"Wait- you guys don't have to do that-" Tang Ze began to protest when he heard of Zhang Long's suggestion.
"Don't be ridiculous," Chen Yu said. "Didn't you give us whatever you had when you first came in? Consider this repayment for that!"
"But that was just because I couldn't use that stuff so-"
"Tang Ze, do you know what the rewards are for winning an event in the novice tournament?" Yin Tiang asked him, to which Tang Ze shook his head. 'They're huge - and I mean more than you can imagine. So, once you manage to win, pay us back. As it is, for you, I think even a minor realm increase or two would make a big difference!"
The sects operated on the principle that 'resources should go to those who can utilize them best' - and in this case, it was determined that Tang Ze was a good investment for more of the sect's resources. His squad members were also operating on a similar idea, and so, Tang Ze begrudgingly accepted.
Tang Ze's training regimen began for the next few months in earnest.
He would've thought that now that they didn't have their regular sect duties to perform, he could sleep in more often than he usually did.
Instead, he had to wake up at the crack of dawn nearly every single day to train now!
"Mmph..." he complained bitterly nearly every morning as the martial arts instructor made him run laps, rock climb, jump rope, or lift heavy rocks.
Why did he have to get up so early to do all of this? They could do this in the middle of the day as well!
Not to mention - if they really wanted him to do better in the tournament, they should just let him wear his costume for as long as possible so he could get as much passive strength from it in the shortest time possible.
No one listened to his complaints though.
"You're strong, stronger than anyone at your level," the martial arts instructor said. "What you lack is control and technique! The contests won't just be about brute strength - they will be about applying it as well. So, you need to learn how to harness your strength every single day!"
All of this physical exercise left him with basically no time to cultivate - though with the amount of pills he now had he was basically just chugging them down like they were gummy vitamins every single day.
The result of this was that he had managed to ascend to the second minor realm of Qi Condensation, and it looked like he would also be on track to reach the third minor realm as well if he kept up with using pills.
Of course, with him using so many pills he was also beginning to also experience some serious side effects that he hadn't been earlier.
For one, these were mostly medium-quality or low-quality pills, meaning that they usually at the very least caused stomach upset, made it harder to sleep, and put even more strain on Tang Ze's body than the training did.
Secondly, pills were all made by hand rather than being made by assembly line like they would be back on Earth, not to mention there was no regulatory authority that oversaw the production of pills on a national level.
This meant that occasionally impurities might slip in, people might just mess up while making them, or they would put in substitutes for certain ingredients. The substitutes were usually harmless, but they could occasionally have unforeseen consequences when taken in large quantities. If a person got a reputation for intentionally selling bad pills, they would be out of the market very quickly - at least, theoretically, that was how it should go. However, much like back on Earth, there was no shortage of swindlers and snake oil salesmen. Although the sect itself tried to maintain some kind of quality control, some bad pills would inevitably slip in. Pills took far too long for someone like Yin Tiang to try to make them all by himself, even if the sect would just hand them the raw ingredients instead.
This usually wouldn't be that much of a problem since most people did not have enough pills to consume them over and over in a short span of time - but with what Tang Ze was doing, if he ended up getting a bad batch of pills, he would end up taking quite a lot of them within a few days of each other.
That would mean the impurities would also build up within him and accumulate too fast for his body to get rid of them, leading to actual side effects that most people would not experience.
Once, Tang Ze had gotten a nasty bout of diarrhea that lasted for nearly three days as a side effect of something being mixed into the pills that shouldn't have been there, and another time he got a very nasty rash all over his torso from an allergic reaction to some plant that was not normally used.
Both of these resolved without leaving any major lasting effects on his body, but it clearly showed Tang Ze why cultivators did not solely rely upon pills, especially when they only had access to low or medium quality pills.
Still, he couldn't deny that while this drug regimen was brutal and had its toll, it was effective. It might've taken him around two years to reach the next minor realm with his lackluster skills and lack of focus when it came to cultivating.
His squad members were quite helpful - but that also meant that they wouldn't let Tang Ze sleep in during the morning no matter how much he whined.
In certain ways, they could be said to be 'too supportive.'
"Hey - I've been thinking of this new little elixir that should give your body a little 'kick' when it comes to the event," Yin Tiang had suggested one day. "It might have some slight side effects, but nothing you can't heal with your Yin healing magic even if it goes wrong, right?"
"No, those things are illegal, most of them anyway," Zhang Long pointed out. Using something standard like pills was one thing, but people had been disqualified for using 'unauthorized' substances in the past.
"It's only illegal if you're caught," Yin Tiang said, though Tang Ze declined.
After all, what was the point in taking something like that? It wasn't like Tang Ze needed them. He would be expected to participate in the events in a sect uniform, unfortunately, which limited the amount of power he could draw on by modifying them in the form of a costume, but by now he had managed to get a massive passive boost to his physical ability. Not to mention the extra compounded boost of going up a minor realm.
Right now, even out of costume, even an Eternal Soul cultivator couldn't compete with him when it came to physical attributes.
Tang Ze's squad members thought that he had the contest in the bag, and Tang Ze could see why they were so optimistic.
But still, there was something inside of him that just didn't feel at ease. He couldn't put a finger on it, but there was this looming sense of doom and gloom within him - as if a time bomb was slowly ticking away and it was only a matter of time before it exploded.
The most frustrating thing about the above was that there really was nothing wrong - the days went by with nothing happening so it just really felt as if Tang Ze was being paranoid over nothing the longer he felt like this.
Soon enough, there was just a month left before the Novice Tournament. Tang Ze had just reached the third minor realm of Qi Condensation by then, and had stopped taking pills then as there was no way that he would make it up another minor realm before the tournament was over making such an endeavor pointless. Not only that, he was tired of having to deal with the side effects on his body and didn't want so much as look at another one.
With the benefit of hindsight, he realized that he likely could've spaced out taking the pills a bit more now that he had time where he wasn't taking any, but he was so caught up in doing everything he could for the competition that he had just gone all-out.
The actual events were announced - and there were three where Tang Ze was likely to do very well. One was the foot race, which was just a test of speed and endurance - both of which he possessed in spades. Not to mention the martial arts instructor had been making him run laps quite a bit.
The second one was the 'Iron Fist' event, which basically involved punching very hard - something that Tang Ze had already proved that he could do well. The third was a the 'Boulder Contest' which involved pushing up a big boulder up a hill.
He had no practice in that last event, though the others would ensure that he would get some by the time he had to leave for the Novice Tournament.
Some of the categories surprised Tang Ze - there was an event which was basically just a quiz on the history of the Raswatian Empire, in other words it didn't involve actual cultivating in any direct way and was just based on your knowledge of history. There was also a debate event, and a Tarwinzor competition, which he found out was a board game kind of like chess only with more rules such as having terrain effects and the like.
The novice tournament didn't just want to test cultivators on one specific aspect, rather, they intended to test the sects on a more 'holistic' level.
However, there was some bad news for Tang Ze regarding the events.
"Unfortunately, you've been barred from the event involving one-on-one fights," Elder He Xuan had come to tell him one day.
"What? Why?" Tang Ze asked. He had not been as confident at winning that as the others because just like with fighting Ling Kuang he would have to watch out for special techniques.
Still, there was a chance he could win that since at the Qi Refinement realm only a few geniuses could use such techniques at a level that would be an actual problem. That said, those geniuses likely were going to be competing so it could honestly go either way.
"The Astral Winds sect complained to the Imperial Family that you were too strong - citing your victory over Ling Kuang as an example. The other sects also agreed that it would be blatantly unfair to have someone who could fight at the Nascent Soul stage in a tournament capped at Qi Refinement," Elder He Xuan said, with a small grin on his face. "Though, it appears that some information was lost during the rumors that spread after the fight. They think you won with a special technique - so they haven't factored in your remarkable strength. You're still eligible for those other events."
Tang Ze understood what he was saying - it was fine even if he was barred from one of the events if he could participate in the other three that relied on physical ability!
This world did not have something as convenient as smartphones, else videos of Ling Kuang's and Tang Ze's fight would've no doubt gone viral.
As such, reports were based on eyewitness accounts, which were not always accurate. Information was lost when relaying it to other people, and so, while the Astral Winds sect had tried to obstruct Tang Ze, they had done so only partially as either the Astral Winds sect didn't think that he was as strong as he was claiming to be, or those of them who had seen his match had come to the wrong conclusion.
While they had barred him from the fighting even, they hadn't done anything to obstruct him from participating in the events he was actually quite likely to win!
While the Astral Winds sect thought that they had succeeded, it was nothing but a hollow victory!