Spring began, ushering in the year, and the sun rose unhurriedly.
Brilliant daylight shone upon a blue sky washed clean, without a cloud for ten thousand miles.
A dense crowd had long since gathered at the foot of Wavelooking Peak. Every year, when supplementary seats in the Inner Peaks opened up, large numbers of mortal laborers came to watch, seeing their former "colleagues" off onto the Azure Cloud Path.
Some took it as something to hope for; others used it to kindle the will to strive within their hearts and spur themselves onward, hoping that one day they, too, could leap through the dragon gate like a fish and join the ranks of the Inner Peaks disciples.
"Junior Brother Jiang might have arrived late, but his momentum is the strongest! He must already have a fully formed bamboo painting in his breast!"
"Of course! An Outer Sect mortal laborer at the sixth level of Qi Refining is something you hardly see in a hundred years!"
"I just wonder which peak he'll join. What do you think-Fate-Watching Peak or Sun-Watching Peak?"
"Not an easy choice. Neither Elder Sui nor the sect master is someone he can afford to offend!"
"All you can say is that his timing is unlucky. In previous years, before the sect master returned, nobody would have said anything if he joined Fate-Watching Peak. Now, though, it's hard to say-"
Amid the discussions, quite a few Inner Peaks disciples had already gathered on the broad, flat terrace atop Wavelooking Peak, its surface as level as though it had been sliced clean.
They leaned leisurely against the railing and looked down, their vision piercing the drifting clouds and cold mist shrouding the mountains as they watched the mortal laborers below, tiny as ants.
For the mortal laborers at the