Recruitment

After exchanging for a proper set of clothes in the village Caminus spent the time before the recruitment around his shelter. Splitting his time between cultivating and martial practice he used up another 80 grams of petram cultivating. After his entrance and show in the sparring none of the other children approached him while he trained.

The morning of the sect recruitment a middle age man stood in the sparring area waiting for the young cultivators to gather. As Caminus approached the crowd he noticed that the number of cultivators present had doubled since he arrived and even a 10 year old yellow level cultivator was present. Caminus was one of the latest arrivals and the man soon began his speech.

"Welcome young cultivators, the sword lily sect welcomes you to our recruitment. We will begin by…"

The middle aged man suddenly looks above the crowd with an expression of shock. Looking up Caminus sees a large green fire beast flying at them with its mouth opening. Scanning the people around him he notices panic, and Adolet as well as the boy with the yellow level cultivation are both only a few meters away.

"Adolet we need to get ready for an attack. You get ready to counterattack," Caminus grabs the yellow level cultivator to get his attention. They both were only slightly startled by the appearance of the beast and snapped to action with Caminus. As predicted the fire beast releases a green fire ball out of its mouth, aimed at the crowd. Adolet strikes out with her sword sending a stream of flame at the fireball, Caminus releases his own breath attack at it, and the yellow level cultivator follows up with twin sabers, launching a blast of wind that dissipates the remainder of the fireball. Seeing this display brought courage back to the young cultivators, reminding them of their numbers. A series of attacks sprayed out from them towards the green beast. The moment the first attack reached the beast it dispersed as if it was not even there to begin with.

"Very good, usually that illusion lasts a little longer. Only one fireball, a promising group," the middle aged man praised the group of a whole, but his eyes were looking towards Caminus and the other two that dispersed that fireball. "The second test will be done individually," he pointed to 7 metal huts that had suddenly appeared off to the side, "One person at a time for each hut, you either get accepted or fail at this point, the positions are limited."

7 huts and around 50 young cultivators, this was a competition. Caminus burst out running towards the nearest hut. The nearby cultivators caught on fairly quickly as well and began to run as well. Those who were behind began to launch attacks to slow down those ahead; Caminus was the recipient of several of these attacks. After dodging most of the attacks and only sustaining a small cut from a thrown knife to his shoulder he managed to dive into the first hut. He could only imagine how the situation outside would become for those hoping to take over the huts after people leave.

Standing up Caminus noticed another middle aged cultivator sitting behind a table with some papers in front of her, "The fee!" Caminus placed the 40 grams of petram on the table, and they were quickly swept up into a bag on the side.

"Fill out these forms," short and curt she did not give off any impression of being as welcoming as the first man from the sect. Caminus sat down and started to fill out the forms, skipping over the place asking for his name, he began to answer the general question about himself; his age he answered 9, his gender he answered male, his eye colour brown, hair colour strawberry blonde, height 1.4 metres, and weight 34 kg. Then he handed that form over and began the next one which listed out a series of problems, mathematical and logical, it was a test. The third form covered general knowledge questions; these gave Caminus some trouble as he wasn't familiar with all of this kingdom's names and customs.

After finishing these forms the middle age cultivator sitting across from him handed him a small transparent sphere, "infuse some essence." Caminus grabbed it in his hand an infused some of his essence into it, the sphere sucked it in and started displaying a series of symbols and colours. The examiner looked at the results and without any change of expression took it back and began reviewing the forms. Looking across the table, "do you have no name?"

"I have one. It is Caminus," Caminus calmly replied.

The examiner wrote his name in the space for a name and wrote a quick note on the test about bad vision and then reviewed the rest of the test, satisfied she set it all down before taking out another form and filling it out herself. After filling out the form the completed forms were filed into an oven off to the side.

Caminus sat opposite the examiner for 5 minutes before she opened the oven and pulled out a stone disc with a sword lily imprinted upon it. Handing it to Caminus she instructed him, "this is your identification in the sect, you will start with a stone level identity. Take it to Repo, the man who oversaw the first test."

Caminus accepted the disc and left the hut. When the cultivators around the huts noticed one emptying there was a rush to be the next one in. Caminus rushed to the side to avoid being collateral damage in the fight. Caminus approached the now alone middle aged man and presented his disc.

"Very good, I knew you had what it takes. Welcome to the sect. Let's see your identification now," Repo took his identification, "excellent cultivation results. That was the real test; those forms help to register your identification to you and weed out the occasional brainless liability."

More young cultivators began to gather around Repo, presenting their identification discs as he welcomed them and took a look at the discs. Adolet and the yellow level cultivator were among the first batch to arrive. Caminus turned to the later who was standing near Adolet, "Thank you for your assistance in the first test. May I know your name?"

"Tempest. I already know yours, Caminus, my cousin Adolet told me.

Adolet looked over towards Caminus' disc that he was still carrying in his hand, "You got in too, that is good, I didn't know how you would do on the written questions."

"The real test was the cultivation the written test should only eliminate brainless liabilities," Caminus recited the words from Repo to Adolet.

"I know."

Caminus remembered his first appearance in the valley and realized what she meant. It gave him an odd feeling that he could not place even after all his years of learning.

Eventually a second batch of young cultivators came out of the huts, some of the huts collapsed afterwards, but others remained, and the cultivators leaving those that collapsed brought forward their identity tokens to Repo who welcomed them as well. A third and fourth round were needed before all the huts collapsed and 14 young cultivators had gathered around Repo.

Repo finished examining the last identity token, "It's time to go. Everyone hop in, it will be a long journey." After he finished speaking a gigantic beetle tunneled out of the ground behind Repo who quickly jumped into its mouth and signalled for the new sect members to follow. Caminus jumped into the beetle's mouth with the rest of the new recruits. The beetle then flew into the air and began the journey to the sect.

"It would take us too long by foot at your cultivation levels so I asked Betty to give us a ride; It should only take a few hours."