Chapter 011: Inner Disciple

Yao Yuan stood in front of the main gate of Yun Heng Sword Sect. It was packed with people from all over the continent. Qing Tian Realm was a huge realm, and Yun Heng Sword Sect was just a sect among the thousands scattered in Qing Tian Realm. Qing Tian Realm was divided into 5 regions, north south east west and central region. Each region was further subdivided into 9-15 continents, each continent was then broken into multiple kingdoms or empires. Yun Heng Sword Sect was a sect in the territory of the Nine Heavens Kingdom. 

Relationships between Sects and kingdoms were different in different regions. For Yun Heng Sword Sect, they were more like an ally to the Nine Heavens Kingdom, while in some areas, kingdoms answered to Sects and others Sects ruled by Kingdoms. The real determinant was how many high-level cultivators an organization had. 

There were a group of Yun Heng Sword Sect disciples who set up a few registration counters, crowd queued up to register, only those below 20 and had attained the Foundation realm were allowed in. Some tried to fake their age, but the disciples had skills to detect bone age which was unable to fake by changing appearance.

Yao Yuan saw many disappointed faces, as the disciples turned them away. She waited patiently in the queue, and soon it was her turn. 

"Name, age and cultivation level." The disciple behind the counter repeated the command monotonously.

"Yao Yuan, 18, Golden Pill level 1."

He looked up with unbelief, "What did you say, Golden Pill realm?" 

"Yes, I am at the Golden Pill realm."

"Quick, go inform Elder Chen. Miss Yao, may I ask you to wait here for a while." The disciple stood up and bowed in reverence. 

"Sure." 

Soon after, Elder Chen arrived and scrutinised Yao Yuan. "Good, I can feel your spiritual energy seeping out. You have just broken through to the Golden Pill realm. Am I right?"

"Yes, I broke through yesterday."

"Come with me, you have passed the entrance exam and are accepted as an inner disciple."

The crowd went into commotion, all discussing that Yao Yuan was so fortunate to be accepted as an inner disciple. Yao Yuan didn't bother with those noises, she had expected to enter Yun Heng Sword Sect, but what she did not expect was that she was promoted to inner disciple directly. 

In Yun Heng Sword Sect the members are ranked as such, Worker, Outer Disciple, Inner Disciple and Honorable Disciple, above the disciples were, Executive, Manager, Elder and Grand Elder. So the usual procedure would be to pass the entrance examination and join Yun Heng Sword Sect as an Outer Disciple. After acquiring enough contribution points, earned via doing missions for the sect, the disciple could apply to become an Inner Disciple. There would be another round of examination before allowing an Outer Disciple to become an Inner Disciple. To become an Honourable Disciple one would need to be the top 20 Inner Disciples.

Thus, for Yao Yuan to jump the ranks and become an Inner Disciple was surprising for a lot of people. 

Elder Chen brought Yao Yuan to the Hall of Administration. The first step was to register Yao Yuan as an Inner Disciple. The Elder in charge of the Hall of Administration was Elder Sun, when he saw Elder Chen, he called out to him. 

"Had the entrance examination ended?" Elder Sun asked.

"Not yet, but I found a prodigy and thus brought her here for registration. A 19-year-old Golden Pill realm, amazing isn't it." 

"Not bad. Finally, our sect can have some really talented disciples."

"You can say that again, most of the talent goes to Xian He Palace. May I trouble you to register this lady."

"Sure, follow me." He led Yao Yuan into another room. "Place your palm on the crystal ball on the pedestal." 

Yao Yuan moved closer to the pedestal and placed her right hand onto the crystal ball, she could feel the cold crystal ball emitting energy, then sucked her energy. She wanted to pull off her hand but she could not, it was as if her hand was stuck on the crystal ball.

"Don't worry, just relax, this is for the crystal ball to absorb some of your spiritual energy and store the information in our database." 

Once the process ended, she could feel her hand freed from the crystal ball. 

Elder Sun took a piece of jade on his left hand and with his right hand, he wrote onto the jade her name, Yao Yuan. "Here, this will be your identification stone. Do not lose it, it will store all the contribution points you earned. And when you die, this jade stone which contains your spiritual energy will disintegrate. When that happens, this crystal ball will notify us of your death."

"Wow, this is high-tech."

"Not really, it utilised a special array. If you become an array master you could do it too."

Yao Yuan heard of array master but had never met one. Simple arrays would not need an array master to deploy, just some spirit stones and the array template.

"With this identification stone, you can claim a residential unit in Yun Heng Sword Sect. Elder Chen will bring you there." Elder Sun brought her back to the main lobby and passed her back to Elder Chen. "After today's examination ended, come to my residence and join me for a drink."

"Definitely, I will see you later." He waved to Yao Yuan to follow him. "Today I won't show you every hall we have, but for those that we pass by I will let you know. Our next stop will be to the Inner Disciples' residential zone. Each Inner Disciple will have a personal residential unit. So for your information, Yun Heng Sword Sect was built around 5 peaks, the outer 2 peaks are reserved for disciples, one peak for females and another for males..." He walked Yao Yuan to Jin Xiang Peak, the female disciple residential peak and explained the rules along the way.

The lower part of the mountain belonged to the Worker and Outer Disciples, the Middle part was reserved for the Inner Disciples and the top part was for Honorable Disciples. Worker lived in the dormitory while Outer Disciples shared a 2 bedroom residence. 

The Jin Xiang Peak was covered with a gigantic spirit-gathering array, and the centre of it was on the top of the Peak, also the place with the richest spiritual energy. Even Yao Yuan could feel the change in the concentration of spiritual energy as she walked up the mountain. 

"Here we are, you can choose an empty house as your residence. You can see the jade that was hanging by the door, if it was occupied, it would turn red. green means there isn't any owner. After you have chosen the one you like, just channel some spiritual energy from your identification stone into the jade by the door. For more information, you can read the information that was stored in your identification stone. That's all for today. You can settle down, in three days, there will be a welcome ceremony for all newcomers."

"Thank you so much for your help, Elder Chen."

"This is my job." 

Yao Yuan bowed and he left her to choose a place to stay.

**To be continued