The door was opened almost as soon as the girl knocked. Elder Suo looked at the four people in front of his door and couldn't help but raise his brows. Two of them seemed to be disciples of the sect while the other two weren't wearing the sect robes. He didn't know what to make of this.
The girl smiled and cupped her fists, bowing. Jing Yi watched what she did and just copied it. It seemed this was the way to greet an Elder in the sect. He should remember that from now on and do so when he met one in the future.
"Elder Suo, these two children wanted to join our sect as practitioners. Would you mind taking a look if they're suitable?" The girl motioned at Shao Hai and Xiao Dong and stepped to the side.
Elder Suo looked at the two boys and his expression smoothed out. So it was like that! Mn, not bad. It was always good if disciples came on their own accord. "The two of you want to become practitioners?"
Shao Hai nodded excitedly. "Yes! Can we?"
Xiao Dong looked from the other boy to the Elder and furrowed his brows. This didn't look good at all. If he didn't do something, then this Elder would really let them become disciples. Then, this boy would go and annoy His Majesty's beloved, making him fail his mission. He couldn't let that happen! He wanted to speak up but he wasn't fast enough.
Elder Suo already nodded. "Sure you can. To be a practitioner, all you need is to work hard and a body that isn't too weak." He reached out and grabbed Shao Hai's shoulder, patting it heavily and giving a nod. "You seem suitable to me, young man!" Actually, he didn't have to pat the child's shoulder at all. Just looking at these two boys, he could see that their physics weren't too bad. In fact, the boy with that light hair color seemed to be especially suitable to become a disciple.
Mn, maybe he should bring him to meet Elder Kong too? He pondered but in the end, he hadn't seen what these two were capable of yet. It wasn't like the last time when that young man came over and attacked the disciples guarding the gate. No, in this case, there was still some more observation needed. "Well, if you're willing to put in the effort, then there is no problem with becoming a disciple. So do you want to join our Yun Zou Sect?"
Shao Hai nodded eagerly. "Yes!" He couldn't believe that it had still been so easy to become a disciple even though he didn't have spirit veins. He turned to Jing Yi and grabbed his hand. "Xiao Yi, did you hear that? That Elder said I can become a disciple of the Yun Zou Sect too!"
Jing Yi nodded eagerly. Of course, he had heard. Had stood right next to them. Anyway, it was very good that Shao Hai and Xiao Dong would be here from now on. They could become heroes together.
The only one who didn't have a pleasant expression was Xiao Dong. Ah, it seemed he was just destined to fail. Whatever he did, he just wasn't able to accomplish His Majesty's mission. Well, His Majesty's beloved was a cultivator while they would be practitioners. Maybe that would at least mean that they wouldn't be able to see each other as often? He could only hope so.
Elder Suo laughed when he saw how excited Shao Hai was. Ah, young disciples were surely the best. First of all, you could still teach them well and furthermore, they had this endless energy that would allow them to not to be afraid of anything and try new things without worry. Having an adventurous spirit was certainly a good thing for a practitioner.
"Well, since you want to become a disciple, then we should make you into disciples. You already see your friend here, he's wearing our Yun Zou Sect's robe. You'll also get this kind of robe and furthermore, there'll be a simple manual and an identification jade. The jade can be used for the training grounds and we'll record some information on it."
Shao Hai nodded eagerly. When the Elder waved at them to go with him, he pulled Xiao Yi along and followed him. Once again, they were led to a building that was close to the area separating the inner and the outer sect.
The Elder motioned at the door. "This is where we store everything that the practitioners of our outer sect use." He opened the door but he didn't go in alone and instead waved them with him again. Shao Hai's eyes widened and he pulled Jing Yi with him, not caring about Xiao Dong and the girl silently following behind at all.
Not far from the building, a certain someone scratched at the tree. This bastard! First, he actually stole his beloved's first kiss from him, and now he was even shamelessly holding onto his hand! And he couldn't do anything because that guy had also interrupted his handsome first appearance. If he appeared now to beat him up, he might ruin his impression. This was maddening!
Inside the building, Elder Suo went to the shelf on one side of the room and took out two pairs of robes, handing them to Shao Hai and Xiao Dong each. "These are the sect robes. Every practitioner gets two of them at first. You can do missions later on if you want more. But your senior martial brothers and sisters can explain this to you in more detail." Then, he went on to collect two books from the shelf and handed them to the two boys in the same manner. "This is the manual I mentioned. It is depicting some basic sword arts that you should learn. Our Yun Zou Sect does have a few better ones but you'll first have to master these before you can even think about learning those."
Shao Hai nodded eagerly and pressed the robes in the book against his chest. Xiao Dong casually clasped the robes under his arm and leafed through the book. Seeing the pictures inside and reading the few lines of text next to them, his lips twitched. They first had to master these if they wanted to learn something better? Was this really the standard of the human world? Fuck, this really was too poor! Such a low-level skill, hadn't he already been able to use it more than a hundred years ago?!