49 Inner Sect

After the Elder gave his motivational speech, he told them all to follow him. He led everyone, the fifty elite disciples that have fought well in the exam, to the inner sect. The highest places were walking in the front close to the Elder while the last ones were in the very end of the line. Nobody told them to do this, they just reflexively gave way to the stronger disciples, as that is how the cultivation world's hierarchy works.

Lie Feng was right behind the Elder, walking while not bothering to look at anything, she resembled a proud peacock. Da Yanshi, the big guy who was the favorite to the championship stared at her back with a dark expression, he didn't seem to have forgotten being humiliated by her yet. There were two disciples behind him looking worriedly at this.

They were Shi Ming and Cao Ju, who won positions in the top 10 of the tournament, and unofficially, Da Yanshi underlings. They thought Da Yanshi was acting somewhat strange after getting beaten by Lie Feng, but they did not mention this to him to avoid getting beaten half to death.

'Damn are these Sakura trees?!'

On the front of this group, there was someone who standing out a little too much, but was oblivious to this fact. It was Blake, who was looking all around the place like a dumb tourist, seemingly very interested in her surroundings.

In fact she was so focused on them she didn't even notice people warily made way for her to reach the front, and that the disciples near her were looking at her with caution right now. People were not blind, while Blake did not reach a high position in the tournament she went toe to toe with Lie Feng so her strength was there for all to see. This feat alone easily made her as strong as the top 10 or even as strong as Da Yanshi.

Cultivators worshiped strength above all else so even though Blake rank in this exam was not high she was still treated with respect and fear, although the one getting such treatment didn't notice it at all as she was busy looking the beautiful scenery she would have never gotten to see on Earth.

The inner sect was above a small mountain and had a very beautiful landscape that would give tourist spots all across the world a run for their money. They were climbing a large stone stairway, with a river flowing down beside them, The water from it was so clean they could see the bottom of it without effort.

The top of the mountain had numerous pink trees, while beautiful wooden houses were already on viewing range. Pink petals fell down from the trees as the wind hit them, slowly falling down on the clear river and creating a river of petals constantly flowing down, it was as beautiful as a painting.

Blake was the only one showing clear admiration for all of this though. Cultivators had a lot of pride and do not want others to see them like country bumpkins or the like, so they always try to play it cool. So even though Blake was not the only one interested in the beautiful landscape, nobody was looking all around the place with a smile like her. They were either giving slight looks or simply acting indifferent like this does not impress them at all.

Blake would normally be teased or bullied by acting in such a manner, but considering her strength nobody in this group dared trying that with her at all, so they just sent weird looks at her or ignored her completely. Lie Feng, who did not bother to look at anyone this entire time surprisingly looked at Blake and gave slight smile, like she was amused by the situation.

After some more walking, they finally climbed all of the steps. Everybody here was already a full fledged cultivator so they did not get even slightly tired by the somewhat long journey, they were still bored because of the time spent on it though. The Elder slowly walked all the way here and nobody wanted to be disrespectful and run ahead so they went slowly together with him.

Once they reached the top, even the cultivators who always tried to maintain a stoic face had slight changes in their expression. There were beautiful Chinese style wooden houses with at least two floors everywhere, all neatly arranged in a way that showed this place was planned before building. The floor wasn't dirt anymore but stone tiles that you normally see in temples, every single stone tile had lines made of gold on it. There were also the occasional pink petal tree and statues imbued with jade here and there.

"These stones.... These are Tiatang Stones..." A disciple whispered with a shocked face while he looked at the floor. Tiatang stones are a rare material with abnormal resistance to attacks, it was the same stone used in the floor of the arena. Everybody but Blake was shocked realizing this.

Tiatang stones were not cheap at all, and everybody thought building the arena out of it was already impressive enough, but here they are in the inner sect, where those stones were being used as common floor. They even had actual gold engravings on them.

They could not even begin to imagine the absurd amount of money and resources spent on making just the floor alone. This really showed how ridiculously rich the Scarlet Flame Sect was, just the floor of the inner sect alone could buy two or three small sects if not more. And to make matters even more impressive, this was just the combat inner sect, the alchemy's disciples inner sect was even more grand as they heard.

Once they reached the entrance of it, the Elder suddenly stopped everyone from walking forwards and gave each and everyone of them a jade token before they were allowed to proceed. Blake was confused with the purpose of this until it was her turn.

As she took her token and entered the inner sect, she felt herself passing some sort of invisible wall and looked back in surprise. There was a very faintly visible transparent dome surrounding the entire Inner sect.

'Is this what they call a formation? The inner sect is really a different world from the outer sect. They even got formations protecting them and identifications to prevent strangers from entering.' Thought Blake.

When she got close to the invisible wall, the token in her hand released some weird energy and distorted a small part of the barrier, allowing her to pass in that small hole.

'But, isn't it easy for someone to just steal this token from a inner disciple? Or do they got more security measures they did not tell us about?' Blake was deep in thought as she stared at the jade token.

Staring at it for a while, she suddenly realized people were looking at her. There were 3 nervous young people, two boys and a girl, staring at her. They weren't making nervous expressions or anything but Blake could easily feel they were nervous. Blake then saw that they wore servant's garbs and understood what was happening. These people had something to talk to her but were afraid of interrupting a cultivator like her and getting punished.

"Excuse me, do you have something to tell me?" Blake looked at the boy walking in the front of the the three and asked.

"Y-Yes!! We are the personal servants the sect assigned to you inner disciples. It's a honor to meet you my lady!" The guy bowed as soon as he finished saying that and the other two followed suit, Blake awkwardly scratched her head looking at this.

"There's no need to bow, stand up. Can you tell me more about this personal servant thing?" Blake would have patted him in shoulder while saying this, but with the time she spent with Ye Xia and Zhao Long she knows this would frighten the guy to death.

She admits she is somewhat of a goofball but she is at least beginning to realize people like servants get more frightened than happy or comfortable when a cultivator like her acts too intimate.

This does not means she is going to flaunt her authority from now on or something, she is still a goody two shoes at heart and is gonna try her best to get them comfortable around her, even if she can't change how society works.

The servant boy, whose name is Shi Hao, explained everything to her while the other two followed suit behind him. Turns out the sect assigns three servants to each and every Inner Disciple, she looked around and saw servants attending to inner disciples everywhere just as Shi Hao mentioned. But by assign it does not mean the sect carefully looks into every inner disciple one by one and sends servants to them.

The servants themselves need to choose who to serve, so they try their very best to choose someone not so bad. Shi Hao was kind of awkward talking about this. There seems to be in fighting among the servants to serve the best disciples, it was not first come first served.

They fought among themselves to get the strongest or kindest disciples to serve. The first ones are and influential and being the servant of them would give you a lot of benefits. Someone like Lie Feng for example would make a bloodbath among the servants to see who gets to serve her. The second, the kind ones would guarantee you would not be abused and maybe you can even get some tips sometimes.

"Oh, then why did you guys choose me then?" Blake was genuinely curious.

"T-That is of course because Lady Blake is very strong!!" Shi Hao said in a very nervous voice, the two behind him showing clear signs of tension in their faces as well.

"Hahaha."

Blake laughed, she didn't even need to use aura to know these guys did not think she was strong. They were just saying this to avoid pissing her off. She shook her head and decided to pursue the matter to not make them more afraid.

Servants do not know about Blake's strength because she was eliminated earlier than she should since she met Ling Feng early on out of "luck". Only the guys who watched the tournament know and it will take a while until rumors about it spread, if they even do at all.

"Hey, can I bring a servant from the outer sect here?" Blake asked Shi Hao after some chit chat.

"Yes, although it's rare you can bring even outer disciples to live in your residence if you would like. As long as they are not outsiders, you can live with two other non inner disciples." Shi Hao explained in detail.

Blake nodded, she was gonna go get Ye Xia after a while. Not only because she was her friend but also because that bastard, He Hao, who slapped her was still in the outer sect. Blake highly doubts he would do something to Ye Xia as that would be risking his life just to harm a servant, something a cultivator would never do, if he did do something to Ye Xia, Blake or Little Xun would literally beat him to death this time. But, its better to careful after all.

She could invite Zhao Long over as well, but he did say he did not want to embark in the path of cultivation anymore so he might not come. Blake also felt that if he was brought over by her to the inner sect, the slight chance of him becoming frustrated at being left alone at the outer sect and working harder would disappear, and he truly would abandon cultivation and leave after a while. She still felt like she has to help him a little as friend though, even if she can't invite him over.

While Blake and the disciples were talking, they were lead to their residences, one of the wooden houses. They could choose any of them as long as it was empty. Blake just told Shi Hao to pick a nice one for her since they know better about this place. Shi Hao was also answering any doubts Blake had about the inner sect, like all the other servants were doing to the new inner disciples.

Shi Hao led her to a two floor house with a nice view, she liked it a lot. She told the three servants that she didn't need any laundry or cooking done and that she just wanted to sleep now, and they respectfully left to not disturb her.

Blake entered the house and was really pleased about its interior. The place was clean and fully furnished, there were about three bedrooms on the upper floor, a a kitchen and a living room on the lower one and there was even a simple basement for her to store stuff.

She went to the bedroom she liked the most, took out two pokeballs, released her friends and dropped down on the bed with force as she sighed. She was kinda mentally exhausted with everything that happened.

"Riolu, Honedge, this is where we will sleep from now on." Said Blake with a slight smile and somewhat tired tone.

"Riolu!! Riolu!!" Riolu seemed to be somewhat excited about it, jumping on the now really soft bed, which surprised Blake a little. Don't dogs really hate moving out?

"Honedge." Honedge didn't seem to care one bit about where they slept, for pretty obvious reasons.

"Hehe." Watching the figure of Riolu jumping up and down on the bad gave her tired face a smile.

She then started thinking about something completely unrelated. She had never thought about this until now but, who or what exactly had put her in this world, and why? Was she here to achieve some ultra important mission, or was she just a toy for some bored God?

'Heh, even I'm just being used for fun, I gotta admit this life isn't that bad.' Thought Blake as her eyes slowly closed, watching the figure of Riolu running around the bedroom. She closed her eyes completely and slept for good.

Riolu, who being was noisy until now looked at Honedge who stared back at him, then at the sleeping Blake. Then they each grabbed a side of the bed's blanket and covered Blake with it, leaving to another bedroom to avoid disturbing her. Honedge simply passed through the wooden wall while Riolu used the door. When he was about to close it, he looked at Blake's sleeping figure with a smile filled with warmth.

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Somewhere in a place no mortal being has ever set foot in, a unknown being smiled.