Peace in the fairyland (12): Skipping a Level

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian had made slow progress in their weapon training recently and had accumulated a lot of questions that they wanted to ask Master Dugu, so they immediately presented them to him in all seriousness.

Dugu Shanhai was worthy of being the outer sect Headmaster of Qingyang Sect, with rich experience in cultivation. Just by looking at the performance of the two young men, he knew where they had not fully understood. After giving targeted explanations, Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian both felt enlightened, and their mastery of various techniques, especially the weapon techniques, was greatly improved.

At the end of the one-hour individual teaching, Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian were even able to stand on their respective weapons and move in the air for a short period of time.

Compared with the previous few days when they could only control the weapon to shake slightly, this progress was considerable. Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian were very excited. In time, flying with the sword would no longer be a dream.

Dugu Shanhai and Hua Manyue, who were standing by, watched the two people practicing with great joy. It could be seen that they really liked and were interested in cultivation. The worries in their hearts were finally put to rest. They could only sigh inwardly that it turned out that there really were people who took cultivation as fun. It could only be said that the world was so big that there were all kinds of wonders.

Thinking back to when they first embarked on the path of cultivating immortals, they felt that the courses taught by the immortals and the contents of the jade slips were as difficult to understand as the Book of Heaven. They became worried when they talked about attending classes to cultivate and trembled when they heard about assessments. Cultivation was a heavy task for them, which was very different from Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian who enjoyed it.

After putting his mind at ease, Dugu Shanhai decided to follow the wishes of Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian and allow them to start learning about alchemy and refining weapons now.

After hearing the news, the most excited ones were Immortal Master Luo Qi and Immortal Master Zhao Xuhai. They flew over happily after receiving the message and accepted Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian as their registered disciples on the spot.

Among the disciples of Qingyang Sect, the ones with the highest status were naturally the inner disciples. However, the status of inner disciples was extremely rare. Every year, only a few outer disciples could be promoted to the inner sect. And once they entered the inner sect, they would no longer have much contact with outer disciples.

Among the outer sect disciples, the ones who had the highest status in daily life were the registered disciples of the outer sect elders. These registered disciples would not only receive training from the sect, but also receive private instruction and subsidies from the immortal elders, which is very enviable.

After Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian paid their respects to their master according to the rules of Qingyang Sect, their identities became registered disciples of the outer sect elders.

The always calm and indifferent Immortal Zhao Xuhai happily gave Cheng Huaiqian a pocket pavilion. This pocket pavilion looked only the size of a palm, but after being activated it would become a courtyard with its own protective capabilities. Immortal Zhao explained:

“If you don’t want to live in my palace under Fire Hammer Mountain, you can find any place you like on the mountain, put this pocket pavilion down, and live there.”

Cheng Huaiqian quickly requested, “Can I invite Junior Brother Xia to live with me?” He didn’t want to be separated from his lover.

Luo Qi, the immortal standing by, immediately became anxious. How could his disciple live on someone else’s mountain? He quickly refused, saying:

“Huaiqian, your junior brother Xia will live on my White Head Peak. My White Head Peak has more spiritual energy than Immortal Zhao’s Fire Hammer Mountain.” The implication was, don’t seduce your junior brother Xia to live on Fire Hammer Mountain, where spiritual energy is scarce.

“My junior brother Xia and I have made similar progress in our cultivation. We often discuss our progress with each other. We still hope to live together…”

Cheng Huaiqian said worriedly.

Immortal Hua Manyue smiled and suggested, “I think it would be better to let Huaiqian move his miniature pavilion to White Head Peak, and let the two young men live together on Immortal Luo’s White Head Peak.”

This was a good idea, and several immortals agreed. Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian were also very satisfied.

At that moment, Immortal Luo Qi took Xia Ruize and Cheng Huai back to White Head Peak, found a place with beautiful scenery, activated the pocket pavilion, and suddenly, an exquisite and beautiful two-courtyard house appeared in front of everyone.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian looked at their future new home with curiosity and satisfaction, and from then on they decided to live in Baitu Peak.

Anyway, they no longer needed to go to the lecture hall for classes, and living anywhere would not affect their private classes with the immortals. Staying away from the noisy courtyards of outer disciples would make it more convenient for them to concentrate on their cultivation.

The only trouble might be that Wu Wei would have to run farther to get meals for the two of them. After all, the immortals on the various mountains had all practiced fasting, and they had never taught such young registered disciples who had not yet practiced fasting. He could prepare spiritual tea and fruits for them, but could not provide them with meals.

After Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian returned to their original room, packed their luggage and left, the news that they had become registered disciples of the outer sect elders spread.

The new young disciples did not quite understand the meaning of registered disciples, but the junior disciples who had entered six years earlier and the disciples who had entered three years earlier were shocked by the news.

Upon hearing the news, senior brothers and sisters rushed to the area where the new batch of outer disciples of the Yin period were located, wanting to see the two legendary geniuses, but they found out that they had already moved away.

The senior brothers and sisters had no choice but to find the outer disciples who were close to Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian to get some information. They looked around but couldn’t find them at all. Instead, they heard a lot of news about Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian being rude and ungrateful.

“What are you talking about? They are now a registered disciple. We have to call them Senior Brothers when we see them. They are busy. They are not people who are easy to approach or please, okay?”

“That’s right, you idiots, you didn’t take advantage of your senior brothers’ insignificance to build a good relationship with them. In the future, they will be people you can’t even reach. Hey, why are we telling these little brats all this? What do they know?”

“Let’s go, let’s go. I’m afraid these new guys don’t even know what a registered disciple means, and they dare to say bad things about them here. You should be more careful. You are already far behind them, yet you are still gossiping here.”

……

The senior brothers and sisters who returned empty-handed were unwilling to give up, and gave the Yin disciples a severe lecture, which made most of them look confused. Was it really that powerful to become a registered disciple of an immortal?

Not all of the outer disciples were ignorant. For example, those like Li Shunchen, who came from a family background, understood the importance of being a registered disciple of Qingyang Sect, and therefore felt particularly frustrated.

He had tried their best, but he had not been able to catch up with the two people who were far ahead. He only saw the gap between them widening…

No matter what these young disciples thought, they couldn’t easily see Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian, and even Wu Wei was not easy to see.

After Cheng Huaiqian’s pocket pavilion was activated, it turned into a large two-courtyard compound with six rooms in the inner courtyard and four rooms in the outer courtyard. There were enough rooms, so after the two consulted Wu Wei’s opinion, they let Wu Wei live in a room in the outer courtyard.

How could Wu Wei, who was extremely surprised, refuse? As a servant who shared a room with many other people, it was already a surprise for him to have his own room, not to mention living in the White Head Peak with abundant spiritual energy. He immediately agreed to pack his luggage and move into the new home. He was even happy to spend half an hour on the road to pick up meals every day.

Xia Ruize became the disciple of Immortal Luo Qi, and the gifts given by Immortal Luo Qi were an alchemy furnace and a storage bag of materials for training, and of course more than ten bottles of various elixirs.

In short, not only was there enough medicine for both him and Cheng Huaiqian to cultivate, but he still had quite a few left, so he gave Wu Wei a bottle of Guyuan Pills.

In addition, Wu Wei was influenced by the diligence of Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian, and put aside all other things to concentrate on cultivation. Two months later, after more than a year, he finally broke through to the fourth level of Qi training.

Although the joy of the breakthrough disappeared after Wu Wei found that he still could not see through the cultivation level of his two senior brothers, which meant that the two senior brothers were at least at the fifth level of Qi training, he became more motivated to work hard on his cultivation and get closer to his two senior brothers after he calmed down.

With a better environment, Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaqin’s lives were completely filled with nothing but study and cultivation. In addition to the joint progress of their heart methods, skills and talismans, one of them delved into the research of alchemy while the other delved into the refining of weapons, and each of them made rapid progress following their master.

As for formations, it was an advanced course that required accumulation. No matter how talented they were, they wouldn’t be able to do it if they didn’t have enough accumulation.

Fortunately, the two of them accumulated knowledge very quickly, and the immortal Wang Teng, who taught them formations, also thought highly of them. He prepared a large amount of information specifically for them and took the two of them to delve deeper into the formation.

Without the bother of trivial matters, they practiced in the mountains for countless times. When Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian’s time of cultivation was interrupted, four months had already passed.

The six immortals who were in charge of teaching the two had personally witnessed their growth step by step to their current level. They were so shocked that they took it for granted. After careful consideration, one day, Master Dugu suddenly proposed to the two:

“The Qingyang Sect’s outer sect will conduct a major assessment every six months, and an outer sect competition every year. One month later, it will be the semi-annual major assessment, which is a competition between disciples in the same batch.

Logically speaking, your competitors should be the Yin year disciples who entered the sect at the same time as you.

However, with your current strength, the outcome of competing with the Yin generation disciples is uncertain, and you will not be able to get the opportunity to grow.

If you want to find an opponent of equal strength, you will need to compete with the disciples of the next generation who entered the sect six years earlier than you. What do you two think about this?”

While asking the questions, Dugu Shanhai was also feeling emotional in his heart that Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian’s strength had improved so quickly, exceeding the expectations of their teachers time and time again.

So much so that now that the big assessment was about to begin, the immortals suddenly realized that these two young guys had a crushing advantage over their peers and the previous batch of disciples. Only by competing with the batch of disciples who entered six years ago could the best few of that batch of disciples have a chance of suppressing these two young guys.

In order to put some pressure on these two evil little guys, the immortals really worked hard.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian looked at each other and quickly nodded in agreement. They were full of expectations for this.

In the past six months, the two of them have always been training alone, with each other being their sparring partners. As time went on, they couldn’t help but worry about their lack of actual combat experience.

Immortal Luo Qi currently only had one registered disciple, Xia Ruize, while Immortal Zhao Xuhai had three other registered disciples in addition to Cheng Huaiqian. As a result, those three disciples were often “picked on” by Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian, and acted as sparring partners to fight against the two of them.

It was a pity that those three people had lost hope in their cultivation and therefore wanted to delve into weapon refining. At the beginning, they thought they had entered the field ten years earlier than the two newcomers and that they could not lose, so they agreed to the battle.

In the beginning, they were able to gain the upper hand, but who knew how Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian grew up, the advantages of the three in the fight became smaller and smaller, and they had already fallen into a disadvantage a month ago.

In addition, Cheng Huaiqian’s progress in weapon refining was also rapid. Now the three had changed their way of addressing Cheng Huaiqian and Xia Ruize to “senior brothers”, and even avoided the two of them on a daily basis in order to avoid the challenge of these two senior brothers.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huaiqian couldn’t find a suitable opponent to practice fighting with, so they were of course looking forward to meeting an opponent who was equally matched or even stronger than them, so they would naturally not reject Headmaster Dugu’s proposal.

And in the next month of preparation, they would practice more diligently.

Xia Ruize and Cheng Huai had a hunch that if they could get good results in this test, they would probably be allowed by the immortals to go out for training and truly come into contact with the “back world” that had appeared more and more frequently in their eyes and ears in recent months.

This would be a breakthrough for them to gain a deeper understanding of this unprecedented world where no mainline missions had been released for half a year.