Evolution - Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Time flies in the world of cultivation. Ji Changqing and He Yi, blending in with a group of elementary schoolers, were actually having a rather pleasant time. They studied every day, occasionally tutored the little ones, and sometimes offered comfort and guidance. The things that seemed like the end of the world to the children were, of course, utterly trivial to them.

For instance, someone stealing their seat in class, someone glaring at them, someone trying to scare them, or someone mocking them for their poor test scores and calling them hopelessly stupid.

Only in cases of deliberate bullying would Ji Changqing and the others sneakily throw a sack over the offender's head and give them a good thrashing. She felt absolutely no guilt about picking on someone smaller and was, in fact, quite pleased with herself.

For minor squabbles and arguments, they wouldn't get physical. They would simply cheer the little ones up and feed them a steady diet of inspirational platitudes.

As their year in the Trial Study Pavilion drew to a close, Big Sister Chu Ci was still away on a mission and had yet to return. Lingyun Peak remained in perfect order. Aside from the life-or-death, earth-shattering battles on the challenge platform, Lingyun Peak was actually very well-behaved, practically a model peak within the Tianyi Sect.

This was the domain Big Sister had forged.

And that was meant in the most literal sense. Both Lingyun Peak's current standing within the sect and the rules within the peak itself had been established by Chu Ci's sword.

Although Lingyun Peak was still dirt-poor, its entire atmosphere had been transformed over the past thirty or forty years. Ten thousand years ago, when the Tianyi Sect was founded, Lingyun Peak had been the peak with the greatest combat strength and the largest contributions. It was also the most free-spirited and diverse peak in the sect; regardless of one's major, only the most outstanding disciples could enter Lingyun Peak. That was until over a thousand years ago, during the great war between Dao and demons, when Lingyun Peak sent out all its elites, only for them to be completely wiped out. From then on, Lingyun Peak's status within the sect plummeted. Even those who joined out of admiration for its former glory would, after their illusions were shattered, choose to transfer to other peaks if they had the ability. After a millennium of decline, Lingyun Peak had slowly become a dumping ground for the other peaks' rejects—be they disciples unwanted after the selection process, troublemakers, or those who had offended the wrong people. It had effectively become the sect's place of exile.

This state of affairs only began to change thirty years ago. And that change originated from the sect's recruitment of new disciples fifty years ago.

As the legend goes, fifty years ago, a seven-year-old Chu Ci joined the sect. She was highly talented and perceptive but possessed a particularly romantic spirit. Having read too many heroic tales, she insisted on joining Lingyun Peak. No one could persuade her otherwise. The sect's upper echelons thought to themselves that children were truly difficult to reason with. So, they decided to let her go and suffer a bit. Once she had a taste of hardship, she would come crying and begging to transfer to another peak without any further persuasion.

With this secret desire to see the proud little genius suffer and come back crying, the sect allowed Chu Ci to enter Lingyun Peak.

At that time, Lingyun Peak was filled with scoundrels, ruffians, and apathetic disciples who were just drifting through life one day at a time. There were very few who were willing to cultivate diligently in pursuit of the Great Dao. Because the sect rules strictly forbade disciples from harming one another, no one was ever killed outright. But often, there were plenty of ways to make someone suffer a fate worse than death.

When Chu Ci arrived at Lingyun Peak at the age of eight, she brought nothing with her but a single sword. The first thing she did upon entering the peak was to hand her disciple token, used for collecting the monthly allowance, to the disciple in charge of distribution. "Divide it among yourselves however you like," she said. "Just make sure no one disturbs me."

Her words left everyone stunned.

But since she had offered up her entire monthly allowance—essentially her entire fortune—they weren't so shameless as to refuse such a small request. The main reason, of course, was that the little girl's cultivation level was low; there was no profit to be squeezed from her. Furthermore, as a new disciple with high talent and perception—even if she'd had a brain fart to join Lingyun Peak—the higher-ups were surely keeping an eye on her. She could be poached by another peak at any moment, so it was best not to offend her too much.

She had the potential to make a comeback at any time, and she was being so generous. Why not do her a simple favor?

Thus, Chu Ci was able to practice her sword in peace every day. When she was hungry, she went to the dining hall; when it was time for missions, she did them. This continued for two years until she achieved a perfect Foundation Establishment. Afterward, she went to the main peak to get a new disciple token and collect the reward for her perfect achievement. Instead of returning to Lingyun Peak, she directly enrolled in sword cultivation courses, studying sword techniques. Relying on the sect's monthly allowance, scholarships, and extra income from missions, she learned everything she could during the Foundation Establishment stage in one go. Over nearly two years of sparring with fellow disciples and battling demonic beasts, she honed her combat prowess.

At the age of twelve, her cultivation at the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage, she finally returned to Lingyun Peak. The first thing she did was thrash the faction that had dared to take her allowance for two years, beating them until they were crying for their parents and begging for mercy. It took her a month to subdue and recruit her first batch of followers. Then, with her new underlings providing backup, she challenged the entirety of Lingyun Peak with her sword.

Most of those sent to Lingyun Peak were weaklings, a small portion were troublemakers, and a significant number had been exiled for offending someone. But no matter how they got there, the fact that they hadn't come willingly meant one thing—they were the abandoned ones.

In a sect that could enforce the rule against harming fellow disciples so effectively, regardless of the undercurrents and power struggles within, one thing was certain: those with high aptitude and immense potential would never be truly abandoned.

In other words, at that time, the most valuable person on Lingyun Peak was Chu Ci. No one below the Core Formation stage was her match. There were only two or three cultivators at or above that stage, and even they weren't confident they could defeat her in a non-lethal match if she went all out.

Furthermore, Chu Ci had swept through everyone below the Core Formation stage, beating them into at least superficial submission, all so she could assign tasks to this group of self-pitying drifters. By all appearances, she intended to rebuild Lingyun Peak. As for the two or three "kittens" at the Core Formation stage who had been abandoned and exiled there, was it possible they didn't harbor some desire to make a comeback and slap the faces of those who had given up on them? Impossible.

They had simply never considered rebuilding Lingyun Peak on their own. Now, someone else was doing it. Even if they thought it was a pipe dream, it didn't interfere with them. Besides, what if? What if she actually succeeded? Even if they weren't willing to contribute, they could at least refrain from holding her back.

And so, this group of people—who couldn't resist, who had given up on themselves, who were being whipped into moving forward—began to change after tasting the sweet fruits of that change. They couldn't say exactly when it started. Perhaps it was when they reclaimed the barren land and had their first harvest of spirit rice. Perhaps it was when, after being violently forced to practice the sword every morning, they started to notice their own improvement. Perhaps it was having their techniques corrected and perfected after each thrashing. Perhaps it was when disciples from other peaks who had mocked and insulted them were personally called out by Chu Ci, dragged onto the challenge platform, and beaten to a pulp. Or perhaps it was when Chu Ci used Lingyun Peak's income to pay their tuition for the courses they wanted to study...

Once, their spirits had been broken, and they had been trampled into the mud. They thought they would never get back on their feet, so they resigned themselves to living like filth. But now, someone was pulling them out of the mire, forcefully demanding they stand up straight, live like proper human beings, and piece by piece, straightening their broken spines.

They couldn't refuse, nor did they want to.

So, they would follow her and live with dignity.

Besides, judging by that violent maniac Chu Ci, if they couldn't manage to live with dignity on their own, she would probably beat them into shape, piece by piece. In that case... it was better to be proactive!

In an era where Soul Transformation masters were basically in seclusion and Nascent Soul cultivators were the public face of the sect, a Foundation Establishment sword cultivator who had comprehended sword intent and established a sword heart possessed the combat strength to fight far above her level. With a violent maniac like Chu Ci—whose thought processes were bizarre and methods were simple and crude—at the helm, Lingyun Peak slowly began to take shape. When Chu Ci was seventeen and twenty-seven, the new disciples sent to Lingyun Peak during the recruitments were still the rejects from other peaks.

At the age of twenty-nine, twenty-one years after joining the sect and eighteen years after her Foundation Establishment, Chu Ci successfully formed her core and became a Core Formation sword cultivator. After that, she diligently polished her cultivation for three years, then began challenging the Core Formation disciples of the other 107 peaks in the sect. It took her nearly five years to fight her way to the title of the sect's "Big Sister."

During the recruitments when she was thirty-seven and forty-seven, Lingyun Peak finally began to attract disciples who joined voluntarily, but they were all a bunch of sword fanatics who loved to fight and kill.

Now, it was the fifth recruitment since Big Sister Chu Ci had joined the sect. Lingyun Peak's combat strength had seen some improvement, and it held an unusual attraction for new disciples who admired the strong. They had no shortage of promising sword cultivators, but they were desperately lacking in talented prospects for technical fields like alchemy, talismans, formations, and artifact refinement.

A male disciple, who had already been in contact with Big Sister and had been secretly observing the new recruits for a year, had experienced a roller coaster of emotions. Now, he demurely extended an invitation to the prospects he had been watching for a year.

The very thought was thrilling. The promising technicians among this batch of new disciples were the precious sparks that could lift Lingyun Peak out of poverty and lead it to prosperity!

When Luo Mingsheng, Luo Gengjiu, Ji Changqing, He Yi, Gu Jiawen, and Er Ya—oh, right, Er Ya had changed her name to Shen Guiqing—all six of them gathered once more, standing together before the flying boat that would take them from the Trial Study Pavilion to Lingyun Peak, they couldn't help but smile at one another.

Luo Gengjiu remarked with disdain, "After a year of being well-fed and well-cared-for, you all look even more shabby than you did a year ago!"

Luo Mingsheng, on the other hand, was delighted. "We're all on Lingyun Peak! We can team up for missions together in the future!"

Er Ya—oh, no, Shen Guiqing—felt a pang of sympathy for He Yi. During the first half of their year in the Trial Study Pavilion, He Yi had tutored her extensively, forging a strong comradely bond between them. "From now on, I'll make lots of delicious food to help you all get stronger," she said.

Indeed, Shen Guiqing's chosen specialization was rather niche but very practical: she had chosen to be a culinary cultivator.

Gu Jiawen didn't say anything, standing to the side with his lips pressed together, but his happiness was palpable. He had chosen to be an alchemy cultivator.

Among the six of them, only Luo Gengjiu was a sword cultivator. Luo Mingsheng had chosen to be a talisman cultivator. The sole reason the two of them had chosen Lingyun Peak was that Luo Mingsheng was a massive fangirl of Big Sister. Otherwise, with her outstanding talent in talisman cultivation, she would have been assigned to a different peak.

It was the same for Gu Jiawen. He had good spiritual roots, and his aptitude for alchemy was no less than Luo Mingsheng's for talismans. Had he gone to a peak that specialized in alchemy, becoming a direct disciple would have been no difficult feat. He hesitated for a long time before ultimately choosing Lingyun Peak, a victim of Ji Changqing's brainwashing.

Before the disciples chose their peaks and were chosen by them, Ji Changqing and He Yi had carefully selected Lingyun Peak. Then, they secretly went to work brainwashing Shen Guiqing and Gu Jiawen, relentlessly selling them on the virtues of Lingyun Peak. With Luo Mingsheng providing assistance by constantly singing Big Sister's praises, they managed to talk the two into a daze.

"Lingyun Peak is short on everything except sword cultivators. If you go, you'll be treated like a precious treasure! Any resources on the peak that an alchemy cultivator or culinary cultivator can use will definitely be prioritized for you. It's much better than going to another peak where you'd have to fight for everything."

"That's right!" Luo Mingsheng added with great conviction. "Besides, Big Sister is incredibly powerful and as fair as they come. No one would dare short you on your resources."

"Mhm, Lingyun Peak's combat strength is high. When you need to visit other peaks for exchanges or to ask for guidance, they won't dare to be perfunctory or slight you." People are protective of their own, after all. The disciples of other peaks, out of respect for Lingyun Peak's might and a desire to avoid being dragged onto the challenge platform, would be tactful enough to show them some face.

Luo Mingsheng continued to sing Big Sister's praises with conviction. "Big Sister cares for her junior brothers and sisters more than anyone! She'll have our backs and won't let anyone from the other peaks bully us!"

...

He Yi watched with a grin as the two of them worked in tandem to swindle the others. The two youngsters, Gu Jiawen and Shen Guiqing, were talked into a daze and, in a moment of impulsive excitement, signed up!

After the new disciples were assigned, both the steward of Lingyun Peak and Ji Changqing's group of six were very satisfied. One side was delighted to have successfully been assigned to Big Sister's peak, which would make their future careers as professional thigh-huggers much easier. The other side, sympathizing with the hardship Big Sister had endured for the past thirty years—a King-level player carrying a team of Bronzes—was thrilled to have finally tricked a few promising prospects into coming back as manual labor. They dreamed of the day these little sprouts would grow into Kings themselves, so Big Sister would no longer have to spend her hard-won resources on everyone else and could instead enjoy the fruits of their labor!

And so the two parties met, each with their own ulterior motives, each hoping the other would carry them to victory. One side pretended to be shy and full of hopeful aspiration, while the other put on the air of a transcendent senior—tolerant, generous, gentle, and approachable.

Both sides were very satisfied with the facade they saw, thinking themselves brilliant. A preliminary victory had been achieved!

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