After the daily training regime was over, everyone bowed respectfully to the instructor, but nobody left the courtyard, they all remained in their positions, so Seph and Lilith did the same, as the instructor passed by each row choosing people for the extra training session; which had to be limited so that the instructor could focus more on each disciple and work on improving their stances and strikes and their footwork.

  Once he reached the last three rows, the instructor didn’t choose any of the first two, but from Seph’s row, which was the very last one, he pointed to Lilith, and said, “You, come with me.”

  Lilith was surprised as she asked, “Me?!”

  The instructor said, “Yes, you, stop wasting time and come with me.”

  She looked hesitantly at Seph, but he nodded to reassure her it was fine and she should go; he thought the instructor must have noticed her impeccable training and resolved to make her join today’s special group even though she was a new face in the sect.

  Once Lilith was at the front of the courtyard, which was quite a distance from where he and Sun stood, he asked Sun, “Okay, Sun, what should we do?”

  Sun replied by sitting down and starting his attempts at cultivation.

  Seph thought this would be an excellent opportunity to train his newest Mantra; he remembered what was written as he couldn’t get the manual out in the middle of the busy courtyard with everyone watching.

  Shattered into a thousand pieces, His arms are illusory.

  Perform 10000 double palm strikes while reciting the mantra, each day for ten days in a row; each strike must be in a different direction.

  Seph took his usual stance, and clasped his hands together in front of his chest, before he unclasped them and started striking the empty air with one palm strike as his other palm was already on its way to strike in a different direction, all while reciting his mantra.

  Shattered into a thousand, His arms are illusory.

  As usual, he didn’t know what this training was for, but the results so far had been great; his martial art was slowly but surely making him into a formidable fighter.

  After only five minutes in the training, a group of cultivators moved towards Seph and Sun, and they started talking to each other loudly.

  “What the hell is that guy doing?” Said Big Mouth Crouse.

  Xin Feng answered him, “I don’t know; it looks really stupid though.”

  “Those inner sect disciples think they are so high and mighty, and they are nothing but a bunch of morons, same as this one.” Long Tong said as he slurred many letters.

  Xin Feng replied, “Why carry a gourd if you will attack with your palms anyway; what a fucking useless weapon that must be on his back.”

  Long Tong asked, “How does he make it float like that, anyway?”

  Xin Feng kicked him in the knee and said under his breath, “Don’t ask questions that make us look stupid, you moron. I knew it was a mistake to have you join us.”

  Seph lost his focus and thought, I feel like I should start making a list of people to kill and add those three morons to it immediately. Why the fuck do they have to come and interrupt my training? A lot of cultivators in the cultivation world seek revenge on their enemies to clear their minds and make cultivation easier. After all, inner peace through forgiveness is much harder to achieve than inner peace through revenge; do unto them what they did unto you. I have never been in a position where I had to think about revenge. Everything that happened to me in the normal world was very minor, not worthy of stressing over for life. Now everything had changed though, now that people have the power that gives them the false sense of security to get nasty like these three guys, they end up going to extraordinary length to harm another, and victimize them, but I will be nobody’s victim.

  Seph tried to calm down as they kept talking loudly and trying to egg him on.

  He tried to reach that inner peace he knew was there; he continued repeating his palm strikes and his mantra, but with his eyes closed this time.

  Until eventually their voices faded away into nothingness. Which made Seph unable to hear what they said next.

  Xin Feng said, “And what the hell is that monkey doing, anyway? Is he actually trying to cultivate the Qi path? How can we allow this blasphemy in our sect?”

  Big Mouth Crouse answered him, “Oh, don’t worry about it; he is failing miserably at every attempt. He doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing. I know because I had a cousin who was a cultivator.”

  Sun’s closed eyes flinched as he heard those words; they wounded him. He peaked at Seph’s face, but found no reaction from him, which made him sad.

  Long Tong wondered, “Really? Why does his Master keep him then?”

  Xin Feng found the opportunity to go extra nasty to make Seph fight with him like they had agreed upon. “Oh, so he is nothing more than a burden on his master; just a weakling that his master has to protect. What a charitable moron that Seph is.”

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  Sun became so mad after hearing this, but his eyes watered because Seph didn’t defend him. He got out of his lotus position and ran on all fours as he wiped his tears between strides. He ran straight towards the sect’s gigantic doors, and unluckily for Seph the door was opened slightly as Gabalawi and Divinity had just returned to the sect, and Sun got out from between Gabalawi’s huge legs.

  Divinity said, “Wasn’t that Sun?”

  Gabalawi said, “Sun who?”

  Divinity answered, “Seph’s monkey — he must have returned to the sect, but why is Sun leaving by himself?”

  Gabalawi answered, “Oh, I saw nothing but the shade of a small creature; I wonder what’s happening. Let’s go inside and find Seph quickly.”

  Divinity nodded, and the duo went inside in a hurry because they felt something was up.

  Seph was still in his Zen state, not aware of what had happened. Meanwhile, the bullies found it the perfect opportunity, that he didn’t seem to be aware of anything and walked towards him to fight him as per Qian Mian’s instructions.

  Xin Feng was worried since he knew Seph was the legacy trial winner, and that probably meant he was strong or extremely lucky.

  Either way, he couldn’t risk it; once they closed in on Seph, Xin conjured a short shadow blade from the bottom of his wrist and stabbed Seph on the right side of his stomach.

  Seph felt the searing pain even inside his Zen state, and he immediately winced as he grabbed his stomach; when he opened his eyes, he saw the jeering faces of the trio that were harassing him.

  He looked at the hand he grabbed his stomach with and found black blood covering all of it.

  He was very confused about what had happened.

  Qian Mian was watching everything from afar, and once he saw his follower had backstabbed Seph, he became furious, his mask changed to that of a tiger immediately and he sprinted to the side of the group in five seconds, and raised a hand that had a big transparent tiger hand over it and struck Xin Feng on his cheek, leaving four gashes on Xin Feng’s face.

  Qian Mian roared as he said, “Coward, you shouldn’t have done it like that; we didn’t agree on that.”

  Seph was still in a haze, but he thought, Agreed? They agreed to harass and attack me? But what did I do to deserve that?

  Seph couldn’t help but become extremely angry himself, and he launched a palm strike against Qian Mian, who was between him and Xin Feng.

  Qian Mian staggered a little, but he didn’t move to attack Seph, and just watched what happened next.

  Seph noticed the others, so he pushed his gourd and smashed Big Mouth Crouse in the head.

  Long Tong acted fast, and he released his tongue of pestilence on Seph, who put his left hand up to block the tongue, but it circled around his hand and didn’t release it.

  Long tongue then spoke more awkwardly and slurred than even usual and said, “You lost when my tongue caught your hand, Seph; in just a few moments your body will start decomposing, and then it will be all over for you.”

  Seph’s eyes became wider, and he pulled his caught hand, but to no avail; the tongue was extremely powerful.

  He then stopped holding his open wound with his right hand and tried to free his left from the tongue.

  Long Tong laughed gloatingly and said, “Now you are making things even worse for yourself, and easier for me, Seph, by giving me even more surface to affect.”

  Seph thought, We will see about that. As he took out a double-edged sword in his right hand, and tried to cut the tongue completely.

  The tongue immediately released his hand before the sword touched it, and retracted back to its owner, who said, “Jeez, chill man, who tries to cut a person’s tongue like this; are you a fucking lunatic?! “

  Seph checked his hands and found that the pestilence did not affect him, and he thought it might be because of the immunity his gourd seemed to grant him against his own lumps of pestilence.

  At that moment, Aoi and Damon — who were just watching since it would be shameful if six people attacked one person only — both came to their comrades, and Aoi was furious over Qian getting hit.

  Qian himself was fine, but he didn’t show any urgency to intervene in the fight; he just watched from afar with his white cat mask on his face.

  Aoi’s various straps of clothes that came down her hand came to life as she released them towards Seph.

  Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, everyone heard a sharp whip with a shrill whistling sound travel through the air, as Lilith struck Aoi’s straps.

  Lilith’s whip differed from any other time Seph had seen it in the past; the scales were a little further apart from each other than usual, which made her whip into a jagged weapon perfect for cutting.

  Aoi’s white straps of clothes were cut because of the attack, but they prolonged out of nowhere and regained their original form in a few seconds.

  She then switched targets from Seph to Lilith.

  Big Mouth Crouse and Xin Feng, who had recovered, tried to attack Seph again, but they suddenly got stopped by a hammer strike and a fist strike back-to-back by Gabalawi and Divinity who had just made it to the courtyard after their last incursion.

  Damon who initially didn’t want to intervene thought that the battleground was equalized now and raised his sword as he was about to hit Seph in the back with a clean strike, but he suddenly heard a cat’s meow behind him, before a subsequent explosion that knocked him down but not out.

  Kafka’s cats quickly spread on the battlefield beside his legacy taker peers.

  Qian Mian’s group was about to regroup before attacking again, but the elder appeared at this point and shouted, “ENOUGH!”

  The five versus six group stopped immediately and stared daggers at each other; things were heated between them, and the legacy takers were furious because they saw Seph had been stabbed.

  The elder looked between them and said, “Can someone explain to me what is happening here?”

  Qian Mian answered calmly, “Nothing, venerable elder; it was just a small misunderstanding. Xin Feng was cleaning his weapon, and Seph didn’t notice and walked right into it. That’s what started the scuffle, I think Seph should watch where he is going from now on to avoid stepping on any toes he isn’t supposed to step on.”

  Seph tried to object. “That is not what happened; they...”

  The elder interrupted him by saying, “Enough. I expect better from you Qian Mian, this mess is on you, don’t let me see you in the middle of a fight like this again in the future or a demotion won’t be out of the realm of possibilities, and you will lose your purple robes.”

  Qian Mian had a white mask with fissures all over it and two black tears running down its cheeks as he lowered his head to the ground and said, “Yes, venerable elder, I bear all responsibility; it won’t happen again.”

  The elder spoke to Seph and said, “Are you all right, Seph?” He then talked to the others, “Someone take him to the sect’s hospital.”

  Seph said through clenched teeth as he ground the words in anger, “I am fine, venerable elder.”

  The elder looked between the two groups, then hovered above the ground and flew back to his building.

  Seph turned to Qian Mian and said, “You totally lied!”

  Qian Mian answered while he wore the mask with no eyes, and no mouth, “In a world of masks, it’s a sin to live with your true face.”

  He turned to his followers and gave them the signal to leave, and they all left the scene while looking intently at each legacy taker, not having made their minds, which one pissed them off the most.

  But Qian Mian knew that his issues with Seph weren’t over. Seph still had to pay for making him kowtow to him.

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