DC 53

“Alright, stay quiet.” The baldie put his hands behind his back and began slowly circling the group of children. Up close, Jiao was able to see the man more clearly. He had wispy brown hair that was so thin he may as well have been bald, hence the name, and was wearing a green robe so dark it may as well be black covered in vibrant green piping, shaped like leaves and vines. The same robe that Jiao and Fu were both wearing, but with the colors inverted and made of a cotton-like material. Looking around at the few disciples running around, it seemed to be a sect uniform of sorts.

Apart from the thinning hair and scowling face, the man was almost handsome. He had an athletic build and stood nearly six feet tall and carried himself with the bearing of a man who expected to be listened to. A shame about the hairline though.

After circling the group in a couple of times in silence, the scowling baldie finally spoke again.

“Normally, indoctrination would consist of a few classes, a lecture or two, and some tours all spread over the course of a week. Unfortunately for you all, and me, you are a bunch of laggards who managed to show up extremely late and, at the same time, early. As such, I am going to give a brief overview of information, a sort of summary of the lectures, assign you somewhere to live and somewhere to work. If you want more detailed information, you can attend indoctrination next month.”

A hand was raised, as if to ask a question, but the child was stared down by a fierce glare from their impromptu instructor. Apparently, he meant what he said about detailed information, or believed that common sense like ‘wait until the end to ask questions’ shouldn’t need to be said aloud. 

“We’ll start with jobs. While you are living at in the Sect, you will work for the betterment of the sect. As nominal disciples, food will be provided as well as ideal environments to cultivate, lessons to learn, and extensive library access. There are even hallowed techniques and other skills available to purchase. We’ll go over that later. What is important is that you will be working. This isn’t a daycare, and it isn’t a school. 

“There are several jobs for nominal disciples and they will be distributed based on a couple different criteria. First and foremost, start separating your selves based on affinities. From there, you will be assigned a team and I will select team-leads and figure out where you will be living and working.

“I see the lowest cultivation base from your region this year is step four. That is below average for the eastern side of the country, but what can I expect with the higher ups loosening the recruitment requirements. The fact that you made it this far means you can be admitted as a nominal disciple, so long as you can step out of awakening before the age of twenty, you can even be admitted as an official outer sect disciple. Though, I suppose if you’re only step four at the age of fifteen, there isn’t too much hope for you. Though, you two should have a bright future ahead of you. Names and affinity, if you know it.” In front of baldie stood three boys and two girls.

“Duan Cao, eleven years old with an affinity for wood.” Cao timidly introduced herself.

“Wang Jing. Twelve. Earth.” Jing seemed like she was too bored to pay the baldie even a lick of attention. His eyebrow twitched but he managed to keep his scowl in place, moving onto the boys without any further question.

Afterwards, he worked his way through the rest of the children ranging from step five to eight and separated them based on their affinities. After removing the step nines, and accounting for the children who had left midway through the journey, there were only fifty or so children to separate into teams. 

From what Feng Jiao could tell, the teams consisted of several collection and maintenance type jobs. Although it was possible to have an affinity in something that was not one of the prime five elements, Feng Jiao did not see anybody in front of him own up to having such an affinity. As such, the allocation looked a little like the following.

The disciples with metal affinity were separated into a large group that baldie designated ‘hunters’, though when he said hunter the derision in his voice was audible. One boy got really excited and started ranting about being able to hunt down monsters before getting shut down quickly by the baldie.

“How would a bunch of mortals who can’t even condense their Qi yet be able to hunt a monster? None of you would even survive ten minutes in the forests around us and couldn’t even take down a beast, let alone a monster. Hunters is just what the cattlemen and horse handlers call themselves to help them sleep at night. Your job will be feeding livestock and helping the animal taming disciples with their jobs. Now shut up and get in your group.”

Quickly the other children realized that the jobs of a nominal disciple would be little more than manual labor. Excitement dimmed but many of the kids had already realized something like this would happen and weren’t surprised. 

Fire and Water affinities ended up doing the cooking and cleaning respectively, and Wood and Earth played the part of farmers and weeders. Jiao was happy to see that Cao and Jing would be able to stick together, even if he wouldn’t be around them as an outer sect disciple. The farmers would be in charge of growing regular food, though more Qi rich than what would be grown outside of the valley, and the cooks prepared the food for their fellow nominal disciples. 

Things like spiritual herbs and high leveled foods were prepared as jobs for outer sect disciples and others who could condense their Qi. Even the animals raised by the Metals were little more than livestock for slaughter as, without the ability to condense and externally manifest Qi, they would be unable to raise spirit beasts.

As the baldie explained each job, he very calmly shot down arguments from several of the disciples. Some said that their families had paid for them to be admitted directly to the sect and refused to be servants, others said that the jobs were a waste of their talents. There were a couple of exceptions and the baldie was all-too-happy to move anyone from one job to another if they really wanted it, regardless of their affinity, and a few even had skill sets that would make them useful lab assistants for things like alchemists and refiners. Baldy told they he’d get them interviews with some inner sect disciples who were looking for assistants and many of the other children went green with envy.

There was, of course, still dissension amongst the children. Especially those who insisted that their families had made contributions to the sect. No matter how hard baldie pushed back against the narrow mindset of the silk pants, three of them would not stop arguing with him.

“Nobody told your family to make donations to the God Tree Grove, just like nobody told you three to be born without talent. If you were at the peak of your realm, you wouldn’t be having these issues. You will work your job and, if you condense your Qi before you are twenty years old, you will be admitted to the outer sect. Otherwise you can leave.” Finally, he snapped and shouted down a particularly stubborn child.

“Let me speak to your superior! If you had any idea who my family was, you wouldn’t be treating me like this. Expecting me to work like some sort of common slave? Not a chance, you fucking baldie!” Although nobody had been speaking while they argued, it somehow got even more quiet after the boy said it, the b word. Everybody had been thinking about it and had mentally tagged the man as baldie, but nobody had dared to say it out loud.

‘Fucking Baldy! Baldy! Baldy… Baldy…’ the word echoed all around the valley, bouncing from mountain peak to mountain peak as it reverberated in the ears of everyone present. Even the insects in the surroundings had gone silent. Baldy’s skin tone changed three shades farther toward the red spectrum and several veins became clearly visible under his thinning hair.

“Leave. Now. Don’t bother trying to find provisions here, enjoy your trip back to town. If you run fast, you should be able to make it before sunrise tomorrow.” Just like that, the kid was exiled before even being officially admitted into the Sect. He begged and cried for forgiveness, with snot running down his reddening face, but the baldie was having none of it. Afterwards, nobody argued about their job placements.

In the newly heavy silence, the baldie began assigning team leaders amongst the step seven and eight nominal disciples and told them which valley they’d be living in and tending to. Although the words meant nothing to them at the time, as they had no clue where each location referred to, he insisted that they’d all be receiving maps shortly as well as tutors from previous groups of disciples to tutor them on their jobs. 

“Now that all that has been addressed, I will be going over the procedures for admittance into the outer sect, as well as what happens when one reaches the peak of Mortal Awakening. Actually, there is one more thing I want to speak about before then.”

The baldie turned to the ten or so disciples who had reached the peak of Mortal Awakening standing in a line at the back and stared them down. His face slowly became red once again before he finally opened his mouth and bellowed.

“Who the fuck gave you two little girls the balls to wear the official uniform of an outer sect disciple before having ever set foot in this valley? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pair of children so cocky in my life.”