13

One year later.

It was still dawn when a figure appeared on the path leading to the Remembrance hall. The figure was illuminated for a few seconds by the moon before it disappeared again behind clouds. It was Bai li yue clad in a simple green robe dragging a long broom behind her. 

She lit the lamps at the entrance and bowed to the tablet with chu jiang li's name on it before quickly going about her duties. She dusted the alcoves and swept the non existent dirt away. Few people visited the remembrance hall during the week so working here was easy. She cleaned the hall only once a week instead of the stipulated daily schedule. 

Her cleaning done, she returned the broom back to her courtyard and took another path, meeting several similarly clad youths. The green unadorned robe meant that they all belong to the chores division. Like her, they were going about their morning duties either in the kitchens or the medicinal herb gardens.

Bai li yue arrived at her garden plot when the sun had just begun to rise. Today was harvesting day for the indigo thistle plants. She watered the rows of thornroot and moved to the indigo thistle flowers; already in bloom. She took her time snipping the flowers off the stalk. If she wanted more money for them, they couldn't be damaged. 

The herb exchange hall was not opened when she arrived. As usual, she sat outside under a tree to wait. Not long after, she was joined by other members of the chores division coming to sell their flowers. Nobody acknowledged her aside from a few stolen glances. That much she was used to. After all, she wasn't really a member of the chores division. She didn't belong anywhere. 

She remembered that one year ago, the message had reached the sect leader. He had returned a week after the dissipation of teacher chu. She had only met him briefly once during which she understood that she was still lacking. The first elder had informed the sect leader of teacher chu's dying wish, but bai li yue was still an initiate. There were people in the chores division who were of a higher rank than her.

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't even be considered for a place in the chores division not to talk of a seat on the council. No, they weren't going to break the rules for her. Bai li yue understood the decision. Even she had felt uneasy when teacher chu had brought it up. In a way, she was grateful that they didn't bend the rules to favour her. 

As for her current situation working in the chores division, she could blame no one but herself.

'If i hadn't miscalculated, i would be enjoying a different lifestyle right now. No need to work. Just cultivate nonstop.'

She bemoaned her own idiocy.

She didn't like to think about it if she could help it. She had been confident that the thousand gold coins, she reserved for her personal use, would be enough to last her a long time. Who knew that between furnishing her courtyard, buying food and new clothes, her funds would be halfway depleted? She knew then that she had to find a source of income before all her money ran out. 

The job itself wasn't that difficult to find. The mission hall was looking for a person like her and with a good word from elder mu, she started work: filling in for those who were too busy to do their chores. 

The herb exchange opened its doors later than usual. Nobody had the guts to complain when they saw that it was overseer kong on duty. They stood in line and exchanged their harvests for money. Nobody complained when the purses were missing a few coins. The last person who complained was still recovering from his injuries.

Bai li yue took her money and left. She skipped and hummed a song under her breath. Nearing her courtyard, she saw a young man waiting by the door.

' lu dou what are you doing here?'

The young man greeted her with a smile. His green robe with silver embroidery showed that he was an outer sect student. He pointed at the sack on the ground.

' miss Bai, i decided to bring your food earlier than usual this time. I have to focus on my training if i want to have a chance to enter the inner sect. My father will send his assistant with the next batch.'

Lu dou's father was the manager of the shop where she bought her food provisions. She got to know lu dou from the time when he delivered her provisions. 

Like many of the young people in the outer sect, time was precious to them. Especially for those nearing the age limit, this would be their last chance to enter the inner sect or abandon their dream of ever entering the inner sect. Those who didn't make it into the inner sect would be assigned jobs as overseers. 

Lu dou was like many of them. He came from a poor background. He had entered the outer sect and became the jewel of his family because of the talent he'd displayed, but talent did not function in a vacuum. It needed to be supported by cultivation resources. The truth was that the talent that people spoke of referred in actual fact to a person's potential. Once this potential was supported by resources, it was transformed into talent. That's what differentiated those of the outer sect from those in the inner sect. 

' Good luck in your training then.'

She said goodbye to him, knowing he was in a hurry to go to his training. 

She placed the sack in a corner of the courtyard and went to water the plants growing in her corner garden. The vegetables in this world were strange, but she had found some that tasted close to the vegetables on earth. For example the sweet rock plant produced a seedless round fruit that tastes like carrot albeit sweeter. The hundred leaves flower was just like the cabbage. It had taken her tasting many raw foods before finding a few that she could use for cooking. The tomato looked the same, but in this world it was exclusively a fruit. It was usually steamed and dipped in honey before eating. 

Bai li yue chopped some onions, peppers and sweet rock fruit and made a spicy stir fry that she added to some cooked rice and red tail fowl eggs. The rice would have been perfect with a dash of soy sauce but unfortunately there was no possibility of that.

She polished the plate clean and washed it. The sun was high in the sky now and the heat was rising. She sat in her cool room and took out the formation inheritance. Even though she wasn't as yet capable of casting the formations in the book, her understanding of arrays had progressed in leaps and bounds. Her eyes were now open to a whole new world. She had even noticed the ancient forgotten formation that surrounded the sect. Teacher chu hasn't mentioned it to her but he'd had a lot on his mind nearing the end. The badge that she had inherited from him, she discovered, was linked to the array so it was not farfetched to think that he would have told her about it if he had time. 

She had even thought that he intentionally ignored the subject so she would find out about it on her own. She had studied the broken down array for a while , before giving up on it. She wasn't capable of repairing it until she reached a higher realm.  For now, she worked on reading and understanding the inheritance. She had discovered that once she understood a section of the inheritance, the pages would shimmer and be absorbed into her body. The book was now thinner than what teacher Chu had given her, but bai li yue knew that she would have to work harder on it. She had been reading one page for about four months now and was nowhere close to understanding the complex thinking of an array sovereign. 

She had gained a new understanding of arrays. According to Emperor Han bei jie, there existed an infinite number of arrays; only limited by the imagination of the caster. Trapping arrays like the natural array in the Qian mountain range, sealing arrays like the asura's wrath sealing array and the netherworld matrix sealing array were just a drop in an ocean of possibilities. She had absorbed the diagrams of countless arrays, but the core of the inheritance was a breakthrough in mentality. The current page was an in depth treatise on the reliance on array diagrams shackling advancement 

What does it mean? Should i completely abandon array diagrams? Isn't that impossible unless one reaches the thoughtless state? Even if i stop using it, what will i be adopting? 

She had been stuck on the question for several months now. She recognised that finding the answer to the dilemma through constant questioning was the essence of gaining true comprehension. she was willing to work for it.

In the quiet courtyard, bai li yue's mind churned; her thoughts interacting and morphing. Who knew that in a forgotten corner of a little sect, someone was beginning to touch the threshold of a higher realm of understanding?