Tracking Traces in the Deep Pool

The night sky grew ever darker.

Inside the crude little hut, the leading senior brother furrowed his brow without betraying a hint of it.

"Why hasn't Junior Brother Zhou returned yet? It's been almost an hour, hasn't it?"

Earlier, they had sighed and lamented the hardships of their days. When they turned back, intending to use the medicinal bath to wash away their exhaustion and gather their strength for tomorrow's challenges, they realized that the things which should have been prepared were still nowhere to be seen.

"Who knows? When did he go out?"

The senior and junior brothers nearby answered lazily.

Where there were people, there would be ranks of superiority and inferiority. Even in a place like the Myriad Clouds Sect, where outsiders saw everyone as heaven's chosen, people took on entirely different appearances because of the labels they carried.

Cultivation, talent, looks, family background, manner of conduct...

Humans were social creatures. Cultivators considered themselves above others, yet they were equally unable to escape this cage.

Within this small circle divided by master and sect, Junior Brother Zhou was the one who handled all the dirty and tiring work.

He was the youngest, yet he had entered the sect far later than those direct-line disciples who had come through family inheritance. His talent was merely passable, he was dull and slow-witted, and his cultivation had achieved nothing remarkable. Naturally, he became the target of bullying.

If the weak wished to survive, they inevitably had to cling to the strong. To make his own days easier, Junior Brother Zhou had naturally taken the initiative to become a lackey for these senior brothers.

It was a transformation of status.

Originally, the terms senior brother and junior brother were mostly used to distinguish when one had entered the sect. There were