On the morning of the third day, Alexei and the others headed out again.
This time they had reinforcements: Duan and Jianqiang.
"Leave the ore business to me!" Duan announced the moment they stepped outside, slapping his own chest. His grin split his face wide, teeth flashing in the morning sun.
Passersby squinted and looked away.
It had less to do with his smile than with the glare reflecting off his bald head.
"When it comes to minerals, I'm a professional. I've been buying and selling ore for fifteen years. Whatever you need, I'll find it."
"Thanks," Alexei said, appreciating the help even if the man's enthusiasm was a lot to deal with before noon.
Their destination was still near the Immortal Alliance Plaza, but on the opposite side from the herb market. This part of the city was quieter and more industrial, with streets lined by warehouses and processing workshops instead of open-air stalls. Every so often, a creature would lumber past them. It looked vaguely like a yak, except it had three eyes arranged in a triangle across its broad forehead, and it was hauling two enormous cargo panniers overflowing with raw ore.
He stopped to watch one pass. The thing was about four meters tall, covered in shaggy brown fur.
"Three-Eyed Pack Ox," Duan supplied, noticing his interest. "Artifact Alliance uses them for hauling ore from the mines outside the city. They aren't spirit beasts, just ordinary animals. Slow as anything, but incredibly docile. They don't spook or bite, and they never refuse to work. That makes them perfect for moving cargo."
Alexei watched the ox plod past with its mountain of ore, and felt an odd twinge of recognition.
He'd seen something like this before. Not the three eyes, but the general vibe. The slow, patient, completely unbothered demeanor. The way it just kept moving forward regardless of what was happening around it.
It reminded him of the giant snail from the forest. Different creature, but same energy.
"Huh," he said, and moved on.
---
The Artifact Alliance district looked nothing like the herb market. The streets were lined with serious-looking warehouses and workshops, their entrances wide open to allow for the movement of heavy materials.
Duan led them into one of the larger warehouses. The interior was spacious and well-organized, with mineral samples arranged on shelves and finished metal ingots displayed in neat rows along one wall.
A shop attendant spotted them and started to approach, clipboard in hand. Duan waved him off. "We're just browsing."
The attendant relaxed and retreated. Which was understandable, the group cut an odd figure. Two women who looked perfectly pleasant, and two men who looked like they'd rob you in an alley and enjoy it. The attendant had clearly decided that discretion was the better part of customer service.
"So what are you looking for exactly?" Duan asked, turning to Alexei.
"Honestly? Everything. Or at least a sample of everything. I want to see what's available."
Duan raised an eyebrow but didn't question it. "Well, this shop carries about a dozen different types. Prices vary. Let's start from the cheap end and work up."
The selection was decent but not overwhelming. Iron ore, copper ore, dark iron, several varieties Alexei didn't recognize by sight. Finished ingots of each type sat in polished rows, prices marked on small tags.
He touched each one, checking what his system displayed.
[Crude Iron Ingot - Impurity: 67%]
[Crude Copper Ingot - Impurity: 58%]
[Crude Dark Iron Ingot - Impurity: 71%]
Not a single one unlocked any crafting recipe.
The problem was obvious: the purity was nowhere near what Minecraft required. These were raw, unprocessed ingots, decent for metalwork, but useless for his system. They'd need to go through his furnace first, smelted down to remove impurities and reach MC-standard purity. Which meant buying finished ingots here was pointless. He needed raw ore, not processed metal.
He spent another ten minutes checking the remaining samples, confirmed that none of them would work as-is, and made a decision.
Copper ore. That was the play.
It was one of the cheapest options available, and copper had uses he needed right now, lightning rods being the most urgent. His base back home was mostly wood, built on a mountaintop. The odds of a lightning strike were low, but "low" and "zero" were very different things, and he'd learned the hard way that this world didn't care about probability when it decided to kill you.
He walked over to a pile of crude copper ore. The price tag read sixteen low-grade spirit stones for a bulk purchase.
He winced internally but paid without haggling.
Remaining low-grade spirit stones: 17.
The copper ore would smelt into roughly fifteen or sixteen ingots once he processed it through his furnace. Enough for lightning rods, maybe a telescope if he felt ambitious.
As for the other ores?
Out of the question.
He had done the math on the walk over, running numbers in his head while Duan lectured about mineral grades.
Dark iron ingots, for example, cost a fortune even in crude form. To smelt enough crude dark iron down to a single MC-standard dark iron ingot, he'd need the equivalent of at least seventy low-grade spirit stones' worth of raw material.
And the fancier metals were even worse. Some of them were priced per gram.
He eyed a small case of what was labeled "Moonlight Iron." The price tag made him uncomfortable.
The dream of walking into a shop and buying his way to better gear in one go was officially dead. But it wasn't actually disappointing.
His mob farm back home was producing results at a steady rate. In three days, maybe less, he'd have enough iron ingots to work with. And once he had villagers, he could set up an iron farm that would generate a sustainable supply indefinitely.
He didn't need to buy iron. He just needed to be patient.
Patience. What a concept.
---
On the way out of the warehouse, Duan mentioned something useful: coal wasn't sold in the Artifact Alliance district at all. If Alexei wanted coal, he'd need to check the mundane merchant stalls on the outer edge of the plaza.
Coal turned out to be remarkably cheap.
About one and a half taels of silver per metric ton. Practically free by cultivation standards. And one MC coal block, when converted, cost roughly two taels of silver worth of raw coal.
He had Qingxue handle the purchase, three full stacks' worth, bulk order. The total came to 380 taels of silver, and the merchant even knocked off four taels because of the volume.
Storage was simple. He had the coal piled up, then spent a few minutes with his pickaxe converting it into MC-standard blocks. Each swing turned a chunk of mundane coal into the game's version, nine pieces combining automatically into a single coal block that flew into his inventory.
And then his system did something unexpected.
Experience points.
A rough estimate put the total at over 1,500 experience points from the entire haul. Which sounded like a lot until he remembered how expensive seed assimilation was.
Converting cultivation-world spirit seeds into MC-compatible versions wasn't cheap in experience terms. The simpler seeds required three to five levels each. The rarer ones demanded seven, eight, sometimes over ten levels per seed.
So the coal's experience bonus, generous as it was, got eaten alive by the seed conversion backlog almost immediately.
Still. Free coal and free experience. He'd take it.
---
The days leading up to the recruitment ceremony blurred together into a routine of market trips, ore calculations, and seed identification sessions back at the inn.
There was also calligraphy practice. Qingxue had decided it was essential to his "cultural integration," and she showed no signs of compromise. To avoid it, Alexei volunteered for recruitment duty at the sect's booth
It was the lesser of two evils. Sitting behind a table looking bored was preferable to hunching over a brush trying to make ink strokes look right while two women watched him struggle and offered increasingly unhelpful advice.
Besides, watching people react to Aureate Summit Sect's recruitment booth was entertaining.
The booth hadn't changed since the last time Alexei had seen it. The same shabby table stood beneath the same banner. Quan sat behind it just as before.
Alexei took up a position nearby, leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed, trying to look casual and not like he was hiding from brush practice.
The morning passed in a slow parade of potential recruits and their parents. Most took one look at Quan, decided that any sect willing to employ that man was probably terrifying, and moved on to friendlier-looking booths.
A few brave souls stopped to ask questions. Quan answered in monosyllables, his expression suggesting that the act of speaking was painful. They took the hint and moved on quickly.
Current disciples recruited: zero.
Around midday, a middle-aged woman with a sharp tongue stopped in front of the booth, dragging a boy of seven or eight behind her. The kid looked unbothered by everything, including his mother's increasingly loud complaints.
"What kind of joke is this?" the woman said, loud enough for half the plaza to hear. She was staring at the recruitment banner. "Why are your entry requirements higher than half the sects around here?"
The thin man beside her went pale. He reached for her arm. "Keep your voice—"
"Why should I?" She shook him off. "It's the truth! They're a third-rate sect charging first-rate prices. My boy deserves better than—"
"Please," the thin man said. "They're cultivators. If they hear you—"
The woman's mouth snapped shut. She glanced toward the booth, where Quan sat with his eyes half-lidded, completely motionless.
For a long moment, nobody moved.
Then the woman bowed stiffly in the booth's general direction, more out of self-preservation than respect, grabbed her son by the collar, and disappeared into the crowd. The boy went without complaint, hands in his pockets, looking like he'd rather be literally anywhere else.
The thin man hurried after them, casting one last nervous glance over his shoulder.
Quan didn't react.
He'd heard every word. Of course he had.
But after years of this, the words had stopped landing a long time ago. It was just noise now. Background static from people who didn't know any better and never would.
Alexei watched the woman and her family disappear into the crowd, then let out a long breath and slumped forward over the recruitment table.
"Well, that was exciting," he muttered, picking up the dull grey stone they'd been using for talent testing. He turned it over in his hands, examining it.
The qi-sensing stone. Bargain-basement version of proper spirit-testing equipment, available from the Immortal Alliance for the low, low price of five low-grade spirit stones.
Quan had called it "not flaunting wealth" when he asked why they weren't using the sect's spirit-testing stone. The real version could apparently determine specific aptitude levels based on the color and intensity of light it produced. The qi-sensing stone just told you whether someone had talent or not, based on slight color shifts and temperature changes.
"Cheer up," Yan said from where she sat nearby, looking far too amused by his misery. "You've still got the rest of the day."
"For what? More people walking past without stopping?" Alexei set the stone down. "At this rate, we'll recruit maybe one person by the end of the ceremony. If we're lucky."
It wasn't entirely the fault of their location or Quan's intimidating presence, though those didn't help. The real issue was the pre-recruitment system itself.
Most of the children who wandered past their booth fell into two categories: locals from Verdantree City who hadn't been tested yet, or visitors from outside who'd already confirmed their talent through merchant guild testing. The locals were longshots, statistically, most wouldn't have any cultivation aptitude at all. And the visitors who did have talent were already being aggressively recruited by higher-ranked sects.
Which left Aureate Summit Sect competing for scraps.
The qi-sensing stone was part of an unofficial tradition before the recruitment ceremony. It gave kids who weren't confident in their abilities, or couldn't afford proper testing, a chance to try their luck early. Sign a contract with a smaller sect now, guarantee yourself a spot somewhere, rather than risk failing the official ceremony and ending up with nothing.
For the sects, it was a gamble. According to Immortal Alliance regulations, once you signed a disciple contract, you were obligated to house and train that disciple for ten years minimum. Even if they turned out to be useless and could only work as menial labor.
The disciples were bound too. Once contracted, they couldn't join another sect for ten years. It was a mutual commitment that most people weren't willing to make lightly.
"Not many kids actually participate in early recruitment," Yan explained. "Ten years is a long time to gamble on a sect you barely know."
Alexei glanced at the booth next to theirs, where two disciples from Amber Peak Sect were managing a line of at least fifteen people. The contrast was depressing.
"Then why are they so popular?" he asked, gesturing at the crowd.
"Amber Peak isn't really a cultivation sect," Yan said. "It's more of a martial academy that happens to teach cultivation on the side. If you have talent, you cultivate. If you don't, you train as a martial artist. Either way, you get training and a roof over your head."
She paused, then added, "Also, they're an eighth-rank sect with a solid reputation. Of course they have applicants."
Alexei processed that for a moment. "So... we're competing with a school that takes anyone, charges money, and is two ranks higher than us."
"That's about right."
"And someone thought it was a good idea to set up our booth right next to theirs."
"Apparently."
He let his head drop back onto the table. "This is going great."
Before Yan could respond, Qingxue, who'd been sitting quietly beside him, fox kit curled in her lap, spoke up unexpectedly.
"Master used to say that cultivation is about fate. You can't force it."
Alexei lifted his head to stare at her. "Did you just read my mind?"
"What? No. Why would—"
"Because that's exactly what I was thinking."
Yan covered her mouth, clearly trying not to laugh. "She said the same thing to me when I was helping with recruitment last year. I'm the one who had to explain it to her."
Alexei looked between them. "So neither of you can read minds."
"No."
"You're sure."
"Quite sure."
"Because it really seems like..."
"We can't read minds," Yan said firmly, though her smile suggested she was enjoying this far too much.
Alexei decided to drop it.
The rest of the afternoon proceeded in much the same pattern: people walking past, occasionally stopping to ask questions, testing the stone, failing to show any aptitude, and moving on. By the time the sun started sinking toward the horizon, their recruitment total remained at zero.
----------
[POV: Li Yan'er]
Several hundred kilometers away, aboard the spirit ship of Celestial Path Sect, Yan'er sat in an elegantly furnished cabin.
"Where is that beggar?" she muttered, staring at a map of Verdantree City spread across the table in front of her.
Yi Mengyao was her former senior sect sister. She was also the woman who had ruined everything.
Well. Not ruined, exactly. Mengyao hadn't done anything deliberately. She'd just had the misfortune of being born with an Immortal Spirit Root and Immortal Bone, two extraordinarily rare cultivation gifts that Yan'er had decided she deserved more.
So she'd taken them.
It had been easier than expected, honestly. Her cultivation had skyrocketed. She'd gone from a moderately talented disciple to one of the sect's rising stars almost overnight.
For years, everything went according to plan.
And then it all fell apart during her tribulation.
She'd been on the verge of ascending to the Celestial Bridge realm, the cultivation stage just before true immortality, when the stolen Immortal Bone had suddenly destabilized. The technique that bound it to her body failed. And without that foundation, her tribulation tore through her.
The damage had been catastrophic. Her qi sea had shattered, and her cultivation had been reduced to fragments. She'd survived, but just barely, and the recovery process revealed the truth: the Immortal Bone was gone, presumably returned to its original owner through some mechanism she still didn't fully understand.
Her family and sect had tried to help at first. They searched for pills to heal her.
Then her cousin, a spiteful bitch who'd always resented her success, discovered the truth about the stolen bone and made it public.
After that, everything changed.
Without the bone, and with her foundation irreparably damaged, her chances of ever reaching the Celestial Bridge realm again were zero. And the resources required just to restore her to tribulation-stage power would be better spent cultivating several new tribulation-stage cultivators from scratch.
So her family cut her loose.
They married her off to a wastrel Holy Son from a slightly lesser family. He had been watching her for years and had never bothered to hide his intentions. It was a political arrangement dressed up as a marriage, meant to seal an alliance while quietly disposing of an inconvenient daughter.
What followed was a decade of hell.
She had been thrown into the snake pit of sect politics surrounding her new husband. Rival wives, scheming concubines, power struggles that turned vicious without warning. She'd fought to survive, clawed for every scrap of influence she could get, and ultimately lost.
They'd killed her slowly and made sure it hurt.
When she finally died, they hadn't even left enough of her body to properly bury.
And the cause, the root of every disaster that had befallen her, came down to one thing:
Mengyao had somehow reincarnated.
That shouldn't have been possible. She had kept Mengyao's soul trapped in a Soul-Binding Array, locked down so thoroughly that escape should have been impossible. The array was keyed to her own cultivation, it should have held until she completed her tribulation and fully fused the Immortal Bone, at which point the soul would have simply dissipated.
But it hadn't held. Somehow, Mengyao's soul had broken free and been reborn.
She had considered searching for the reincarnation, but the world was vast and she'd had no way to track a soul that had successfully escaped her array. If there was anyone to blame, it was herself. She should have killed Mengyao earlier, before the woman's soul had grown strong enough to find a weakness in the binding.
But dwelling on past mistakes was pointless.
Because somehow Mengyao had been given a second chance.
At the moment of her death, she'd opened her eyes as a six-year-old child again.
This life, she'd done things differently.
She'd used her knowledge of the future and her family connections to join Celestial Path Sect a full year early. And now, the recruitment ceremony was approaching, the exact event where Mengyao had originally joined the sect in the previous timeline.
Based on fragments of information Mengyao had once confided, she knew exactly where to look.
Mengyao would still be a beggar child in Verdantree City. And this time, she wouldn't make the same mistakes.
The spirit root and the bone would be extracted properly, without haste or error. Once it was done, the girl would be killed immediately. A cover story would be prepared, something ordinary enough that it would never invite suspicion.
It would be simple. For someone born into a great sect family, killing a lowly beggar who had "caused trouble" would not even register as an event worth remembering. Such things happened every day.
No one would care.
Mengyao would vanish without a trace, and Yan'er would finally possess everything that should have been hers from the very beginning.
She folded the map and stood, smoothing her robes with hands.
This time, there would be no mistakes.
----------
[POV: Alexei]
Day before the recruitment ceremony.
Current disciples recruited: zero.
Alexei had spent the past days doing two things: sitting at Aureate Summit Sect's pathetic excuse for a recruitment booth, and serving as what Yan cheerfully called a "mobile warehouse" for shopping trips.
The inventory system was honestly pretty amazing for that purpose, even if it had limitations.
Only identical items could stack, for instance. Equipment and clothing didn't stack at all. But there was a loophole he'd figured out pretty quickly: containers.
Storing one piece of clothing took one inventory slot. Storing a bag containing fifty pieces of clothing? Also one inventory slot. The system just labeled it "bag of clothes" in his mental interface and called it a day.
Same with seeds. One seed, one slot. A box containing two hundred different varieties of seeds? Still one slot, just labeled "seed collection box" or whatever.
The system had rules, but the rules had exploits.
Once Yan figured out he could essentially carry unlimited cargo as long as it was properly containerized, she'd dragged him on another massive shopping spree through Verdantree City's markets.
Their spirit stone reserves, which had been sitting at a comfortable fifty-something, were now down to about twelve.
He'd tried to suggest maybe not spending everything, but Yan had just smiled and said, "Don't worry, we'll make it back."
He did not feel reassured.
---
The Aureate Summit Sect recruitment table, and Alexei used the term "table" generously, currently had a total staff of two.
Himself and Qingxue.
Yan had been invited to some Alchemy Alliance exchange meeting and wouldn't be back until tomorrow. Quan had gone to the Immortal Alliance branch office to file paperwork for the sect's participation in the official ceremony. And Duan and Jianqiang had left a week ago to visit old friends, whatever that meant.
Which left the two youngest members of the sect manning the booth.
Over the past week, between helping to recruit and listening to people explain things, Alexei had gotten a pretty solid grasp of how the Eastern Territories' cultivation hierarchy worked.
The baseline for establishing a sect was simple: either three Core Formation cultivators, or one Spirit Condensation cultivator. That was the minimum the Immortal Alliance required.
In practice, more than half the sects in the Eastern Territories didn't even have a single Spirit Condensation expert. They were run entirely by Core Formation cultivators who'd hit their ceiling and decided to set up shop rather than keep struggling.
Below fifth-rank sects, Nascent Soul experts were basically mythical. And Dharma Aspect cultivators? Forget about it.
Across the entire Eastern Territories, there were exactly ninety-three confirmed Dharma Aspect experts.
Sixteen served the four great empires as royal retainers. Thirty-three belonged to cultivation families. The rest were distributed among the top ten sects.
And that was just the ones who'd stayed. Plenty more had reached Dharma Aspect, looked around at the relatively thin spiritual energy of the Eastern Territories, and packed up for greener pastures in the Obsidian or Frostpeak Domains where the qi was richer and the opportunities for ascending to true immortality were realistic.
Rumor had it that a bunch of former Eastern Territories cultivators had formed their own factions in those territories, and some had even broken through to Tribulation Transcendence.
Which made Aureate Summit Sect's lineup even more ridiculous when you thought about it.
One early-stage Dharma Aspect cultivator.
One early-stage Nascent Soul cultivator.
One peak Spirit Condensation cultivator.
Two high-stage Spirit Condensation cultivators.
Two mid-stage Spirit Condensation cultivators.
That roster should be crushing other sects. Absolutely demolishing the competition. And it was all free. There was no powerful family backing them. Just a scrappy, unranked sect that somehow possessed an absurd concentration of talent.
So where exactly had everything gone wrong?
Alexei stared at their sad little recruitment setup and felt his eye twitch.
The neighboring booth had changed over the past few days. The two muscular guys from Amber Peak Sect had filled their quota and left. Good for them.
The new neighbors were from Five Aggregates Sect, two kindly-looking old men with flowing white robes, white hair, white beards, and the sort of gentle grandfatherly smiles that probably made children trust them immediately. Their booth was immaculate: clean table with carved wooden accents, elegant banner with gold-thread embroidery, cushioned seats, even a small spirit lantern that gave off a soft, inviting glow.
Then there was Aureate Summit Sect's setup.
A wobbly square table with one leg shorter than the others, propped up with a brick someone had grabbed from the roadside. A faded banner that looked like it had been through several wars. Two mismatched stools. And the staff consisted of Qingxue, who was veiled and mysterious, and Alexei himself.
When it was just them and Amber Peak Sect with their similar bare-bones setup, it hadn't seemed that bad. Everyone was roughly equally shabby.
But compared to the polished presentation next door? They looked like the cultivator equivalent of a highway rest stop.
"So," Alexei said, gesturing at the Five Aggregates Sect's setup. "Why don't we get a nicer table? Or at least one that doesn't need structural support from masonry?"
"Master says this is to screen for disciples with good character and firm Dao hearts," Qingxue replied without hesitation, like she'd been told this many times and accepted it completely.
Alexei stared at her.
"You actually believe that?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Because we're not screening for character. We're screening for people who don't mind joining a sect that looks like it can't afford basic furniture."
Qingxue tilted her head slightly. "Isn't that the same thing?"
"No. One is a noble test of virtue. The other is just being poor and pretending it's intentional."
"Master says—"
"I know what he says," Alexei interrupted, then sighed and slumped forward over the table, making it wobble alarmingly. "Never mind. Forget I asked."
According to Jianqiang, his recruitment year had actually brought in two disciples.
The other one had apparently seen the shabby booth, noticed that the middle-aged man running it, presumably the old sect master, had an extraordinary bearing despite the poverty, and decided this was one of those hidden sect scenarios that storytellers loved.
You know the trope. Mysterious master with worn robes and a powerful aura. Run-down temple that turns out to house peerless techniques. The protagonist stumbles into it and becomes the chosen disciple of a reclusive immortal.
The guy had been convinced he'd struck gold and joined immediately.
A few years later, he realized the sect was just poor, not mystically humble. When his ten-year contract ended, he'd grabbed his stuff and bailed without looking back.
Only Jianqiang, who according to his own admission "had a screw loose," had stuck around. He'd spent thirty years training under Duan before finally meeting the requirements to learn their advanced techniques.
Before that, he'd been stuck with a single Yellow-tier mid-grade manual called Qi Awakening Art for his entire cultivation foundation.
It wasn't that the sect masters refused to teach him their real techniques. It was that those techniques literally required mid-stage Foundation Establishment minimum just to begin practicing. And the old sect master had specifically instructed everyone not to tell disciples about the advanced manuals until they hit that threshold. The logic, apparently, was that knowing about techniques you couldn't use yet would just make disciples impatient and resentful.
In practice, it meant that nearly half their disciples spent ten to twenty years in the sect, never learning anything beyond basic methods, and then got poached by other sects offering better opportunities. And those poached disciples, desperate to fit in with their new sects and justify their decision to leave, naturally badmouthed Aureate Summit as much as possible.
So now the sect's reputation among both aspiring cultivators and the broader cultivation community was thoroughly trashed.
Only families who didn't know better, or desperate individuals with no other options, were willing to give them a chance. And even that was rare.
After all, every kid brought to Verdantree City by the merchant guilds had already been tested. They knew they had talent. Most of them wanted to aim higher than a sketchy unranked sect with a furniture budget of zero.
"Ugh." Alexei let his forehead thunk against the table, squishing his face slightly.
Qingxue, seeing how bored he was, picked up the small fox from her lap and set it on the table.
The moment she let go, the fox made a beeline straight for Alexei, burrowing into his arms and curling up contentedly.
Qingxue watched this happen and felt a small, complicated twist of emotion.
Was she jealous that her own Dharma Aspect preferred Alexei's company? Or jealous that the fox could snuggle into his arms whenever it wanted while she had to maintain proper distance?
She'd been careful not to take direct control of the fox's body while they were in public. The thought of Alexei absent-mindedly petting the fox's ears or tail, and her real body reacting and making some embarrassing noise was mortifying.
Better to let the fox act on its own instincts, which apparently involved claiming Alexei as a favorite napping spot.
---
The afternoon passed in what could charitably be called a productive manner.
Alexei spent half an hour teaching the fox how to play shashki, a form of checkers, using small stones as pieces and a rough grid he'd scratched into the table surface.
The results surprised even Qingxue.
She knew her Dharma Aspect was intelligent, but this was something else. The fox picked up the rules almost immediately, began grasping basic positioning within a few games, and was soon winning about a third of their matches through what looked like tactical thinking rather than luck.
"Your fox is a genius," Alexei said, watching it slide a stone into place to block his move. "This is mildly concerning."
"Why concerning?"
"Because if your Dharma Aspect is this smart, what happens when it gets bigger? Are we going to wake up one day and find it's learned to read? Started a business? Filed taxes?"
Qingxue giggled behind her veil.
Throughout the afternoon, about twenty city residents stopped by their booth.
None of them passed the talent test.
Most of them left with disgusted expressions the moment they recognized the Aureate Summit Sect banner, not even bothering to try the qi-sensing stone.
Current disciples recruited: still zero.
By the time early evening rolled around, around seven PM by Alexei's internal clock, even the normally energetic fox had given up on staying active. It was sprawled across the top of his head, occasionally covering its mouth with one paw as it yawned.
He shifted slightly, trying not to dislodge his impromptu hat. "Qingxue. Serious question."
"Mm?" She glanced up from the book she'd been reading.
"Can we recruit anyone at this location?"
She seemed completely unbothered by the question, turning a page. "It's normal. Aureate Summit Sect hasn't recruited anyone for six recruitment ceremonies in a row."
Alexei processed that.
"Six ceremonies. Each one every ten years."
"Yes."
"So we haven't successfully recruited a single person in sixty years."
"That's correct."
"And nobody thought maybe we should change our approach?"
"Master believes the right disciples will find us when the time is right."
"The time hasn't been right for six decades, Qingxue."
She shrugged.
Alexei wanted to argue further, but honestly, what was the point? He'd been here a week. This had been going on for literal generations.
"Wait," he said, something occurring to him. "Didn't Yan say we had a good chance this year? Because a bunch of second and third-rate sects weren't participating?"
"She did say that," Qingxue confirmed.
"So why haven't we recruited anyone yet?"
Qingxue blinked at him like he'd asked why water was wet.
"Because the recruitment ceremony officially starts tomorrow. This week has just been pre-recruitment. The ceremony, where most families bring their children, is tomorrow."
Oh.
Oh.
Alexei slowly raised one hand and smacked it against his forehead.
That made sense. The main event was tomorrow. Today was just... early bird shopping for the desperate and uninformed.
"So we've been sitting here all week for basically nothing."
"It's traditional," Qingxue said with a smile.
"Of course it is."
He slumped back in his seat, disturbing the fox on his head, which chittered in sleepy annoyance before settling back down.