Lightning Flash.

There were approximately three months left till the sect recruitment period. In these three months all disciples were training hard to raise their cultivation and techniques, in order to slightly increase their chances of getting in.

Ling Jun had changed his mind about how he would join. He decided he would join naturally instead of a servant as it would simply be a waste of time. No one would be suspicious of him if he managed to scrape his way into the sect and he could start to learn more about the world faster.

Once he had learned more about the norms in this world, he would begin to display more talent and strength accordingly, so as to make himself more valued.

As for a side profession, he had already decided to focus on formations. He had come to realise that the illusion in the forest was most likely a result of a formation, and formations most likely had to do with the specific way Qi interacted with the space around it.

If that were the case, then he would definitely find it much easier than any other side profession. However, he didn't know how valued formation masters would be so he put the thought on hold for now.

Over these three months Ling Jun had been practicing the lightning flash technique. It was composed of three techniques in total. The first: Sword before sound. The second was Blood before sound and the third was Death before sound.

Ling Jun had practiced the first move to genuine completion and the other two reached superior completion. His Final Line technique had reached superior as well as his dragon shattering fist.

The cloning technique was different to others. There was only a clone, so it was not differentiated by mastery. Once you completed the technique, it was mastered.

His cultivation had broken through to the early middle seventh stage with the help of the six Qi condensation pills he had left. Although he could speed up the assimilation of pills, his talent remained the same which meant that he would be unable to absorb the same amount of Qi from each pill as his brother would.

Ling Ji had also made progress during these three months. He had reached peak early fifth stage, just one sub-stage away from what Ling Jun had revealed to his clan. his techniques had reached superior completion and his Zigzag steps, the low black level technique he had showed off at the tournament was at genuine completion.

All the youths in the city had been focusing on getting stronger and had all made significant advances in order to secure the best chance to enter the sect during the trials.

The representatives of the Floating cloud sect had already arrived at the city and were being hosted by the city lord. news had spread that those who wished to participate must convene at the marked location on the periphery of the Beastwood forest in three days time.

...

Three days later, all the youths of the city, of ages fifteen to eighteen were gathered outside the Beastwood forest. They were all waiting nervously for the representatives to arrive.

Ling Jun spotted Meng Li yet they both acted as though they had never met before. Ling Jun was in the midst of talking with Ling Hao, Ling Ji and Ling Su. They had decided to hunt together so as to take down higher level beasts. At the current moment, they were discussing tactics and formations. Ling Jun had realised that they had zero experience and therefore subtly nudged them in the right directions.

He didn't want to end up revealing his strength because of a dumb mistake one of them made.

He had also notified Meng Li beforehand to stay in the vicinity using the string as a guide, in case the Tang clan tried to pull anything. He knew that the sect recruitment, where the disciples would not be watched and yet all gathered together would be a prime target for an underhanded scheme.

He had also told Meng Li to capture as many Tang clan disciples as she could and check their possessions in case they all possessed some sort of poison or antidote, which would alert him to a scheme being underway.

He predicted a poison attack, yet he was not too worried as it would be carried downwind and he would be able to sense it with his spatial sense and make it avoid him.

However, Ling Ji suddenly lowered his voice as he spoke and took out three pills.

"These are poison antidote pills, they can cure any poison under the Qi realm classification. Father told me to distribute these pills to most disciples who were useful, so as to protect them from the Tang clan's scheme. A disciple from the Tang clan had secretly sent a bottle of poison along with a note saying the first elder had tried to force him to use it during the sect recruitment.

"Now we just need some disciples to die so we have a legitimate reason to eradicate the Tang clan after the sect recruitment!"

The others took a sharp intake of breath. They had never imagined that the sect recruitment would lead to such a drastic result. Ling Jun also acted shocked, though he had predicted something like this. However, he could not help but feel uneasy, why would the Tang clan allow such a loose end?

If he could consider such a thing, then so could the clan. Yet they could not see any other way, things could go wrong. Even if they used a better poison, they would be hard pressed to find an antidote themselves, let alone supply all their disciples themselves.

They also wouldn't be able to send any men into the forest beforehand, as the forest would be scanned with divine sense. The only uncertainty was that after the tests began, no divine sense could be used, as no interference would be allowed. Even the city lord was not exempt from this rule.

Although the representatives were only of the second level spiritual realm outer disciples, they had a treasure which could block out divine sense. However this meant that they could still use divine sense around the protected area, to check if anyone entered or not so there was no danger. No one could figure out what Tang clan was up to.

Ling Jun took the offered pill, and put it in his pocket. All of a sudden a commotion sounded out.

An extremely beautiful girl appeared, silky black hair flowing like ink, brows soft like the wings of a crane and piercing blue eyes reminiscent of the clearest of lakes. She wore a plain white robe which accentuated her developing curves, yet at the same time making her seem extremely pure.

"The daughter of the city lord is as beautiful as ever!" Hushed whispers could be heard as people slowly regained their senses.

"With peak of the Qi realm cultivation at only sixteen, she is the pride of Xin!" People sighed as they recounted to each other.

The girl seemed somewhat haughty at first, disdaining to even look at those around her, yet after careful scrutiny, Ling Jun was almost certain it was all an act.

Wen Shi herself was confused. Even as looked down her nose at others, she wondered why her father, who had always stressed for her to be cautious and humble, would suddenly call her yesterday and tell her to act as arrogant and snobbish as possible.

She had always been a polite girl, never abusing her status to bully those lower than her. This was due to her father, Wen Hui.

Wen Hui was a smart man, and he knew that while he had status, status was a fickle thing. Who knew when he could be demoted. It cost nothing to be humble, so the way he saw it was that if he could avoid trouble, he would.

He had raised his daughter in the same manner, drilling into her the importance of not offending people you didn't know. So it came as a huge shock to Wen Shi when her father had simply told her to ignore everything he had taught her before.

She was not an idiot, so she could see some clues regarding the whole situation, though not enough to grasp everything.

Her father had begun acting strange soon after the three representatives had arrived. It obviously involved them somehow. Her father had even told her to act as just below equals to the representatives!

When she had asked her father why, he had simply replied with "The less you know, the better you'll act."

Truth be told, while city lord sounded like a lofty position, in the Cloud Kingdom as a whole it could be considered insignificant. There were 103 other people in such positions, representative of all the 103 cities controlled by the imperial Yun clan who ran the Cloud Kingdom. The kingdom and the Floating Cloud sect had a synergistic relationship, in that the country would send their talents to be trained in the sect.

The disciples would then belong to both the kingdom and the sect and due to this the kingdom would be forced to protect the sect as well as vice versa.

However positions in the sect were generally worth more, as they would have access to better resources and would generally be stronger.

The sect leader was above the King in terms of status and the elders of the sect were above the clan heads of the Eight great clans situated in the imperial city, Cloud city.

The reason for this was that the sect didn't exclusively take disciples from Cloud Kingdom. It also took disciples from the neighbouring country of Yan.

This meant that the sect was in a much stronger position than both Kingdoms as even if they fell out with one kingdom, the other would not fail to seize the opportunity to team up with the sect to wipe out the entire opposing country. So neither country could afford to fall out, and even if both kingdoms teamed up against the sect, they would essentially be crippling themselves, and would be gobbled up by other surrounding countries and sects within a few years.

Wen Shi knew all of this, which was why she was slightly apprehensive about acting like she was almost on the level of the disciples of the sect. She comforted herself with the fact that her talent was two whole grades higher than the representatives, so she should smooth sail into the sect upon which all problems would be resolved.

As she was lost in her thoughts, another commotion sounded out. She turned her head and noticed three people, all about twenty two years old walking over followed by the clan heads and Wen Hui. Wen Hui gave her a subtle glance before looking away.

Ling Jun himself had been watching carefully, so he noticed the subtle glance, and was even more convinced that something was up.

Everyone realised that the three people must be the three representatives and bowed ninety degrees. Ling Jun did the same yet he used his spatial sense to watch carefully. He noticed that Wen Shi had only clasped her hands and lowered her head slightly.

Of the three representatives, one was a female and two were male. One of the men had a scar running down his face from his eye to his cheek. The other two seemed somewhat scared of this scar faced man.

Scar face, as Ling Jun had dubbed him, stared at Wen Shi with somewhat disguised lust for a moment before stealing a glance at the city lord in suspicion. After seeing the indifferent look on Wen Hui's face he turned to look around at the still bowing disciples. No one would rise until told to.

His gaze roved over the disciples until it came to land on a specific person. Ling Jun's heart sank. Scar face was looking right at Meng Li. His gaze lingered for a second before moving, giving nothing away.