A few more years passed, marking the sixteenth birthday of the senior brother of the Jade Lotus Sect. As the first member of the sect, everyone referred to him as 'senior brother' out of respect for the sect leader despite his lack of cultivation. The girls were all good-natured, none of them was conceited and arrogant.
The reason was simple, their status lacked too much compared to the powerful sect leader and her vice!
They could play political games among themselves and vie for resources and control, but the young girls didn't dare do the same in front of the leader. Other than that, it was no secret the sect leader had immigrated to his far land for their sake.
Last but not least, Theo was the sole boy they interacted with in their daily lives, while he had plenty of girls to play with. Given this skewed supply and demand, the girls couldn't afford to play hard to get!
"Hey, hey, Senior Sister Cecilia!" One girl knocked on the door of her senior sister's room. This scene could be seen in different variations across the sect.
"What is it? I'm in seclusion, I want to break into the next substage…" Cecilia's displeased voice came from the other side of the door.
"Today is Senior Brother's birthday! You know what it means!" The excited girl, Shia shrieked.
"Birthday? He is turning sixteen today? Why didn't you say so?!" A redhead with fair white skin pushed the door open a little too hard in her enthusiasm, "Let's go, we must be the first there!"
If a visitor came to the sect, he'd never understand why the sixteenth birthday of the senior brother was such a remarkable event. Right, in this world, sixteen was the age a child turned into an adult by law, but was it really a reason to get so jumpy? They acted as though their sons had grown up!
"From now on, we can eat the cucumbers in the sect without worrying!" Shia clapped her hands as she ran after her senior sister to the main hall where the birthday feast was bound to happen. Their senior brother held a special spot in the sect leader's heart, he was quite spoiled.
Even the sect leader's birthday passed unmentioned; it was only Theodor's birthday that was celebrated every year without fail. In a sense, his birthday, which was set for the day Veronica picked him up, was nothing short of a holiday in the sect's culture!
"I want to taste a zucchini…" Cecilia answered with a dreamy voice. The two girls were so moved they had some tears flowing from their eyes!
"Don't forget the eggplant…" Shia added.
"Right…" the redhead nodded, "Wait, what? Why wouldn't the eggplant be unsafe to eat?"
"It's that hoe Titi, nothing is big enough for her!"
"No way, I always added eggplants to my plate all those years during lunch…" Cecilia complained, depressed. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. She preferred not to know!
The same sight could be found all over the sect. Junior sisters called their seniors to participate and vice versa, all of them wanted to be present and get a spot near the birthday prince.
And the reason…
According to the sect's rules, girls could choose to engage in love once they turned sixteen and were considered adults, only with men who were sixteen or older. Given their age and the lack of men around, they were all sex deprived. Their hormones turned them crazy and weighed on their cultivation and focus. The young ladies were horny!
They have alleviated their needs in different ways. There were different schools in that matter. There was the school of penetration which did not mind losing their hymen to their fingers and other rod-like objects within reach.
The other school was the generally purer type where girls only relieved themselves with external rubbing. Only generally purer, there were some sinners among them who resorted to backdoor penetration.
Those two schools were the reason why nobody dared eat the zucchini, cucumbers, and carrots served at the dining hall. You couldn't know where it had been before it was cooked!
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Meanwhile, Theodor, who had never fathomed that there was such a culture in his seemingly innocent and protected sect, opened his eyes and exhaled turbid air. It wasn't because he woke up now but because he had finished another session of meditation to increase his aptitude.
Today, a huge smile was plastered on his face. He could feel it; something was released inside him like a cork of champagne sent flying by the momentum of the bottle's uncorking.
*Ding!*
[Your cultivation talent has been upgraded to Unranked. Congratulations!]
'Finally!' Theodor jumped on his feet in excitement. He tried to see if there was any change in his perception, but there was none he could notice. 'As expected of the weakest aptitude possible, nothing changed…' he laughed bitterly.
However, that did not dent his happiness. Not yet. What really mattered was whether something changed with his system.
*Knock, knock, knock!*
"Theo, everyone is waiting for you at the main hall, we are celebrating your birthday!"
"I'm coming!"
The one knocking was none other than the sect leader herself, Veronica. Despite being harsh on the girls during training, she was like a doting parent when she communicated with Theo. To be honest, she was very nice to the girls too outside training.
'I will just check it out later,' he made a mental note to himself, knowing it was not the time. The sect leader, the vice leader, and thirty-one disciples were waiting for him in the hall. He tidied his long black hair and green robes before leaving the room.
The sect had no divide between outer and inner disciples at the moment, and there were no direct disciples either because of the lack of elders. There was no foundation to work with, hence, Veronica and Maria taught everyone directly until they nurtured some elders who could share the burden.
The strongest disciple at the moment, after fourteen years of training, was Lilia, the finest daughter of a mayor from a city nearby, the very same first female disciple. She was second in seniority only to Theodor and second in power to none among the disciples. The hardworking girl had made it to the second stage, Body Refinement, even going as far as the advanced substage.
There were nine known stages for mortals, each divided by four substages – primary, intermediate, advanced, and pinnacle. The first stage was the Qi Gathering Stage, in which cultivators first got in contact with Qi. Qi was the natural energy of the world. It was everywhere, giving life and power to nature and living beings.
As they advanced within that stage, cultivators learned how to absorb Qi from their surroundings into their bodies, and the additional energy would strengthen them, take them to the pinnacle of human health and fitness, improve their reflexes and agility, and even allow them a minor control over the Qi around and inside them.
The next stage, which Lilia and two other girls had achieved, was the Body Refinement Stage. In this stage cultivators would refine their bodies to ascend beyond human limits, granting them higher muscle density, stronger bones, better vitality, improved recovery from injuries, and even immunity from normal diseases and poisons.
Of course, there were still lethal poisons concocted from high-grade herbs that could harm cultivators of higher stages, and there were mutated germs and viruses that could infect powerful beings. The Body Refinement Stage only granted immunity from the normal diseases and poisons plaguing the mortal world.
Lilia, with her unique seventh-grade talent and high cultivation, could be considered invincible in her origin city. Furthermore, her talent might even allow her to break through in the future to the next stage, the Meridian Cleansing Stage!
Meridians were the spiritual veins in one's body where Qi flowed, similarly to the bloodstream in the normal veins. Cleansing the meridians would allow one to store much more Qi, circulate it more efficiently and more abundantly, and bring forth the real power of fighting techniques.
A punch executed according to a fighting technique could have mystifying effects, so one could easily imagine the impact of advancing into that stage. In fact, if Lilia ever advances to that stage, she would stand on equal height with the sect leader herself.
Veronica had immense aptitude, she had a sixth-grade talent that allowed her to advance even further, but currently, due to the time she spent guiding the young girls and the sparse Qi in the environment, she was still stuck at the pinnacle substage of the Meridian Cleansing Stage.
Maria was not as talented, having only a seventh-grade talent, and she had exhausted her aptitude by reaching the same stage as the sect leader. If not for her older age, she probably wouldn't make it to the pinnacle of that stage yet.
Kicking those thoughts out of his head, Theo entered the main hall only to freeze in shock when he saw the full attendance.
'Why do the girls seem so… passionate? And aren't their robes a bit loose?'