Forgotten One

"Brother Tian Fu let us continue our travels. I feel that we are nearing the sect. We shouldn't waste our time, or we might be late for testing."

As they continued walking across the desert, they passed various bodies with different coloured robes. Each belonged to a different family and these families have lost a junior without knowing it. The scorpions in the desert were truly dangerous and if you didn't have the capabilities, then you wouldn't make it to the end.

The 3 of them continued their journey until the desert sand became less and less. The sand abruptly stopped, and it was met with a marble tiled floor. The marble tiles were extremely white and pristine, they obviously cost quite a bit. After a bit more walking, stairs began to show up. The stairs continued up until they became flat once more. A towering jade green building was protruding loftily from the ground beneath it. It had an imperial air and it was covered in carvings of dragons and men. There were 2 statues in front of the sect temple. One was of an elderly man with slicked-back hair and an extremely long goatee. The other man was quite brutish, his body was bulging with muscles and veins and his head was completely bald. His beard was disheveled and looked to be quite rough.

Billa chose to hide away until the trial was over. They went up to the giant door and tried to knock on it, before they had the chance, someone had already opened the door for them.

It was a young man with jade green robes on, there was a golden dragon embroidered around his waist, "Hello, this is the Jade Dragon Sect, please state your purpose for coming."

Tian Fu stepped forward, he cupped his hands and bowed, "Hello, we heard that your sect will be holding trials to find disciples. Me and my companion have braved through the desert and have come all this way to compete in the trials."

The young man opened the giant jade door and spoke, "What are you waiting for, come in then."

The giant doors opened up and golden lights poured into the outer world. Lei Shu and Tian Fu were bathed in a golden light. There was a giant stone podium at the front of the room and gold carvings of mythical beasts around the walls of the room. A pristine red carpet led all the way up to the podium. The room was bustling with noise, it seemed like a small town could fit in here. There were men on the left and right sides of the red carpet, however, no one was directly on it.

Lei Shu and Tian Fu quickly went over to the left side and started to look around and talk.

"Brother Tian, it seems that these people are all taking the trial. It amazes me that almost all of them have come from different houses just for this opportunity. Just make sure to focus on the people on our side of the room, they'll most likely be our opponents. That tiny girl looks like she might be strong. I feel an overwhelming strength trapped inside her body. There's also that guy with long black hair dr.a.p.ed over his shoulders. He seems like he is sleeping but he's listening to almost everything that's going on."

"Damn Brother Lei, how do you know so much by just looking?"

"It's easy. The man on the floor, his ear moves in the direction with the most sound. It seems as though he must discern where the sound reaches an equilibrium and he must position his ear in this equilibrium. But the girl on the other hand… hmmmm…. I don't know why, but I feel like her strength may be similar to mine. It doesn't seem as though her strength comes strictly from spiritual energy; it may be a contract of some sort."

Tian Fu spoke out, "I see, I see, I should be much more aware in scenarios where we're surrounded by random people."

The man in the jade green robes was now making his way down the red carpet. He walked along the whole thing until he reached the stone podium. He stepped up to it and cleared his throat.

"Hello and welcome to all of the distance cultivators that have come for the opportunity to join our Jade Dragon Sect. If you are scared of death, leave now! There will be no second chance, to cultivate is to go against the very heavens themselves. You must have a firm resolve, if you have any second guesses, I advise you to leave and never turn back."

After he said this, surprisingly, a few men did make their way to the exit and leave, never showing their faces in the Jade Dragon Sect again. The men that left, all didn't travel too far. They were from the families that were quite close to the sect in distance, they came to test their luck, not test their vitality.

"Good good, now if all of the trial participants look around, they can find golden chalices around the room. There should be one for everyone, this cup contains the finest wine of our Jade Dragon Sect. The Sect Master never opens the bottle unless it is for something extremely important. Please, everyone, raise their glass and down it in one gulp, this cup is to show our respect and also to welcome you."

Numerous bodies in the crowd spoke out, "ALL HAIL THE JADE DRAGON SECT. WE PRAY THAT SUCH A MAGNANIMOUS SECT IS BLESSED WITH LONGEVITY." GULP GULP GULP

Everyone had downed their portion of wine, although it didn't taste too heavenly, it wasn't bad, and the intoxication slowly began to show its effects.

"Now that everyone in the room has drunk, I will tell you the truth. Please strengthen your hearts before you hear this. First of all, we prepared this wine as a gift before the trial. The trial will be a living hell for you guys, so we wanted to give you something nice before sending you to hell. Also, speaking of hell. The trials will only bring you to hell, but if you break any of the trial rules, that wine will keep you there. To be completely honest, that wasn't the greatest wine in the sect, it wasn't even wine, to begin with. It is a completely unique poison our sect master had created; he calls it the Blessing Before Damnation. If you break any rules during the sect trials, that poison will link to your body never to leave. The Sect Master will be notified of the linking as soon as it occurs, from then on, he will have the ability to detonate your bodies from the inside. If your body gets detonated, you will remain dead in hell forever. That is all, we have prepared small rooms for each of you to stay in for the next few days until the trials start. For now, we will hand you a notebook which has all the rules written, if you have any questions feel free to ask when the trial is about to begin. Now I will take my leave."

The man in the green robes began to walk off the podium and back outside of the room. He was walking down the red carpet when a glob of spit landed in front of him onto the floor.

An older man spoke out, PTOOEY "You think we're gonna sit here and let our lives be toyed around with by a Sect Master we have never seen. This is a joke, who the hell are you bastards to even have the audacity of stopping any of us."

The old man started to make his way out of the sect, he started to walk back onto the desert, making his way back home. Two others also chose to follow him, they didn't know that they would be shackled down and controlled as soon as they came. They were very haughty in their respective areas and they bowed to no one. The man in the jade green robes only gave them a glance out of the side of his eyes as they walked away.

He turned around to everyone else and spread his arms, "If you want to leave then leave. However, before leaving I advise you to read the rules. Without finishing the trials, you are not permitted to leave. The Sect Master doesn't want to dirty his hands with blood this early. We'll let those men leave as they are practically dead already."

After the green-robed man spread his hands and finished speaking, he brought his hand together once more. A loud slap sound rang out in the air as his hands met together once more. The sound was deafening, and those men were shocked still.

"WHISTLE WHISTLE WHISTLE"

The sound of the wind cutting through the air-swept passed everyone's ears. Growing closer and closer until they finally collided. The old man who originally spoke out now had his head severed. His head was diagonally cut into two pieces. One dangling from his neck and the other laying in the sand. The other two men that went with him were now shitting bricks. However, they could shit no longer. Their bodies were cut cleanly from the waist, their legs were still standing as they watched their own upper bodies slide off their waist onto the ground. They were shocked and their eyes were completely wide open, they couldn't believe that they could die that fast.

The man spoke out while leaving, "This is the Grand Zhou Empire, we do not fool around here!"

Lei Shu was a bit shocked for himself, but he knew that something like this would happen eventually. He looked around and saw hundreds of faces completely white as a sheet of paper. It looked like any signs of life had left their eyes a long time ago. These people obviously haven't seen death yet, this would shock them a great deal.

There were probably a thousand people in the trial room. More than half had never experienced death, it looked like they would be cut in the early rounds of the trials.

While a majority of the people were still dazed, the others began making their way to an open room. Lei Shu and Tian Fu chose to get rooms that were side by side, if anything went wrong, they could help each other in an instant.

Lei Shu spoke, "Brother I think we should spend this night looking over the rules. We don't want to die by accident without knowing what we did wrong. There are only a few pages so after we have memorized them, we can spar a bit before the trials begin."

"Sounds good Brother Lei, you can never be too cautious. Also fighting before the trial begins can help us get our blood pumping."

Lei Shu was about to open the rulebook when a black wolf walked in. It was Billa, he had waited until everyone left so he could sneak in and be with Lei Shu. "Billa remember, I don't have a contract with you so that means someone can try to steal you and forge a contact. You have to hide until I gain enough power to protect you, whether that be cultivation, friends or status."

Billa nodded his head and closed his eyes as he nudged his head into Lei Shu's hand. He understood and he would also continue to train, so one day he could protect Lei Shu.

The rule book just had two words on it. TRIAL RULES, the book was incredibly old and dusty. It had a few rips and tears, but it was holding together quite well. There weren't many pages and each page contained one rule. It would only take him one night to memorize the rules, but Lei Shu decided to read through them extensively. If he knew how to bend the rules to his own liking then he will have a certain power over other, less knowledgeable disciples. He flipped the navy-blue cover open and the first page had only one sentence. "To stand above the rest takes a single step."