Chapter 325: Where Had He Gone Wrong?
Gao Zian knew there had to be a catch. A representative from a big three sect, the Jade Chameleon Sect specifically, didn’t approach a small faction such as the Gao Clan and make an offer of inclusion in the Quinquennial Tournament without there being strings attached.
The problem with dealilng with high realmed cultivators, though, was that there was no way for a lowly clan patriarch like him to discern the truth behind such machinations. Even if he had the ability to fly—which no one in his clan did—his mountain was so far from Sixth Flawless Flowing City that it would have taken most of a day to get there. What did he know about politics between the major factions?
And it wasn’t like Gao Zian could say no, regardless of what acts would be required of him. Such an invitation was only likely to come once in a lifetime, if even then. Declining was akin to admitting that your clan had no strength or honor.
Not that his clan had much power compared even to the small sects in the area. They were a small family, less than two hundred members. Centuries ago, an ancestor had found a Body Cultivation manual. It was nothing special, but over the years, the family had experimented with different herbs and eventually refined the method to greatly enhance physical strength.
They’d also found, bought, or otherwise acquired a few spirit grade techniques and Spiritual Cultivation manuals. Those were only a small step up from complete trash, but they gave a tiny number of the clan a chance at reaching Foundation Establishment.
An invitation to the tournament was their opportunity to turn things around. As long as they could navigate what were sure to be turbulent political waters, the clan could come away, perhaps, with better scriptures. Even a single method and technique in the profound grade could elevate the future potential of all their descendants.
That caveat was difficult to achieve, however—if they could navigate those waters. If. When they’d arrived at the tournament, Gao Zian found that proposition to be even more difficult than he’d imagined. He and his senior leaders had made discrete inquiries. It seemed that the Jade Chameleon Sect had made an enemy of a tiny sect with, depending on who you talked to, either a true powerhouse for a leader or someone who had gotten very fortunate in his encounters thus far.
Which put the Gao Clan in an awkward position. As Body Cultivators who had developed their method over the course of centuries and trained their juniors to fight from birth, they would have no problem crushing that small sect’s participants. He wouldn’t put his clan members against top ranked big three sect talents, but against what were described as mostly peasant farmers with trash talent, his people would absolutely dominate.
The trick, then, was to win handily enough to satisfy the Jade Chameleons while not angering their opponents’ Nascent Soul sect leader and, more importantly, that sect leader’s powerful ally, the Poison Claw Sect.
It was a fraught situation, one Gao Zian wished he could have avoided. Making an enemy of one of the big three was not something his clan could survive, and no possible benefit made that risk worth it. Refusing, however, would have made enemies as well, definitely of the Jade Chameleon Sect and possibly the Swift Blizzard Sect as well.
He sighed. Dealing with sects was never easy.
The first match featuring one of his clansmen, Gao Yun, was about to begin, though, so Gao Zian shifted his focus to the arena floor. The blue robed figure was nothing special to look at. Short. Kind of scrawny.