Wansummit Peak is the place that manages all sorts of trivial matters for the Ziyang Sect.
All sect disciples come here to collect supplies, pick up and hand in quests, gather fellow disciples, and receive official orders from the sect.
Built atop a towering, majestic peak, the halls here are grand and imposing, with cultivators in different robes coming in and out, making the place bustling and full of life.
Nangong Yu noticed that not everyone was wearing the standard sect disciple uniform, so she asked Xu Wanzhong about it. Xu Wanzhong then explained, "The disciple robes issued by the sect come with a basic defensive formation and a maze-breaking formation. There are spiritual energy patterns embroidered inside them, so they can withstand extreme heat and bitter cold."
As he spoke, his face lit up with obvious pride. "A magic robe of this quality would cost you no less than a hundred thousand spirit stones if you tried to buy it out in the cultivation world!"
Worried that Nangong Yu might not fully grasp how valuable that was, he added a special reminder, "Even Lingxiao Sect, the number one of the five great sects, doesn't treat their disciples this generously!"
"No wonder!" Nangong Yu said, the realization dawning on her.
She had been thinking that cultivators cared about looking good and showing off their unique personalities, so why would they all wear the exact same clothes every day?
Turns out these weren't ordinary robes at all, they were top-tier gear.
She remembered back when she killed Zhou Yun, she only looted a few hundred spirit stones off him. Little did she know the most valuable thing on his entire body was that disciple robe of his.
Too bad it was torn to shreds back then, so she hadn't even bothered to take it.
"Can they be repaired if they get damaged?" Nangong Yu asked casually as she walked alongside her senior fellow apprentice deeper into the place.
This time Xu Wanzhong shook his head. "They can be repaired, but you have to pay for the materials and the repair fee yourself. If you lose it entirely, you have to buy a new one at full market price."
Ziyang Sect was very generous to its disciples, issuing them high-grade magic robes as soon as they joined, but they only gave each person one for free.
"Oh," Nangong Yu nodded to show she understood.
When they stepped into the main hall, she found there were many side rooms inside, each packed with people coming and going.
Xu Wanzhong, who knew his way around perfectly, led her straight to the busiest side room and queued up.
"Isn't that Senior Brother Xu?" Someone spotted him and called out in greeting, "Is this a new disciple from your peak?"
Xu Wanzhong smiled and nodded. "Yes, this is our little junior fellow apprentice, Nangong Yu."
Nangong Yu greeted them sweetly, looking shy and well-behaved. "Hello, Senior Brother."
"Wait a second, didn't Elder Ling Heng stop taking in new disciples ages ago?" Someone at the front of the line turned around, looking surprised.
Xu Wanzhong gently patted the top of his little junior fellow apprentice's head and laughed. "When fate decides to show up, there's no stopping it."
Xu Wanzhong didn't actually know what kind of spiritual root Nangong Yu had.
He also had no idea why their master, who hadn't taken a new disciple for hundreds of years, had suddenly broken his own rule to accept this girl.
But now that she was here, that was just the way fate worked.
"What spiritual root does the junior fellow apprentice have?" Someone asked curiously, their eyes sizing her up.
Nangong Yu gave a shy little smile and hid behind Xu Wanzhong.
The crowd all laughed, and one of them guessed, "She has such a gentle, mild temperament, she must be a water spiritual root, right?"
Another person chimed in, "I think her bones and spiritual energy pulse are so delicate and pretty, she's probably a wood spiritual root."
Everyone assumed she definitely had one of the five elemental spiritual roots.
Unless, of course, she was a one-in-a-thousand rare mutated spiritual root? Everyone thought that since Elder Ling Heng had taken a disciple after so long, the girl must have something special about her.
But since she didn't volunteer the information, no one pressed her for it—no one wanted to offend Xu Wanzhong, or by extension, the entire Hengxu Peak.
In Ziyang Sect, you could pick a fight with disciples from the main peak and get away with it, but you never, ever messed with Hengxu Peak. That was the home of the Discipline Hall, and no one in the sect could say they'd never broken a rule.
That thick book of sect regulations and disciple rules? Who had ever memorized every single line of it? And even if you did, how many people could actually follow every single rule to the letter?
Once the Discipline Hall disciples got their hands on you and used their little methods, no one could stay out of trouble—everyone would end up getting punished.
"Little junior fellow apprentice, I have a spirit beast egg here, you can have it to play with," a disciple said warmly, holding out his palm to reveal a goose-egg sized spirit beast egg.
Nangong Yu quickly shook her head. "Thank you, Senior Brother, but I can't take it."
"It's not worth many spirit stones at all," the disciple from Spirit Beast Peak said enthusiastically, "I've got piles of these back where I live."
Xu Wanzhong just took the egg right away and pressed it into Nangong Yu's hands. "Take it home and make egg custard with it."
Nangong Yu was so flustered and flattered she quickly held the egg carefully. "Thank you, Senior Brother."
Once that first gift broke the ice, other people started shoving all kinds of things into her arms—spirit rice, spirit fruits, jade dew, and other nice little specialties from the cultivation world.
They were all good quality, but none of them were expensive.
Before long, Nangong Yu's arms were completely full of stuff.
She memorized the faces of every single person who'd given her a gift, and kept saying over and over, "Thank you, Senior Brother. Thank you, Senior Sister."
Soon, it was Nangong Yu's turn at the counter.
"She's a disciple from Hengxu Peak," Xu Wanzhong said, seeing that her hands were too full to reach her own waist token. He waved a wisp of spiritual energy to lift the token hanging from her sash and handed it over to the staff behind the counter.
This particular side room was specifically for distributing disciple supplies. No matter what your cultivation level was, once you joined the sect, you got a monthly stipend of spirit stones, medicinal pills, and other subsidies.
Since Nangong Yu was a new recruit, she got extra things that older disciples didn't—like the sect's standard magic robe, a storage bag, the basic breathing cultivation technique, and a meditation cushion.
The Wansummit Peak disciple laid out every single item in front of her, put them all into the storage bag, and then handed the bag over to her.
"Wait, can I use this storage bag?" Nangong Yu asked, surprised.
The staff member laughed. "Not yet. You'll need your senior fellow apprentice to activate it for you."
If she had been an outer sect disciple, she wouldn't have gotten a storage bag at all. The inner sect and outer sect had totally different treatment standards.
And if she had been a menial labor disciple, she wouldn't have even gotten the sect magic robe.
"Thank you so much for all the trouble, Senior Brother," Nangong Yu said sheepishly to Xu Wanzhong after they left Wansummit Peak.
She was still a mortal with no cultivation or spiritual energy at all, so Xu Wanzhong had to help her get around the whole day.
"What are you thanking me for?" Xu Wanzhong smiled brightly and patted her head. "You're over three hundred years younger than me. Looking after you is the least I can do, isn't it?"
Nangong Yu's eyes went wide in shock. "I thought you were only in your twenties!"
Xu Wanzhong burst out laughing and touched his own face. "Once you reach the Golden Core realm as a cultivator, your outer appearance stops aging entirely."
He had formed his Golden Core when he was only twenty-two.
"Wow! Senior Brother, that's so amazing!" Nangong Yu said, looking at him with obvious admiration.
Even though Xu Wanzhong was already that old, his lips still curved up proudly when he talked about that time. "It's nothing much, not nearly as impressive as our master."
"When did Master form his Golden Core?" Nangong Yu asked right away.
Xu Wanzhong said with obvious reverence, "Master is a true genius. He formed his Golden Core when he was only eighteen."
"Wow!" Nangong Yu was actually genuinely shocked this time. She never would have guessed—Elder Ling Heng, who looked like a pretty, pale young man, was such a monstrous talent back in the day.
She rolled her eyes playfully and added, "Senior Brother, I heard there are people who formed their Golden Core when they were only sixteen."
Xu Wanzhong's expression turned a little dark, and a faint trace of sarcasm flashed across his face. "Forming your Golden Core too early isn't always a good thing."
Nangong Yu was about to ask more questions, but he gently pressed his palm against the top of her head. "Don't meddle in other people's business. Now that you're in Hengxu Peak, just focus on cultivating properly. Do you understand?"
"I understand, Senior Brother."
Soon, their spirit crane landed on an empty stretch of ground.
Xu Wanzhong waved his arm, and all the weeds and scattered rocks on the ground were brushed away like a curtain, revealing a smooth, flat patch of earth and a simple, ancient stone door.
He said a little enviously, "Our senior sister broke through to the Nascent Soul realm two hundred years ago, so Master kicked her out to go set up her own place elsewhere. This was the cave dwelling she used to live in. Now it's yours."
Nangong Yu was brimming with curiosity. "Senior Brother, what realm is Master at right now? And how many senior brothers and senior sisters do I have in total?"
"Our master is a Nascent Soul Transformation Dao Lord." Xu Wanzhong led her forward and pushed open the door, as a burst of cool air rushed right over them. "The senior sister of our generation has a mutated spiritual root, the Ice Spiritual Root."
There were still traces of frost on the walls, which had not fully melted for over two hundred years — a clear testament to the sheer power of the cave dwelling's last master.
"Setting up a separate stronghold means taking on new disciples," Xu Wanzhong went on, his tone a mix of admiration, sympathy, and a touch of schadenfreude. "Senior sister simply couldn't suppress her cultivation level any longer, so she had no choice but to break through to the next realm."
The cave dwelling was spotlessly clean, with no dust, cobwebs, or grime anywhere. Everything looked exactly as it had the day its last resident left.
When the senior sister departed, she took most of her belongings with her, but she left one thing behind: a bed.
It was an icy-blue bed, rolling off waves of frigid cold, and a faint smile tugged at Xu Wanzhong's lips. "Senior sister said that if any new junior brothers or sisters ever joined the sect later, this would be her welcome gift to them."
A cold jade bed left behind by an Ice Spiritual Root cultivator who had reached the Nascent Soul Transformation realm — that was no trivial gift by any stretch of the imagination.
"You also have a second senior brother, Perfected Mingxiao," Xu Wanzhong said. "But he's in closed-door cultivation right now, so you won't get to meet him for quite some time."
"As for me, I'm the third in line, your third senior brother." Xu Wanzhong waved his hand and summoned a palm-sized golden bell. "This is my welcome gift for you, little junior sister."
A small spark of pride glinted in his eyes. "All you need is a tiny sliver of spiritual energy to sustain it, and it will keep you safe from all harm."
This was a magic treasure Xu Wanzhong had discarded after advancing to the Nascent Soul realm. But for a brand new outer sect disciple who had just stepped through the sect gates, it was an incredibly precious item.
This was exactly what Chen Zhi had mentioned before: getting taken in by a remarkable master was a stroke of immense good fortune. Many wandering cultivators could spend a hundred years toiling and scraping by, and still never manage to save up enough to buy a treasure of this caliber.
"Wait a second." Xu Wanzhong's smile froze on his face the moment he spotted a second cold, frosty cold jade bed right in front of him. "What on earth is this?!"
Nangong Yu spoke up. "The sect leader gave this to me. Senior brother, which one is better — this bed, or the one senior sister left for me?"
"The sect leader gave this to you?" Xu Wanzhong clearly knew his way around rare treasures. He leaned in close to the bed, letting a wisp of his own spiritual energy drift out from his fingertips. "This is a ten thousand year old cold jade bed! Why would the sect leader give you something this valuable?"
He was completely stunned. This little junior sister who had only stepped through the sect gates that very day had even the sect leader giving her a welcome gift — and such a rare, priceless treasure at that.
"Master also said he's going to give me a dragon," Nangong Yu said with a shy little smile. "Our Purple Yang Sect is so unbelievably wealthy, I definitely made the right choice coming here."
Xu Wanzhong's mind went completely blank with confusion. Since when was the Purple Yang Sect this loaded? He had never heard a single thing about this!
"Master is going to give you a dragon?" Xu Wanzhong drew in a sharp, his teeth aching a little in disbelief. "Where on earth did he even get a dragon from?"
Nangong Yu shook her head honestly. "I have no idea. He just said that if I agreed to be his disciple, he'd give me a dragon as a gift."
What kind of unheard of treatment was this?!
Xu Wanzhong couldn't wrap his head around it at all. He looked the young girl up and down carefully. "Little junior sister, be honest with me. What kind of spiritual root do you have?"
"There's nothing to fear, your senior brother would never hurt you. Since we're fellow disciples, I'll go first — my spiritual root is the Gold Spiritual Root."
Nangong Yu hesitated for a moment. "I need to ask master about that first."
So her spiritual root was something extremely special? Xu Wanzhong's curiosity burned even brighter. He immediately pulled out his sect token to send a message to Elder Ling Heng.
It didn't take long for the communication to connect. "Wanzhong, have you picked up your new little junior sister yet?"
Xu Wanzhong answered right away. "I have, master. What spiritual root does little junior sister have?"
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, before Elder Ling Heng's calm, unhurried voice came through. "Why are you asking about this?"
It's that top secret? Xu Wanzhong's curiosity grew even more intense, and he spoke his mind freely. "The sect leader gave her a ten thousand year old cold jade bed, and you said you're going to give her a dragon. This disciple is just curious — what kind of extraordinary talent does little junior sister have that makes both you and the sect leader value her so much?"
This was something that had never happened before on Hengxu Peak, and as far as Xu Wanzhong knew, there was no precedent for this anywhere in the entire Purple Yang Sect! Even that Yu Zhizhi from Twilight Snow Peak, who was taken in as a personal closed-door disciple by Dao Lord Chengfeng, never got a welcome gift from the sect leader, nor did her master ever promise her a dragon.
"Let your junior sister tell you herself," Elder Ling Heng said, and the communication cut off right after that.
"Alright then, it's just us now," Xu Wanzhong put away his sect token and looked over at Nangong Yu. "You can tell me."
