Pill cloud pavilion

Upon taking a closer look at the two individuals standing in the distance he felt like one of them seemed familiar, wasn't one of those 2 people his maidservant Little Rou? Then why was everyone sending her envious looks, wasn't she just standing there with the sect leader waiting for him?

Suddenly he heard a voice coming from right next to him "she sure is lucky, after all the patriarch never took in a disciple in the past and now she has become his only true disciple." Similar conversations were happening all around him and the person who had spoken just now was his fellow disciple Sun Qiang. For even him to be envious it must really be difficult to become the patriarch's disciple.

Fang Qiu expected her to be talented, after all she was a maidservant handpicked by the spirit clan for the son of the patriarch. But he didnt expect her to be accepted as the patriarch's disciple. Looking at it, the pill cloud pavilion has a disciple with heaven rank mid tier talent every decade or so, yet the patriarch has never taken in any disciples in his thousands of years as the patriarch of the pill cloud pavilion!

Fang Qiu soon came over to the two of them upon which he paid his respects to the patriarch and patted Little Rou on the head, she actually was twenty years old already which was four years older than him, but she has been is maidservant for all his life in this world so of course she would always be Little Rou to him just like the spirit clan elders always used to call her.

"Fang Qiu, would you mind taking off that mask for me?" The patriarch was staring at Fang Qiu in a very odd way which made him feel like he was just caught doing something sneaky.

The white jade mask was nothing special in this world, white jade was a relatively common material which had the properties of blocking spirit sense which made it a great material for making masks and other similar objects. And even the patriarch could not see through it so all he could do was ask Fang Qiu to take it off.

Fang Qiu immediately agreed, after all he did not mind the patriarch knowing. He was the sect leader after all and the patriarch knowing his identity would make many things more convenient in the future.

"Let's take this conversation to a more secluded place".

They soon decided to go to Fang Qiu's new immortal cave which was situated near the top of the mountain. In fact the entire sect was one massive spirit mountain. Spirit qi was much denser within the sect than in the imperial capital which made it a dream location for cultivators all over the empire, of course the other sects had their own spirit lands. For instance the myriad sword sect was built around a massive sword scar in the ground where one could sense all sorts of sword intents and improve their dao of the sword. The deeper down in the sword scar one ventured the denser the sword intents and the higher the spirit qi density. Similar things happened in all nine great sects and they all had their own magical places for perfecting their dao. The spirit mountain of the pill cloud pavilion was in fact a treasure land for producing all sorts of treasured ingredients of heaven and earth which made it the ideal place for an alchemist sect.

During their walk up the mountain the patriarch explained them that the mountain was split into three main areas. At the foot of the mountain was where all the outer court disciples lived. There were over a hundred thousand of them so they needed plenty of space. After all the outer court of one of the nine great sects was still like heaven on earth with beautiful immortal abodes, big areas where the teachers explained about pill refining and many other areas with restaurants, treasure pagodas, trade areas, battle arenas and much more.

Passing the bottom half of the mountain which was filled with inner sect disciples' immortal caves which numbered in the thousands they soon reached the halfway point. Fang Qiu knew from the patriarch that the top half was where the core disciples, teachers and elders resided but he didn't expect the place to be this lively! After all the sect barely had 100 core disciples and the teachers were most of the time in the bottom part of the mountain teaching outer and inner sect disciples. Why were there so many disciples going up the mountain? He could see hundreds of them on the pathways going to the immortal caves of the core disciples and elders.

The sect leader soon explained that all the teachers and elders were high ranked alchemists and refining pills cost lots of resources and spirit stones. So the teachers and elders often helped disciples outside of normal classes with personal teaching or refining pills. That way the sect as a whole improved and the teachers and elders could earn enough spirit stones to improve their skills. Disciples from rich or aristocratic families started out at the bottom with all the others but they could buy better guidance or extra classes from famous elders if they had the spirit stones from it.

The sect was not that strict on this sort of thing as all alchemists required massive amounts of spirit stones to get to the top.

Why did the sect leader personally explain all these things? Obviously because these 2 disciples were some of the best seedlings in the last thousands of years! He wanted the first as his disciple but got refused and instead got another great seedling without knowing it. If he didn't promise Fang Qiu to accept her into the sect he would never have discovered this disciple of his.

They soon reached the immortal cave that would be Fang Qiu's new home. In fact it looked just like an upgraded version of those from the inner court. For instance one of the upgrades provided for core disciples was an alchemy room with a high grade human rank pill cauldron. Inner court disciples had to buy their own cauldrons and if they exploded them during pill refinement they had to go repair it or in bad cases buy a new one. Compared to inner disciples outer disciples didnt even have a room specialised for alchemy in their residences so they had to go rent refining rooms in the outer court or buy a cauldron and practice in places in the outer court wherever they could. On their way up Fang Qiu and Little Rou had seen many outer court disciples refining pills on their doorsteps, below a tree or sometimes even one or two by the side of the roads. But the outer court was a heavenly place after all so practicing all over this scenic place could calm the heart. The main issue with practicing outside was losing ones focus. If one was distracted during pill refining it could easily lead to failure and in severe cases a cauldron explosion.

All spirit tools and spirit weapons are divided into ranks going from mortal, human, spirit, earth all the way up to heaven rank. And why were spirit tools and spirit weapons split up? Thats because spirit weapons are much more expensive to create considering that they need to be able to resist high level battles and be able to amplify the power of strong cultivators. All ranks are then once again split up in low, middle and high rank.

A human rank high tier refining cauldron is not that difficult to create for a decent refiner. but it did mean that Fang Qiu didn't need to worry about exploding his cauldron when refining low rank pills.

After having a look around the immortal cave Fang Qiu was really excited to start his life as a core disciple. A few minutes later they all sat down and Little Rou offered to make some tea, but how could Fang Qiu make her gather tea after hearing she might be the sect leader's new disciple. So he quickly had her take a seat too after which he slowly took of his mask.

He expected the sect leader to be shocked or surprised at least but all he saw was a slight smile...