Against the Heavens

Chapter 62 - Lan Xuero

New Moon Profound Palace occupied a vast expanse, with a magnificent Main Hall at its center, and innumerable architecture that stretched as far as the eye could see. Yun Che followed Xia Yuanba towards his living accommodations. Along the way, he met many New Moon Profound Palace disciples, all of whom were under the age of twenty. There was the occasional fifteen and sixteen year-old, and of those in this age group, most were of the Elementary Profound Realm. Along the way, there were many people that greeted them; after all, between his age and size, even if they wanted to ignore him it would be hard.

“How many disciples are there in New Moon Profound Palace right now?” Yun Che asked.

“The last time I checked, there were more than three thousand disciples.” Xia Yuanba thoughtfully said, “New Moon Profound Palace recruits disciples within the age of fifteen to eighteen. Most of them generally stay until they reach twenty years old before departing. An awful lot of them will join Blue Wind’s official force in the future.

“However, Brother-in-law, do you really plan on participating in tonight’s banquet?” Xia Yuanba asked somewhat worriedly.

“To have the opportunity of possibly being able to catch a glimpse of almost all of New Moon City’s top powers all in one go, of course I have to go.” Yun Che took a sideways glance at him: “Yuanba, it seems as if you don’t want to go to this banquet. Is there a problem?”

“Even though it’s not exactly a problem, but…. but….” Xia Yuanba hesitated for a moment, and then said with a bit of indignance: “Some time ago, I heard that when last generation’s Palace Chief was newly appointed, they also sent out many invitations for a banquet. During that banquet however, the invited disciples from the other sects used the excuse of exchanging pointers to challenge our disciples of the same age. There were ten matches, and we of New Moon Profound Palace lost all ten times; thus humiliating the old Palace Chief, and turning the new one into a laughingstock for a long time.

“Heh-heh, that was obviously the machinations of those sects to cause the newly-appointed Palace Chief to lose prestige, and let him know who was the real boss of New Moon City.” Yun Che said while laughing.

“That’s right.” Xia Yuanba nodded, and helplessly said: “I heard the same thing happened to the Palace Chief from two generations ago as well. He could not avoid inviting them to the celebration, otherwise, he would’ve been laughed at and ridiculed, and lose every bit of face left. If we attend the banquet, chances are that we’ll be challenged by them… Losing to them doesn’t matter, but those people very often have malicious intent and use a heavy hand. The last time, there were two senior brothers that were beaten until they couldn’t fully recover from their injuries, and the Palace Chief had no other choice but to swallow his words and endure the humiliation.

“New Moon Profound Palace attracts a numerous amount of disciples every year; is their strength really that bad?” Yun Che asked as he knitted his brow．

“Of course, it’s not that our New Moon Profound Palace’s strength that’s lacking; it’s just, just that those schools are just too strong. Even though New Moon Profound Palace has the backing of the Imperial Family, those sects possess long history, many sect secrets, resources, and techniques that have been passed down for many generations. All of these are not something that New Moon Profound Palace can compare to. Even if they’re recruiting for outer sect disciples, the cutoff threshold is much more higher than ours. Furthermore, people that enter into sects with the Imperial Family’s backing, generally plan on giving their lives up to the Imperial Family. After all, the establishment of the Imperial Family’s sect was originally intended to attract talented people to join the Imperial Forces. However, those people with great talents are usually proud and arrogant. Their desire to join the large sects greatly overweigh that of joining the Imperial Forces, so the average power of the New Moon Profound Palace’s disciples, when compared to the small and middle-sized sects, can be considered to be better, but if compared to those large sects, can not even begin to match up to them.”