Chapter 172: Spiritual Weaver
Setting the Mystical Qilin Sect back on its tracks was a colossal task. Anji had never seen her teacher lose her composure before, and the thought never crossed her mind until two weeks ago. Yan Ping flew them into the heart of the academic central zone and blasted open the courtyard, using her internal energy to project her voice loud enough to break any sound barriers in the area. Anji almost lost her hearing that day, but thankfully, the ringing in her ears only lasted a few hours. Her teacher had the foresight to shield them from the worst of her yells.
Instead of tackling the sect’s image reform from the head or the tail, Yan Ping straightened it out from the heart of the problem. In three days, the academic zone that functioned more like a slum hive was completely demolished. All researchers who lived there were moved into cultivation caves or research labs on the further side of the eastern and western districts. The further they were from the main streets, the better.
A new hierarchy and duties were created, and Yan Ping spearheaded the reformation plans. They needed an entirely new security system that would create a separation between the inner court, which was accessible for martial exchange training, and the true inner court, where the crazies were kept. Anji also learned from a letter sent by her brother about the plans to introduce cross-sect training in the Rainbow Alliance to prepare trained cultivator squads to hunt the remnants of the demonic cultivator sect. Although not many details indicated, Anji thought it was odd for the Mystical Qilin Sect to open its doors.
"If not for the circumstances, we would never open the sect to allow outsiders in," Yan Ping confessed one night over dinner in the hut. "However, as the problem is caused by one of our own from a long time ago, we need to take responsibility."
One of our own? Anji did her best to interpret the words, but the only thing she could think of was a traitor. Did that mean...?
Instead of confirming or denying Anji’s fears, Yan Ping told Anji to focus on the successor cultivation path despite the chaos happening in the sect.
"Although your family will be coming more frequently to the sect for training exchange, I hope you will not become too distracted from your training. Remember that while they can visit, you are still a member of the Mystical Qilin Sect and cannot leave the mountain without my permission. I will only permit you to leave when you’ve completed the successor training. It doesn’t matter how long you take to master it. We are not in a hurry, and I can live for at least another three hundred years."
Three hundred years! Was that what it meant to be a half-sage? Then again, Yan Ping’s shifu lived for eight hundred years before her ascension. The Mystical Qilin Sect was the only cultivation sect that survived for a thousands of years and lived through changing dynasties while other martial sects rose and fell. There was a jianghu saying that even if the Heavens change their mind, the Mystical Qilin will not. Nothing is more reliable than the ancient sect, and not without good reason.
Seeing how her shifu was only about two hundred years old, Anji wondered how long it took her to complete the successor training. More importantly, she had no idea what the successor training consisted of.