George silently led Van, Ryan and the other three youths to the examination hall.

A sizeable crowd of both old and young waited outside. They buzzed with nervousness- to the point where it started to affect the group of youths that had just arrived. Ryan's grey eyes darted from side to side, inspecting the other examinees. His fists were white by his sides.

From the other side of the hall, people could also be seen emerging. Some were skipping as they walked, deliriously happy and yet others looked like death warmed up. Seeing their ashen and dazed expressions, others yet to enter the examination hall grew nervous.

Everyone wanted to be accepted into the Cedar Sect!

Within the top five sects of Cloud River, the Cedar Sect had the most renown and possessed the largest number of cultivators. Its people were also known for their uncommon loyalty.

Why?

The sect's success and abundance of people were highly related to a ground-breaking announcement they made some decades ago: Servants could automatically become outer disciples if they were able to reach the 3rd level of Qi Distillation!

To show how momentous this was, the situation in those times need to be explained.

Decades ago, sects accepted outer and inner disciples upon their annual entrance examination. The tests were hard and disadvantaged the illiterate. Adding to that, those who failed had to pay another set of fees to take the exam the following year!

Who had that kind of money to spend, and how many years did they had to repeat the test before they got in?

As for becoming a servant, they were either hired or kidnapped off the streets. They were not treated as real members of the sect, nor provided with cultivation opportunities.

In contrast, the Cedar Sect provided a spirit stone upon entry to servantship and a basic cultivation manual. This kind of manual was only the most rudimentary, but it was still up to one gold tael in price in the mundane world!

The provision of a spirit stone was even more generous. An ordinary man could work for his whole life and never scrape together enough for a spirit stone. Only the insanely rich could, and at a steep price.

For ordinary folk, it was clear which was the better choice.

It was this sort of mind-blowing opportunity that saw people from all over the country gather and knock on the sect's doors. By the time other sects realised that this kind of a promise caused thousands to apply to be servants, the Cedar Sect's name had already imprinted its name into the name of ordinary cultivators as the gold standard. This was because - unlike other sects – its entrance rules were more relaxed, and it paid more attention to the growth of those outside of the inner disciples!

It could be said that the old Head of the Cedar Sect was very shrewd. Although it lost many spirit stones, they also gained thousands of willing servants. With the hope of rising to outer disciple, these servants were not only very willing but also very hard working. The sect's outer businesses in herb cultivation, beast raising, alchemy and so on boomed from the extra hands.

As a side effect of being treated considerately, these servants – of whom many became disciples – were steadfastly loyal to the sect.

Famed for its knowledge in herb cultivation, the Cedar Sect was also well-endowed with resources. This fact alone attracted countless talented outer and inner disciples. Furthermore, notable alumni, such as the Frost Pill Sage attracted others in droves.

Outside the hall, Van placed a calming hand on Ryan's shoulder. The younger boy shuddered and regained some colour in his face.

'Thanks,' he mouthed.

The line moved forwards one by one.

An hour later, they finally reached the entrance. Their names were taken down and their tokens stamped with a colour. Van and Ryan received different colours, meaning that they did their tests in the reverse order.

The group entered the spacious hall. The tests for servants appeared very basic - only evaluating spiritual potential and body strength.

Body strength or spiritual potential were preferred depending on which type of service you wanted to enter. For example, those who chopped lumber would require better strength, while alchemy servants required enough spiritual potential to have a basic control over flames.

Van was to test his spiritual energy first and then his strength. Ryan went in the opposite direction.

The spiritual energy test was overseen by a round, portly middle-aged man. He had an expression of utter boredom as he stood upon the raised platform. Beside him was a tall table with a clear stone containing swirling mists within it.

As each examinee went up, they held the stone tightly for several seconds. They trembled with the effort, feeling as if their whole lives had culminated to this moment. For the majority, the mists within the stone would thin a little bit, with a very subtle difference in the amount of mist within for each person.

This rock was called a miasma stone, a special rock in which a very low-level miasma was trapped. Upon contact with spiritual energy, the miasma was destroyed. However, due to the nature of the clear rock it was trapped in, the miasma would regenerate quickly. This made it a very effective tool for measuring spiritual cultivation.

After the examinees put down the stone, the examiner would call out their result. Those who were unable to affect the stone wailed and cried desperately. They clung onto the table even as security guards tried to drag them away. Finally, the examiner raised a hand. A gust of wind later, the examinee was loosened from the table. They were taken away.

The assessments continued.

"Number 239, 1st level Qi Distillation, mediocre potential with a low-grade affinity for metal. To pass the exam, your mark for this test will be considered with your physical strength test. Next."

Each result was spoken like this. Van noticed that only about ten percent of applicants had reached the 1st level of Qi Distillation. He was surprised, thinking that such a renowned sect like this would only accept those with better qualifications.

"Number 240, please ascend the platform."

It was his turn.

Calm, Van stepped up.

The examiner was surprised by his lack of expression. Normally, people would be so nervous that they nearly pissed their pants. He couldn't help but be more curious about this ordinary-looking young man.

As Van walked towards the table, he felt seven spiritual auras suddenly converge upon him.

Shocked, he almost took a step back.

Only now did he notice circle drawn around the table and the rock. It seemed that the auras were coming from it.

Van realized that the testing contraption was not just the miasma stone, but the entire platform itself!

As the auras approached, Van sensed that they differed slightly from one another. One seemed to give off the feeling of roaring hot flames and the other of a sharp metal sword. He further identified an aura of water and ice, an aura of wood, an aura of earth and one of lightning.

Like arrows, they sped towards the token in his hand. As they neared, the two auras of fire and water suddenly diverged and started speeding towards Van instead! The flame aura gave off the most comfortable feeling and traveled towards Van the fastest as if magnetized to his body.

Van paled. He had a feeling that this was how the man was able to assign everyone's spiritual affinities.

Not good!

Van instinctively knew that he possessed an extremely strong flame affinity and knew that he would be in danger if he revealed it – it would suggest a link between him and the fire-attribute disaster back on Mount Steady!

Gritting his teeth, Van shut his pores tight and strengthening the layer of his skin the moment the flame aura tried to penetrate.

Blocked, the flame aura returned followed the other auras into Van's token.

"Number 240, no cultivation whatsoever. Very low spiritual potential with a medium to a high-medium-grade affinity for water."

Van's heart dropped back into place.

His flame attribute was successfully hidden, and he was even lucky enough to attract the water attribute using the green turtle shell. It would throw off Mark One's suspicions for a while.

The examiner was greatly disappointed.

In his view, the young man had calmly picked the stone up and put it back down. His expression was just as calm and serious as it was before – even though the mist didn't clear at all. Somehow it made the others looking at him feel as if his result didn't reflect his true abilities.

But how could the stone lie?

The examiner shook his head in disapproval. Just another young man bluffing and trying to seem mysterious and deep to hide his uselessness. The only thing unusual was his rather high elemental affinity. After all, it was very rare for those with low cultivation potential to possess an attribute. But such a good affinity would be wasted if he never even made it to Qi Distillation.

Already bored again, he spoke: "To pass the exam, your mark for this test will be considered with your physical strength test. Next."

Van wasn't surprised by the rest of his result at all. Although he had rested for over a month already and his meridians had healed somewhat after rest and the nurturing energy from eating those pine nuts, they were still not healed yet. Thus, he expected for his spiritual potential to be low. As for cultivation? Of course, it was zero.

However, it must be recalled that Van really didn't need to participate in this exam. He already had the token from Mark One, which directly gave him the status of a servant of the sect. However, Senior Ruskel had disappeared and had told George nothing. Curious, Van did not reject coming to the hall and being tested.

Since the Cedar Sect was so generous as to assess examinees using a combination of spiritual and physical testing, Van was confident that he would have passed on his own merit anyway.

He was confident that he would crush everyone in the field of physical strength!

After all, he had not wasted that one month of traveling to the capital city. Every day, when everyone was asleep, Van snuck out of the tent and contemplated the Thousand Saint Sacrifice method under the moonlight. With Jet in a coma and the body refining qi absorbed by the turtle shell in his head, Van had little choice but to read through the bald man's entire life story up to the day he died.

Night after night, he diligently practiced, until..

But Van doubted that he would need to even go that far. Van did not feel that he was overconfident after all the method was made by an expert who had almost ascended to godhood.

As he made his way over to the other side of the hall, thunderous applause suddenly erupted. It came from the direction of the strength test. The other examinees were crowded tightly into the space surrounding it, clapping heatedly.

"Well done, boy!"

"You deserve it, congratulations..!"

"I wish I could have persevered as long as that kid..sigh."

Similar comments entered Van's ears. He grew curious.

"He looked so weak and frail, I can't believe he managed to lift that rock."

"That's not the impressive thing, the impressive thing was that he could hold onto the rock for so long.. did you see his face?"

"I've never seen someone so determined in my life. He's a good seed. If the sect isn't blind, they would accept him regardless of his spiritual potential." This particular comment was made by a much older man. This old man wasn't an examinee – he was a spy from another sect, taking the opportunity to scout for potential good seeds overlooked by the Cedar Sect!

He was already looking at the red-faced boy on the strength platform with an excited look in his eye.

Van looked up at the stage, peering over the crowd.

He recognised the exhausted boy immediately - it was Ryan!

Looking at the examiner's face, Van could tell he was immensely moved. He patted Ryan on the back and asked for people to help the boy, who was too weak to even stand, up. The two helpers took Ryan off the stage.

Van intercepted them.

In the grasp of the two big men, Ryan looked especially young and weak. His grey hair was matted to his forehead and his face was so red from exertion it looked like he was bleeding.

Looking up, Ryan saw Van standing before him.

He weakly smiled. His eyes were red at the rim.

"I-I tried my best..."

He said it again as if to reassure himself.

"I did my best!"

Van was moved. He moved forward and thumped Ryan on the chest.

"You did. You made your father proud."

Ryan throat bobbed up and down silently. Finally, he weakly returned the thump to Van's chest.

"Go.. make our village proud."

Van smiled.

He gazed confidently up at the platform above.

The corner of his lips twitched upwards.

"I will."