and forties, it was the single greatest opportunity to close the gap and seize a destiny that would otherwise take decades of grinding effort. A chance to bathe not for an hour, like the tenth-place winner, but for three full days if they claimed the ultimate victory.
The very thought made the air taste of possibility and fierce, impending struggle.
But not all struggles for power and position were waged on public arenas. In the quieter corners of the sect, away from the ring of steel and the hum of overt ambition, other games were played with smiles and carefully posed questions.
The path between the main Alchemy Hall and Elder Tao's peak was a well-worn ribbon of stone, fragrant with the ghost of a thousand concoctions. A junior apprentice, her robes smelling sharply of recently ground spirit herbs and her arms laden with a basket of rare twilight-blooming orchids, hurried along it, her mind focused on not tripping and ruining her precious cargo.
"Apprentice."
The voice was calm, melodic, and carried an undercurrent of unquestionable authority. The junior disciple froze and turned to see an older inner sect disciple leaning gracefully against a gnarled plum tree. Her robes were of finer make than the apprentice's, the alchemy sigil on her collar denoting a respected seniority within the main Hall. Her smile was warm, practiced, the very picture of benevolent concern.
"The new apprentice under Elder Tao's direct tutelage," the senior began, her tone conversational, as if they were merely discussing the weather. "Meixiu. She seems to have settled in well with the... unique chaos of his peak. It must be a comfort to have a familiar face here during such a transition." She paused, her head tilting slightly. "That striking young man she arrived with, he was taken by Elder Lan, yes? They must be very close."
The junior apprentice stiffened, her grip tightening on the orchid basket. To be addressed so directly by a senior of such standing was both an honor and a terror. "O-oh, I wouldn't know, senior sister!" she stammered, her eyes wide. "She... she doesn't speak of him. Not that I've heard, at least. I just... I once saw her, very late, standing outside the courtyard. She was looking up towards the highest peak, the one that's always so quiet, before she finally went inside." The girl swallowed, searching for the right word. "She didn't look sad, senior sister. She looked... determined."
The senior disciple's smile widened, a perfect, warm curve of approval. "Of course. Thank you for satisfying my curiosity. Don't let me keep you from your duties."
The moment the junior apprentice scurried away, relief in her steps, the warm smile vanished from the senior disciple's face. It was wiped away as if by a cold cloth, leaving behind an expression of sharp, cold calculation.
Her eyes, now devoid of any pretended warmth, narrowed slightly as she glanced first in the direction of Elder Tao's smoky peak, then upwards, towards the forbidding silence of Veiled Silence Peak. She was a respected senior within the main Alchemy Hall, her skills undeniable, yet she had never once drawn a glance of interest from the reclusive Tea Tyrant himself, remaining instead under the tutelage of a common Hall Elder who instructed the masses of inner sect alchemy disciples.
The pieces of information clicked together in her mind, not as gossip, but as strategic data. A determined connection, not a sad one. That was far more interesting, and far more valuable. This new information was a potential lever, a crack in the structure she had been unable to penetrate.
---