How can that even be called sword cultivation?

The tea-spitting steward apprentice on Moon-Gathering Peak stared at Lingyu in disbelief. “What did you say?”

Lingyu wondered if she had spoken wrongly and repeated herself carefully, “I want to change my disciple robes.”

“The men’s style?”

Lingyu nodded.

Fangfei slapped a hand to her forehead, looking almost dazed. At last she sighed and explained, “It’s not that Senior Sister is being heartless. If you wear men’s disciple robes in and out of Moon-Gathering Peak, won’t people misunderstand?”

Lingyu thought it over. Fangfei’s words did make sense. After all, Moon-Gathering Peak was only a minor peak, and all the residents were female disciples. Misunderstandings would indeed be easy. But the women’s robes of the White Horse Sect were too delicate and soft for her taste; she could not quite bring herself to wear them.

Seeing her troubled expression, and then glancing at that handsome face, Fangfei softened at once and said, “Junior Sister Cheng, our White Horse Sect does not actually require disciple robes. If you truly cannot get used to them, you can have a set made on your own.”

“Really?” Lingyu’s eyes brightened.

Fangfei simply decided to be generous to the end. “Or you can go to the Weaving Bureau on the Main Peak and have a couple of embroiderers alter them for you. Having a new set made costs money, but alterations are free.”

Lingyu was overjoyed and bowed deeply. “Many thanks, Senior Sister Fangfei.”

Fangfei waved her hand. “Just a trivial favor, no need to thank me.” Her eyes darted, and she smiled again. “Junior Sister Cheng, you haven’t gone to claim a task yet, have you? Senior Sister has a suggestion. Want to hear it?”

“Hm?” Lingyu looked at Fangfei’s smiling face and felt there must be some trick to it. Still, since the other had said so, she could not refuse, so she said, “Please guide me, Senior Sister.”

Fangfei said, “Good assignments like tending the medicine gardens or caring for spirit beasts won’t fall to disciples like us with no backing. You needn’t even think about those. And since you’ve only just entered the sect and don’t know the terrain well, it’s best not to go far from the mountain. Why not look for a guarding post or something similar? It’s easy, and you don’t need to leave the sect gates. It’s the most suitable thing there is.”

“Oh...” Lingyu had another question. “Senior Sister, if it’s such a good assignment, wouldn’t everyone scramble for it?”

“Don’t worry. They can’t snatch it from you.” Fangfei smiled, waving a little handkerchief. “Listen to your senior sister. Go on, with confidence.”

Lingyu was still confused, so she first went to the Weaving Bureau and had her disciple robes altered, then went to the Assignment Hall.

Beneath the sect master of the White Horse Sect, affairs were chiefly divided among seven halls: the Steward Hall, the Battle Order Hall, the Inquiry Hall, the Hall of Ten Thousand Arts, the Martial Arts Hall, the Spirit Beast Hall, and the Hundred Medicines Garden. Among them, the Steward Hall oversaw the others and managed personnel, supplies, shops, and daily affairs.

Below the Steward Hall there were further divisions: one hall, two chambers, three bureaus, and four courts. The one hall was the Assignment Hall, where the sect or individuals posted optional tasks to be taken freely by disciples; the two chambers were the inner and outer chambers, the inner one handling Nascent Soul and Core Formation cultivators and their disciples, and the outer one handling everyone else; the three bureaus were the Dining Bureau, Weaving Bureau, and Earthworks Bureau, all responsible for menial service and the daily lives of all sect disciples; the four courts were the Condensation Pill Court, the Precious Implements Court, the Thousand Mechanisms Court, and the Spirit Talisman Court, each as its name suggested, mainly selling materials to disciples and buying finished products, serving as the primary source of income for disciples with special skills.

For disciples like Lingyu, taking two sect-issued tasks from the Assignment Hall each year was enough to enjoy all of the White Horse Sect’s benefits. If one wanted to earn spirit stones, there were bounty tasks to take. Some bounties were posted by individuals, others by the sect itself, and payment was based on difficulty.

The Assignment Hall stood opposite the Steward Hall, bustling with people coming and going, with countless disciples passing through and occasional Foundation Establishment cultivators as well.

In the White Horse Sect, Foundation Establishment was not a particularly high cultivation level. Without a Nascent Soul or Core Formation expert taking them under wing, one was still only an ordinary disciple—though no longer bound by annual task quotas, and treated much better than before.

For Foundation Establishment cultivators, a great sect still held considerable appeal: excellent spiritual veins, safe caves, a strong backing for one’s conduct, and yearly disciple allotments. But these were not enough to attract every Foundation Establishment cultivator. Once one reached that level, earning spirit stones was not difficult, and finding a suitable immortal city to settle in was also easy enough, though resources might be scarcer there. In return, one enjoyed a freedom sect cultivators did not have. The Azure Vast Sect was powerful, and cultivators often chose the former.

Lingyu squeezed into the Assignment Hall and waited for quite a while. The main hall was where bounty tasks were posted, and it was the most crowded place. The side hall was where sect tasks were claimed; it too had many people, but it could not compare with the main hall.

“This junior brother...” The steward female disciple in charge of posting tasks looked at her and froze, uncertainly saying, “This junior sister?”

“Greetings, Senior Sister.” Lingyu smiled faintly.

Hearing her voice and confirming her sex, the female disciple’s gaze lingered on her face a few extra moments before she said, “Junior Sister, what kind of task do you want?”

Lingyu asked, “May I ask if there are any guarding tasks?”

“Guarding?” The female disciple’s eyes lit up. “Yes, this task suits Junior Sister quite well.” As she spoke, she spread out the parchment in her hand.

It was no ordinary parchment. Light flickered across it and characters trembled upon it, clearly imbued with spellcraft. The female disciple pointed to a line of text. “Please look, Junior Sister. There is a task guarding the mountain gate. It can still be claimed for another month, six shichen a day.”

Lingyu looked carefully. Guarding the mountain gate was very simple: one merely stood watch there in rotating shifts and received guests. When White Horse Sect disciples entered or left the mountain gates, the protective array would automatically verify the disciple token on their person, so no one needed to do anything. If family or friends of sect disciples came to visit, they simply waited at the Guest Reception Tower at the foot of the mountain. Only when people from other sects arrived was it necessary for the mountain gate guards to receive them. The task was easy, and a month was not long.

How strange. Fangfei had really called it correctly. The moment she said she wanted this task, she got it at once.

“Senior Sister, can I really take it?” Lingyu was suddenly doubtful.

“Of course you can.” The female disciple fixed her gaze on Lingyu’s face again, smiling with an odd implication. “A junior sister like you is just right for it.”

“Why?”

“Because...”

“Hey, are you done yet?” Someone behind her had grown impatient. “If you want it, take it. If not, pick another. Why so much chatter!”

Lingyu glanced back. The whole row behind her wore displeased expressions, so she hurriedly said, “Then I’ll trouble Senior Sister with it. I’ll take this task.”

“Right away!” The steward female disciple moved with great speed, took Lingyu’s disciple token, cast several hand seals into it, and returned it to her. “Take it to the Guard Room. In three days, it’ll be your turn.”

“Many thanks, Senior Sister.”

After leaving the Assignment Hall, Lingyu remembered she still had another matter to handle: she needed to go to the Inquiry Hall to consult the stewards, and then to the Hall of Ten Thousand Arts to choose a cultivation manual.

Every newly inducted formal disciple could choose one technique corresponding to their cultivation level. In addition, the Hall of Ten Thousand Arts also housed the Scholarly Library, where various notes and miscellany could be read for free, though nothing could be taken out. That was what Lingyu coveted most. She urgently wanted to know the mainstream thought of the Cangming cultivation world, so as to better understand this world and learn the knowledge of cultivation.

The Inquiry Hall and the Hall of Ten Thousand Arts were connected, and Lingyu went first to the Inquiry Hall.

The White Horse Sect’s management system was such that all disciples, regardless of what they studied, lived intermingled together, but within the Inquiry Hall there was a detailed classification. For example, there were branches for the School of Techniques, the School of Swords, the School of Talismans, the School of Pills, the School of Artifacts, the School of Martial Arts, and more—almost every branch of Daoist cultivation was represented. It was said that the Medicine School had recently been clamoring to split off from the School of Pills, forcing the Inquiry Hall to establish a Medicine School instructor, and the trial was now under way.

Among the dense profusion of branches, Lingyu found the School of Swords branch and waited a long while before her turn finally came.

The Sword School instructor was a young man in his twenties named Duanmu Lin, with a simple, honest-looking face. He appeared very trustworthy.

He was a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Even if he truly were honest, Lingyu did not dare behave rudely. She greeted him respectfully. “Disciple greets Uncle-Master Duanmu.”

Duanmu Lin was also very cordial. “No need for such ceremony. Is this your first time at the Inquiry Hall?”

“Yes.”

“What questions do you have regarding cultivation?”

He got straight to the point, and Lingyu did not ramble either. “I did not previously have a formal inheritance in sword cultivation, so I came specially to ask Uncle-Master whether I need to choose a new technique.”

“No formal inheritance?” Duanmu Lin looked at her in surprise. “Your sword qi is quite pure, very rare indeed. Show me your moves.”

Lingyu stepped back, drew the Cutting-and-Joining Sword, and with a flick of her wrist, the gray blade let out a soft ring.

“A fine sword!” Duanmu Lin praised. Seeing Lingyu smile, he added, “Hm, this sword’s material is excellent. To have water and fire nature so thoroughly harmonized is quite remarkable. But the craftsmanship is absolute trash, truly unbearable to look at! Alas, what a pity. With such materials, if I were the one forging it, I could certainly create a top-grade spirit artifact!”

If anyone said Duanmu Lin looked honest and simple, she would cut them down.

“Show me your sword techniques.”

Lingyu silently looked at him, then raised her arm. The Cutting-and-Joining Sword transformed into two strands of sword qi, one red and one blue, moving in unpredictable patterns. Following the instruction she had received from Liu Weiyi, she executed the forms. The red and blue sword qi would separate, then entwine, then merge into a single purple current.

“Huh!” Duanmu Lin tapped the table lightly and said with interest, “Interesting. You are actually a dual water-fire spirit body, and this sword qi is interesting too. The water and fire natures are perfectly fused together. At first glance, one would almost mistake it for Purple Sky Sword Qi. By the way, what technique are you cultivating?”

Lingyu took out the Great Plain Purple Cloud Heart Sutra from her robes and offered it to him. “Please have a look, Uncle-Master. This is the technique I cultivate.”

The one she presented had been issued by the Dark Abyss Temple, not the revised version from the immortal text. Duanmu Lin took one look, and his brows knitted together. He flipped through it casually, then tossed it back to her.

“This is your technique? Where are the sword forms?”

“The sword forms?” Lingyu was baffled. “Didn’t this disciple demonstrate them for Uncle-Master just now?”

“I mean the technique that records sword forms!”

Lingyu thought carefully for a moment, then shook her head. “Replying to Uncle-Master, it seems there are none.”

Duanmu Lin was astonished. “Then how have you been practicing swordsmanship? Just hacking away blindly like that?”

Lingyu said, “This disciple previously practiced a set of sword techniques, and then this cultivation manual.”

“No sword art to match the technique?” Duanmu Lin pressed, unwilling to give up.

Lingyu shook her head. “None.”

Duanmu Lin stared at her for a long while, then said, “No wonder you say you have no inheritance. And you call yourself a sword cultivator?” He glanced again at the Cutting-and-Joining Sword in her hand and said bitterly, “What a waste of such a sword.”

“Come on then!” Faced with Lingyu’s bewildered expression, Duanmu Lin sighed helplessly. “Go choose a technique first. I have never seen a sword cultivator whose cultivation method is not a sword manual... And you call this sword cultivation?!”