A Thing Called Spiritual Energy

Su Yan sighed in satisfaction. Great! Too great! This had worked out even better than he had hoped. Now he could even use this little scene for some developments in future chapters.

"Ah, I really am such a genius!"

This was the first sentence Nie Chang heard when he left the bathroom. He stopped in his tracks, waited if there would be something else to hear and went into the kitchen when nothing happened. His little darling probably wasn't finished yet and wouldn't appreciate it if he told him he could use the bathroom now. He should just make him something to eat and use that to lure him out of bed. Giving him something tasty would also reduce the chance of being cussed at and thrown out. Mn, he should go for another one of Su Yan's favorite dishes.

Su Yan hadn't noticed that something was happening outside the bedroom at all. He didn't even hear when Nie Chang started to rummage around in the kitchen. He was completely absorbed in his story.

The scene he had just finished had gone really well but he didn't want to draw the admission test out needlessly. Sure, it was typical for xianxia and he wanted to have some of the usual tropes in there but since Dou Fang Hai was already admitted it would be dumb to insist on using this one. Nah, it'd be better if he used things like the auction instead. So, for now, he could really summarize the rest of the admission test and only focus on where something important happened like Jin Bao Fu's test and him becoming Xue Chang Fu's disciple.

Su Yan rubbed his hands again and started to type, unwinding the test of physical strength in a few paragraphs.

[While Master and disciple were talking about the spiritual crystal orb the Elder at the square also would have liked to know what was going on but he needed to take care of the test. One after the other did he ask a disciple to step forward and asked what the person wanted to do for the test. Then he urged the others to step forward if they wanted to do the same. In that manner, he had soon dealt with all the recruits.

There weren't any surprises. The children from little towns or cities did some ordinary things while the ones with cultivators in their families or those that were at least from wealthier families displayed some sword arts they had learned from their families. None of this was unexpected.

The Elders looked at some of the tests but naturally, they couldn't watch all of them at the same time. They would take a closer look when they had returned to their houses and decide on a possible disciple for themselves then.

Some of them eyed Jin Bao Fu. After all, wouldn't it be great to have the prince of a kingdom as your disciple? Especially if there was a hidden expert standing behind his royal family. Maybe they would have the chance to get acquainted with that hidden expert!

Unfortunately, they knew that there was no chance they would be able to take that boy in. He wanted Grandmaster Ziju to be his Master but that had become impossible. Now, the next person he would set his eyes on should be their Sect Master, right?

The Elders turned to look at them but Xue Chang Fu was currently harassing Elder Yue next to him and didn't look the part of a Master at all. The Elders sighed. They were so much more hard-working than their Sect Master! Why couldn't they have some luck?

Well, there was nothing they could do besides complaining in their hearts. Thus the test of physical strength ended without another incident and the Elder in charge of the admission test had his disciples go and fetch the recruits back.

Soon, the hundred children had gathered on the square again, confusion written in their eyes. They couldn't understand why everything was still looking exactly the same as when they had started with their test. Especially those disciples that had had to enter an array for their tests were bewildered. Hadn't they been gone for several days when they were called back? Why were the Elders still sitting there like that? Didn't cultivators grow tired at all?

The Elder in charge of the test didn't take the time to explain anything and just announced the start of the next part of the admission test.

"Just step into this array for your test to begin. You may walk around or sit down but you can also continue to stand. Only your interaction with the spiritual energy will be important for this test."

He waved his sleeve and a large array lit up next to the children. The first few hesitated a bit, especially those that had been in an array before. They had no idea what might happen if they stepped in there! The other disciples didn't think too much and just walked past them. They entered the array and did what the Elder had said, some of them standing at the edge of the array, some walking farther in and sitting down and some even walking across the whole thing to find out what it was about.

For a while, this lively scene continued until the children finally calmed down and concentrated on the issue at hand: The spiritual energy. Or, well, at least they tried to focus on it.

Not taking the children from influential families into consideration the others had only heard some vague stories about cultivation and the spiritual energy used for it. Thus none of them knew what it was or how they were supposed to interact with them.

When they finally realized this the first interesting reactions happened. The Elders all watched calmly as a little girl started bawling her eyes out and a small boy jumped up and down as if he could catch that so-called spiritual energy like that. There were others that were looking around wildly while some started to get up and run from one corner of the array to the other as if they could find some difference in the array and thus find the spiritual energy too.

None of them managed to get a grasp of what this thing was and interacting with it seemed impossible so they could only turn to the Elder in charge to ask for help.]