On one of the mountain peaks, in the territory of Misty Cloud Sect, a middle-aged looking man was sitting and meditating. He had a lean muscular body and black hairs with gray streaks in between them. He had a fair face. Overall, he gave a dignified aura. He was Li Shui, the seventh elder of Misty Cloud Sect. He was a newly promoted elder and was assigned his new peak as per the rules of the sect.
Misty Cloud Sect was one of the top sects in the Jia Ma Empire with a Nascent Soul Sect Master at its charge. Those who reached the golden core stage would be nominated as an elder. Li Shui was currently the seventh elder of the Misty Cloud sect. He had been promoted six months ago and was stabilizing his cultivation base.
'The new disciple ceremony is going to be held next month.' He thought. Now he could use his damn golden finger. It had been 120 years and he was given a golden finger he couldn't use. He was so pissed off, that he didn't know what to say. From initial excitement and then to frustration, to anger and now to calm, he had experienced it all. His golden finger was a teacher system. He had to accept apprentices and when they advanced he would receive benefits. It was all well and good, but this system was like a nerfed version and some had strict restrictions.
To activate the system, he had to prove that he was sufficiently qualified to teach. Otherwise, he would lead his disciple astray. And this requirement was just now fulfilled after he had reached the golden core. And the second requirement was having a sufficient understanding of a particular topic. These topics could include cultivation methods, fighting techniques, etc. And sufficient knowledge meant that he had to have at least a master-level understanding of these exercises. Currently, the only exercise he had mastered was the cultivation method Cloud Sutra of the misty cloud sect. And this was after repeated trials and experiments. Well, that was one thing the system was good for at least he knew that he was going in the wrong direction after seeing the progress being stuck for years and two. But it still was after 100 years of research only in three techniques. Cloud Step, Ethereal Sword, and Cloud Sutra were the things he concentrated on. He couldn't even hope to learn any profession as it would take 1000 years to master it. And the third restriction was even more damning. He had to be an expert at least, to teach his disciples these techniques. He didn't even care about having only 3 disciples slots available currently due to his cultivation base restriction by the system. He was numb now about these things. Well, he would see now how these things work, but he knew the system would have further restrictions too.
Heaving a sigh and with a little hope that he would get a protagonist as an apprentice later on Li Shui, started meditating once again.
It was in the morning, outside the Misty Cloud Sect, and there was a line of people appearing. Today was the disciple recruiting ceremony of the Misty Cloud Sect. A long queue of people had formed and there was a crystal ball on the door. The crystal ball was a testing device, in which color determined the spiritual roots you had and the intensity of color represented that root's potential. Li Shui remembered each of them and noted down the name of the disciple with water roots on the jade slips. He remembered about himself and the day he was tested. He had both wind and water roots with water being more potent. Overall his potential was good, but he wasn't the best. The best disciple at that time had already entered the sect master's tutelage and was the next-in-line candidate for the sect master's position.
While he was noting down the names of the disciple's name, he heard a teasing voice, "Little Shui you are as serious as ever. You are really looking forward to developing your peak, huh?" Hearing this voice, Li Shui glanced in that direction and found a female elder looking at him with a playful smile. "Elder Xun, good morning" Li Shui replied. "Since I was assigned the peak I would definitely have to work hard to develop it." He said in a serious and polite tone. The one who spoke to him was the third elder of Misty Cloud Sect Li Xun. She was about 400 years old and the other golden core elder of the Li family. "Dont call me Elder. It makes me feel old. You should call me Big Sis Xun or Lady Xun." Elder Xun said in a mock scolding voice. `But you are more than 300 years older than me. I really can't call you Big Sis.` Li Shui thought in his heart. "Sorry, Lady Xun, It's become a habit. I will be more careful next time". Li Shui replied politely. Hearing this reply Li Xun was a bit distressed. Everything was good about this junior of her family, except he was a little bit too serious.
Leaving thoughts of teasing aside, she thought that she should help him a little bit. "I think we should help allow him to pick his disciple first. After all, he has recently established his Guijian peak." All the other elders had heard that also nodded. They had already had their personal disciples. There was no problem in sending a favor to an elder. Seeing everyone nodding along, the Sect Master Yun Zhian said, "Elder Shui can choose disciple first. If you need any help in developing peak, don't hesitate to ask the sect for it." He was satisfied with this elder. He knew about his character. Concentrated on cultivating, a nature of repaying favors and no interest in power struggles. Man, if only all the elders were like him.
Seeing everyone agreeing along, Li Shui first stood up and bowed a little bit. "Thank you, all the elders." As the selection process commenced, Li Shui watched and others watched over the process. Li Shui was recording water-based cultivators on one end according to their intensity levels and was thinking about who choose his personal disciple on other hand. "System, do you really have no way of determining picking out students' hidden attributes or other talents?"
"Answering the host, no there's no such process. A teacher should choose students and do their best to help. Helping talented students just based on their attributes or hidden talent is not teaching. It is just being carried along by your student."
Hearing the reply Li Shui sighed. It was really tough for him to choose. Though he knew how to identify the protagonist according to the plot in his previous world, he really didn't believe in that way of identifying. After all, he had seen many such cases and most of them end up being dead or running away. It seemed he had to fall back on plan B.
Seeing the process reaching the end, Li Shui said to the elders and sect master present there. "Sect Master, these seven are the list of the students I want to choose from. If these people have no problem with me being their master or the elder wants one of them as a disciple I would like to take them all to GuoJian PeaK." He showed the list in front of people. On the list, there were seven people, with all of them having above-average potential in water spiritual root. One of them even had greater potential than Li Shui in terms of spirituality. "Oh, I thought that Elder Li would take Ji Shan as your disciple. Her talent is very high. " The sect master spoke after glancing at the list. The request put in by Li Shui wasn't that high. Except for Ji Shan, no one else was worth noting that much. He was just intrigued as to why he hadn't taken her as a direct disciple.
"I also thought about taking her as a direct disciple first. But I think that other than aptitude there are other factors that are needed to be a successful cultivator. So, I think it is better to take some time before accepting a direct disciple."
"Hahaha! It seems Elder is quite considerate towards your future disciple." All elders laughed and approved internally. To them, it seemed that Li Shui was taking this opportunity to temper Ji Shan before accepting her. It was a unique way and though aptitude played an important part, 'will' was also necessary for being a cultivator.
Seeing as other people weren't that important they accepted. All seven disciples were assigned to GuiJian Peak.
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After the disciple entrance ceremony, Li Shui was still busy. He went to the assignment hall and arranged assignments and recruitment notices for his peak to the outer disciple hall. He wasn't that rich, so he arranged tasks methodically. For the past six months, he had been preparing a way to select disciples. He came up with ideas and in the end, he prepared three things. First was the sword tower. It was a five-floor tower and he had left his sword intent there. The higher one went, the more resistance one would face. It had the effect of tempering one's will and he hoped it would also help people realize sword intent. At least that happened to MCs in the cultivation novel.
The second thing was personal lectures from him weekly. He would preach one day about his Cloud Jue cultivation method and also had planned to quiz people every month. This would help him test people's comprehension levels.
The third was allocating cultivation spaces. The formation he had arranged allowed him to create ten dense places of spiritual energy. The first place was for him and seven others were for the inner disciples. The last two would be allocated according to two major things. First was fighting strength. Those outer disciples who choose were strongest in the yearly competition would be given this place. The second was the economic revenue generated. Those who earned the most would be given this place. After all, every peak must have some economic resource. For now, Li Shui thought of planting elixirs, farming, and completing tasks assigned by the sect.
The most important thing was the opportunity to become the inner disciples and direct disciples. In the rules of his peak, Li Shui assigned three places to direct disciples, ten to inner disciples, and 100 to outer disciples for now. He would increase them if his no. of direct disciples increased. Finished with all the arrangements earlier, Li Shui decided to bring his seven selected disciples to his mountain peak.