In the Red Cliff Faction residence, Chan Weifeng was having a conversation with Jiang Yifan.
"Faction Leader, shouldn't we try to do something about this Chen Guo? Thanks to him, the Heavenly Swallow Faction is starting to gain a lot of strength. And as an alchemist who stood his ground against the Dragon's Fire Faction, he's becoming very popular."
"I know... The best thing would be to rope him in. But I don't think that could be easily done now. After all, his faction has an even better deal with the Dragon's Fire Faction than ours."
"Well, he focuses on martial arts, not alchemy. We could still try to attract him. And if we fail, we must break his momentum. If he keeps getting more fame, he may even convince other members to defect at one point. This month will end with the ranking competition. What about issuing as many challenges as possible to him?"
"Given his ranking right now, only other first-years can challenge him. Do you think a single one of our new recruits could potentially beat him?" He paused to let that sink in Jiang Yifan's mind but did not wait for an answer. "No, the best course of action is to watch. He will issue a challenge to someone, that's a matter of course." Chan Weifeng began to ponder on the matter while fidgeting with his cup of tea. Suddenly, he raised his head. "And I'm fairly certain of who he will target."
"Faction Leader? You know who he will target? Who?"
"Luduo Bu!"
Jiang Yifan suddenly remembered as he heard the name. "Yes, the information about the incident has been kept quiet, but there was that matter indeed."
"He's only been sentenced for six weeks, which means he will be let free a week or so before the ranking competition. From what I've been able to gather, the servant he beat up was the little sister of Mei Hua. Considering the relationship Chen Guo seems to have with her, do you think he won't want to beat him up again?"
"Maybe Mei Hua will do so herself?"
"No, she's too weak! She's an alchemist not a fighter. Luduo Bu could rival Fairy Zhi. The only reason he was not at the entrance examination was because the new students were too few so the elders did a selection among the second-years. All the elders thought he was too violent and didn't want any problem to occur during the exam. Mei Hua mainly trained her alchemy since her arrival here. And even if she had trained non-stop her martial arts, I don't think she would have much chance against Luduo Bu."
Jiang Yifan pondered on the matter some more. "Yes, you're probably right. But does it mean that we won't do a thing against the Heavenly Swallow Faction for the entire month?"
"Not at all. But we'll leave Chen Guo alone for now. Look at the Dragon's Fire Faction, they tried to mess with him and they got utterly humiliated and almost got economically crippled. But it doesn't mean that we can't try to suppress the Heavenly Swallow Faction outside." Chan Weifeng got a bit more serious after his last sentence. "However, relay my orders. No one must forget the rules of our sect. Even if this is outside the Heidai Peak, no one should go overboard. If a single one of our member harms someone from the Heavenly Swallow, I will personally deliver justice unto him."
"But, Faction Leader, it's unavoidable that there will be some skirmishes if we try to suppress them."
"Skirmishes are fine. Try and steal their prey, prevent them from entering certain areas. That's fine. But our people should know where to draw the line between suppressing them and attacking them. They have two members who are very close with Guest Elder Xiao, we need to be very careful. Don't think that we would easily be able to hide anything from this woman. Guest Elder Xiao is the cultivator with the highest spiritual senses in the entire kingdom. Even the Sect Leader should be inferior to her in that aspect."
"I understand. We'll do all we can to make their life difficult without any frontal confrontation."
Jiang Yifan left the room to relay the orders he just got.
"Chen Guo... What a pity! If only we had gotten you, would we have gotten Mei Hua as well? And now that we lost you, are we doomed to be a stepping stone for your legend?" Chan Weifeng was very worried about the situation but he had no perspective of ever convincing Cao Yun to join the Red Cliff Faction.
Yes, the Red Cliff Faction heavily focused on martial arts, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing. First of all, Cao Yun had access to Chief Elder Baishen who took a liking to him. Then, he was also an alchemist. Although he insisted he did not want to make it his main occupation, only a fool would completely reject being an alchemist. In Chan Weifeng's faction only a handful of cultivators were also alchemists and not that good. Whereas in the Heavenly Swallow Faction, Cao Yun had access to Mei Hua, the best alchemist in the Earth rank and a direct disciple to Xiao Xuefeng.
Moreover, his faction had made a terrible first impression on Cao Yun. The very first week he joined the sect, he had three meetings with members of the Red Cliff Faction and all of them were terrible. One of them was even with Luduo Bu, and the worse possible thing to happen. Chan Weifeng had the intuition that this boy would have been a fantastic member of his faction, but he also felt as though missing this opportunity would be something he'd never be able to recover from.
All thoughts of fighting against the Heavenly Swallow were slowly fading behind this ominous feeling. He had taken over the faction one year ago and hoped to leave it to Jiang Yifan next year when he would leave the sect. But maybe, the faction would only be a fraction of what it used to be.
No matter what, he also had to think about life after the sect. He had no intention to become an inner disciple. Actually, he wanted to join the military of the Hongchen Kingdom. He wanted to fight against the demons threatening mankind. Chan Weifeng's family was a small noble family from the outskirt of the Hongchen Kingdom. When he was younger, he saw an attack of demons, and since this day he swore to protect his kind against these abominations.
As of now, he got to think more about how to get closer to Cao Yun who could be a great ally outside the sect than how to suppress his small faction.
-
In other factions, similar conversations were happening with all kinds of viewpoints. In the end all the faction leaders decided that it was better to keep the status quo and see how Cao Yun would fare in the competition at the end of the month. Two factions were somewhat different. Among them was the Coiling Silk. Lu Meihan was very curious about this great man everyone was talking about and gave order to make things easy for him. All the members received the order to try and convince him to come see her quickly.
The other faction was the Hidden Orchids Faction. This faction was very secretive and mostly kept to its own devices. Once again, they decided to do nothing in the open. The war between the factions was none of their concern.
And all this was exactly to Cao Yun's liking. At first, he really did not want to antagonize the Dragon's Fire Faction. His only goal was to become stronger as fast as possible and then find the murderers of his family to slaughter them all without any mercy. His family members needed this justice.
-
The man of the hour was training in the martial art pavilion. He came here from time to time. At every single one of his visits, Chief Elder Baishen abandoned all her duties and trained him. She never asked him to be her disciple or anything, she just loved seeing him progress. And each time, she was gladly surprised because he was progressing faster than anyone else.
In fact, his ability to use 'Shen Visualization' allowed him to reproduce in his mind every move and even every fight he ever did. That way, it was extremely easy to find his faults. Working on them was a bit harder. If he only used his visualization, he could err. After all, only by confronting his understanding with a real opponent could he know how effective it was.
Some of the modifications he thought about turned out to be even poorer than the faults he had tried to remove. Just by fighting using this trial and error process could he improve faster. So, even though Chief Elder Baishen always kept him all day long, he still came here at least twice or three times a month. And this month was different as he would be challenging an upperclassman.
The old woman was watching as Cao Yun beat the last of his opponent. Today, he had fought in at least fifty fights. Of course, they were friendly so no one used any killing moves and went too far, but it was still exhausting. This and the training from Chief Instructor Peng were the two things that completely drained Cao Yun for one or two days. But now that he had a lot of spirit stones, he wanted to try them to recover faster.
"You're very close to forging the second star! It's been a little more than a month since you forged the first one. You're almost twice as fast as the average martial artist in that regard. I really look forward to seeing you use it in a real fight!"
She got closer to Cao Yun and asked him to come in her study to speak alone.
"I think I know who you're going to challenge this month."
Cao Yun's eyes turned from dead tired to deep rage. "Yes, Chief Elder. I'll beat down the dog Luduo Bu."
She heaved a deep sigh. "I do feel terrible about this whole situation. And if the servant he beat up hadn't been someone important to Guest Elder Xiao's disciple, he probably would have gotten away with this." She punched her poor desk, already full of dents. "This damn Bian Gui! He talks about laws all day long, but knows nothing of justice!"
She tried to calm down and kept talking. "But you know that you can't go too far in the duel. Many chief elders will be there to watch the duels, especially yours. If you go beyond what the rules allow, I can assure you that this time Bian Gui won't miss you. He just cares about rules, nothing else."
"Do not worry, Chief Elder. I read the rules of the sect and I can quote them perfectly. I won't do anything outside the rules during this duel. But it doesn't mean that I won't be as violent and cruel as I can against this animal."
Chief Elder Baishen let out a smile. "As you should! I got worried that you were too nice for your own good."
"Chief Elder, I do not seek conflict for the sake of conflict. But I won't shy away from them either. My path is clear and I just don't want any nuisance on it. What I can compromise, I negotiate. However, some things cannot be compromised."
"Great, great! Your heart is as sturdy as your mind and your body it seems. I know you'll achieve greatness in your life, and I can't wait to see it with my own eyes. Remember, all the elders and chief elders, including Miss Xiao and I, will stay perfectly impartial during the duels. Do not mistake my passivity that day for apathy, but some decorum must be respected. I know for a fact that you will beat this dog. You did it once after all. And I doubt he got that much better in the Devil's Jail."
"Thank you, Chief Elder. I'll come once more this week. But then, I'll focus on keeping my stamina for the duels themselves. Could you issue my challenge as soon as possible?"
"Of course, that's the best course of action. Stay full of energy for the fight. I'll officially record the challenge now and Luduo Bu will be informed two weeks before the fight. Well, he'll still be in jail for some days, but he'll be there for the fight."
-
In the evening, Cao Yun resumed his routine. He played a bit with Mei Ying and taught her some spearmanship. Then he focused on his mind cultivation. He was very close to achieving Perfection thanks to the Praying Demon Pill's medicinal essence still in his body. Then he reviewed his martial arts with 'Shen Visualization'. As he still had time, he also reviewed some alchemy.
Finally, as the month was started he made enough Pure Low-Level Qi Gathering pills to sell all month long. He also put some True Essence pills in the mix. With his mind cultivation, he could achieve full batches of True Essence pills now, but given that only Spirit Warriors were able to do so, he refrained from it.
According to his calculations and considering the commission of the Dragon's Fire Faction, and also the share for the Heavenly Swallow Faction, he would get 368 points in total. On average, an outer disciple earned around 200 points by month. But of course, it could vary a lot. For example, a big alchemist could easily earn 1,000 points. But he also needed to invest hundreds of points to get all the materials in order to have this much revenue.
Right now, Cao Yun could not earn that much. Low-Level Qi Gathering pills were useful, but the Dragon's Fire Faction already sold a lot of them. So Cao Yun focused on quality so that his pills would keep on selling. And if he made too much of them, they would lose their value over time.
Finally, the last thing Cao Yun did was to cultivate his Qi. By absorbing some Qi from a small spirit stone, he could increase the quantity in his body but also alleviate some of his physical fatigue. Instead of needing two days to recover from his training, only one would be more than enough.
For now, he had opened half the meridians he needed to break through. He could already feel more powerful as he circulated the 'Cultivation of Wrath'. But once all his meridians were open, they would connect perfectly between each other and his already opened vessels. Finally this complex system would be linked to his Lower Dantian and energy would erupt throughout his body.
Circulating his Qi would become easier and faster. The quantity of Qi he could circulate would also improve. From there, his martial arts would become that more effective. The 'Dragon's Twin Horns' move was hard to do because of brutal interruption of Qi immediately followed by its return. After becoming a 6th-grade Mortal, this would become much much easier.