"Your presence alone has already done us great honor. There's no need for such lavish praise."
Ye Xiu smiled. "After all, when the time comes two years from now for the students to graduate and recruit talented people, the important thing is to build good relations with those you favor."
"I made my position clear long ago: the academy belongs to the academy, and the Alliance belongs to the Alliance. Even as the head of the academy, I have no right to order any academy member to join a designated sect."
The sect masters present exchanged glances and smiled somewhat awkwardly.
They had indeed come partly in the spirit of everyone helping to carry the decorated sedan chair, but if it were truly only to make a good impression, they might as well have simply offered more resources. That would have been much easier.
A cultivator's time was precious, and the time of great cultivators was even more so.
Especially since showing their faces and leaving their strongholds made them easy targets for the watchful eyes of those with ill intent.
The reason this academy's entrance selection had drawn so many sect masters and elders from major sects was, at its root, the desire to recruit talent.
Under the tides of spiritual energy, the changing times came so fast they left people dizzy. The explosive surge of spiritual energy had shaken the once-solid hierarchy between high and low.
For the first time, the mud-legged commoners below had stepped onto the road to immortality through their own efforts. Naturally, they developed a measure of the pride that said, "My fate is mine, not Heaven's."
If the major sects wanted to preserve their former standing—and even improve with the times—they had to increase their strength.
Why was the Alliance so highly regarded