Wan Lihan walked out of the dense forest line, his face a perfectly blank stone mask as he returned to the rocky ledge near the main entrance plaza. Bypassing the spots stained with fresh rogue blood, he sat cross-legged in a quiet corner, silently resting his to wait for the official gates to open. Three hours passed under the scorching afternoon sun. Suddenly, a loud, resonant chime echoed from the living rock of the peaks. An Inner Disciple dressed in pristine silk robes stepped onto the elevated grand stage, his voice amplified by Qi to roar across the plaza.
"The entry trials for the Xinwu Sect are officially open! Line up in accordance with your registration tokens!" hundreds of aspiring commoners,aspiring rich genius and rogue cultivators instantly scrambled into organized lines. The Inner Disciple raised a glowing jade mirror, shouting the primary criteria:
"This year, the sect will only accept those who possess the best spiritual roots and compatible elemental affinities! For example, we will readily take those with one or two harmonious elements, .But if your core holds completely conflicting elements, do not expect to cross our threshold!
"The selection began rapidly. Dozens of inner disciples walked down the ranks, using testing talismans to scan the crowd. Lihan stood quietly in the left line. When a senior disciple pressed a cold jade stone against his chest, a chaotic, dim light flickered from the artifact.The senior disciple glanced at the reading, scoffing immediately. "False spiritual root. Affinities... Water, Fire, Earth and Wind? 4 attributes but have clashing elemental affinities and False spiritual root. You are rejected. Move to the side.
"Lihan let his shoulders drop slightly, forcing a deep, heavy look of sadness onto his face to completely match the despair of the surrounding failures. But behind his disappointed expression, his mind was operating with clinical precision. The grand sects always have a fallback filter for combat capability, he calculated flatly. They wouldn't discard this many potential Commoners and rouge cultivator . There will be a second trial.Sure enough, once the lucky chosen geniuses were escorted through the main jade gates, the Inner Disciple on the stage shouted down at the remaining crowd of failures
."Those who were not picked still have one final, desperate chance to enter the outer sect!" the disciple bellowed.
"The second trial is a test of raw combat. Those who can successfully hunt and kill a low tier Level Beast before the sun sets will be granted entry!
"The moment the words left the disciple's mouth, some of failed applicants went wild. They spun on their heels, screaming as they sprinted frantically back down the long, winding mountain trails to find beasts in the lower valleys.Lihan didn't move an inch toward the path. He stood perfectly still, his eyes tracking the stampede with a cold sneer. Fools, he calculated silently. We traveled up these exact paths on foot for a full day, and not a single beast was spotted near the main roads. Going down is a waste of time.
Instead of following the crowd down, Lihan turned his back on the plaza and navigated the narrow, craggy footpaths leading toward the completely isolated, wild side of the mountain peak.He tracked the dense, heavy scent of pine and crushed roots for half a mile until the trail opened up into a rugged, shadow-drenched ravine.
Peering through the thick oak brush, his sharp gaze locked onto a massive, heavily armored creature rooting through the stone. It was a vicious low level bone Boar, its hide covered in rocky scales that gleamed like solid rock .Lihan silently reached into his black robes, his fingers locking onto the hilt of his newly acquired mid teir grade sword. The hunt was on.