Though the Wangjiang Huang Clan's school stood in the inner city, it occupied an enormous tract of land: a sprawling garden.
The garden had no walls. A stream wound around it, separating it from its surroundings, and a stone bridge crossed the water. Huang Tian stepped down from his carriage before the stream and crossed the bridge, a servant close behind him carrying a wicker chest filled with clothes, gold, silver, and medicinal pills.
Beyond the bridge stood a three-story pavilion guarded by a squad of armored soldiers with swords at their waists.
At the pavilion, Huang Tian showed the soldiers the token he had received the day before and stepped inside.
There he found Huang Wanling and the other eight young cultivators. Every one of them had faint dark circles beneath their eyes. They had been so excited after discovering their spirit apertures yesterday that they had not slept a wink, then had come early to report. Now they were exhausted.
"Everyone's here. Follow me into the school," said a young man in green robes. He rose from behind a desk and waved them onward.
The nine children and their servants followed him out of the pavilion and into the garden.
After several hundred paces through a dense forest, they came upon a cluster of palaces and pavilions arranged among the trees.
The young man in green pointed to a palace straight ahead, its plaque reading "Dao Lecture Hall." "Our school has always been quite free. There aren't many restrictions. Almost everyone cultivates on their own, and the instructors won't force you to practice. At most, they'll offer a reminder now and then.
"But you've only just enrolled, so for the first ten days, you must come to the Dao Lecture Hall every morning. An instructor will teach you