Chapter 201: You’re Satisfied with Just 100 Years?
The feud between the Feique Sect and the Fierce Eagle Sect wasn’t exactly profound.
They hadn’t gotten along since the day they were founded.
But by today, it had evolved into what could be called a generational feud.
The main problem came down to their names.
One was the Sparrow, the other the Eagle.
You could tell just from the names.
Could a sparrow defeat an eagle?
Impossible.
This was the common consensus within the Fierce Eagle Sect.
Besides, their Sect Master was on the verge of breaking through to the Nascent Soul realm. If he truly set foot on that path, even the Sea View Sect would pay more attention to the Fierce Eagle Sect and allocate some of its resources to them.
After all, there were bound to be alliances and subordinate relationships between the major sects.
Just like the Longevity Sect and the Feique Sect back in the day.
It was just that a sect needed a certain level of strength to be considered a subordinate of the Sea View Sect.
The Fierce Eagle Sect had always had this goal.
Rumor had it that many years ago, the Sea View Sect had been just a small sect itself.
A person has to have a dream.
Of course, this was getting off-topic.
Over a decade ago, Jingque True Man, the Sect Master of the Feique Sect, had clashed with Kuang Ying Zhenren, the Sect Master of the Fierce Eagle Sect.
It was said they met in a Secret Realm, where Jingque True Man snatched a secret treasure right from under Kuang Ying Zhenren’s nose.
One was Golden Core Early Stage, the other Late-stage Golden Core.
For Jingque True Man to possess such skill was a source of utter humiliation for Kuang Ying Zhenren!
Afterward, the Fierce Eagle Sect supposedly came to see the Feique Sect as a thorn in its side. Jingque True Man’s choice to wander abroad and not return to the Sect might have been to protect the Feique Sect.
As long as she wasn’t present, the Fierce Eagle Sect had no reason to cause trouble for the Feique Sect.
The reason they hadn’t come to blows yet was the lack of a just cause.
After all, wantonly slaughtering another sect without a righteous reason was detrimental to one’s Cultivation, unless you were a Demon Cultivator.
The players stared silently as Hao Kan typed out the history of the feud between the Fierce Eagle Sect and the Feique Sect in the world chat.
[Qi Dazuo: Holy shit, that’s over five hundred characters! The sect channel doesn’t have a character limit?!]
[System Announcement: Effective today, messages in the sect channel cannot exceed 100 characters per line.]
[Han Tian: What a cheapskate.]
[Gu Yunxi: A bug is born and patched out in the same breath.]
[Lin Baobao: I didn’t expect the Feique Sect and Fierce Eagle Sect to have this kind of history. Jingque, Kuang Ying... wait, don’t those names sound a lot like a couple’s?]
[Wu Dahu: Hold on, hold on. I’m terrified of you people... what do you call them, the fanfic girls who ship CPs? You see a couple in everything. It’s scary. What if Jingque True Man is a guy?]
[Lin Baobao: Bullshit! I just thought the names sounded similar, it was a random guess!]
[Zhou Baobao: Guys can love guys too, you know, Big Brother Da Hu~~~]
[Wu Dahu: ...Why do I suddenly feel like my soul has been tainted just by playing a game?]
[Daoist: Someone just said the Fierce Eagle Sect was involved in the Spirit Fox Sect’s business? If that’s the case, then it’s a real possibility. Our Sect should be on guard. @Gu Yunxi, didn’t you say you guys recently had a major breakthrough with Magic Treasures?]
[Gu Yunxi: Yeah. The materials are easy to get, but the success rate is low. We can’t supply the whole Sect relying on the great Xue Yao alone. Are there any life-skill players willing to switch to Artifact Refining? My team is recruiting for a partnership! I can provide the refining materials! The only condition is that in the early stages, you can only refine the types of Magic Treasures we need!]
[Lin Baobao: Boss, boss, count me in~!]
[Han Tian: Then let’s hurry it up. Get the Medicine Workshop and Artifact Refining Workshop set up. Our only weak point is Beast Taming. The main issue with Beast Taming is a lack of resources. Spiritual beasts are hard to raise...]
Raising spiritual beasts primarily requires a specific environment. The Feique Sect wasn’t set up for raising spiritual beasts, so it lacked that environment.
Fan Guzhou buying those Little Flower Beasts was just for fun.
They would have to find a place specifically to build a spiritual beast nursery, which would require claiming land outside their current territory.
In fact, the Longevity Sect was already expanding its territory. It was all demon beast land anyway, with no one to oversee it, so they were expanding like crazy.
Other sects didn’t dare to expand because they couldn’t recruit enough disciples.
But the Longevity Sect didn’t have that problem.
’Speaking of which,’ they thought, ’the next wave of new players should be coming soon, right?’
Meanwhile, Jiang Tianya was in anguish.
Ever since he and the other players failed to be teleported away from the Moonlight Secret Realm, his progress in this world had stalled.
Just a moment ago, his trial had finally begun again.
In this world, he was a mortal with an ordinary Spirit Root, trying to enter the local Wing Sect—the only one around—along with a group of people from the Secret Realm who may or may not have been NPCs.
The conditions for entering the Wing Sect were harsh, requiring one to pass a difficult assessment.
Only by succeeding in the assessment could one enter the Wing Sect.
Previously, Jiang Tianya had assumed he had to pass the assessment to get the reward, so he tried extremely hard.
As it turned out, the assessment was simply impossible to pass.
He had already been through all sorts of inhuman trials, like climbing a cliff to the summit without any safety equipment.
The cliff was steep, and a fall from halfway up would mean being smashed to pieces.
It didn’t hurt; the system suppressed the sensation of pain.
But he still felt a bone-deep terror at that kind of death.
Another example was having to evade the attacks of bamboo pit vipers in a dense bamboo forest.
The vipers blended in perfectly with the bamboo leaves and were everywhere, leaving him no place to hide.
The memory of being bitten to death by ten thousand snakes was still vivid.
It was a complete encyclopedia of creative ways to die.
The Wing Sect’s assessment was so insane. Who could possibly pass?
Three days later, he failed again. He thought he would be teleported away, but he was still in the same place.
And for a long while, nothing happened.
Then, just a moment ago, he suddenly opened his eyes to find the old man from the Wing Sect before him once again.
The man looked at Jiang Tianya, his gaze a mixture of confusion and a hint of appreciation. "To enter my Wing Sect, you must undergo an assessment. Today’s question has changed. I ask you, in your life, have you ever experienced injustice? Has there ever been a moment you resented the world, resented the people around you?"
Jiang Tianya froze for a second, then shook his head. "No. I’m very happy."
The old man slowly shook his head. "From the moment a person is born, they come to understand that this is an unfair world. For example, why do you have only the most ordinary Spirit Root? Why have you failed the assessment so many times? Why are some people born as the favored children of heaven?"
"Your lips say you are happy, but your heart may not agree. Only your inner self can express your truest thoughts."
As he spoke, the old man suddenly reached out a hand.
He pressed it against the center of Jiang Tianya’s brow.
In that moment, Jiang Tianya couldn’t stop his mind from replaying parts of his life.
From birth, his parents were strict, but he grew up in affluence. As a son of the Jiang Family, he received the most rigorous education and was occasionally reprimanded by his parents.
But he knew his parents loved him.
His life had already surpassed that of so many others. He had seen the lower rungs of society and knew how privileged his resources were. He even did some charity work. He held no resentment; he was grateful to the world.
He genuinely felt that he lived a happy life.
The old man suddenly snatched his hand back, his composure cracking for a moment.
"You really think you’re happy? You’ve gone through so many trials and failed every single one. Aren’t you angry? Aren’t you furious? Don’t you think this assessment is unfair to you? If you can’t become a Cultivator, you can only go back to being an ordinary mortal, to be born, grow old, get sick, and die. You’ll live for just a few decades—or maybe a hundred years—and you’re satisfied with that?"
Jiang Tianya: "..."
’If I could live to be a hundred in real life,’ he thought, ’I’d be thanking the heavens.’