Another bell tolled, distant, as several sparkling points of crystal light and piercing whistles flashed through the sky, heading straight for the training ground.

Those streaks of radiance tore across the heavens, making the thousands of rookies in the field gaze on with longing.

Those were the sword immortals of The Brooks Sect and the masters from various sects who had come to observe, flying on their swords—or, in some cases, on other magical treasures. The dazzling array of colors and radiant lights was truly enviable.

And Henry Clark was especially moved.

After more than twenty days of arduous cultivation, his innate purple qi had long since stabilized. With just a bit more effort, he thought, it wouldn’t be long before he could break through to the third level. Once he entered the third level, a portion of his innate purple qi would transform into magical power, allowing him to control objects.

Controlling objects was the most basic skill for wielding treasures. Thinking about it, he realized he wasn’t far from the level of flying on a sword.

So, he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself.

But his smile looked rather comical to others: a guy as fat as a pig, lifting his big head, mouth agape, grinning foolishly at the sword-riding seniors in the sky, even drooling a little.

Is this the standard of a core disciple of The Brooks Sect?

For a moment, the expectations of thousands of disciples for The Brooks Sect dropped a notch.

The opening ceremony of The Brooks Sect was a major event in the entire cultivation world. Naturally, the six great righteous sects of the Central Plains all gave face and sent representatives to attend.

Besides the six great sects, some renowned seniors from the cultivation world were also invited, and even some representatives of overseas rogue immortals came. If nothing else, it was certainly a grand occasion.

Chapter 9: Let Them All Come at Once

A flash of treasure light streaked across the sky, and on the main stage built at the eastern end of the training ground, a group of monks and laypeople appeared.

Standing in the center was the current head of The Brooks Sect, the leader of the The Five Brooks Swords, Elder Logan. Beside him stood the abbot of Little Thunder Temple, Master Saintly Monk Warren, and the grand elder of Valley of the Immortals, Red Staff Elder. The other four members of the The Five Brooks Swords were also present, accompanying the other sword immortals who had come to observe, making for a lively scene.

In this world, whether it’s a big meeting or a small one, the same procedures are always followed: the leaders always have to speak first.

Although The Brooks Sect was full of sword immortals, this rule was not broken. As usual, Elder Logan gave a long, eloquent speech for over an hour—first summarizing, then giving thanks, followed by admonishments, then expressing hopes for the newcomers, and finally announcing the procedures for the opening ceremony.

In fact, by the time he finished speaking, only the last item remained for the opening ceremony—the longest and most exciting part: the martial exhibition.

Put in scholarly terms, but in plain language, it was a martial contest.

As mentioned before, all the new disciples at this opening ceremony were already somewhat versed in cultivation, some with solid foundations and even a few unique skills. The more talented disciples inevitably had some pride. Young people naturally need a bit of pride, but too much arrogance and looking down on others is not good for future cultivation. That’s why there’s a policy allowing these new disciples to challenge inner disciples, or even core disciples. This helps them recognize their own abilities. Of course, the elders are also happy to see newcomers achieve victory over inner disciples—it at least shows they have a good foundation. Whether it’s the head or the elders of The Brooks Sect, for the sake of the sect’s prosperity, they naturally hope for more outstanding disciples to bring glory to Ethan Brooks. Such outstanding disciples will be given special attention in the future.

This win-win approach is not unique to The Brooks Sect. In fact, among the six great sects, all but Little Thunder Temple have used this method to motivate their young disciples for thousands of years.

What was surprising this time was that The Brooks Sect seemed to go even further—not only allowing new disciples to challenge, but also letting former outer disciples challenge inner disciples, and ordinary inner disciples challenge the ten core inner disciples. In the past, this only happened at the once-a-decade internal competition.

Now, the once-every-fifty-years opening ceremony and the once-a-decade internal competition were combined. It seemed our Elder Logan was not one to play by the rules.

As for this arrangement, Henry Clark didn’t really care. He was already a core inner disciple and didn’t want to challenge anyone. The problem was, while he didn’t want to challenge others, others wanted to challenge him. He had prepared for this—otherwise, he wouldn’t have trained so hard for nearly a month—but what happened today still surprised him, and others as well.

The new disciples didn’t know who was who, so at most they challenged the inner disciples, not even glancing at the ten core disciples like Henry Clark.

After a round of challenges, most of the old Ethan Brooks disciples won, but there were one or two lazybones who usually didn’t train, or unlucky ones who faced too-strong opponents, who lost and left the field with gloomy faces—only to be met with ridicule and scorn.