While the testing elders were racing back to the sect to report.
Ning Ruan got dumped on the slope of a certain barren mountain.
Desolation in every direction. Not a rock feature or tree worth the name.
A place so poor even stray dogs wouldn't linger.
Ning Ruan paused, then ventured, "Master... is this peak concealed by an array?"
"Good eye. Our Invincible Peak's guardian array is a damaged formation from high antiquity, restored by your Third Senior Brother. We've used it for years.
In that particular field... he has real talent."
As she spoke, Liu Yun produced a jade token with a complicated expression, a thread of light flowing from her fingertip into it:
"It's a concealment array. Only the proper token can open it and reveal our Invincible Peak's true face."
Invincible Peak?
Ning Ruan couldn't help clicking her tongue. "Master, our peak must be incredible, then?"
Invincible — wouldn't that make it the single most impressive peak in the whole Crimson Heaven Sect?
The corner of Liu Yun's mouth twitched. She opened her mouth.
A good while later, she gave two carefully casual coughs:
"Ahem... Outside, our Invincible Peak is also known as Xueyang Peak. The name 'Invincible' was bestowed by your master personally."
Ning Ruan: "..."
Wonderful. So the swaggering, ludicrously cool name was self-appointed.
...
Silence settled over the mountainside.
The better part of an incense stick's time went by.
The mountain remained exactly as bald as before.
The array that should have opened... showed not the faintest ripple.
By this point even the dullest person alive would have sensed something was wrong.
Ning Ruan: "..."
Liu Yun: "..."
"Master... the array..."
Ning Ruan pressed her lips together. The awkwardness in the air felt thick enough to carve out a three-bedroom apartment.
The lord of the peak, home at last, unable to open her own guardian array...
How ridiculous was that!
Liu Yun had evidently arrived at some realization. Her face darkened until it looked ready to devour a couple of small children.
She rounded on Ning Ruan and ground out through her teeth:
"Those things you blew people up with earlier. Got any left?"
Ning Ruan nodded firmly. "A tiny bit."
With that.
She reached back into her storage belt and pulled out two fistfuls of black orbs.
She shot Liu Yun a questioning look.
The latter nearly choked on her mouthful of strong wine. Her lovely eyes locked onto the two fistfuls of black spheres, eyelid spasming:
"That's your idea of a tiny bit?"
"Never mind!" She took a hard swig, slowly lifted her chin, and pointed. "That direction. Blow it up."
Ning Ruan held her two fistfuls of Thunderclap Bombs, expression odd. "You're sure? Really blow it up?"
"Blow it up!" Liu Yun answered with exactly one word.
Well, if she insisted.
Ning Ruan didn't hesitate any further.
She hurled both fistfuls of Thunderclap Bombs in a single throw.
The motion practiced and fluid.
What followed was one almighty BOOM.
Like a thunderclap, the ear-splitting explosion shook the sky.
Nearly half of Invincible Peak trembled with it.
Liu Yun's wine flask very nearly leapt out of her hand in fright.
She still remembered to drop a defensive barrier of light over Ning Ruan first — then squeezed out, through gritted teeth:
"You... threw all of it?"
Ning Ruan blinked, uncomprehending. "All of that batch, yes. Do we need more? I still have a little."
And so saying.
From the storage belt she casually drew another fistful of Thunderclap Bombs — the mere sight of which made Liu Yun's heart lurch.
Liu Yun: "That's enough! No more explosions!"
That was "still a little"?! She'd eat dirt on the spot!
"Oh!"
Under her bargain master's complicated and indescribable gaze, Ning Ruan finally stood down.
The moment the Thunderclap Bombs were stowed.
The bald mountain before them abruptly transformed.
Beneath coiling mist and cloud —
rocks and forest,
pavilions and towers,
all shimmered faintly into view.
Ning Ruan's eyes went wide. She was just opening her mouth —
when the back of her collar was once more seized in Liu Yun's grip, and off they shot.
...
A few breaths later.
The main hall of Invincible Peak.
Outside: majestic, awe-inspiring architecture.
Inside: poverty, scrubbed bare.
Ning Ruan stood in a main hall that did not contain so much as a stool, expression profoundly complicated, words rising and dying several times in her throat.
Just then.
At the hall's entrance.
A figure came hurrying in.
The newcomer wore a green robe.
His face, warm as polished jade, bore the kind of smile that made people want to trust him on instinct.
The moment he came to a stop, he bowed to Liu Yun:
"Disciple Luo Yue greets Master."
Liu Yun swallowed her wine, face growing steadily uglier. "Just you? Where are the rest of those delinquent disciples?"
"Well..." Luo Yue pressed his lips together, his mellow, gentle voice emerging with some hesitation:
"Second Junior Brother has been abroad for years. In all probability, most likely, presumably still alive.
Third Junior Brother's nerves are even worse than last year. He's laid ninety-nine arrays around his residence — I expect he simply hasn't sensed Master's return.
Fourth Junior Brother... Master, you know how he is. Unless his life or his money is on the line, he won't stir half a step.
Fifth Junior Brother and Seventh Junior Brother had a sparring match yesterday, gravely wounded each other, and are both in seclusion recovering today."
"So my whole grand Invincible Peak can't scrape together enough people to fill two hands?" Liu Yun felt rage buzzing through her skull.
Of all the disciples in the Crimson Heaven Sect, how had she managed to fish this pack of delinquents out of ten thousand?
Thank goodness.
Thank goodness that this year, on the very eve of the peak being disbanded, she'd finally taken in one normal disciple.
At the thought.
Liu Yun finally felt marginally better:
"Little one. Come meet your Eldest Senior Brother."
Only now did Luo Yue look properly at the girl in the hall — sword casket on her back, yet with the plaza's light-element test token hanging unmistakably at her waist.
Before Ning Ruan could speak, he had already drawn a jade-green bracelet from his storage ring and offered it over, smile warmer still:
"So it's our Little Sister! Little Sister is a light-element spirit master?
Our first meeting comes rather suddenly — I haven't prepared a proper welcome gift.
Take this Qiankun Bracelet and use it for now. It's only a Yellow Rank high-grade spirit artifact, but it strengthens your defenses. It should serve you well."
Before Ning Ruan could get a word out, a bracelet had been pressed into her hands...
Welcome gifts were supposed to be exchanged, weren't they?
She stood blank for a beat.
Then reached into the jade storage belt at her waist, drew out a wooden dagger, and placed it in Luo Yue's hand:
"I haven't prepared anything either. Please take this, Senior Brother... As for its rank, I'm not too sure myself."
The "not too sure" was honest.
But Ning Ruan privately reckoned it ought to beat the Qiankun Bracelet by a fair margin.
Something of the Qiankun Bracelet's quality felt about on par with the iron basins they used for chicken feed back in the village...
Luo Yue was still basking in the happy daze of receiving a gift from his new Little Sister.
The next instant —
the material of the wooden dagger struck him like a thunderbolt. His hands trembled; his jaw hung open:
"This... this, this... is this lightning-struck wood?"
Even Liu Yun's gaze snapped to the dagger. A moment later, she could barely mask the shock in her voice:
"Five-thousand-year lightning-struck wood... carved into this little thing???"
"Five thousand years?" Eldest Senior Brother Luo's dagger-holding hand gave a violent shudder.
As if clutching something scalding, he hurriedly thrust it back toward Ning Ruan:
"Little Sister, I cannot accept a treasure of this caliber. Keep it to protect yourself."
"..."
A treasure of this caliber... Ning Ruan suddenly felt a pang deep in her liver.
Right. She'd forgotten again.
Outside the village, there were no bigshots walking the streets.
No geniuses as common as stray dogs.
And, apparently... not much money either.
The wood lying around everywhere back home was a priceless treasure out here...
"Keep it, Eldest Senior Brother... I have more. No need to be polite."
Ning Ruan refused to take the dagger back.
She even reached back into the jade storage belt and produced a wooden gourd:
"Master, this is for you, a token of your disciple's respect. You absolutely must accept it."