It was a regular day in the common living quarters, and Tang Ze, Yin Tiang, and Chen Yu were either lounging around or working on their own small projects.
Zhang Long was not there as he was dealing with some of his duties as squad leader, though he soon walked in, slightly breathless. "Everyone! Guess what happened?"
"Is your fiancé coming back to cook for us?" Yin Tiang asked, pupils dilating with dread. At those words, Chen Yu began sweating bullets, wondering if there was an ability like [Stomach of Steel] that he could develop to counter Jin Zhen's cooking.
"What? No, I just wanted to show you guys this stuff that Elder He Xuan left for Tang Ze," Zhang Long said.
There was a basket of items that he was carrying under his arm, which he put down on a table for them to go through.
"Whoa - this is really the good stuff," Chen Yu said. "Not the pittance they give us every month that's for sure."
"There's also a book - wait, it's just about the Mercury Kingdom, not something related to cultivation," Yin Tiang said with a sigh.
"There's a note from Elder He Xuan - 'This is your reward for helping us catch the culprit who stole the Grimoire of Heaven. I have also put in a book for you to peruse on the history of the Mercury Kingdom. I hope that you will enjoy reading it.'"
"Wow, this stuff is part of some of his own resources, it looks like," Chen Yu said.
Basically, it was as if the regional manager of the branch they were working at gave Tang Ze a portion of his own salary, because he couldn't directly raise Tang Ze's own.
"Some of this stuff is too good for us honestly..." Yin Tiang said. "As in, we can't even use it." These materials were meant for a Golden Core cultivator, meaning that it was far too much for their Qi networks to handle.
They were running into the same scenario that Tang Ze had found himself in when he had still been at the Zeroth realm with most of these resources.
"We can exchange it for stuff we can use, though," Chen Yu said.
Over the next few days, Tang Ze spent time not just training, but also reading the book that Elder He Xuan had given him.
Honestly it was quite boring given that it was basically just a history book with not much else going for it. Tang Ze had never found history to be a strong point for himself back on Earth. But, Tang Ze wasn't dumb - there must have been some underlying reason why He Xuan had 'asked' him to read it.
It was like a teacher back home turning around while teaching and all but saying, 'This chapter's really important for the upcoming test.' Anyone who would ignore that just had no clue what they were doing.
The only really interesting part about the book was the section on asuras.
Per records, or at least, those that had remained, the people of the Mercury Kingdom had waged a war with the asuras at the end of which the asuras were hunted to extinction. The main theory regarding why the Mercury Kingdom had fallen apart was that even though they had won said war, it had ended up causing so much damage that it left them vulnerable to a cascade of natural disasters that eventually caused their downfall and led to the Warring States period. After that, the Raswatian Empire had emerged from the rubble.
Asuras had a wide range of supernatural abilities. Normal asuras had only two arms, though the more powerful ones had more. Asura Lords had two sets of arms and were somewhere between Golden Core and Nascent Soul cultivators in terms of strength, while Asura Kings had three sets of arms and were somewhere between Nascent Soul and Eternal Soul realm cultivators in terms of strength.
The reason for this discrepancy in the estimation of how powerful they were was because the records seemed to vary in their descriptions of them.
The main thing that Tang Ze wondered about while reading was why Elder He Xuan was putting so much emphasis on this - he couldn't really see a practical application for any of it, even if the bits about the asuras were somewhat mildly interesting.
As it was, the book was something he made a point to read everyday, but it took up a fraction of his time compared to making costumes and cultivating.
And, unfortunately, with everything that had happened recently, Tang Ze found it even harder to focus during his cultivation. He was able to use about twelve percent of the vapor Qi he was able to gather from the environment, which was a step up from ten percent earlier, but this was still worse than any of the other Initiates in terms of efficiency. He had not started out from a strong place, and was not progressing fast either.
Tang Ze had returned Elder He Xuan's ring, and he had also returned the Thundercloud back to the sect janitor as he didn't need it. The sect janitor, for his part, just smiled lightly - but was greatly worried inwardly.
The heart demon he had seen around Tang Ze had barely changed in all of his time here. Yet, he was unsure of how to proceed further regarding the matter.
As for Xian Yue, Tang Ze hadn't made any progress at all with finishing her dress. He thought he had found a solution once, only for it to not work once he had sewn it in - meaning he now had to undo what he had just done.
Xian Yue did not show any signs of impatience - she had already been doing this for practically forever, and she couldn't really think of any other way she could get Tang Ze to work on it 'better.' She could force him to stay there all the time and work on the dress until he thought he had an answer - though this was unlikely to work and not a method she favored.
Most of the pressure regarding the dress came from Tang Ze himself - he had initially agreed to do it to help her, without asking for anything in return. She had ended up doing him a solid anyway with the Grimoire of Heaven, and so he now really wanted to succeed.
Two months passed without the gang getting into trouble or causing any other kind of mischief - a new record for them, and as nothing of significance happened from what Tang Ze had done to Ling Kuang (at least to his knowledge), now the talk of the town shifted to the upcoming novice tournament.
When he had heard of the word 'tournament' Tang Ze had initially thought it involved cultivators fighting one-on-one in brackets until a winner was decided. That was an event in the tournament, but it was only one of twelve.
As such, the inter-sect tournament was more in line with the Olympics where there were multiple events than with just a simple bracket tournament. The events were changed slightly every single time the tournament came around, and were decided upon by the Imperial Family.
Most of the events didn't involve actual fighting - some of them were based on alchemy, for example, which is why both Qi Condensation and Qi Refinement cultivators could participate.
That said, nearly every single participant would be a Qi Refinement cultivator with very few exceptions.
One of those exceptions being, of course, Tang Ze. There were always some contests involving pure strength - like weightlifting, or arm wrestling, though they would only get to know what the exact events were one month before the tournament.
Still, most everyone had a good idea of who had a good chance to win or not.
There was an application process for those hopefuls who wanted to participate - the sect could only send so many participants as such, spots to compete were limited.
People were chosen based on a wide variety of talents, after all, if someone was very good at a niche they could potentially get first place in that niche.
For example, archery had been a sport one year, and there had been a person who was otherwise average but turned out to be an extremely competent marksman who ended up winning first place in that event.
However, none of the rest of Tang Ze's squad even bothered applying.
They all decided that they weren't ready yet - maybe Chen Yu could enter the fighting tournament when he got to Qi Refinement with his bloodline technique, and maybe when Yin Tiang would know a bit more about alchemy he could participate in events like quizzes on identifying plants. Neither of them felt like they were ready yet, far from it as a matter of fact.
Tang Ze didn't even have to apply - based on his performance until now, Elder He Xuan was willing to vouch for him simply on that basis. The man had even dropped by their living area one evening.
"How are you doing, Junior Tang Ze?" Elder He Xuan asked.
"I'm fine," Tang Ze answered. "Ah- I've been reading that book you lent me just like you asked."
"Good, glad to hear you've been enjoying it, but I'm here for a different reason - I think you can already guess it's for the upcoming Novice Tournament," Elder He Xuan said. He turned to everyone else in the room. "From now on, you don't need to worry about your regular sect duties." Everyone's mood lightened up at that - no more having to clean up after mess, or shoveling pegasus dung, or fetching water in the morning? That was great news - but naturally, it came with a caveat. "Of course, I still want you to take our celestial beast out for a walk every week. And remember that I'm not giving you this free time to loaf around, it's so that you can train for the upcoming Novice Tournament. You'll be having daily lessons with the martial arts instructor from now on, and I will be tripling the amount of resources that you get a month. Put them all to good use - do you understand? And the other members of your squad - have them help you train as well. I expect to see at least two trophies on my mantle at the end of the tournament!" He said that last line with an encouraging smile.
"Understood, Elder He Xuan!" all of them said in unison.
Elder He Xuan left, and then Zhang Long turned to Tang Ze. "Alright, everyone, let's get started. First of all, his resources are going to be tripled, but if we add in each of our own, it will be sextupled instead!"