Rebuilding the Immortal Cultivator Clan

Chapter 2209 - 1574: Second Round

If it weren’t for the distance being somewhat remote and prone to danger, perhaps some Loose Cultivators would have already set out.

However, individuals are not conveniently able to travel, but the businesses established by various forces have no such worries. They can conduct trade, bring back improved pills, and then add twenty percent to the original price in Spirit Stones, which would be a very good profit.

But no one expected that this seemingly normal business activity would cause somewhat serious consequences!

A group of quite a few cultivators decided to leave the place they had lived for a long time and head to Mingzhou.

The reason was that many Loose Cultivators found, after consuming improved pills, not only were the effects stronger, but most importantly, Pill Poison was reduced!

It’s important to know that every so often, they had to spend a considerable amount of Spirit Stones and time gradually eroding the accumulated Pill Poison in their bodies.

If the accumulation speed of Pill Poison slows, won’t the frequency of their purification decrease? The time and Spirit Stones spent on this would also be reduced accordingly.

Under the temptation of these two benefits to cultivation, many Loose Cultivators decided to find familiar companions to travel together to the Tongtian Sect territory in Mingzhou.

And this was something that the Tongtian Sect only noticed long afterwards.

After all, those cultivators didn’t have tags on them, so it was impossible to know exactly where they came from.

...

Meanwhile.

After a moment, Li Zhirui returned to Ascension Mountain.

"Sect Leader, after several rounds of trials, did any disciple catch your Dharma Eye?" Wansheng immediately approached him and curiously asked.

In fact, when asking this, it had already preset several answers in its mind.

After all, Wansheng had taught the disciples for hundreds of years, was well aware of their aptitude, temperament, Dao Heart, and more, naturally knowing which were the most outstanding, dazzling disciples.

"There are indeed a few disciples who are quite good in various aspects."

During these days, Li Zhirui had been staying with the disciples, able to closely observe their various performances and had formed judgments in his mind.

If viewed with a harsh eye, the best was only quite good, not even excellent.

"Then does the Sect Leader have any intention of taking one or two disciples as apprentices?"

"Not for now." Li Zhirui glanced at it, shaking his head slightly.

Not to mention now, even if extremely excellent disciples appear in the future, he won’t take apprentices, for there is no need to add karmic ties.

After all, he is not of the Tao Spirit Realm, but an external being from another realm!

"Call back Ma Changzhen, Chen Guang, Li Qinhong..."

To avoid Wansheng continuing to inquire, Li Zhirui directly changed the topic, reciting a dozen disciples’ names, saying: "Have them all return to the Mountain Gate for the next trial."

The disciples he mentioned can now be called True Inheritor Seeds, and the first generation of True Inheritors after the re-establishment of Tongtian Sect will emerge from among them.

But if none perform excellently, then there will be no True Inheritors!

Aside from this, among other disciples, some successfully passed the assessment to become Inner Sect Disciples, but most still failed.

"Alright, I’ll go inform them right away." After agreeing to this, Wansheng promptly got busy.

Within the next day, these dozen or so disciples returned to Ascension Mountain successively.

Among them were first-generation disciples with higher cultivation and fifth-generation disciples who had only started cultivation recently.

It was stated from the beginning that the trial doesn’t consider cultivation and realm, meaning they are compared with the disciples of their generation, not competing with all disciples.

"Did the Elder call us back for some special instructions?"

"Didn’t you notice? Everyone’s cultivation varies."

These disciples met in advance, guessing why they were called back. Was there another task assigned to them?

But regardless, being different from other disciples already indicates their uniqueness to some extent.

"Greetings to the Sect Leader and Elder!"

When Li Zhirui and Wansheng appeared before them simultaneously, everyone realized that the matter was likely unusual.

"The reason for summoning you back is due to your decent performances in various aspects before, leading to the second round of trials for you."

"Your performances will determine whether you become Inner Sect Disciples or True Disciples."

Li Zhirui’s words made these dozen disciples extremely excited; before this, they hadn’t even thought of having the chance to become True Disciples!

"True Disciples represent the face of the Tongtian Sect, so the first assessment is your strength!"

As he spoke, several Spirit Lights shot out and fell to the ground, transforming into Puppets slightly stronger than them.

"What you need to do now is to use all your strength to defeat the Puppet before you! We will give you corresponding scores based on your performance."

"Are you ready?"

The disciples took a deep breath and said seriously: "Ready!"

"Then let’s begin!"

Li Zhirui placed a top-grade Spirit Stone at the puppet’s core, ensuring long-term activation, and left the field to the true protagonists.

"Kill!"

As soon as the announcement was made, several Spirit Lights rushed forward, brewing killing moves in their hands to try to end the fight quickly.

But the Puppet’s strength made their plans completely fall through, not only failing to achieve any results but also making themselves lightly injured due to impulsiveness.

Some disciples showed more caution, not immediately attacking, but cautiously testing the puppet’s strength.

However, possibly due to a lack of experience and focusing solely on cultivation, their combat awareness was poor.

In Li Zhirui’s eyes, they were all very bad, frankly unbearable to witness.

"Looks like mere cultivation is not enough; suitable experiences are needed. Otherwise, with such combat awareness, when faced with danger, they might not even survive."

Wansheng silently nodded; indeed, this is the problem that all disciples lag in.

As time passed, finally a disciple successfully defeated a puppet, although somewhat embarrassed, he managed to pass.

But what satisfied Li Zhirui the most was not this but the learning ability of this individual, immediately using the battlefield to address his own shortcomings once realized.

Perhaps a battlefield can’t remedy much, but at least it’s heading in a positive direction.

Gradually, several more victorious disciples appeared.

But some were desperately holding on, likely to soon face defeat.

Li Zhirui didn’t directly stop their trial because of the inevitable defeat, only announcing the result after they were truly defeated by the puppets.

"Your trial didn’t pass; you’ll be Inner Sect Disciples in the future."

Those few hung their heads in frustration, overflowing with sadness.

"Sect Leader, is there still a chance for us to become True Disciples?"

"Yes."

Li Zhirui nodded, saying: "When you break through to the Individual Immortal Realm, the sect will test you again, and if you pass, you’ll be True Disciples."

"Additionally, there are other opportunities, such as exchanging Contribution Value or making significant contributions to the sect."

But he didn’t say that the difficulty of passing the second, third tests will be several times, dozens of times harder than this.

Leaving them a thought and a goal to strive for.

"Thank you, Sect Leader, Elder, the disciples depart." The defeated disciples didn’t linger long, saluted, and then voluntarily left.

Wansheng watched their departing backs, lightly sighing at the missed opportunity; becoming True Disciples would be almost impossible for them.

"Next, a new round of trials will be conducted on you!"

Li Zhirui turned to speak to the few remaining disciples: "You have two hours for rest and recovery."