Seph and Lilith turned around, their curiosity piqued by the meow they heard, and they found a young man dressed in a black shirt and black pants; a kitten was sitting on his shoulder.

  His face astonished Lilith, as half of his face was just his bare skull stripped of all meat and skin. Even though the other half of his face was there, and it was fairly handsome, he still looked horrifying to anyone who met him for the first time.

  Lilith just stood there with her mouth open, as the young man said, “Hello Seph, I see you have made it to the sect finally. Glad to meet you again. By the way, is she with you? You should probably tell her to close her mouth, or flies will think it’s an open invitation.”

  Seph was surprised that Kafka was chattier than when he had seen him in the tournament, but he laughed, which earned him a scowl from Lilith. “Glad to see you again, Kafka, and your adorable kittens. I would like you to meet my friend Lilith.”

  Kafka bowed courteously as he took Lilith’s hand and kissed it. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sister Lilith.”

  That annoyed Seph, but he said, “Lilith, this is Kafka, a powerful cultivator from the legacy trials as well. As you can see, he fancies himself a charmer now.” Seph couldn’t help but take a jab at Kafka.

  Lilith smiled and said, “You should learn something from him if you ever want a chance to become my boyfriend.”

  Seph was astonished as he said, “B...b... boyfriend!”

  Kafka laughed heartily as he asked the duo, “Did you two make it as inner sect disciples or not?”

  Lilith answered since Seph was still dumbfounded. “Yeah, we did; the elder made us both inner-sect disciples.”

  Kafka was puzzled as he said, “Made you? What do you mean made you?”

  Seph was finally out of his stunned state and answered, “Yes, made us. I won the legacy trials, and Lilith here is the daughter of Scorn and a formidable cultivator herself. Even if he hadn’t made us inner sect disciples, we would have passed whatever requirements to become ones, anyway.”

  Kafka said, “Daughter of Scorn! That’s incredible; how is she even alive?”

  Seph answered, “It’s a long story; we will tell you later.”

  Kafka nodded in understanding. “Anyway, you are still lucky; we had to fight older inner sect disciples to get the status, and let me tell you it wasn’t easy.”

  Seph was intrigued as he asked, “Oh, tell me who else made it into the inner sect?”

  “Well, Glenda did, and Esme, but she is sharing her cultivation tomb with Dahlia. For some reason, Dahlia didn’t challenge anyone; I wonder why. Huan Chun also made the cut along with Gabalawi and Divinity, who were the first to challenge the inner sect disciples.”

  Seph thought Dahlia must have avoided the matches because she was still lacking strong enough offensive skills, and since she and Esme were friends, it wasn’t surprising that they ended up staying together.

  The other names weren’t surprising either; he would have been surprised if Brother Huang or Brother Liu had made it though, but no way in hell.

  Seph commented, “That’s not surprising; all of you are extremely powerful individuals, looks like we will have a powerful presence in the inner sect, but we can’t rest on our laurels, and we should strive to become stronger.”

  Kafka nodded and said, “Anyway, since both of you are inner sect disciples, I could show you what’s behind this door. You two seemed to be lost and scared there; you must have yet to get your tour. Please, allow me to take you on a tour around the sect.”

  Lilith smiled and said, “Please, and thank you, we are in your care, brother Kafka.”

  Kafka bowed to her, and moved towards the door, and held both door handles, and tried to open it, but it was to no avail; the door was too heavy.

  Seph noticed and ran fast to his side, and both of them held a door handle and they opened it with considerable effort together.

  As the door opened, Lilith was the only one in front of the doorway to see what was inside.

  Right in front of her, there was a stony walkway with two huge voids that went deep into the ground on each side.

  The walkway had two naturally made fences of the same stone on the side, though there was no fear of someone falling in.

  From her position, she could see anything else inside; the end of the walkway wasn’t visible to her, and she couldn’t see what was inside the gaps or what was above the walkway as they only glimpsed a gap that stretched above it.

  Kafka and Seph got back beside her, and then Kafka signaled ahead of them as he invited them in.

  As they got on the stone walkway, Seph and Lilith looked down each void, and there was nothing but a seemingly bottomless pit.

  The walls all around them were covered in algae, some of which were luminous with different colors that made the scene breathtaking.

  There was also water on the walls that almost looked like it was real, vibrating with life, but it was some mysterious magical paint on the walls, as there was no water anywhere else inside the gap.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  The trio walked to the middle of the pathway, and Kafka pointed upwards.

  Lilith and Seph hadn’t thought of looking upwards, as the cave’s ceiling wasn’t that high from the outside, so they didn’t think it would be different inside.

  As they both followed Kafka’s gesture and looked upward, they saw a huge black fish that was swimming in mid-air.

  It looked like a whale-sized carp; the fish’s color was black, and it looked really ugly.

  The fish swam around in the air, like it was nothing; it went up and down freely, and every once in a while, it opened its mouth, and a black bubble came out and flew towards the ceiling.

  The ceiling was extremely high, but Seph and Lilith could see the ceiling dirty with a substance that looked like soot.

  The duo’s mouths dropped open for a while until Kafka closed both their mouths together at the same time with a quiet smile on his face.

  Seph was incredibly astonished, but he got a question out: “What in the heavens? What is that thing?”

  Kafka smiled as he remembered how all the legacy takers reacted to the humongous fish; some of them even fainted, while others just ran the fuck out of there.

  “This is our sect’s Sacred Beast; believe it or not, this beast will fight alongside our sect in sect-wars, as long as the opposing sect is using a sacred beast too. Otherwise, we would endanger our sacred beast for nothing. Sacred Beasts also bless their sects with different blessings; they are unique creatures; there is only one of each, most sects don’t even have them. Our sect, even though it’s small, has had one for the longest time.” Kafka explained.

  Seph couldn’t drop his gaze off the beast, but he heard every word and said, “Wow, fascinating. It looks really ugly; I can’t believe this thing can fight and grant blessings.”

  Lilith scolded him. “Seph, don’t be shallow; it’s not about ugliness. After all, Sun is really handsome, and he still accepted you as a friend.” She said as she stroked Sun’s head, who had been as surprised as them by this sacred beast, but he got over it after he heard Lilith’s compliment and cooed happily as she stroked his head.

  “Hey, that hurt!” Seph said as he put on his best wounded expression.

  He then looked away from them, feigning anger; when he noticed a big board at the end of the stone walkway, he asked Kafka, “What is that over there?”

  “That’s the Sacred Beast’s blessing: a Go board; each inner sect disciple gets to put either a black or white piece on it each month and get a random blessing; it resets monthly. They also told us that for our significant contributions towards the sect we could get an extra try or even more monthly.” Kafka answered him; he had an amazing ability to retain information and was giving them the full experience of the tour, like he had been in the sect for a long time.

  Seph’s eyes twinkled at the opportunity and asked, “Amazing, and does it cover everybody in the sect, or do some people miss their chance every month?”

  “Yes, Go boards have 361 spots, so it covers all 50 inner sect disciples and the four core disciples and even the alchemy master and the treasure pavilion’s keeper and the elder himself and any apprentices they would take. There is plenty of wasted potential every month, but the elder is really cheap by not allowing us to get more chances monthly; we have to do quests to get anymore. I understand he is doing it to push people into doing exceptional things that will push the sect to new heights, but it still stings.”

  Seph nodded as he said, “Yeah, I agree with you. What a waste; can I and Lilith use our chances now?”

  “Yes, definitely you should both use them immediately as we don’t know yet when the month resets.” Kafka said as he gestured towards the board.

  Seph was wondering if he could scan the sacred beast with his eye of the veteran skill; he was afraid to use it and enrage the beast, so he asked Kafka, “Can I use an identification skill on the beast? Or would it get mad?”

  “I think you can; try it out. I am sure nothing too bad will happen anyway.” Kafka said as he held his kitten in one arm and stroked her fur with his hand.

  Seph gulped, but he couldn’t cower out of this now; he used the Eye.

  Name: Majestic Beast of fortune and misfortune.

  Class: Sacred Beast

  Cultivation stage: Core creation (IX)

  “By the underworld, this thing is by far the strongest I ever scanned with my skill. Pretty impressive, I am glad it’s on our side,” Seph said as he stared at it in admiration.

  Lilith left him in his daze and went over to the Go board; it was put on a natural stone platform that came out of the ground. Grass covered the ground all around it, and its size was 30-inch x 30-inch which was huge compared to normal Go boards; its grid was 19x19 though, same as the biggest Go boards around.

  The stone platform was bigger than the board, so there was a clear area on each side of the board. These areas had the unused black and white stones of the game.

  Lilith took one of the black stones and put it somewhere on the board, and instantly a spirit stone appeared from thin air and dropped in front of her.

  She was confused about what had happened, but she picked it up anyway.

  Meanwhile, at the same second, the spirit stone appeared; the fish came down with terrifying speed toward the group. Seph thought he pissed it off with his scanning skill, but the fish instead looked toward Lilith, and Seph could swear it sneered gloatingly and then swam back nonchalantly but this time into the lower half of the room.

  Seph had barely stopped his heart from beating so fast as he asked Lilith, “What did you do?”

  Lilith shrugged as she said, “I don’t know; I put my stone down and got a spirit stone in return, it seems. Was that fish gloating at my bad luck?”

  Kafka confirmed, “Yes, that’s true, it does that all the time; the worst gift you could get is the single spirit stone. That’s the only time I had seen the fish interact with the people in this room so far. Otherwise, it just leaves us alone.”

  Lilith sagged her shoulders in defeat as she walked back towards them, dramatically acting like her bad luck depressed her.

  Seph and Sun laughed at her dramatic act, and then the young cultivator moved toward the Go board himself; once he was in front of it, he said, “Please, at least let my luck be better than hers.”

  He picked a white stone and put it somewhere on the board, and immediately a pill he recognized very well appeared in front of him.

  A yin cultivation pill dropped on the ground in front of him, and he bent down and picked it up.

  Seph looked tentatively behind to see if the fish would act, but it didn’t look like it cared at all for his prize.

  He checked it with his eye of the appraiser to see what grade it was and found it to be high grade, which was excellent.

  He walked back towards the group; Lilith looked at him in feigned anger, and said, “You must have gotten something better than what I got.”

  Seph grinned and said, “I got a yin cultivation pill, so yeah, much better.”

  Kafka confirmed, “As far as I know, that’s the fourth best gift, in ascending order. The unluckiest gift is 1 spirit stone, then 100 spirit stones, then a magic sword, then a yin cultivation pill, followed by the buffs, and the most coveted death establishment pill is last. There are a few better gifts than that, but the sect disciples refuse to tell us, and none of us newbies got one of those high gifts, sadly.”

  Seph turned dramatically, giving Lilith his back and said, “Follow the leader.” As he started walking out of the room.

  Lilith puffed her cheeks and ran after him, threatening to hit him, which made him run quickly too.