Chapter 55: Feng Jin

“They’re going to announce the first trial. Are you prepared, Grim Jin?” Bai whispered to me.

“Yes, senior.” I whispered in return.

“Good. You must be the first to complete it. The rewards they are grnating are specifically tailored to you.”

This was something I knew. I was meant to win. The entire tournament was designed to allow me to win. It was inevitable.

The robes of the Grim Tempest were ill-fitting. There was no one here to tailor them to my size. Despite the luxury of their material, they fit me poorly, hanging roughly. We stood as one pair among dozens in an open gathering hall beneath a stage.

A cultivator whose spirit I couldn’t measure meditated atop the sage. A scar covered one of his eyes. Wrinkles spoke of decades of sunbeat experience. To my senses, he was an unfathomable void, a dark cloud that hovered over all of us.

The assembly hall here was maintained for usage, but buried in the Stormwall, it was far from supplies. Banners carried the colors and characters that spelled out the Grim Tempest, draped from the walls. Formations kept even the stone floor an even, warm color. New wooden furniture sat at the sides of the room. There was no sitting for this meeting.

Dozens of lesser cultivators surrounded us. By my count, there were eighty sons and daughters of the Grim Tempest. Many seemed aged into their twenties or even thirties. Talentless cultivators given the resources of princes just to be abandoned in the subordinate nations of the Grim Tempest.

Because the sect would destroy them.

Talentless cultivators like Feng Sai. He was among the many who had not yet shown themselves here; the primary reason the tournament’s trials hadn’t started. More cultivators should have arrived.

It was for the best if they stayed back.

The measure of the cultivators around me failed to impress. Barely any of them inched forward in their progress in the days or weeks since they arrived. They didn’t spend their time cultivating. They ate and drank and socialized here, meeting one another. They wore a dozen different outfits of a dozen different nations.

The Feng was a premier nation on the Bloodstone Continent, especially the scale of the land it controlled. But much of its land was a desert. None of the Scions here missed out in resources and time allocated to them to cultivate their base and expand their power.

Cliques already formed between them. It had to be a trap. I wondered how the Grim Tempest would turn these groups against each other.

When I looked their way, they averted their eyes. All of them here knew the basis of my power. I smirked. I had beaten the lesson into a few of them publicly.

It was my burden to enter the Grim Tempest. I am the price the Feng Patriarch paid; a tax in a life raised and submitted like a tithe to his masters. Everyone else here was just a failed crop. And it was my burden to protect them. That is what Bai taught me.

Already, we had waited over an hour for the elder to begin his speech.

The elder’s eyes cracked open. The eye that was scarred opened into a black pit of roiling cloud; I was unsure if it was a technique, or a prosthetic eye. I dared not ask the esteemed elder, either.

The qi in the room suddenly changed direction, flowing differently. I didn’t realize while the elder had his eyes shut, but all of the qi in the room and beyond had been rushing into him. It was as if I could suddenly breath easier. I tensed.

How powerful was this elder?

“Do not worry about your brother. He probably remains within his Immortal’s forsaken desert.” Bai whispered unprompted. He misread my distress.

The elder’s mouth curled in displeasure.

“It is time to begin the Storm Scion tournament. We have waited long enough. Only one of you will enter as an applicant to Inner Disciple. Seven will stand as prospective Outer Disciples. The rest of you will become Retainers for the Grim Tempest.”

An uproar of questions and confusions echoed through the crowd of cultivators. We were one of the only bastions of quiet in the crowd. The Elder threw up a hand. The air cracked.

“The Grim Tempest is not heartless. Even our Retainers have the chance to become disciples through years of hard work and merit. Each of you have been afforded the riches of royalty long enough. If you want more, its time to fight for it.” The crowd quieted at the elders words. Jin felt a dozen glances sent his way.

“There are some eighty of you here. But only sixteen will enter the tournament proper, and only one will win. For this reason, the Storm Scion Tournament will open as it always has. A series of trials must be completed. Each trial will last three days. The first to complete each trial will earn a boon from the Grim Tempest. Now… who can tell me where we currently stand?” The elder scanned the room.

There was a momentary pause, a lull in the talking. I knew that every cultivator here was going through a dozen considerations. A question asked in this way would never be fully simple; it should give them some guidance toward the trial or toward their cultivation.

A cultivator off to my right looked up, meeting the elders gaze. I kept my arms folded and relaxed.

“Reporting to the elder… we are within the Stormwall. A natural formation here circulates an endless amount of storm qi. A boon to any cultivator of our path. There is an opportunity here to advance.” The cultivator offered a clasped fist salute.

The elder shook his head.

“Anyone with a brain? You.”

“Reporting to the senior.” Another cultivator, a girl this time, barely older than I was, offered a clasped fist salute. She wore robes of deep ocean blue, elegently decorated. Her arms jangled with gigantic silver bands as she offered a clasped fist salute. I mentally identified her as Shui Ling, the heiress of the empire that dominated the Southern coast of Bloodstone.

“We stand in the ruins of the Heavenly Cloud. This ancient sect manipulated the Stormwall. When the formation failed, for an unrecorded reason, they suffered immensely, losing almost the entirety of that sect. If I am not wrong… we are standing in the upper floor of the Heavenly Cloud Pillar currently!”

“Good.” The elder said with a smile. He pulled a treasure from his ring. The entire crowd when dead quiet at the pure water-aura that resonated off of the treasure. He threw it forward casually. Ling caught it — and then it disappeared. The crowd was dead quiet.

“The Heavenly Pavillion bred and raised a mighty strain of Spiritbeast. They were considered to be signs of good fortune. Omens of it. To this day, these beasts roam the forests of the Stormwall. There is a rumor that one of their great ancestors inhabits the very lake beneath us. In early adulthood, they are already capable of matching a Third Realm cultivator.

“The first trial is this. Kill or capture one of these beasts of any age and realm. Return with the head of an Omen Alligator to advance.”

I had already scouted out many of the local nests. Only minutes from here, there was a nest where several eggs were about to hatch. I would use my movement technique to steal the babies from the mother. Then I would be the first. I stared in greed at Shui Ling’s back. The Outer Disciple at her side put a hand on Ling Shui’s shoulder before whispering.

Shui Ling looked back at me with disgust on her face.

I wanted that treasure for myself.

The doors to the hall burst open.

“Reporting to the Elder, another Scion has arrived!”

“So late.” The Elder said. “Send them in.”

There was a low, rumbling growl, then the stench of mud and rain rolled into the room as the guard opened the wider door. My eyes widened. Who arrived that they needed to open the full sized gate for them?

A cultivator rode into the room on the back of an Alligator. An opaque veil hung from their face, still slick from rain. The cultivator slid down the side of the Alligator and offered a clasped fist salute.

“Apologies to the Elder. It appears I’m late.”

The entire room stared in dead silence. As if sensing the mood, the Alligator behind the cultivator reared up until it towered over the crowd, showing rows of razor sharp white teeth with a menacing smile.

A moment later, the cultivator pulled off their hat.

“Feng Sai.” I hissed, my voice a whisper. “You should have stayed home.”

I made to step forward, but Bai’s hand landed on my shoulder in a vice grip.