[Congratulations, host. You have drawn the golden trait: heavenly spiritual root.]
When this system message appeared, Lin Feng was already excited beyond measure.
He had waited for the stars and longed for the moon, calling it Father every day, and finally received his due reward!
Today was the last day of the first week's disciple recruitment aptitude competition. Lin Feng's points had only just reached 365, and his position on the leaderboard had plummeted.
From nearly breaking into the top twenty, he was now on the verge of falling out of the top hundred!
Lin Feng looked at the current top ten on the disciple recruitment aptitude leaderboard:
[First place: Daoxuan Sect: 1,236 points. Second place: Supreme Purity Sect: 1,100 points. Third place: Azure Luan Sect: 1,036 points. ... Ninth place: Dao Inquiry Sect: 817 points. Tenth place: Limitless Sect: 802 points.
The top ten positions had more or less stabilized, with few changes.
But by the final day, three sects had already exceeded 1,000 points in disciple recruitment aptitude.
The top ten sects averaged around 100 points a day. After all, they had no additional spirit artifacts for testing disciples' aptitude and could only rely on their own senses to judge whether a disciple had a spirit root.
Compared with his ability to see everyone's traits and the rare spirit root testing jade disc he had obtained for being the first to advance to a Qi refining sect, their efficiency was at least a hundred times worse.
Unfortunately, the sect he had awakened was E-rank. Neither the concentration of Spiritual Qi nor the various resources around his sect could compare with those top sects.
But now he had drawn a new golden trait: heavenly spiritual root, possibly the only heavenly spiritual root on Server 999 so far.
If he equipped a sect disciple with this heavenly spiritual root, the Evergreen Sect's points would jump straight to 1,365, putting it in first place!
And only ten hours remained until the first week's competition ended.
As long as the Daoxuan Sect's performance today did not far exceed that of the past few days, first place on the leaderboard was already in the bag!
At that moment, Lin Feng felt some anticipation, along with excitement and nervousness.
But with ten hours still remaining, Lin Feng was not going to sit around waiting for his fate.
Today, Lin Feng would still go out to search for disciples with aptitude.
Only today, the disciple Lin Feng chose to bring was Tie Dali.
He was also the chosen recipient of the heavenly spiritual root trait.
Through his observations over the past few days, Lin Feng had concluded that those born with six traits were as rare as those with supreme-grade spirit roots, or even heavenly spiritual roots.
Tie Dali was a trait genius!
And as the first disciple recruited into the sect, he would naturally receive priority consideration from Lin Feng.
Besides, since replacing a trait would cause a disciple's original innate trait to dissipate, Lin Feng would not consider replacing Liu Yurou's traits for the time being.
After working everything out, Lin Feng took Tie Dali into unexplored areas to search for disciples with aptitude.
At the same time, Lin Feng kept a constant eye on the points of the leaderboard's first-place sect.
Time remaining in the first week's disciple recruitment aptitude rankings: seven hours.
Lin Feng was quite lucky. He found another disciple with a low-grade spirit root and one with a middle-grade spirit root, sending his points surging by 25 to reach 390!
Meanwhile, the first-place Daoxuan Sect had reached 1,276 points.
Three hours remained until the competition ended.
Lin Feng's points had not increased again.
The Daoxuan Sect's points, however, had risen by another 40, reaching 1,316!
Lin Feng grew a little nervous.
One hour remained until the competition ended.
Lin Feng found another disciple with a low-grade spirit root and one with a five-element mixed spiritual root, increasing his points by another six! His current total was 396.
The Daoxuan Sect's points had stalled, which was good news for Lin Feng.
The final five minutes.
Lin Feng waited no longer. He replaced Tie Dali's trait, exchanging his original five-element mixed spiritual root for a heavenly spiritual root.
Tie Dali instantly felt an earth-shaking change in his body. His affinity with the Spiritual Qi between heaven and earth increased dramatically, and aspects of his cultivation method that had once puzzled him now became profoundly clear, as though wisdom had been poured straight into his head.
On the leaderboard, Lin Feng's Evergreen Sect jumped straight from 396 points to 1,396, taking first place.
The Daoxuan Sect's points also increased by 60 in an instant! It reached 1,376, placing second.
[Server-wide announcement: the first week's disciple recruitment aptitude competition in Sect World 999 has ended. Congratulations to the Evergreen Sect for taking first place on the points leaderboard and earning generous rewards.] [Server-wide announcement: the trading system for Sect World 999 has officially opened. Sect masters may freely sell and purchase the items they need in the trading house.] [Server-wide announcement: rewards for the first week's disciple recruitment aptitude competition have been distributed. Sect masters, please check that you have received them.]
Three consecutive announcements sent Server 999's chat channel into an uproar once again.
[Daoxuan Sect master: Evergreen Sect, you sons of bitches, get the hell out here! Sneaking a win, huh? If you've got the guts, compete with me fair and square!] [Supreme Purity Sect master: Exactly! Whose sect is the Evergreen Sect, anyway? Do you dare show yourself? I had second place secured, and now I've suddenly dropped to third. Compensate me for all those resources I lost!] [Limitless Sect master: Fuck me! I had tenth place locked down, and out of nowhere, I got shoved out of the top ten. My ranking rewards dropped a whole tier! Does the Evergreen Sect even exist? Is it a shill for this Sect World? Specifically here to suppress us?] [We demand to inspect the cards!]
Countless sects began chiming in, demanding to inspect the Evergreen Sect's cards to see whether it was a sect that actually existed and whose sect it was!
In truth, if the Evergreen Sect had been an S-rank sect, these sects would not have objected so strongly.
But an E-rank sect kept riding on their heads and shitting on them, which left them deeply displeased, even if this E-rank sect might have been a great sect that had once existed in this world, since faded away, and been awakened by someone.
Lin Feng, however, remained unmoved by the attacks against him in the server chat channel.
He had taken first place on the first week's competition leaderboard entirely through his own strength, without relying on any outside help!
In a world where the strong reigned supreme, only strength gave one the right to speak.
Lin Feng looked at the rewards he had received, feeling a little excited.
For first place on the first week's disciple recruitment points leaderboard, he received High-Grade Spirit Root Marrow-Cleansing Jade ×1, Ancient Spirit-Guiding Platform Construction Blueprint ×1, and 100 high-grade spirit stones.
The High-Grade Spirit Root Marrow-Cleansing Jade could upgrade a disciple whose aptitude was below a high-grade spirit root to a high-grade spirit root. For a sect in its early stages of development, it was quite important.
Those with high-grade spirit roots already qualified as core disciples in the various sects. After all, supreme-grade spirit roots and heavenly spiritual roots were rare.
The Ancient Spirit-Guiding Platform Construction Blueprint allowed the construction of a Spirit-Attracting Platform, greatly increasing the concentration of Spiritual Qi within the sect. It was a rare treasure.
And those 100 high-grade spirit stones had made Lin Feng financially free outright. They were equivalent to 10,000 middle-grade spirit stones, or one million low-grade spirit stones!
As it happened, the long-awaited trading house had officially opened as well. He could finally purchase the materials needed to set up the low-grade yellow-rank spirit gathering array and the low-grade yellow-rank mountain protection array, along with the materials required to construct the Ancient Spirit-Guiding Platform.
If he could set up this low-grade yellow-rank spirit gathering array and the Ancient Spirit-Guiding Platform, he would take the lead once again in the second week's competition!