"Urgh... This sucks."

A girl in tattered clothes swung her hoe violently, leaving it stuck in the ground.

After glancing around warily, she shoved a handful of seeds from the bag beside her into her pockets and ran off.

She ran across the the fields, past dingy houses and other toiling farmers, through the streets lined with newer houses. And there it was, the well at the centre of the town. She tossed the bucket in and reached for the crank, twisting it as it creaked in protest.

After making sure no one was around, she took the bucket out and began drinking greedily from it.

She sighed in satisfaction and poured the rest of the water back into the well.

Slowly, the pigeons roosting on the rooftops of the nearby buildings flew down and began cooing. She tossed a handful of seeds out from her pockets and watched with a silly grin as they ate. 

It was not the first time she had gone through this routine, despite the complaints from the townspeople and her parents.

And it was at that moment when a shadow started to grow bigger and bigger above the flock of pigeons.

"Huh? A giant pigeon?" she had a silly thought for a second.

Amazingly enough, it was not, in fact, a pigeon. An old man in white robes landed gracefully, his long hair and beard flowing in the wind. The pigeons fluttered away in panic.

The girl could have sworn he was trying not to laugh as he turned his face away for a moment.

A cultivator? No way. She wondered if her brain fizzled out from the heat.

"Hello." said the old man.

That was not what she expected to hear from him.

"Uh... hi?"

"It's been a while since I've seen someone so unfazed," he said with a serene smile.

Before she could stop herself, she poked him in the chest to check if he was real. Her finger bounced off as it collided with something invisible.

...

Her face paled.

All kinds of crazy thoughts went through her mind. If she wasn't hallucinating, she just poked a cultivator like that! What if he goes nuts and smites her, a 'filthy mortal' for even daring to touch him?

"...sorry?"

The old man snorted with laughter.

"What do you think I'm going to do? Roast you on a spit for something like that? Sheesh..."

The girl felt a bit of relief but was still cautious.

"So- so uh, what are you here for?"

"Right to the point. I like that." he nodded. "I'm here to look for disciples."

"Eh?"

Excitement began to wrestle with the fear inside of her.

"An- and... uh... you... check my aptitude?"

A pigeon began pecking gently at her feet, annoyed that their feeding session was interrupted. She shooed it away with a backwards kick.

The old man poked her forehead.

"Okay. You pass," he said, with a grin.

"Jus- just like that?"

No, that couldn't be right. From what she had read, checking her aptitude had to be more complicated than that, right?

"Please! Check it for real!"

"Hmm? But you're already accepted." he continued grinning.

What? Without checking her aptitude? No, what if he was some evil cultivator looking for mortals to refine pills and medicine? Or even... an especially horrific thought came to mind...

No! Especially not with an old man like that!

"I... uh... my parents might not agree?"

Laughing, the old man ripped a portal open in the air and pushed her in as she shrieked.

 

---

 

In a huge hall entirely made of seamless white jade, nine people sat on cushions on the floor.

The peasant girl, Mei was one of them.

She had been sitting with them for a few hours, but was too nervous to talk to them. Some of them whispered to each other, but none of them talked much.

Five of them were even children. When they first arrived, they were crying, but all of them were pacified by candy and shining crystals from a young man in white robes, who was now reading on a stool.

Could those be spirit crystals? Using those to pacify children... she felt like her fantasy was being turned upside down.

She thought to herself about how silly children were, being able to be placated by candy. It reminded her about how her parents told her not to be lured off by treats from strangers when she was younger.

But as she stared at the three teens gobbling the scrumptious food placed before them, she felt her will waver.

One of them, who was rather chubby, finished the fastest, licking all the sauce off the plate with his tongue. He stared greedily at the plate before Mei.

"Can I have-"

"No!" she glared at him.

"But you're not eating it!" he complained. "If you don't want it, let me have it!"

Faced with his attitude, the girl felt upset. She stood up and looked down on him, drawing looks from most of the people on the cushion.

"Oh? You're trying to be threatening?" the chubby boy stood up as well.

"In the first place, what the hell are you all thinking? Some... weird old man kidnapped all of us and you just eat the food here? What if he poisoned the food or something?"

"Don't say that about him!" a really skinny boy stood up as well. "He graciously accepted us as disciples and you question his food like that? He gave us the chance to eve-"

The last teenager, a girl stood up as well.

"Oh, I just felt like it would be awkward to be the only one sitting. Don't mind me." she smiled weakly.

"Uh, okay." the peasant girl gave her a strange look. "Haven't you heard of those stories where cultivators kidnap mortals to refine pills with? Or other horrifying things?"

"What?" the chubby boy paled. "Where did you even hear that from?"

The skinny boy was taken aback for a moment but thought of something.

"Well, if that's the case, wouldn't he have kidnapped more people and faster? Why only us?"

The peasant girl paused. He had a point. But she didn't really want to back down.

"But maybe he doesn't need a lot right now, so he only picked us!"

One of the children began to cry. Another kid looked at him and decided to cry as well.

"Heavens!" the young man in the white robes shouted. "You lot were so quiet for the last few hours. Be quiet."

The chubby boy frowned.

"Why should we listen to you?"

"Because," the young man paused. "This."

An immense aura gushed out of him, pushing all of them back onto the cushions. Even the children stopped crying.

Satisfied, he went back to reading.