Chapter 03;

After saying their goodbyes Zise leaves his mother to join the cultivator, he introduces himself as Jiang Zhou, and he is a third class cultivator from Ming city academy.

he then summons something that looks like a tiger with wings, it seemingly appears from his body and lands before him.

everyone around was shocked to see it, this was an animal guide which cultivators receive at ten years old,

it is said that the guides fuse with a cultivator granting him additional physical attributes, in addition to that this beast acts as a cultivators second life as it can sacrifice itself to save a cultivators life when in mortal danger.

this spirit beats were also in different levels just like the chaos beasts however they grow at a different pace, they feed off of the cultivator.

if a cultivator is weak then they cannot grow as they have nothing to feed on the cultivator, however with those cultivators powerful enough,

the excess energy given off by their bodies during cultivation ffeds the spirit beats allowing it to elevate itself growing stronger as well.

the stronger it grows the more aid it can rend the cultivator during critical moments and fights, what they were looking at was the three eyed tiger king.

it was a spirit beast of the highest class among tiger beasts it manifested a third eye which was helpful when a cultivator is forging their spiritual path, and it had huge feathered wings.

cultivator Jiang pulls the two kids onto the beast and they set off for the academy, as he admired the beast, Zise asks the cultivator where spirit beats come from?

he replies telling them that when they are old enough to get spirit beasts, their instructors will explain it to them.for the time being they should just focus on growing their strength.

a few hours later the beast enters the airspace of a city, the city was wide, busy, noisy and full of large tall buildings, the smallest was about two stories while the tallest at the center of the city was nearly seven stories tall.

this was Zise's first time in a big city so he was caught off guard, there were several beasts moving in the skies and a few more waking on the ground each with a cultivator.

Jiang took them to the outskirts of the city where a compound lay out stretched, at the entrance of the compound was thr name Ming City Academy.

this clearly signified that they were in Ming city, there were young kids waiting already on the ground and several cultivators standing before them.

it was obvious that these kids were coming from other towns and they were lining up ahead of the academy teachers of something,

Jiang lowered his beast and told the two kids to join in line while he went to pay his respects to the elders In front of the kids.

they waited for a while as more kids made it back with cultivators like Jiang, some cultivators came back empty handed.

Ming city was one of the centers of administration in the Southern region of Xila Empire, it held dominion over close to 100 villages,

because of that, whenever it was recruitment day, several big clans would send representatives to scout talents for them to absorb into their sects.

the kids would train at the academy for seven years before they would leave to either pursue further education in advanced academies or join sects as sect members or join the military.

it was only the first seven years that were compulsory to every young cultivator to study, after that their parents made the choice to either keep them in school or take them somewhere else.

the sects came in at this time to influence their chosen ones to represent them while obtaining a chance to join higher education.

this was because once every year a competition is held among the academies in a region to choose the best students of that year,

the best academies would then recieve more quotas of students to send to the best adcanced academy in the empire, Xila Royal academy,

having more students in the academy represented the strength of a sect and it gains more respect in the future, if a student sponsored by a sect performs something grand or miraculous,

they gain respect for themselves of course but more importantly they elevate their sect in the eyes of the common people.

before long the people at the head of the a academy realized that there students coming in were done, this signified that they could begin the sorting process.

the guy at the center of the elders came forward and introduced himself as Dean Long of Ming Academy, he tells them that the people behind him are representatives from the major sects in the southern region, they were the Sword sect, blacksmith association, Tian sect, Ming sect, eagle sect and the Zori sect,

of the six, the blacksmith association wasn't exclusive as joining it wouldn't stop someone from joining another sect however it was the also the hardest to join.

the blacksmith association also wasn't entirely based in the southern region, the headquarters of the blacksmith association were in Xila city at the heart of the continent,

however every city in all the five regions held a branch of the association, this was because the association was under the patronage of the blacksmith god who was very open to outsiders.

the other five sects were the major sects in the region and they each followed the practice of a specific god in their teachings,

as the selection test started, those students that wanted to join a specific sect would line up in front each of the five sect representatives, the black smith association wouldn't pick that easily.

as the kids undertook the sects they were advised to pick by their parents, Zise remained in place refusing to pick a specific sect to sponsor his studies.

his village mate Di Shin had gone straight to join the Ming sect which was apparently the strongest sect in the southern region, at level 5 Di Shin hadn't discovered his elemental attribute yet.

there was a high chance he would be dropped from the sect, however Zise was also aware that Di Shin wasn't someone easy.

after the students picked a sect, the sect would then choose between them to get those that fit their expectations while the rest would be dropped.

Zise wouldn't be picking a sect at all as his father's letter had warned him about this, his father had told him that picking a sect from the southern region would limit his future growth because the sect is so localized,

however in the future of he made it further he would be able to find a sect suitable for himself or even not joining a single sect as that would be fine too.

at the end he was alone in the assembly grounds with everyone else having chosen a sect of preference. the dean looked at him asking him if he wasn't going to choose a sect.

Zise simply replied that he only wishes to join the blacksmith association and nothing else, the elders looked at him mockingly as no one expected him to be any good.

most talents would pick a sect as it broadens their avenues, they obtain access to cultivation resources, guidance and sect mates who come in handy when one is in trouble.

however for him to only choose the blacksmith association meant that either his talent wasn't good or he didn't have enough mana so he sought the blacksmith association to give him a future should his cultivation path fail.

from there the selection among sects started, each sect designated a place in the square where they would test their new students to see if they qualified to join their test,

normally this test didn't focus on the amount of mana one had as that problem could be solved with a little guidance and resources.

however a cultivators potential was determined by their meridians, their size, elasticity and number. a regular person had about five meridians these meridians are always thin and cannot support them well.

cultivators on the other hand are different, they can possess up to 20 meridians of varying sizes and elasticity, for one to become a genius they need to have between 10-15 meridians of medium size and elasticity,

anything beyond that and one would become an unrivaled genius, their tests commenced and there was a surprisingly enough people between 10 and fifteen, Di Shin shocked everyone when he displayed 12 meridians of large size and maximum elasticity.

this was a rare genius that doesn't appear often times, he was even recorded privately for his information to be taken strain to the sect leader.

when they were done the black smith association selection begun and since Zise had been waiting they chose to begin with him first.

to become a member of the black smith association they didn't test meridians and mana levels however what they tested was one's physical prowess.

they would check muscle and bone strength, this was because for one to become a blacksmith it required a strong physique and resilience otherwise the effort from the exercise may cripple a weak person.

Zise knew all this because his father was a blacksmith, inside his ring were several things including a pair of smithing hammers, however these hammers needed him to first obtain a cultivation of atleast level 20

in the meantime his father had left detailed description of the forging process and how Zise could train his body to achieve perfect success in a very short time.

although to the rest he looked like a novice who knew nothing about the cultivator's world, but in reality he knew more about the cultivation world than about himself

he took a step forward to the testing platform and he was directed to the mana testing platform first, this was because he wasn't tested by the sects but it had no effect on his blacksmith test at all.

he was given a different testing device that seemed to have been made specifically for the blacksmith association, it had the same appearance as the one he used earlier except it was ten times larger and its scale went all the way up to 100.

Zise placed his hand at the testing node and circulated his mana, as the energy flowed within his body the scale started moving rising quickly to five just as everyone expected it to.

then it started rising beyond level five, even in a crowd this large it was rare to find someone above level 5, among the nearly 60 students that were entering the academy only about five of the previously tested had mana above 5.

the highest even had mana at level 9 which surprised everyone, at present they were seeing someone else who goes above level 5,

as they watched Zise's mana rose steadily to level 9 before it started slowing down, all the sect representatives were already shocked not to mention the dean and the student body.

Di Shin on the other hand had no expression, he was happy when Zise didn't choose the ming sect as that meant he wouldn't have to compete against him in the sect for resources.

however when he saw people under looking him he remembered that he too had done something similar in the past and he knew these people were about to be shocked beyond expectations.

as they watched the scale reached level 10 and instantly the entire scale was tinted a purple color, this was an elemental attribute and its appearance shocked all the elders present.

those studnets from big families also understood the significance of this event, the mana even attempted to surpass level10 however it stopped short of entering level 11.

those experienced cultivators understood the meaning of this, it simply meant that Zise's cultivation had been held back by the absence of an origin crystal to solidify his cultivation.

if he had one there is a possibility his mana would be somewhere higher, this alone was a shock to everyone present, then he moved to have his meridians tested.

Zise had fully awakened 18 meridians of maximum size with his father's guidance however he understood that he couldn't expose that or he would generate a ruckus.

so he used his mana to block some of his meridians and as the blacksmith cultivator examined him he first looked shocked then he stared directly into Zise's eyes for a moment before he announced his result.

he proclaimed that Zise had awakened 15 fully formed meridians, one should understand that developing the size, elasticity and number of meridians would proceed until someone reached level 39,

having 15 fully formed meridians at level 10 meant this person wouldn't face any hardship in cultivation atleast until level 40.