(Yao Ya POV)
***
While we were walking behind the guards I managed to come up behind Ip Cheng and grab his arm and occupied the limp the rest of the walk. He even patted my head along the way.
..
Upon reaching the village I noticed the guard take a couple things from Ip Cheng. 'Did we really need to give them that? Since they took something from us it's only right we get something from them right, they only really walked us through a forest after all.' After Ip Cheng had split us up I went over to find that guard and saw him enter a small stone building in a slightly more remote section of the town and coming out a little while later.
When he left I snuck up to his door and looked through a little peak hole it had in it. From what I saw it seemed he lived there, the room inside was fairly simple with a few pieces of furniture to go along with it. In the corner of my eye I spotted a small pouch with a metallic glint coming from it's opening. Thinking about taking the bag as minor revenge I rescan the room for any opening and see a small window on the opposite side of the door I was on.
Climbing through I noticed a couple piles of trash on either side of the door just barely out of view of the little door window. Picking up the bag I notice two coins were hiding behind the bag. Opening up the bag I counted and noticed 17 of these similarly shaped coins including the 2 I found next to the bag which I also tossed in. 'This should be enough, I'm sure that guard won't mind these coins being missing. After all if it was important he surely wouldn't just leave it on the table.'
Climbing back through to the window and heading to a more populated area I met Qiu Tu along the way.
"Ms Qiu is that you?"
"Ah Miss Yao you startled me. Have you gotten any information about this place or world?"
"Well no, but look at what I did find!" Pulling out the bag of coins I had borrowed from the guard.
"What's in the bag?"
"Oh its money, pretty cool right?" Taking out one of the coins to show her
"..Wait! H-How'd you get money and a whole bag of it at that?!"
"A nice man just gave me this, just don't think about it too much. At least we probably won't starve now."
"A nice man? What if they were trying to kidnap you or something!"
"I'm ok now am I not? Let's just go over to that market and look around the place!" Grabbing her hand to drag her along with me.
..
When we made it there we took our time looking around the place, until I noticed a certain someone exiting a building.
"Hey you want to pull a prank on Ip Cheng?"
"Prank.. what do you have in mind?"
"Well, He is a little unaware of his surroundings, but he'll definitely notice us since our clothes stick out like a sore thumb. There's an alley over there, I bet if we quickly turn into the alley and hide behind the trash can he won't see us. Then we'll jump out at him and surprise him!"
While behind the trash can we heard his footsteps as he went right by our hiding location. That giving us an even better chance to scare him, as he would then turn around to leave only to see us blocking his path.
..
While we were in the clothes shop I took a peek out of the changing room to see that he had bought a black robe with white parts upon the edges of the robe along with grey embroidery atop those white parts. After he had left the store I went and looked around to find the exact same robe with an inverted color pattern instead except for the grey embroidery.
..
Finishing up shopping for clothes we went back to our meet up point to find the other team and our new members. When we made it back Qiu Tu almost immediately started arguing with a man within the crowd while Ip Cheng had went over to the 3 sent to gather these people. I had nothing to do and nor did many others so a crowd formed around the two people yelling at each other.
"Hu Daquan, I thought I told you not to talk to me again!"
"It's not my fault, okay? I didn't even know you were in this convoy. I'm sorry for what I did alright?! Please give me a second chance! I promise I won't do it again!"
"Why are you even talking to me? I said I wanted nothing to do with you ever again! Why don't you just go back to that wealthy bitch who you were wagging your tail for so much!! You seemed so willing to do anything for her at the time, you even abandoned me when she asked you to do so. But when she got tired and abandoned you you come back to me and expect me to just accept you back into my life!?"
The crowd around them after hearing the statement made by Qiu Tu started looking at the man on with disgust and slight hatred while she had gotten looks of pity and empathy. Not too long after and before the argument could get more heated a man near Ip Cheng asks about our next moves. Ip Cheng then gathered our attention talking about the future and everyone also started getting their tents down for the night.
…
By day our group had split and we started heading for a city with a sect in it.
We had made it to a forest when a group of bandits started attacking and we had decimated them without a single injury to our side.
…
We had reached the city now and entered an examination site where we saw around over a thousand people around.
A couple annoying people tried to interrupt our little group and even tried to entice the girls of our group including me. Of course I quickly rejected him and any advances he even tried start and after a short while of doing this he eventually went away..
..
When time came for the exam to start we all left the room together. While getting my number announced to everyone most seemed shocked about it. Was a 100 really that good of a number, is it rare or something? Everyone kept staring at me and even after I sat back down a few people still continued doing it.
..
We had to walk a while soon after the assessment and when we made it there we were separated by genders to get our rooms. My roommate was even Qiu Tu. After we got our rooms we decided to go to their library to get these manuals, but half way there an elder descended upon us where she then took me specifically and flew away higher onto the mountain before dropping me off with several others. The other female I came with, Rao Nuan, was also here and that annoying person from earlier was also here too.
"The sect's elders have gathered you all here since you are all the best candidates with the highest potentials among you. You shall all be assigned to a master who from there on out shall take care of you and shall assist you in your training, but that shall only happen when you all become inner disciples. For now though we shall grant you all a few gifts and special privileges to get you all started. We hope all of you shall pass the inner disciple exam to get to this stage where you can enjoy more."