Every year, the major sects select from among their outer disciples those with outstanding talent and rapid progress, promoting them to inner disciples and teaching them more advanced cultivation methods. The number of such people is never large, so even if someone were to betray the sect and flee, they would not get far.

Of course, even among inner disciples, there are different ranks.

Someone like Henry Clark belongs to the higher tier of inner disciples because he has a master, making him a core disciple of the inner sect.

In such a large sect, there are absolutely no more than twenty disciples of his level. Currently, The Brooks Sect has ten core inner disciples, and he is one of them.

Therefore, he has his own small private room, while the other ordinary inner disciples live in shared dormitories, several to a room, and the outer disciples sleep in large communal halls.

In this generation, there are ten people of his rank; he is ranked fifth, and the other nine are disciples of the The Five Brooks Swords.

From all this, it is clear that he is a person of great fortune and luck.

The rain gradually lessened, drizzling through the night, and finally showed signs of stopping.

Faintly, through the thick clouds, a full moon appeared and disappeared, casting a hazy moonlight. With the rising mist, a halo slowly formed around the moon, crystal clear like jade.

"Whew—!"

Henry Clark let out a long breath and sat up from the table, no longer feeling the least bit sleepy.

He gently pushed open the wooden door of his small room, and a breath of fresh, moist air blew in from outside, clearing his mind.

Slowly, he stepped outside, letting the raindrops fall on him. Henry Clark took a deep breath, and with a slight movement, he leapt onto the roof, shooting toward the Green Pine Meadow.

In the night sky, his plump figure did not appear clumsy or awkward at all; instead, it had a certain lightness and agility that belied his build.

In terms of cultivation, among the ten core inner disciples, he was slightly below average. But when it came to movement techniques and lightness skills, among the ten, if not the best, he was at least in the top three.

He was afraid of death!

In his mind, these lightness skills were the same as escape techniques. Having survived a brush with death once—though he was young at the time—it left a psychological shadow, and he never wanted to experience such a situation again. So, among all the cultivation methods, this movement technique was the one he practiced most diligently. As for the others, well, this guy spent his time either eating or sleeping, and when not sleeping, eating, he often dabbled in cooking. The little time left, aside from practicing lightness skills, what else was there?

He was also clever; for other techniques, just seeing them once or hearing them explained once was enough for him to remember, so his overall cultivation was still decent.

So, although his physique was nothing special, in terms of talent, he was among the top in the ten core disciples. His master knew this too. If it were someone else, the master would have hovered over him like a foreman, supervising his training all day long. But this guy was lazy, devoted to wine, and as for Henry Clark, he only occasionally gave him some pointers, merely passing on cultivation methods and sword techniques.

In his master's words, "A master leads you to the door, but cultivation is up to the individual." Spending too much time teaching disciples was not worthwhile.

This, in turn, benefited Henry Clark, giving him plenty of free time.

He lived a carefree and unrestrained life.

Henry Clark's figure glided through the night rain, flying toward the Green Pine Meadow like a great bird.

The Green Pine Meadow was located on the back mountain of The Brooks School, but not within the The Brooks Sect itself. It was several dozen li from Ethan Brooks's main rear courtyard. Usually, the Ethan Brooks disciples were busy cultivating and rarely came here. The area was densely covered with pine trees, stretching for several li, and the terrain was flat, hence the name Green Pine Meadow. The forest was full of pine grouse and wild animals, making it his favorite spot for hunting wild food. Over time, he even chose this place for his training.

When he got tired of training, he would catch some game and roast it. In this pine forest, it had a unique flavor, and as a result, his weight increased in direct proportion to his training sessions.

Gently, in midair, his plump body floated down like a withered leaf, landing slowly on a clearing in the Green Pine Meadow.

Looking up at the sky, with the dark clouds overhead, the blue sky seemed even more distant and tranquil.

"If only one day, I could fly on a sword like Senior Brother!" he thought to himself.

The art of sword flight was taught at Brooks Mountain, and he had studied it. However, although he was a core inner disciple, he had only joined for a short eight years, far from having the cultivation required for sword flight. Moreover, to fly on a sword, not only did one need profound cultivation, but also had to forge a flying sword. The sword embryo for such a sword was not something he could easily obtain. In a sect like The Brooks School, generally, when your cultivation reached a certain level, the sect would naturally give you a sword embryo, allowing you to nurture it with your own vital energy and eventually refine it into a flying sword. However, the requirements for disciples' cultivation were still very high.