Master-Apprentice Ceremony

The Lingxian Sect was not an ancient sect with an excessive number of rules.

It was a young sect.

As a result, even when holding ceremonies such as the ceremony of taking disciples, the procedures they followed were not complicated.

The few simple rituals had merely been adjusted slightly based on the suggestions of Sun Yigao, a proper scholar.

The purpose of ritual was to maintain order and decorum in a group setting.

Therefore, rituals could be appropriately modified according to the time and place, with elements added or removed as necessary—but they could not simply be discarded.

The master-disciple initiation ceremony passed down through generations in the mortal world was by no means simple. However, after Lin Xiao and the others had cut and trimmed it repeatedly, only the few steps they considered necessary remained.

Thus, the entire ceremony was completed very quickly.

After the brief ceremony, Jiang Youfu, Sun Yigao, Liao Pantu, Liu Chun, Mo Yuanjiao, and Hu Liang each had disciples of their own.

Among them, Jiang Youfu, Sun Yigao, and Liu Chun had the most disciples.

Jiang Youfu went without saying. Over the past three years, his culinary skills had become the stuff of legend throughout the Pusi Kingdom.

Even people who knew nothing about the Lingxian Sect had heard that there was an immortal in Hufang Province whose cooking could cure all kinds of illnesses beyond the ability of mortal medicine to treat!

And every dish he made was unbelievably delicious.

Although the vast majority of people had no idea that such culinary skill actually came from the hands of a sixteen-year-old boy named Jiang Youfu, the disciples of Qingyun Peak, who had joined the Lingxian Sect a month earlier, were clearly not among them.

Thus, Jiang Youfu actually had the most people choose him as their master that day—a full twenty-three.

He was followed closely by Sun Yigao.

Since he often had to go down the mountain to teach, many of those who had visited Xiushui Village had seen him with their own eyes. He was therefore the immortal of the Lingxian Sect most familiar to outsiders.

Still, the impact of a teaching scholar’s identity on ordinary people was ultimately not as great as Jiang Youfu’s spirit cuisine, which could cure illnesses. In terms of the breadth of his fame, Sun Yigao was still far behind Jiang Youfu.

However, he had a refined and handsome appearance, with a gentle, jade-like bearing and an extraordinary air. At a glance, he gave people the inexplicable impression that he was both highly capable and steady—someone they could safely rely on.

As a result, as many as twenty people chose to become his disciples and study alchemy under him.

Next came Liu Chun.

To attend this initiation ceremony, Liu Chun had made a special trip back to the sect.

In fact, apart from the few people who had already embarked on the path of cultivation before joining the sect, nearly everyone’s understanding of these cultivation arts came solely from their previous tour of the sect. But that had mostly been an opportunity to watch the excitement; they had no concrete idea of what these arts actually involved.

Thus, aside from those who had chosen Jiang Youfu and Sun Yigao because of their existing reputations, the disciples selected their other masters for two main reasons.

The first was that, during their previous visit to the sect, they had taken an interest in a particular art and wanted to learn it.

The second was that they had simply chosen based on instinct.

To put it bluntly, they were judging by appearance.

That elder with one half of his face black and the other half white, and a pitch-black peach blossom pendant stuck to his forehead, certainly looked formidable—but he also made people feel a little afraid. Better to forget about him.

As for the other two young men—

One was a boy who looked quite young. Although he was also handsome, with sharp brows and bright eyes, for some reason he gave people the impression of being an unreliable youngster who had yet to outgrow his rashness.

The other was sturdy and plain-looking, with an honest expression. He was none other than Elder Hu, who had led everyone in building houses for twenty days.

The disciples of Qingyun Peak looked at Elder Hu seated at the front, and most of them thought in unspoken agreement:

Everyone knows Elder Hu. Surely lots of people will choose him, right? I’m not particularly interested in artifact forging, so I won’t compete with everyone else for Elder Hu. I’ll choose the master or art I’m more interested in instead!

Thus, many of them turned their attention to Liu Chun, who looked the most suitable to be a master.

This Elder Liu really looked like an elder in every sense of the word!

He fit their image of a “master” perfectly.

And so Liu Chun became the elder with the third-highest number of disciples.

He had eighteen disciples.

Of the remaining three masters, Hu Liang had fifteen disciples, Mo Yuanjiao had eleven, and Liao Pantu had six.

At first, when he saw that only six people had chosen him as their master, Liao Pantu was extremely displeased.

What was wrong with these Qingyun Peak disciples? How could they fail to recognize true greatness? He was a high-quality master with more than five hundred years of accumulated knowledge and experience—and only six disciples had chosen him!

But after carefully examining his six disciples, he became rather pleased instead.

Heh. Out of six disciples, five already possessed cultivation rather than merely having recently begun drawing qi into their bodies. One of them was even at the Core Formation stage!

Liao Pantu happily stroked his long beard twice.

What did this prove?

It proved that those who truly knew what they were doing understood that he was the most formidable master of them all!

…

At this point, a total of 118 Qingyun Peak disciples had taken masters, while fourteen had yet to choose one.

After the ceremony, Liu Yunan, who was responsible for the Qingyun Peak disciples, made inquiries about the fourteen who had not taken discipleship.

Ten of them felt that keeping up with their cultivation studies was already somewhat difficult. Rather than divide their attention too soon by studying additional arts, they would first focus on mastering cultivation and consider those arts later.

Liu Yunan had previously told them that this would not be their only opportunity to take a master. There would be plenty of chances to study those arts in the future.

So those ten were in no hurry.

As for the remaining four—

When Liu Yunan asked a disciple named He Rui about it, she instead asked him:

“Elder Liu, does the sect master take disciples?”

Liu Yunan suddenly understood. So this disciple wanted to take Brother Xiao as her master?

“I’m not sure. The sect master has been very busy lately,” he replied.

After all, Brother Xiao had only said that he had no time at the moment. He had never explicitly told Liu Yunan that he would never take disciples in the future, so Liu Yunan did not give her a definite answer.

He had expected the disciple to be disappointed, but instead, she became spirited and brimming with determination.

“So that means there’s still a chance he might take disciples in the future! Thank you for telling me, Elder! I’m off to cultivate! Goodbye, Elder Liu!”

She had to work hard at cultivation! If the sect master took disciples in the future, perhaps he would choose her!

Apart from He Rui, the other three disciples were much the same. They all wanted to take the sect master as their master, but when that proved impossible, they would rather focus on cultivation first than choose someone else.

After the ceremony ended, the various masters led their disciples to different locations and began explaining their usual teaching rules.

After all, they were generally quite busy.

Someone like Liu Chun, who was often away from the sect, basically had to cram all his monthly lessons into the few days he spent back at the sect.

However, Liu Chun had discussed a solution with Lin Xiao.

In addition to teaching at the sect for a few days each month, he would bring one disciple with him to Yuanling City and keep that disciple at his side for instruction. He would switch disciples every month.