12 An Open Door, A Path or More?

All eighteen Elders stood around Yun at specific locations, all of which had the same multicolored stone as what was under her own feet. Between them all were what looked like scuff marks on the floor, intertwining and connecting everyone's locations. As they all began to pour their power into the pattern on the floor it became obvious that the entire area was an array formation and they were all standing in powerful intersections, controlling it.

As the power grew and the array fully activated the runes began to shimmer and fly around, layer upon layer rotating and intersecting around her. Before long the runes were rotating around her so fast they looked like a solid line, and soon after that elements began to be drawn from the stone around her feet, slowly forming their own rotations in the air. As the elemental energy rotated and mingled many minor elements formed and broke apart at the intersections of elements, slowly a halo of energy formed around Yun's body, growing into a sphere around her and holding back the elemental energy. As each energy rotated and intersected they all started to move inward or outward, and as each energy reached the sphere around Yun they interacted with it before reversing their directions.

Water intersected with Earth to form Ice, with Fire to form Air; Earth intersected with the energy of Lightning to form Gravity, with Metal to form Vibration; Fire intersected with Lightning to form Light, with Metal to form Death; Lightning intersected with Water to form Life, and Metal to bind Space; Metal intersected with water to create the Hard and Soft. All of these things intertwined and pulsed back and forth over and over, and at some point a change became noticeable in the aura around Yun.

Each time the Fire and Thunder energies encountered the aura a small amount, almost impossible to see, seeped into the aura. After a few times of this there began to be small forms swimming within the aura, slowly growing bigger with each cycle. Steadily they became more and more clear, visible creatures of Lightning and Fire swirling around and growing larger. As the energy rings oscillated more and more slowly the creatures flowing within the aura grew close to Yun, close enough that only she could see what they truly were; a dragon of Lightning roaring across the skies, a fox with many tails of fire flying through the void.

As the array began to slowly return to the inert state it began in, everything began to fade but the two elemental energies that had approached close to her body, now only two small balls of energy vibrantly pulsing, one by each shoulder. As the energy finally faded and each of the Elders retracted their power a light could be seen gleaming in their eyes. Each Elder then turned to Elder Lei, silently communicating with him yet again, giving their opinions and thoughts on this matter. Leaving this matter to his discretion, each of the Elders then turned and returned to their original locations within the side rooms.

Only three Elders remained, one of them Elder Lei. As he walked up to the center of the array, where Yun still stood, she looked up at him with bright eyes full of wonder. Elder Ley hesitated for a moment, then spoke, "Young Yun, the Elders of the Hunting Hall have all agreed that we could promote you straight to a Direct Disciple position."

At this she couldn't resist her ears and tail moving in excitement, but after a short moment Elder Lei began to speak again, "I, however, believe that you are not ready. You need more forging, more time to grow before you are put into such an environment. You have yet to embark on any missions, cultivate any skills, or even participate in any tournaments. In the past two years you have certainly grown in knowledge and cultivation, but you have also only done basic tasks such as cleaning and minding. As a result I will indeed bestow you a new position as a Core Disciple, providing you much more freedom to begin to really start to interact with the Sect, but you must start to truly develop your martial heart as well as your cultivation. The greatest immediate benefit will be access to the cultivation techniques. Core disciples have access to many more techniques as well, one of which is what you are currently in need of. The technique you are looking for is an inheritance that hasn't been used in a very long time. We do not know where it came from, or how old it actually is, but those with both affinities are so rare that even the higher level sects don't care about this kind of thing. The Solar Thunder Sutra will help you form your Neidan in the best circumstances. Now, let us go and retrieve your new robes."

After being escorted to get her new robes, Elder Lei showed her to the Core Disciple space that would now be hers. With the new status she was also given new quarters, greater monthly compensation, and she was now responsible for managing a group of lower ranking disciples. Each week she needed to obtain jobs and missions for the sect in order to earn resources for her own disciples, then distribute all of these resources as she saw fit. Just learning this alone helped her understand that she was likely being cheated by Sister Rong before and was receiving less resources than others in her group.

These lower disciples didn't know the full system, of course, just that they were responsible for reporting to a single Core Disciple and completing the tasks assigned to them. After the first week began since she became a Core Disciple, Yun obtained very few valuable jobs for her group of disciples. Sighing on the inside, she distributed these tasks fairly to them all and vowed to do better the next week. Each week she would go early to try and get a good position to pick missions, and each week the amount of resources her group earned went up bit by bit. As she worked hard for her group of disciples she also studied just as hard in the Solar Thunder Sutra.

This cultivation technique seemed to be extremely precious, but instead of being stored in the Sect Library like the others it was given directly to her. Elder Lei had told her personally that those with an affinity for two elements that was strong enough to be worth cultivating were exceedingly rare, to the point where most Sects didn't care about the inheritances regarding this kind of cultivation. If they happened across such inheritances they would, of course, acquire them, but they would never shed a tear about giving them away. Instead, if they had good reason to give them away they would be overjoyed, as this would mean they had come into contact with a rare cultivator who was suitable to learn the technique they had acquired.

This particular technique was one that Elder Lei himself had found and placed in the Core Disciples section of the Library decades ago. Like this, Yun continued for almost two months before finally having the resources and knowledge she wanted to begin challenging the next stage in her cultivation.