Chapter 22: Announcement and a memory Fragment.

Tian sat on the edge of his bunk after the first drill, with the cloud-mark token in his hand. In the morning.

Why is this fucking core so silent, is it dead or something. ahh I am craving Qingxue!!

Just when he thought about the core a memory came into his head.

In the previous life before dying, he had built the core with Yang stone, and using the reincarnation stone was a gamble, that had cost him everything, and given him this second body.

He remembered that what he had never finished, was a technique that belonged only to it.

Orthodox manuals treated dual cultivation like a temporary exchange of energy and demonic methods treated it like theft. Neither fit a foundation that could hold both without cracking.

If he could shape a circulation path that used the core’s balance, instead of fighting it, every dual from here on won’t be borrowed power.

It’ll be something entirely his own !

It will be a slow work, and it demands partners who could take the load.

Tsk.... the outer dorms did not offer privacy to me at all! And with my "mixed root".... Tsk, I mean with my Chaos core it’ll be a pain in the ass to go to the inner court.

He also thought about the eyes that had followed him before the sect gates.

Whoever had been hunting me outside, those fuckers! they think that a mixed foundation was worth too much. What happened now fuckers?

He didn’t feel like they had a hand on the inside of Azure Cloud yet.

Elder Zhou shouted about realms, Elder Zhao Wen counted chips and our Deacon Liu Shan ran rosters. None of them felt like someone, waiting for a signal from a mastermind.

Inside the mountain the pressure was an ordinary sect pressure: ranking, resources, the long climb from east slope to mid to inner.

Gu Shen kicked the leg of the bunk on his way past. "You are thinking so hard brother, the porridge will go cold! Morning formation is in a stick of incense."

"Our elder Fang already marked two people for being late yesterday!!! and he looked so happy about it."

"yeah Shen brother I am coming" Lin chuckled softly and started walking.

"Good come quickly brother, If you get marked I won’t share my next chip!!" Gu Shen grinned with a brilliant smile.

"By the way, brother Gu, do you know anything about our sect master?"

"Sect master?, well I don’t know, maybe she’s in closed training, I’ll tell you If I get any information"

’She...’ so our respected sect master is a woman. Well Must be very strong.

They joined the formation lines on the packed dirt below the practice field, rows of outer disciples repeating the same basic stance, they were leaning under Deacon Liu Shan’s eye.

Lin Tian kept the dual core locked, and his body took the ordinary stress of footwork and breath.

"Tsk Tsk Tsk ... The timing is very bad! And at this rate I might die in this cold! this crazy Deacon wants to kill us!" Gu Shen muttered about the training and timing of Deacon Shen.

The morning passed in the "unglamorous" effort that built more disciples than any single flashy win.

When the lines finally broke, with low talk about who had been marked and who had managed to look competent, without sweating through their robes!

Su Qingxue found him near the cistern, after the formation lines broke, white ribbon neat, outer robes still damp at the hem from the early wash.

The dual thread warmed the moment she stepped into range as if this bastard, had been waiting for the distance to close.

"You look like someone, who spent the night inventing problems," she muttered.

"yeah only one problem, but it is useful though" He agreed with a grin.

"Useful problems? What kind of thing is that?" She glanced at the path behind him, then at Gu Shen, who had the "sense" to take his bowl elsewhere!

"Silver-cloud didn’t show this morning. That doesn’t mean they will stop asking. Stay with the drill groups and don’t walk alone! At least until we know whether their interest is curiosity or orders."

"You’re acting like my mother, don’t you think" Lin Tian put his hand on her thighs, under the cover of the wall and his body.

"Wait! What are you doing, someone will see us, idiot!"

He slowly pushed his index finger towards her inner thighs, it brushed against her underwear.

"Oh, you! don’t do this please!"

Afterwards she didn’t object and let him play with her, She changed the subject and chuckled, her voice came out a little lower,

"The thread is steady between us now, so If something happens seriously, that I can feel it, I am coming whether the women’s path rules allow it or not."

His lips curled, "Why do you think a woman will do me harm? also I will "try" not to give you a reason."

Hmph idiot you don’t even understand a girl’s feelings!

She held his gaze for sometimes, her "spring-water" eyes clear and determined, she then turned back toward the women’s side.

While going away she murmured to herself, a little sadly "That time, before being separated by the dormitory rooms, we did it so many times, yet his cultivation didn’t grow!"

Lin Tian watched her go and let the dual thread settle again, warm and thin across the slope. A proof that different dormitories hadn’t undone what the dual had already made.

On the upper slope Ye Qingyao finished a private circulation set in her courtyard, and stepped out only because a mid-slope runner had brought a slate.

It required an inner disciple’s mark. Silver-white hair tied high, ice still faint on her sleeves, she walked the path, with the same precision she used on junior forms.

After sometimes Liu Yue somehow appeared near the gate with Han Shu in tow, well outer seniors were not supposed to loiter there, but Liu Yue treated rules like suggestions.

Ye Qingyao did not bother sending them away immediately.

"Zhao Wenshan’s demonstration is set for the day after tomorrow!" Liu Yue reported, as if Ye Qingyao had asked.

Are you a love contractor or something’?

She then added, "Jun Hanyue sent a note saying he might attend! Half the outer court is already arguing about who looks better under the mid-slope flags."

"Then half the outer court has too much free time"

Han Shu’s voice was quieter. "There is also talk that the annual list will be posted soon. The one that opens a path to the inner court for outer winners!"

Ye Qingyao’s steps did not slow. "Talk is not a slate you know. When the announcement is real, the mountain will hear it without dining-hall help."

Liu Yue looked briefly disappointed that the conversation had not turned into a ranking of faces.

Han Shu only nodded, already filing the rumor with the rest of the mid-slope noise.

Ye Qingyao left them at the gate, ice-path chill trailing faintly behind her, and returned to the work.

Meridians, forms and her cold clarity that ranking noise can’t touch.

In her courtyard she ran the third stance twice more, for her own discipline, frost gathering and fading along the practice stone.

She did not once let her mind drift, down to the east field.

The announcement came in the late afternoon, with the afternoon’s drill lines, and the outer disciples were drifting toward the cistern in loose groups.

Elder Zhou Ming climbed the same low platform, used for the realm speech.

Well this time Deacon Liu Shan did not need to bark for silence, because the weight of an elder on the platform was enough!

Behind Zhou stood a junior with a long cloth banner and when the cloth unrolled, the cloud-mark of Azure Cloud sat above fresh ink.

It was fucking big, the whole east slope could read from the front ranks.

"Annual Azure Competition," Elder Zhou, his voice carrying without strain.

"For outer court, Combat, formation, and resource trials across three days.

"The top ranks will receive contribution points, better lodging, and for those who place high enough, a formal chance to be considered for the inner court under elder review!

"This is not a festival, you can think of it as a measure. If your root is thin and your stance is lazy, or your courage only works when no one is watching, stay in the ordinary drills and do not waste the judges’ time!!

"If you believe you can climb, put your name on the list before the second night bell tomorrow.

"The details will be posted at the token hall and the Recording Pavilion. That’s all!!"

The field broke into noise the moment he stepped down. The excitement, fear, the sudden calculation of who had a chance and who doesn’t.

Gu Shen appeared at Lin Tian’s shoulder with his usual practical frown,

"What a fucking big lecture!! Brother my ears are trembling. Gu Shen lifted his hands from his ears then said, "The inner court, for outer disciples, brother are you putting your name down?"

Lin Tian looked at the banner then at the crowd already pressing toward the token hall, and felt the dual core turn once under his control.

"Of course, It’s only natural for me to put my name. As an outer court disciple why won’t I put my name? He chuckled.

Across the slope, near the women’s path, Su Qingxue had stopped walking to read the same words from a distance, and the dual thread carried a pulse of her focus toward him.

Higher up, where the mid-slope lanterns were being lit, the news would reach the inner paths before night.

Our Ye Qingyao would hear it without needing Liu Yue’s voice.

Lin Tian thought while walking towards his dorm,

for a pretending "mixed-root" outer disciple with a hidden core, it is my first public step.

I need to be stronger quickly, the more stronger I’ll be the more stronger people I’ll come to know! and soon I’ll cross the Realms.

Wait!!! If I can win the points, I’ll need an elder’s review to go, to the inner court! Should I seduce Elder Zhao Wen?