It was precisely because of this that ordinary disciples sought to cling to the high branches of elite disciples, while elite disciples sought to cling to the high branches of core disciples.
However, there were not many core disciples in the Heavenly Venerate Pavilion.
And of those few, most outstanding core disciples had gone to the front lines to take part in the war, leaving even fewer core disciples on Tai Li Mountain.
Thus, with the few core disciples remaining in closed cultivation and rarely emerging, Tai Li Mountain was, in truth, controlled by the elite disciples.
Hong Yihu was an elite among elite disciples.
He possessed fourteen thousand Dao Intent Inscriptions, yet lacked a Dao Law Divine Body. He was the sort whose strength did not lose to core disciples, but whose talent and other aspects always fell a notch short. Never favored by the sect, he had never managed to become a core disciple.
Precisely because of that, Hong Yihu had become somewhat self-abandoning. Seeing that he had no hope of being chosen as a core disciple, he simply claimed a mountain and declared himself king on Tai Li Mountain, gathering quite a few followers beneath him and specializing in bullying lone disciples and newly arrived disciples.
He forcibly collected vast quantities of divine stones, gathering all wealth into his own hands. He had everything he could want, and his cultivation advanced by leaps and bounds. Though he lacked a Dao Law Divine Body and was not favored by the Heavenly Venerate Pavilion, he still lived exceedingly well. On Tai Li Mountain, aside from core disciples, no one dared provoke him.
One could say he had rather the air of "those who obey me prosper, those who defy me perish."
Tai Li Mountain was divided into Four Great