Mirror grounds.
Also known as dream forest, training grounds 7 looked like a huge warehouse from outside. Inside, it was empty except for fifty praying mats arranged in ten rows and five columns. The building was just a rectangular box with a triangular roof and two huge doors at the entrance. There was nothing else. No windows, no pillars, no furniture nothing. The whole building is permeated with a soothing incense smell that came from all directions.
Training ground seven was considered the best for when you are stuck in your martial art training. Each brick of the building was filled with dense formations. Each served a different purpose to finally achieve the singular goal for which the whole thing was made, fight oneself in the dream world. There is no better way out of a bottleneck than a detailed understanding of the problem. Mirror grounds make that possible. Only when you are on the receiving end too will you understand everything about your technique.
Every time Zhang Wuji came to these grounds, he experienced a thrill that filled his whole body. If such a thing was available for outer sect disciples to train then it mustn't be something great in this world. He really really wanted to understand the mechanism behind it.
Every time he came here, he had the impulse to leave cultivation, alchemy, everything and take up formation master as his main thing. Everytime he forcefully controls that impulse. One has to learn many many things to be a formation master. The four years he had was absolutely minuscule in front of the towering giant that is formations. In the sect, there are shortcuts for alchemy and tool refining. As long as you learn one grade one pill or tool, you are considered to have passed. But for formations, you gotta learn a whole bunch of them. Sometimes even that is not enough.
Not only that, formation masters don't earn as much. Even in the sect, most of those that took up the art did so when their cultivation journey came to an end. There are very few that seriously pursue the art.
Just like everyday he started his shift in the grounds with 'Sigh, once I'm twenty, I'll start studying formations.'
He sat on a huge rock by the entrance of the building and waited. That was all he did over the past few weeks.
Time passed. There was a constant flow of people. A portion of the disciples bowed down to Zhang Wuji, addressing him as senior brother, and another greeted him with a casual nod or by cupping their fists. None ignored him. This was what he earned in the first couple weeks after taking this position.
'You see this old Wuji? It took me just a month to turn around the nobody image you created into this respectable one. I must say, being a lackey isn't too bad. Well, even if I weren't a lackey, the stories of my martial prowess would've reached far and wide one fine day anyway.'
He kept a slight smile on his face as he returned all their greetings while dancing with joy internally. The reason for all this was his martial prowess.
Competition is necessary for growth. That's the belief of the sect. Inner sect disciples, that is considered as the main body of the sect live by this rule. There's competition for missions, resources, land, rewards, opportunities, everything. The sect only provides them with a little guidance, basic pills, a relatively spiritual energy rich place to stay and few training grounds. The rest has to be earned.
The minimum that is provided is not enough for the average to progress. One must get better missions to get sect points with which they have to buy everything needed to grow. The basic that is provided also has difference in quality. To get better, one must fight. Infighting is encouraged in the sect. As long as you are in the same stage, you can not say no to a fight. This led to formation of many factions within the inner sect. The bigger factions had the rights to choose their missions first. What remains after such distribution among factions is then left for the faction-less.
When outer disciples reach qi condensation thus getting the rights to become an inner disciple, they choose the best among the factions available to them. Thus some of the weaker factions thought of cultivating some outer disciples. That was the beginning of factions in the outer sect.
The outer disciples are given a stable environment to grow and their cultivation resources are thus protected by the sect. So factions use their influence to gain control over training grounds. If after joining inner sect, you don't know how to fight, you'll lose big time. No faction will take you and you'll get the worst resources. So training grounds that help you learn to fight are of utmost importance.
For using training grounds, one will have to pay five pills every month. Not a huge amount in itself, and is thus tolerable by the sect. Of course, one just can't directly demand that cause they don't actually own the training ground. The method used here follows sect rules, betting. A disciple has to fight a faction member, winning would mean free usage of the training grounds, losing means a penalty of twenty pills for the faction members valuable time and five pills per month for using the training grounds.
In these fights, the faction member is usually a level higher than the disciple. In reality, this is very much a forced fight, but to only one level difference the sect turns a blind eye.
This is how weaker factions earn their gold. To earn members, they have control over third class jobs. Best jobs are given to their members.
In the outer sect, currently there were five factions. One is a top faction, the one with the greatest members in the inner sect. They directly hunt for first class disciples. Their presence is almost zero for others. Of the remaining four, three are third tier factions. They are weak, but want to grow their influence. They are the ones that use the above tactics to gain more members and gold. All four of them are inner sect originated factions. They are here for a clear purpose. The fifth one is different, Wang Bao's faction exists only for his entertainment.
All that is earned in the faction is distributed among the senior lackeys, Wang Bao has no need for these measly resources. Senior lackeys have no interest in getting members so Wang Bao's faction only has it's presence in the training grounds. Wang Bao has fun, senior lackeys gain wealth, then what do low level lackeys like Zhang Wuji get? Nothing. They do all the work for absolutely no gain. So all lackeys hope to work hard to become senior lackeys and enjoy others' hard labor.
Except for normal lackeys and senior ones, there is another group. Wang Bao's follower group. Their whole cultivation is supported by Wang Bao himself. Becoming his follower has greater merits than joining any faction other than top level ones. It is similarly more difficult compared to other available options.
Zhang Wuji himself had never paid for any training grounds. Of the training grounds he went to, Battle Tower is shared by inner and outer disciples and there is no way to gain jurisdiction over it. The target grounds, he always went late night and met no one. Puppet cave, mirror grounds and others, he beat the faction member.
This meant he could fight someone with a level advantage over him. This brought him the respect he has now. He repeatedly beat sixth level disciples to easily collect more than 200 pills. He got Wang Bao's appreciation and was closer to becoming a senior lackey or even a follower. Being challenged by someone of a lower level makes one tempted to fight. If one wins, they could use the training grounds for free for the next year. That's sixty pills saved. Sixty days of cultivation, that's valuable. If they lose, all that is lost is 20 pills. Even if one were to opt to pay that in installments, that is just 30 pills, half of what they could gain.
Still, with just normal sixth level disciples 200 pills is impossible. Once they see two or three lose, they become alert and stay away from bets. The real gold mine were faction members.
Every training ground is designed to target a specific aspect. For all-round development one has to utilize all the training grounds. To use the training grounds under another faction the only way was to win a fight with those of equal level. Losing would mean a fees of twenty pills per month. That is crippling one's progress. Usually members have agreements among themselves. You lose and allow me to train, and I use and allow you to train. But those with complete confidence in their battle prowess do not need favors, and that's who Zhang Wuji was, at least in this group of disciples.
As he was relishing the feeling of being respected, his eyes fell on a tall man with a lewd look on his face. His eyes were darting here and there, savoring the colorful sights around him. He would frequently look at the buildings entrance with a perverted smile on his face.
'Ugh, this is the only shit in my otherwise perfect life. Looking at his face, he must be fantasizing about the female disciples inside. Thank god disciples are protected by formations once they fall asleep otherwise who knows what this disgusting fucker would've done.'
Han Bo was a fellow lackey. Quite talkative. They had much to discuss when Zhang Wuji had first taken the post. It all changed when he caught him fooling around with a female disciple of a different faction. The disciple had disgust and unwillingness written all over her face. Enraged Zhang Wuji beat the crap out of him. Han Bo was quite strong among sixth level cultivators but Zhang Wuji was stronger and he hadn't expected his partner to attack him all of a sudden.
Han Bo took the case to senior lackeys. They took this as a god sent opportunity to oppress the rising junior and severely reprimanded Zhang Wuji. This even effected his chance of becoming a follower. He was enraged at their reaction. It was Wang Chu that clarified things for him.
The disciple wasn't exactly unwilling. If that were actually the case, the sect would've punished Han Bo. She had been defeated in a fight and opted to allow him to feel her up instead of giving up pills and wasting quality cultivation time. Knowing this there was nothing Zhang Wuji could've done at that point.
But that didn't change his disgust toward Han Bo. Since then they have hated each other. Being beaten up obviously didn't sit right with Han Bo. And nobody likes to be looked upon with disgust. Han Bo really wanted to get back at him but was not confident in beating him. There was also the fact that Wang Bao looked favorably upon Zhang Wuji. So all he could do was swallow his pride and endure.
As Zhang Wuji was scanning the area, he spotted a familiar figure in the distance. Instantly he hid behind the rock.
'What is he doing here?! Of course he's here to train. I can't let him see me.'
Wan Lin walked straight to the entrance. He had to walk over a formation to reach the entrance. This was what kept the record of all those that paid and those that didn't. Wan Lin looked around and saw Han Bo and directly went towards him. He hadn't paid the pills. He rarely used training grounds under faction jurisdiction. He thought that to be a pure waste of resources. Only when stuck he used those grounds.
He knew the rules, he knew his strength, so he decided to directly give the five pills and save himself the 20 for fight.
Han Bo was puzzled by Zhang Wuji's behavior and thought Wan Lin to be some formidable guy who beat him. Seeing him walk towards him, he was ready to make friends with this guy who could scare his enemy away.