As Madlenkosi left the Martial Arts Practice Area to go back to the courtyard to inspect his cultivation, Shenkong Yang was helped up by the group who came with him.
"How dare he! HOW DARE HE!" Shenkong raged like he was losing his mind while the others watched.
He left in the direction of the outer sect to visit his cousin brother, he must get revenge, he could not let things stay the way they were.
As he approached his cousin's courtyard he adopted an attitude of being wronged. He knew his cousin was ranked 43rd of the Top 50 of the outer sect of the hundreds of disciples.
"Cousin brother, Cousin brother!" He wailed outside.
Shortly after a teenager, tall, with black hair and a sly look on his face, and around 16 years of age walked out wondering why someone was shouting outside his courtyard.
In the outer sect, every disciple had a personal courtyard, not many people found trouble in front of their premises.
"Cousin Mufeng, you must get revenge for me!" He bawled.
The 16-year-old was Shenkong Mufeng, his cousin from his father's twin brother. They grew up together and every time he had a problem his elder cousin fixed it for him.
As Mufeng laid eyes on a disheveled Shenkong Yang he was momentarily stunned. He shouted, "Yang'er What Happened to You!?"
"Elder Cousin, Elder Cousin, I was attacked earlier by this preliminary disciple, he hid his level and caught me unaware to use me as his stepping stone! I don't know his name but they call him Junior Jīn!" He hid the truth so his cousin could go take revenge for him.
"Clean yourself up, I'll look into it. No one steps on the face of my Shenkong family." Mufeng said with a dangerous glint in his sly eyes.
Unknownst to Madlenkosi, someone was in the sect plotting their revenge.
...
As Madlenkosi sat in his cultivation room, he inspected his cultivation base to see the condition of his breakthrough.
The first thing he noticed was that his Dantian was twice as large as expected.
This meant he'd be able to store twice as much Qi as someone within the same realm as him.
Although it would make him cultivate qi slower, it can raise the pace of his Iron Temple Treasury Technique.
Madlenkosi began to practice the Iron Temple Treasury Technique as he urged his Prana Heart to convert the Qi he had stored to Prana.
As he did this he saw the total amount of qi lower by 5% but after it was converted to Prana it allowed him to break through to the 2nd Layer of Prana Gathering Realm, Increasing his strength from 32 to 36 Elephants.
As he activated the Qi Gathering formation he was able to recover the 5% of Qi in his Dantian after around 1 hour. After testing his strength and cultivation base he practiced his Moon Gazing Mountain Technique and due to the usage of qi now unimpeded, he was able to reach lesser mastery which gave a total increase of 40% of his qi power.
Even though he had increased his mastery in his fundamental bare hand techniques he wasn't excited as any other youth may be.
He knew that he didn't have a Prana skill to use which made him unable to utilize his strength.
Until he got a Prana Skill he would be the weakest version of himself.
"It's time for the Outer Sect Evaluation," he said as he stood up.
Madlenkosi leisurely made his way to the outer sect where an outer sect elder was residing. The elder raised his eyebrow at the oncoming disciple.
"Ay, so you are the junior jīn, ying'er told me about," he said while smiling.
"Eh? "
"Ohohoho, excuse my manners junior, I'm Wei Canghe, Wei Xiuying's elder uncle." He said while smiling, " Are you finally here to take the Evaluation?"
"Yes," Kosi replied quite matter-of-factly.
"Walk through the gate, just letting you know now that it can detect your cultivation base as you step through it and any thoughts of malice towards the sect," he said with a smile that's not a smile.
He nodded towards the Elder Wei as he made his way to the semi-circular gate. He looked up at it and stepped through, it felt like stepping through a film of water, and nothing untoward happened.
"Oh, 2nd layer of Prana gathering as well as 1st layer of Qi gathering," Elder Wei said as he nodded.
Elder Wei then took his sect token tapped it onto his own and the color changed to a light, opaque, green-jade color as he was handed it back.
Madlenkosi stared at his now green tablet as he was given a small pouch.
"That's what is known as a qiankun bag, it has an independent space inside where you can find your new Outer sect robes, Qi gathering pills, Prana Gathering pills, and directions to your new courtyard." Elder Wei said as he waved him off.
He was quite intrigued with the bag as he had not seen anything before like it. He sent his qi inside and there were his outer sect robes, A black inside shirt and pants with a light tan coat with brown stitching and clasps.
He was also informed by another preliminary disciple who passed the evaluation that they had 1000 contribution points that can exchange for higher skills or manuals. This intrigued him entirely since he had only been training mortal-grade fundamental techniques so far.
As he reached his new courtyard he could see worker disciples cleaning the area.
These were disciples who didn't meet the talent mark of the outer disciples and could do jobs around the sect for resources.
He soon settled in and notice the layout was quite the same only now he didn't need to go to the Martial Arts Practice Area due to him having a courtyard for himself as well as a small lake to practice movement techniques.
As he changed into the new more fanciful robes, a female worker disciple made a suggestion for his hair, which was to braid it.
The worker disciple then braided his hair in single boxed braids and attached some little rings at the ends.
He looked at himself with the shoulder-length braids with silver rings in the reflection of the lake as he marveled at the work, he thanked her and sent her off to finish her work as he made his way to the Sect's Script Pagoda...