The elders still hadn't met their benefactor. 

'This house is too grand. How was she able to afford it?'

Sect leader Chang kong asked as he looked around the well furnished house.

'Young man, can you tell us the name of your boss? Is the person's name perhaps Bai li yue?' 

Qi rong fei asked.

With Ye zhian's nod of confirmation, the elders looked even more shocked than they had been before.

'It's really the little ancestor!'

Ye zhian was struck dumb. Ancestor? Did they just call Bai li yue their ancestor? She was a cultivator? He had stayed by her side all this time and hadn't had any inkling that she was a cultivator. The one thing he knew about her was that she was lazy. She was always lying about sleeping or painting. How could she be a cultivator? 

Maybe they were mistaken.

But evidence refuted his argument. They referred to her by name so it has to be her.

He struggled to control his emotions as they showered him with questions. In Bai li yue's absence, he was their only source of information. 

Bai li yue had spent a productive day at the betting square. For a handful of gold coins, she found an experienced bookie to give her an indepth history on the tournament. The national tournament was widely disputed even though there was no material prize awarded. The only price was admission into a three star sect. Over the years, a few four star sects had also made an appearance. 

There were now more than three thousand participants from sects all over the country who were looking for a chance to display their talents. 

He sold her a ranking table for a few gold. The Thousand bamboo immortal sect wasn't in the first five hundred. It didn't come as a surprise to her. Their highest ranked was Zi yu at 622 followed by Wen shan shan at 739. The rest of the sect representatives were below the 750 mark. Now that she had an idea of the rankings, she asked about the recruiting sects. The bookie told her all that he knew. He didn't understand why she was asking for the ranks of the participants recruited into three and four star sects from the past five tournaments, but he wasn't going to complain that she was spending money on old information.    

She took a break in a small restaurant and spent the rest of the day going over her findings. The three star frostgrave sect had a tradition of recruiting only exceptional female participants who showed an aptitude for ice and water elements. The other sects also had specific criteria for recruitment. 

'I should ask the elders if our students have these aptitudes.'

After selecting the first fifty of the final rankings, they only selected participants above the 300 rank who displayed incredible skill and talent. 

This was the crux of her research. If the Thousand bamboo immortal sect representatives could rise in the rankings, then entering a higher ranked sect would only depend on their talents. 

She returned late in the evening when the streets emptied of people. She found Huang rong training with his sword in the garden. The swordplay was as gentle as she remembered but it had a steadiness that had been lacking in the past. It was good to see a familiar face, but she was hesitant to interrupt his practice. There would be time enough to catch up. 

She headed over to the room where the sect leader now resided. The lamp was still on. She knocked.

'Little ancestor, you're back.'

He smiled when he saw her. He went next door and called the other elders.

'Little ancestor, you've worked hard.'

'First elder, second elder, elder mu; how are you all?'

They made small talk for a while and then talked about more important matters. She told them her findings and asked for their thoughts.

'Little ancestor's thinking is correct. It is an idea we can begin implementing in the future.'

The sect leader agreed.

'It is too late to remedy the situation this time. But we haven't necessarily lost. Our students might not have the aptitudes that the sects are looking for but our focus has never been in that area. We have concentrated our efforts on rising in the ranks. As you know none of them is ranked in the top five hundred.'

'Yes. Zi yu is the highest ranked in the six hundreds.'

'That's because she's participated in a few competitions.'

The first elder, Zhao li ming chimed in.

'Anyway, the facilities you provided have improved their cultivation. They're definitely able to shoot up in the rankings and contend with those at the top of the list.'

   

When morning came, she woke up early to secretly help Ye zhian prepare breakfast. They went separate ways to the renovated quarters to wake up the students.

Wen shan shan's sleep was disturbed by the sound of voices outside her room. She got up to find the culprit and did a double take upon opening the door. Where did that Bai li yue come from? She blinked but what she was seeing wasn't a figment of her imagination. Bai li yue was present in front of her. 

'You! What are you doing here?' 

She fumed as if Bai li yue's presence was a personal insult to her.

'Wen shan shan, how are you doing?' 

Bai li yue greeted her. 

'I asked you a question! W- what are you doing here?' 

'I arrived in the capital, some time ago, so I know my way around. If you need help with something, please feel free to ask me. I'll help you anyway i can.'

'We don't want your help. How did you find this place, anyway? You're such a nuisance! Do you know that?' 

She shouted when Bai li yue kept smiling at her.

The noise attracted the boys next door. Bai li yue met Huang rong and Lu dou outside the door as she escaped from Wen shan shan's anger. 

'Miss Bai is that really you?'

She couldn't help but smile at the awestruck Lu dou. 

'I went to look for you many rimes, but nobody knew where you'd gone.'

'Sorry. I didn't have time to say goodbye. But here i am!'

'How have you all been?' 

Huang rong asked.

Now that she saw them, she wondered how Fang shi and the others were doing back in the sect. The three of them spent the whole morning chatting. They told her how hard the others were working. They hadn't given up on competing in the national tournament in the future. 

The day of the tournament finally dawned, but she still couldn't embrace the carefree nature of the elders. She was like a fussy mother. Qi rong fei relented and talked with the students. Apart from that, he wasn't willing to press them any further. They were already under a lot of pressure. The tournament was starting soon and her fretting was distracting. He put his foot down and sent her out of the house to buy tickets for those of them in the stands. It was a good strategy. Bai li yue spent two days stuck in a queue that had formed days before the ticket office opened for business. She finally got a pass for herself, elder mu and the first elder a day before the tournament and returned to the house.

On the day of the first event, she took a seat beside the first elder in the stands. The sect leader and the second elder would stay with them leaving the rest to watch the tournament from the stands. Elder mu had bought a copy of the tournament pamphlet fresh off the press. He explained the preliminary stage in an animated voice. A few people who were unaware of the stages of the tournament drew closer to listen to him.  

'This first stage of the tournament is a collaboration between the tournament committee and the array masters' association. It says here that it is a test of raw fighting power. contestants will fight enemies inside an array, scoring points for each slain enemy until they are forced to exit. According to the pamphlet, their ranks will be based on points scored.'

Bai li yue sat up at the mention of array masters' association. Her interest in the fighting stage increased exponentially. Her eyes zeroed in on the stages that were supposed to have arrays.

'Arrays? Where?' 

She asked elder mu, who referred to his booklet again. She couldn't see anything. Her eyes narrowed even further, scanning the surroundings for arrays. She could feel ripples of energy flowing around the combat stages but try as she might, there was no way to discern them. 

'Is it using a high level cloaking rune? No, that doesn't make any sense.' 

She bit the inside of her mouth and sank deeper into thought. The tournament no longer held her interest outside of the invisible formations. Between sitting and watching others fight, she was better off doing something more productive: studying the arrays. She wanted to get a closer look at the stage, but she knew it was against the law if she wasn't participating or supervising an event. 

The first batch of contestants were called onto different combat stages amid thunderous applause and cheers. Each contestant chose a weapon from an armory that boasted a wide selection of simple iron weapons and stepped forward. Thick mist rose from the ground and obscured them from the view of the spectators. Above each stage, a screen quickly solidified to show the contestant standing on a barren field. The air was thick with excitement as they waited for the enemies to appear. Thick mist rolled in from all sides and in it coalesced shapes resembling ten lightly armoured warriors. They emerged holding cudgels formed of mist. 

The same thing was happening on all the screens: mist warriors were facing off against contestants. Bai li yue's eyes followed a young lady who was already cutting down the warriors. Her two iron fans whirled nonstop through the air slashing at limbs made of mist. The points increased by ten points as she finished one mist warrior after the other. More mist rolled in forming another batch of warriors who stood at the ready. These warriors were armed with spears and fought in pairs. 

'Impressive!' 

The design was ingenious, a master craft in efficiency of arraymaking. She could sense the mist warriors growing stronger with every wave that emerged from the mist. None of the contestants was having trouble so far, but she reckoned it was only a matter of time. When the mist warriors reached the master realm or even the lord realm, then the true ranking will begin.