Chapter 13: Test Preparation

(2nd moon, 22nd day, 460 Lu.)

Alphonse sat cultivating as a loud ding rang in his ear. {Cultivation bonus increased: Bonus is now 2.25X.} Prism stated.

'Activate it immediately.' Alphonse told Prism as he attempted to regain focus.

{Affirmative.} Prism stated. Immediately, Alphonse felt that the spiritual ki he was gathering multiplied by around fifty percent.

'This'll be useful.' Alphonse thought to himself as he continued cultivating. After a few hours, he heard a knock on his door. Alphonse slowly stretched as he stood up and the knocking became faster and louder.

He started walking over to the door and once there stood next to it. "Who's there?" Alphonse asked.

"Theinnersectdiscipletestiscomingearlyandanyonecanjoin!" Sarah said excitedly. Alphonse sighed.

"Come in." Alphonse said as he opened his door.

...

"Explain again, but this time, please don't run words together." Alphonse said.

"Okay, okay." Sarah said as she took a deep breath. "I was in town getting some ingredients and stuff of that sort when I heard one of sect leader Xiao's elite cultivators say that the inner sect disciple test sign-ups will be tomorrow afternoon, and most of all, anyone can sign-up regardless of cultivation or age." Sarah said with general excitement in her voice.

"I take it you want to enter and you came here to convince me?" Alphonse asked. Sarah nodded with hopeful and excited eyes. "Alright. I'll do it." Alphonse said.

"That was much easier than I expected it would be." Sarah said. "Maybe Min Li was right..." Sarah mumbled.

"About what?" Alphonse asked.

"Hm? Oh, nothing in particular, just that generally if I were to ask you to do something you tend to be more willing." Sarah said.

"I don't know how to respond to that..." Alphonse said. "Well, anyway, it would be beneficial to join the inner sect as they have better bonuses. One such bonus is the fact that you can join a specific department, that is, if they chose you." Alphonse said.

"How do you know that while I don't? I usually am the more informed one about the sect..." Sarah pouted.

"I asked Min Li about it a while ago." Alphonse stated blandly. "Essentially, you don't have to win anything so long as a department head takes interest in you. By the way, do you have any information on the test?" Alphonse asked. Sarah nodded.

"It's separated into five parts. First is the battle section, you'll fight two one on one fights, if you lose both, then you fail the test and you cannot be accepted into the inner sect. The second portion is a beast fight, essentially, you have to fight one of the spiritual beasts caught by the inner sect elites." Sarah explained.

"Alright, so for the first one, since anyone can join, we shouldn't have too many difficulties so long as we stick to our primary fighting styles. And the second one we just need a strategy. So, we need to know what beasts we will be fighting against." Alphonse interjected.

"Okay, and as far as I know, you don't immediately get kicked out of the test for failing the second one, it's up to a vote from the department heads. The third one is an alchemy test. They will have us attempt to create a particular pill, for this, I believe they'll actually be using the materials we collected due to how many we collected." Sarah continued.

That one may be difficult... We will need to get a spiritual flame, from my research thus far, it can either be created or gathered from a spiritual beast that was killed, though technically you are still creating it at that point, though the method is different, so we should prepare for that one today as much as possible." Alphonse said.

Sarah nodded in agreement. "Okay, and the last two are changed each test and never repeat, so I don't have any information on them." Sarah finished.

"Alright, the information we have currently is still pretty useful. For the spiritual flame, the strength and quality of the flame along with your skill will determine the grade of the pill created, so we want to get the strongest one possible." Alphonse said.

"So mission time?" Sarah asked. Alphonse nodded.

"We need to convince them to let us take on a subjugation request." Alphonse said. "But before that, preparations, we still have money, so we should use it to prepare, I know we wanted to use it for other things, but this will give us better opportunities." Alphonse said..

"Okay, I'll grab the money and we can go to the market to see what we can get." Sarah said. Alphonse nodded as she left to gather the money. Soon enough, Sarah returned with the pouch.

"Alright, lead the way to the market." Alphonse said. The both of them left Alphonse's house and head to the market. After some time of walking, they reached the market and started browsing some shops to see if they have anything that they could use.

"Hey, Alphonse, what kind of weapon do you use?" Sarah asked.

"Several. I can use swords, staffs, knives, daggers, needles, kunai, glaives, axes, hammers, halberds, and more." Alphonse responded.

"Right... I forgot about your training for a moment..." Sarah said with a sigh. "Which do you prefer using?" Sarah asked a rephrased question. Alphonse thought fora moment.

"A mixture I guess... I would prefer to have a sword, dagger, and knife on hand so I can use them all." Alphonse said. "What do you want to use?" Alphonse asked.

"Since most of my power is in my legs, I plan to get bladed boots for fighting, they'll also have spikes on the bottom, issue is, I'll probably need it to be custom made." Sarah said.

"Okay, let's find out the price on something like that first, then we'll find things for me. We will also need some form of armor, so let's get that too." Alphonse said. Sarah nodded.

After some more looking around they eventually came across a blacksmith who can make some decent items. "What do you brats need?" The burly man asked.