Heavenly body

Looking at the patriarch's face, fang Qiu could guess what that look meant.

"Patriarch...you knew?"

"No, but I guessed"

Fang Qiu: "__"

"Do you know why I accepted Tang Rou as a disciple?"

This Question had surprised Fang Qiu since hearing from Sun Qiang she might be the new disciple of the patriarch. After all she must have something special but Fang Qiu couldn't figure out what it was.

"Seeing your perplexed look you likely don't know, have you ever heard of heavenly bodies?"

Fang Qiu had never heard of the term since it likely wasn't important enough to tell his soulless self in the past. But he assumed they were referring to special constitutions since there was knowledge of pills in his mind that had abilities of awakening special constitutions.

"Let me explain, heavenly bodies is a term used on the boundless continent to refer to people who have special constitutions. They are called that way because those people are usually blessed by the heavens and are almost all rare geniuses. In the past around 80 000 years ago there was a famous cultivator who had a special constitution which made him really hard to kill. In the end he was killed, but only after the attacking sect sacrificed over 20 of their top cultivators at the time. This is just an example of how powerful heavenly bodies can be."

"So you're trying to say that Little Rou has a heavenly body and that is why you accepted her as a disciple?" Fang Qiu was starting to piece things together at this point.

"Exactly"

"How does this connect with you guessing my identity"

"To put it in a simple way the spirit clan could according to some be considered a heavenly body too, only it is a very odd one since most heavenly bodies occur randomly but in the spirit clan every member has it. Of course the heavenly body of the spirit clan in itself is also a bit unique, most heavenly bodies give someone an incredible power boost in a certain aspect, for instance there was that cultivator 80 000 years ago who had a heavenly body known as rebirth heavenly body. Essentially as long as a single drop of his blood remained he could grow back an entire body from that drop of blood.

But this aspect is exactly where the spirit clan body is different, it does not give a boost in a certain aspect but instead takes away the ability to cultivate the body. It does give a huge boost in refining talent though but still, it is the only heavenly body known to be present in every member of a clan and the only known one that takes away an aspect in exchange for extra talent in another. That is also why many cultivators don't consider the spirit clan a heavenly body, there is also a second possibility saying that the spirit clan constitution is a bloodline and not a heavenly body but bloodlines are lost since long ago so not that much is known about it."

"Now you might be wondering, what kind of constitution does Tang Rou have and how does that connect to your spirit clan. I once read a book about constitutions and where they were most likely to appear. That book described one constitution known as growth constitution, the book also described how to recognise it and that's how I discovered that Tang Rou has said constitution. and the place where this constitution has the most likelihood to appear...is the place on the boundless realm with the best enviroment for nurturing plants and herbs because the growth constitution can help accelerate the growth of all plant life. Now where is the place on the boundless continent with the best environment for the nurturing of spirit herbs? That obviously has to be the spirit clan ancestral lands!

At that point it was not that hard to make a connection between a mask wearing heaven defying talent and a girl with a constitution who is most likely to appear at the spirit clan."

Now Fang Qiu fully understood. He also got a clear idea about heavenly bodies now and even got to learn more about his own clan. But more importantly he learned a lot more about his Little Rou, in fact Little Rou probably didn't even know these things herself before today!

"Thank you for taking your time explaining things to me sect leader" Fang Qiu truly was grateful since the sect leader told him some important things today some of which he would have a hard time discovering on his own.

"What's with all the formalities, my disciple is your maidservant so going from seniority we are not that different you and I."

Fang Qiu truly was put in a difficult spot now, the old geezer before him was hundreds of times his age yet he should call him senior brother? And how would his fellow disciples react if they learned they would have to call him senior? He would not be able to hit on his cute junior disciples if they all had to refer to him as senior...he definitely had to avoid this happening at all costs"

"Ehh...why don't we keep things as they are since I dont want to ruin my chances with my female junior disciples?"

"Junior brother if you are that desperate to get married I can just give my daughter to you how's that?" Fang Qiu truly felt the urge to throw up a mouthful of blood now, how could this old man give away his daughters so easily?

"Ehh patriarch I'm only 16 years old this year it would feel wrong to refer to you as senior brother, how about we keep things as they are for now and bring up this matter another time?"

"Sigh... very well, I will leave you alone for now as I still have much to arrange for the new students, they have only just moved into the sect after all. I will arrange an outer disciple to show you around and teach you about the rules and rewards of the sect." After some short goodbyes the sect master and Little Rou took off to the sect master's place where she would stay for the time being.

After getting installed and having a good look around his new residence he soon noticed a girl of around 17 years of age waiting at the entrance of his immortal cave. Guess I shouldn't make her wait nothing so he soon put on some fresh clothes and made his way to the foot of the mountain where all the main areas were situated. Not long after they arrived in front of a massive stone slab in the mountainside that made anyone looking at it for too long want to kneel and worship it.

"This is the spirit mountain ranking board. Every one of the eight other great sects has one just like it. Every spirit mountain ranking board is split into two halves, the sect ranking and the phoenix empire ranking. This board is a spirit tool connected to the ones in the other eight sects they all update once every day. The phoenix empire ranking shows the top 100 cultivators within each cultivation realm in the empire that we know of. The nine great sects usually take up over 90 of those spots.The sect ranking is a ranking of the top 100 disciples within each rank based on fighting strength. Of course since we are a pill refining sect we barely have any members in the top 100. We occupy the number ninety-eighth spot on the human ranking and the eighty third spot on the spirit ranking. The ranking that is most interesting to us alchemists is the sect ranking board. It uses a principle similar to the empire ranking board but instead of focusing on fighting strength it focuses on the rank of alchemists within the sect. Alchemists on the boundless continent are separated into star levels with one star alchemist being the lowest tier and nine star alchemists being the apex of the boundless continent. Reportedly the grand elder of the spirit clan used to be a nine star alchemist! Recently though rumours have been going around saying that almost the entire spirit clan got wiped out whilst trying to refine a treasure.

Of course we should not aim to become nine star legendary alchemists. After all, even the sect leader is only a 5th grade alchemist and he is already a legendary figure within the phoenix empire and the surrounding ones.

As for how the sect ranking is judged for each star level..