"Next, students whose names I call, please come with me."
Lu Guying held several stacks of rosters and began reading off the names. "Ahem, Liu Sidao."
"Here!"
"Stand behind me. From now on, everyone whose name I call should stand behind me."
"Yes."
The children were timid. Some were rich and some poor, their ages varied, and their levels of education differed even more.
It was Lu Guying's first time facing so many children. With all those children staring at him, and with him serving as their teacher for some time to come, he felt immense pressure.
That was how he truly felt inside. It was terrifying.
For one thing, he worried he would not take good care of them; for another, he worried he would not teach them well.
Who would have thought someone in the Eighth-Grade Realm like me could actually become a teacher?
He was nervous. With so many people watching him, he was truly nervous.
After the parents brought their children through the sect gates, signed the enrollment contracts, and left, they washed their hands of the matter.
The parents understood very well that once they handed their children over to a teacher, each child was essentially left to their own fate.
In a feudal age, every trade was the same.
Learn a trade from me: three years as an apprentice, two years of service. Beatings and scoldings were permitted; death, departure, flight, or injury-each was left to their own fate.
Anyone who had seen the film Farewell My Concubine knew that, let alone when it came to learning martial arts.
But the Tianyang Sect was different. Its enrollment contract explicitly stipulated that if a child no longer wanted to learn, they would send the child home.
Of course, when it came to martial arts, the teacher would teach earnestly, and the children had to study earnestly too.
Separated from their parents, the children immediately felt lost and frightened.
For someone like Liu Sidao, whose father was a constable and a Fifth Rank expert who had also trained in a sect in his youth, his state of mind was a little better than that of the other children.
Liu Sidao was the first to stand behind Lu Guying, sizing up his future fellow disciples.
"Zhao Ling'er."
"Yes."
"Wang Shuangzhi, Li Goudan'er, Zhang Xiaohua, Yin Tianqi, Chen Da, Zhao Ling'er, Sun Shitou..."
He read their names one by one. Just looking at the children's names told the story: anyone with a proper name came from a reasonably comfortable family, while those called Goudanr or Shitou came from poor families.
Before long, all two hundred students were standing behind him. Lu Guying turned and told them, "Next, boys in one line, girls in another. Follow me to your dormitories."
Lu Guying led them toward the residential area. Liu Sidao was relatively "mature," and with a Fifth Rank constable for a father, he also had some sense of responsibility. He turned around and walked backward, looking at the fellow disciples behind him as he said:
"Everyone, my name is Liu Sidao. My name is Liu Sidao, and I'm nine this year. My dad is the chief constable of Phoenix Cry City, and he's a Fifth Rank expert! I've practiced some martial arts before too. We're all fellow disciples, so don't worry about the future. Come to me if you have any problems!"
The little fellow thumped his chest, looking very magnanimous.
Most of those behind him were commoners. Seeing him like that, they somehow felt he was very impressive.
There were also children from wealthy families, and even second-generation martial artists, who found this beneath their notice.
"What's so great about the Fifth-Grade Realm? Uncle Wang, the head of my family's guards, is a Fourth Rank expert. My older brother cultivates at the Yellow Crane Sect in Qi Prefecture, and he's already in the Seventh-Rank Realm. The Yellow Crane Sect is a major sect in Qi Prefecture."
"Wow!" The commoner children, who knew little about such things, immediately felt that this older boy was very impressive too.
Liu Sidao did not get angry at being contradicted. Instead, he smiled. "Your name is Yin Tianqi, right?"
"That's right."
"Then why didn't you go to the Yellow Crane Sect? Why come to the Tianyang Sect?"
"I..." Yin Tianqi was ten, but his composure was not as good as nine-year-old Liu Sidao's.
Liu Sidao said, "Our Tianyang Sect used to be a major sect too. It was once a top sect renowned throughout the world, so there's no need to envy some Yellow Crane Sect. In terms of heritage, our Tianyang Sect is much stronger than them."
Up ahead, Lu Guying walked while quietly listening to the children's conversation.
The sect master had said they would choose class monitors in the future, so he also wanted to see which disciples in his class could handle the job.
So far, Liu Sidao looked promising.
Yin Tianqi's little face flushed red, but he certainly remained unconvinced. He continued, "Ahem, well, my brother said outer disciples are the same in every sect. Although ours is called an elementary school, it's all the same.
"Outer disciples' dormitories all have communal sleeping platforms. Everyone squeezes together to sleep.
"Although my family is pretty rich, I won't look down on children without money. Don't worry, I'll leave the good spots for you when the time comes."
After saying that, he even glanced at Liu Sidao.
Liu Sidao did not look at him. Instead, he looked at a child farther back who had his head lowered and looked very downcast.
"Brother Yan!"
"Huh?"
That child was thirteen or fourteen, and taller than most of the others.
"I heard your name when the teacher called roll, but I never thought it really was you. Weren't you going to study the classics? Why did you come to the Tianyang Sect instead?"
"Mm... I just wanted to try martial arts."
"Okay, let's sleep next to each other later."
With those few chatting, the other children nearby also began greeting the classmates beside them.
Before long, everyone arrived at the dormitory area.
A road ran down the middle, with buildings on either side.
As he walked, Lu Guying said, "This is the residential area. It's divided into eight sections: Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Wu, Ji, Geng, and Xin.
"Each section has thirty rows of buildings, with twenty rooms in each row.
"Our class is in the first row of Section Jia, right here. There are toilets on the far right, and there are toilets to the front, back, left, and right.
"The boys will stay in these sixteen rooms on the outside, and the girls will stay in the four innermost rooms."
The rooms were all small, ancestral property left over from the past that Old Eldest had later led people in renovating.
Since Yin Tianqi had said outer disciples' dormitories all had communal sleeping platforms, both the children who had just met and those who had known each other before looked forward to staying together.
Lu Guying led the disciples to their dormitories. The moment they entered a room, the children were dumbfounded. They looked at Yin Tianqi. Was this the communal sleeping platform he had talked about?
Inside the clean room, two bunk beds stood on either side, with another set crosswise against the innermost wall. Five bunk beds, ten people to a room.
Near the entrance were two wardrobes, each with six doors.
Yin Tianqi's face was burning red. What kind of beds were these? What happened to the communal sleeping platforms?
Lu Guying smiled. "Next, those whose names I call, go in one at a time and find your beds."
Lu Guying read the names in order, and the children filed inside. All their earlier plans for who would sleep next to whom were completely disrupted.
Even Liu Sidao could not share a room with his Brother Yan. Instead, he and Yin Tianqi ended up on the same bunk bed.
Before long, everyone had found their rooms, and then the shoes were handed out.
Yes, shoes.
Their clothing would certainly be standardized in the future, but the new students varied in height, so the clothes would not be ready until later.
Shoes, however, were simple. One pair per person.
Whether they received clothes was secondary. Shoes had to be provided, because most children from poor families were still barefoot.
After handing out the clothes, Yin Tianqi took them to familiarize themselves with the dining hall, training grounds, academic classrooms, and other places.
Zhang Qingyuan had already returned to the sect master's courtyard. Before him lay the rosters of two thousand disciples, all compiled.
He was going through the names one by one. He read every disciple's personal information. He certainly could not remember all of it, but at least he had a general idea.
Another copy of these rosters had to be made: one for him to keep, and one for the archive room.
That evening, Zhang Qingyuan went to the dining hall's kitchen.
At its peak, the Tianyang Sect's outer disciples all ate in a communal dining hall, while inner disciples could have meals specially prepared.
That was essentially how every sect operated.
The design Zhang Qingyuan had asked Old Eldest to use was one dining hall per grade, with ten serving windows in each dining hall, one for each class.
They would have to renovate more dining halls this year, because they would recruit new disciples again next August.
Watching the cooks in the kitchen, Zhang Qingyuan chatted with them while secretly dropping one hundred Creation Pills for cleansing the meridians and marrow into the soup pot.
Someone might ask, where had those one hundred Creation Pills come from?
Zhang Qingyuan's answer was that the system had leveled up!
He had completed the missions too quickly, and the rewards had come flooding in. It felt incredible!
Level 11: Recruit one disciple. Mission complete. Reward: twenty Creation Pills. Level 12: Expand the sect. Mission complete. Reward: ten Minor Rejuvenation Pills. Level 13: Recruit five disciples. Mission complete. Reward: three Wudang Sect martial arts manuals from the world of the online wuxia novel Starting with Zhang Sanfeng's Template. Level 14: Recruit ten disciples. Mission complete. Reward: ten Major Rejuvenation Pills. Level 15: Gain a little renown within a ten-li radius. Reward: five sets of sword techniques. Level 16: Sect expansion mission. Mission complete. Reward: twenty Creation Pills. Level 17... Level 18... Level 20: Recruit fifty disciples. As the host has completed a milestone mission, the host's constitution will be upgraded to genius level. Level 21: Gain a little renown within a hundred-li radius. Mission complete. Reward: thirty Creation Pills. Level 21: To demonstrate the sect's sense of responsibility, lead sect members in wiping out one nearby bandit stronghold. Mission complete. Reward: one genius disciple. Level 30: Milestone mission. Eliminate five notorious river bandits. Reward: one protagonist-tier genius disciple. Level 31: Have a disciple reach the Seventh-Rank Realm... Mission in progress.
At present, the missions had stalled here.
In just three short months, the system's mission level had stalled at thirty-one.
Missions involving recruiting disciples, expanding the sect, gaining renown, and upholding justice had all been completed at rocket speed.
Zhang Qingyuan's behavior was practically cheating!
Even the system felt helpless. Was that what I fucking meant? Who builds a sect like this?
Of course, the rewards still had to be handed out. Zhang Qingyuan had truly enjoyed himself this time.
He had jumped through twenty-one levels' worth of missions in total. After level ten, Creation Pills were given out twenty at a time.
Two hundred Creation Pills.
Forty Minor Rejuvenation Pills.
Ten Major Rejuvenation Pills.
Twenty-five martial arts manuals from various worlds in total.
Ten medical manuals.
Four genius disciple rewards.
One protagonist-tier disciple.
One One Hundred Percent Advancement Pill.
Ten thousand taels of silver.
Zhang Qingyuan's constitution had been raised to genius level.
The later rewards grew more and more awesome. The key was that he leveled up too quickly and did not follow the usual script at all.
After another half year, he would surely clear the level thirty-one mission.
After all, the system had rewarded him with a guaranteed minimum of four genius disciples and one protagonist-tier disciple.
If he had followed the system's script and proceeded step by step, after Zhang Qingyuan recruited twenty disciples, a genius disciple would definitely be among those who came next. Zhang Qingyuan needed to complete the disciple recruitment missions before the genius disciples would come.
But he had directly recruited two thousand people. In other words, among those two thousand, there would be at least the genius disciples and protagonist-tier disciple awarded by the system.
Of course, those disciples were merely the ones the system supplied. Among these two thousand people, there were also "naturally occurring" geniuses, so he was not worried at all.
The level thirty-one mission could be broken through with a snap of his fingers.
One hundred Creation Pills went into the soup pot to be shared among two thousand people. Everyone would receive the meridian- and marrow-cleansing effects, though perhaps not as strongly as if each person took a whole pill.
But soup brewed with meridian- and marrow-cleansing pills was still enough to improve their constitutions.
A large number of them might have high talent but poor constitutions.
With this round of improvements from the Creation Pills, there was no need to worry about their constitutions at all.
After finishing all this, he went back and looked over the rosters again, wanting to find the protagonist-tier disciple.
After reading through them once, he singled out one person.
A member of Lu Guying's class, full name Xiao Yan, thirteen years old, from Phoenix Cry City, who had aspired since childhood to place first in the imperial examinations.
When they filled out his information at the sect gates, Old Fifth had even asked his father why he wanted to practice martial arts when his ambition was to place first in the imperial examinations.
According to his father, he had a childhood sweetheart to whom he was betrothed. She had gone to the Heavenly Mountain Sect in the Northern Realm as a child. Being a genius disciple, she had already become a Fifth Rank expert at just thirteen and was receiving special attention from the sect.
The Northern Realm was a sacred land of the martial world, with particularly many genius disciples and major sects, so that was nothing unusual.
The girl had returned this year and told him she wanted to break off the engagement. In a fit of rage, Xiao Yan had abandoned scholarly pursuits for martial arts...
Setting down the roster, Zhang Qingyuan mulled it over.
After thinking it through, he was not satisfied with Xiao Yan.
If possible, he hoped he could get someone like Huo Linfei from Super Beast Force. That was not asking too much, was it?
He claimed the rewards one by one. When he claimed the reward that improved his constitution, he once again experienced that agony of seemingly having his tendons torn out and his skin peeled off.
He had only just recovered when Sixth Senior Brother came to call him. "Qingyuan, Martial Uncle Di of the Bright Moon Sect has come to visit."