"Congratulations to Master and all the elders—may your martial fortunes flourish and your Wheels of Dharma turn forever..."
Inside and outside the Iron Dragon Sect's main hall, the place was packed with inner disciples. Lu Zhongming and his wife's personal disciples, together with Zhang Tie's disciples, numbered in the hundreds as they gathered in one hall, beaming with joy and excitement as they congratulated Zhang Tie and the others on their return from the Southern Frontier.
After several months, the sect's new policies that Zhang Tie had implemented were already visible upon its disciples. Disciples of different ranks now wore sect robes or long dresses of different styles. All male disciples wore dashing black robes fastened with dark-red belts, looking spirited and valiant, while the female disciples wore white dresses with golden belts, each one sweet and graceful.
Along the cuffs of the robes and dresses worn by those inner disciples ran a circle of auspicious-cloud patterns. Within the pattern were embroidered Big Dipper designs, each star no larger than a beetle, in varying numbers. Yet some stars were solid and others hollow: the hollow ones had only their outlines embroidered in golden thread, while the solid ones were filled entirely with golden embroidery. There might be one filled star, two, three, or four.
These stars also represented the inner disciples' ranks, symbols of their identity and standing within the Iron Dragon Sect. The sect's inner disciples were divided into seven ranks, with seven stars representing the highest rank—the disciples most likely to advance to Knight. Yet for now, even the highest-ranked among Zhang Tie's and Lu Zhongming and his wife's disciples could only embroider four stars upon their cuffs.
The inner disciples stood row upon row according to rank, those of higher rank in front and those of lower