Could the Likes of You Even Do It?
The Heaven-Center Immortal Realm lived up to its older name, the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains: a country made of a hundred thousand ranges, and more besides. The vast mountain land ran on without end, and not a soul alive could claim to grasp its geography in full.
The ranges looked as though some vast, ungovernable force had burst outward, snarled itself into knots, and frozen that way. At the very heart of it all a mountain rose so immense it seemed to thrust straight into the sky, and legend held that there lay the seat of the Seongdo Immortal Sect.
In the Heaven-Center Immortal Realm, a man and an ant were hardly different. Tens of thousands of men would have changed nothing.
In one corner of that colossal terrain, three figures came into view: Yi Yeok, Yeogwi, and Mo Yeong. Fortunately, Mo Yeong carried an accurate map to the Nokhyeon Sect. Laden with spoils taken from an immortal's tomb and from the Yangcheon Sect, they kept to an unhurried pace.
"Lucky it's this close, at least. Out here in the Heaven-Center Immortal Realm, a distance like this makes the Yangcheon Sect practically the house next door."
Yeogwi muttered it under his breath. Yi Yeok nodded, studying the great mountain before them. Even set against the innumerable peaks thrusting up all around, this one was unusually rich in spiritual qi, and strikingly fair.
Mo Yeong pressed something into his hand: a small golden token, scarcely two knuckles across.
"Proof that you're qualified to enter the Nokhyeon Sect. I picked up an extra one for my darling."
"Much obliged."
"What's there to thank between sweethearts?"
Yi Yeok looked her straight in the eye and said it again.
"I mean it. Thank you. Truly. Cat."
Mo Yeong pouted.
Before long they found the entrance to the Nokhyeon Sect, a massive fortress gate much like the Yangcheon Sect's. A gatekeeper who looked three or four years their elder came over.
"Faces I don't know. Here to join the Nokhyeon Sect, are you?"
"That's right. I'm Mo Yeong, the one dressed strangely is Yeogwi, and this handsome young master is Yi Yeok."
Pretty Mo Yeong answered in that coaxing way of hers, and the gatekeeper's stiff manner eased a little. The displeasure, though, never quite left his face. To his eye they were plainly not immortal seedlings at all, but people who had bought, with coin, the right to enter an immortal sect. A sect might have no choice in the matter if it meant to keep running, yet he disliked the thought of such people strolling into the world of cultivation as they pleased. The gatekeeper himself stood in exactly their position, but that did nothing to soften his distaste. If anything, sharing their station may have made him dislike them all the more.
"Wait. The one in charge of newcomers will be down shortly to fetch you."
He said it flatly.
Yi Yeok, long since expert at seeing through people, read him at once. He stepped forward with a thoroughly groveling smile spread across his face.
"You work hard, senior brother."
"Hardly work. I'm only a gatekeeper."
"How could guarding a sect's gate be called a small matter? I know well that what you do matters more than anything most worldly men manage in a lifetime."
Along with the lavish flattery, he slipped the man a small crystal vial. The gatekeeper could tell at once that it held a single low-grade spirit pill.
His manner changed in a heartbeat.
"It's been a long while since I've seen such promising newcomers. I am No Ui."
"An honor to meet you, Senior Brother No."
"No, no. The honor is mine."
Yeogwi and Mo Yeong let out hollow laughs at the complete reversal into warmth. Yi Yeok gave nothing away.
"Senior Brother No, as you can well imagine, we've only just arrived and are scarcely different from ordinary folk. We know next to nothing. Is there anything we ought to watch for, or keep in mind? We'd rather not give offense without meaning to."
"Well said. You look young, yet you think deeply."
No Ui tucked the pill into his robes and went on.
"A sect's disciples fall into three kinds. The lower disciples are those who bought their road in with money. Unless one's talent is extraordinary, I'm afraid the chance of climbing any higher is next to none."
The three looked at one another. None of them wilted. If anything, their eyes lit with the confidence that they would force their way up through that thread of a chance.
"Next come those acknowledged to have spiritual roots and taken in by the great clans. Depending on their progress, they may drop to the lower rank or rise to the upper. The upper disciples are immortal seedlings of exceptional bloodline and spiritual power. A few climb out of the middle rank by effort that nearly kills them, but they are vanishingly rare."
No Ui looked the party over, taking his time.
"In the end, where you stand when you enter decides how far you can climb."
"I see. But can someone fall from the middle rank down to the lower?"
"They can. A merciless reality. Even one painstakingly raised as an immortal seedling by a famous, wealthy house may end up so. Still, in that case there remains a chance of becoming the personal disciple of an outer elder, so even among lower disciples their position is far better."
They nodded. It was a far more ruthless arena than they had expected, and hardly a fair one. In some ways it seemed harsher than life in the mortal world.
"If anything comes up for the three of you, speak to me anytime. I haven't the ability for much else, which is why I sit at this post, but I've a decent eye for people. If they belong to this sect, there's no one I don't know."
For a gatekeeper, the claim was only natural.
A short while later, word that newcomers had arrived brought a man down from above. He looked a little past thirty.
"Senior Brother Yuk."
No Ui cupped his fist in salute, and the others followed with a passable show of courtesy.
"This is Senior Brother Yuk Im, who manages the lower disciples. Senior Brother Yuk, these are the new arrivals. They seem to know their manners, and they look sharp."
No Ui was doing his best to earn the spirit pill he had taken, but Yuk Im did not hear him with so much as the edge of an ear. He looked the three over. As with most who had bought their admission, no particular spiritual root showed.
"Show me your tokens."
They produced them without a word. Yi Yeok, who had not paid the entrance fee in advance, handed over a cloth bundle he had set aside as well: treasure from the secret tomb.
Yuk Im counted through the contents and nodded.
"It will do. You are not immortal seedlings, so from now on I will direct all of your cultivation. You will live in the quarters I assign you. Five thousand taels of silver a month."
Five thousand taels? A man could live in a brothel and not spend that. Yeogwi's eyes went round, and he barely swallowed what he wanted to say.
"Should your cultivation require spirit stones or elixir pills, you will pay for those as well. Of course, even with the money, a lower disciple will find them hard to obtain."
Mo Yeong, who at least understood how an immortal sect operated, nodded. Wherever a sect planted itself, spiritual qi ran thick, and formations were laid so that cultivation there yielded greater results than anywhere else. To cultivate without belonging to a sect was nearly impossible from the start. They could set a tribute so high it amounted to extortion, and still no one could refuse.
Yeogwi, who had known nothing of sects, went the color of dry earth. He had foolishly assumed that once he secured the right to enter, there would be no more great sums to spend. Yi Yeok, whatever he was thinking, merely kept his groveling smile in place.
"Well, now and then a task comes down from above, hunting spirit herbs or spirit beasts. See one through successfully and the reward can be considerable, so don't worry overmuch. That is, of course, if you have the skill for it."
Yuk Im's face said the rest for him. As if the likes of you had any such skill.
"The rest you will come to know naturally, in time. Now. Follow me."
"Senior Brother Yuk, I have one question."
A faint displeasure crossed Yuk Im's face.
"What?"
"From what you've said, it seems one can hardly count on tasks arriving with any regularity. Might there be a way to be exempted from the monthly tribute you mentioned?"
Yuk Im looked at him as if he had said something absurd.
"Oh, there is one. Become the foremost of the outer sect. You would do better to count it as no method at all."