In the eastern area of the sword cloud manor, on another base of the mountain is the "White Cloud Alchemy" pavillion.
"Peak body tempering?" Elder Wang murmured, his hand stopped, but the fire continues to burn, causing him to sweat profusely.
"What was his name again?" He asked warily.
Zhou Kang bowed his head, his voice respectful and nervous as he answered.
"Shi Jing. I heard that he is only thirteen year old. He also has the letter of recommendation from esteemed Feng."
Hearing this, Elder Wang grew silent.
The mention of the letter of recommendation from Ming Feng seem to caught his tongue.
But he didn't show any of this abnormality on the surface and simply dismissed Zhou Kang.
"You can go."
"Yes, master!"
"That Ming Feng recommendation?" He thought. Then, with a wave of his sleeve, the pouch on his waist shudder before releasing a strange item.
This item was circular in shape and with a closer look, it had needles on it, followed by various symbols on the dial.
"This compass…. It rarely make a move, why is it moving again? Why is my memory of this compass feel… incomplete?"
This series of question only made him frown.
Finally, he stored the compass back into his storage pouch.
The name Shi Jing lingered in his mind, but ultimately too trivial for him to pay much attention.
"Just a body-tempering junior!"
…
Shi Jing returned to his cave, changing into the new manor's attire.
After his departure from the repository, he stopped by a few stall to purchase rations and stored them in his pouch.
This way, he wouldn't have to worry the problem of food in the future.
Apparently, food was cheap, too cheap. The purchasing power of a single spirit stone was enormous. Enough to buy a mountain of food.
It wasn't surprising, after all, spirit stone is the core of cultivation.
This is a commodity with endless demands but limited supply.
The reason for this is simple. All of this has to do with the essence of cultivation as a whole.
The art of cultivation in its simplest form involved absorbing, purifying, and refining. This three step has never changed since time immemorial.
When absorbing the spiritual of essence and earth, it is slow and tedious. Followed by having to purify them before it can be refined.
Meanwhile, spirit stone contain purer essence as well as being more concentrated, thus reducing the effort in the first two step.
This alone proves its value. Not to mention, spirit stone is the fastest way to recover one's spiritual essence in the midst of battle.
Which enemy would let their opponents circulate their essence to recover in the middle of life and death?
At this moment.
Shi Jing took out a mirror to examine his appearance.
The white outer disciple robes fit him perfectly. The clean fabric made him look much better than before.
Silver cloud patterns decorated the sleeves and chest, marking him as a new disciple of the Sword Cloud Manor.
Before his transmigration, he was ordinary in terms of appearance. But as he stared at his reflection now, he was somewhat startled.
"This golden pupil with crimson light… is not ordinary. What exactly is the previous owner's background?"
He blinked, causing the crimson light to disappear.
Seeing this change, he was perplexed.
Then, he brought the mirror closer and peeled his eyelid open.
"It's gone?" He murmured under his breath.
Soon, the only color in his eyes was the golden pupil. That crimson light was nowhere to be seen.
With this lack of answer, he shook his head and put away the mirror, then closed his eyes to organized the various information he learned.
The sword cloud manor is split into inner and outer court.
Similarly, there are outer and inner elders, both represent completely different status.
Every three month, the inner court competition would be held with the number of three hundred contestant.
Among these three hundred, only ten percent get to become an inner disciple.
Even with this small number, the number of inner disciple produced each year is in the hundreds.
However, this number is few, too few compare to the thousands if not tens of thousands of outer disciple.
At the same time.
Within the manor, there are various pavillion, all which represents a different path.
Alchemy, spear, swords, and even formation art. If there is a path for it, then there is a pavillion for it.
"However, it seems like most disciple and elders followed the sword path…" He concluded. This made sense.
After all, this is the sword cloud manor, not the spear cloud manor!
At the same time, the various benefits from the cloud manor serves as the core of the manor's system.
These benefits alone produce the necessary desire and drive for those in the lower hierarchy to pursue the top.
This system is truly efficiency.
Even Shi Jing, who had the knowledge of the organization structure from modern earth find it ingenious.
And when mentioning the inner disciple, he can't help but exclaimed.
"For this, I need the foundation establishment pill!" This pill is most crucial to him.
As for the cultivation art, he could technically receive them now.
But for a first day outer disciple to reach Qi-Refinement in one go? This was too conspicuous!
Thus, Shi Jing decided to give it some time for the news of his entrance to settle.
Obviously, he didn't want to attract unwanted attention.
Be it his true cultivation realm, sword intent, sword demon fragment, as well as the heaven-grade pouch, these thing are difficult to explain to others!
Although he wouldn't die due to his ability, the act of trotting through another life to reach this point again was too tedious.
Not to mention, once he reached foundation establishment, he would have another checkpoint in time.
Before then, it was best for him to progress this life with caution.
"I need to be patient… Especially with that unknown reincarnated soul of the heavenly court in the cloud manor. It's best to not draw attention to myself."
"If I act, it must be swift and thorough!"
With that in mind, for the next few weeks, he secluded himself on the mountain peak.
His routine was simple.
Practicing the iron-body transformation art to its peak mastery. Comprehends the sword intent he acquired from the intent shard.
As well as slowly accumulate spiritual essence to prepare for the breakthrough to foundation establishment.
Between these task, he was busy and exhausted.
Fortunately, being a Qi-Refinement cultivator, the need for sleep lessened greatly.
Simply circulating his spiritual essence is enough to replace the need to sleep.
[Ding! You have reached the peak-mastery of the iron-body transformation art!]