The nine netherworld retention lotus was a deep black flower with nine petals and had the remarkable ability to allow anyone under the age of ten who eats it to remember their past life. A highly sort after herb that high level cultivators would use on the reincarnations of their loved ones allowing them to spend another lifetime together. It was also excruciatingly rare and when sold at auction can cost millions of high level spirit stones. What you won’t find recorded about it is that it has a sweet slightly mellow flavour. I would know as I had eaten one.

In my previous life I died in a car accident as a university student from earth, in this one I was a street orphan who had taken to eating bark and the roots of flowers to try and fill my belly.

The past 5 years after regaining my past memories had been truly hard, feudal ancient Chinese style society was terrible and social welfare was completely non existent. I only survived thanks to good luck and now engrained sharp reflexes that proved monumental to my life as a petty thief. But today my life would hopefully begin to turn around. Today was testing day.

Every 3 years someone from Spirit Cloud Sect would come to the city and test something called a spiritual root and induct those with any hope into the sect to become cultivators. I missed out on the last one because I was too young, but now at ten years old I stared at the gateway to a better life.

A tall gruff man stood on the stage at the center of the city, the crest of Spirit Cloud Sect clearly displayed on a token hanging from his waist, a large cloud with seven mountain peaks poking through it. His aura and tone demanded respect and everyone attending had the presence of mind to obey and stopped their conversations.

“If you are ten years and above but under fifteen line up and, when I say, place your hand on this testing stone. Red light means mortal root” he said with a slight sneer. “Orange is low earth, yellow is mid earth and green is high earth. You will become outer disciples. Blue is low heaven, purple is mid heaven, gold is high heaven you would become an inner disciple of our illustrious sect. Now line up.”

The line moved unexpectedly quickly, people rushing forward, almost all with a red light. Occasionally I could spot an Orange or yellow but pretty much everyone left heads bowed low, their hopes dashed. Eventually I did spot a boy whose colour was blue, the envy of the children and even watching adults was obvious.

Soon it was my turn though and heart pounding I reached out a shaky hand towards the crystal orb.
Gold. 

Thank whatever god smiled on me today.

A wave of awe echoed through the crowd and a gleam sparkled in the man’s eyes. He motioned for me to stand with the other children who passed and then sped through the last of the testings, eager to bring us back to the sect.

“Follow me.” There were twelve children including me who were selected and we all followed the man like little ducklings one after the other.

We quickly arrived at a courtyard and waiting inside was the most majestic bird I had ever seen. It had deep red feathers reminiscent of a warm sunset and its pose was like an emperor overlooking the world. But it’s size was what made it stand out the most, at least five to six metres from head to tail it was large enough for all of us to stand huddled on top. Excitement bubbled in my chest as I realised we would be flying to the sect. The bird was completely tame and allowed us to approach with only a slight nod acknowledging our presence. Soon we all clambered aboard so we could begin our journey.

Flying was amazing. There was less room on our ride than comfortable, but the stunning view more than made up for it. We were perhaps fifty metres above the ground, not high at all compared to airplanes from my old life, but here I could feel the wind whipping through my hair, watch the common folk stare up in reverence, I even allowed a small smile to creep onto my face.

A couple hours later we arrived at a large town at the foot of a mountain range. Landing just outside the walls, we alighted the bird and walked up to the gates. Six guards stood in a pale blue uniform standing straight as an arrow, their swords hanging by their wastes. For some reason my body couldn’t help but shiver slightly as I looked up, not daring to meet their eyes. Thankfully we were quickly ushered past them when our leader showed them some kind of token.

The streets of the town were wide, paved and clean. Many people walked unhurried, each with a strong sense of purpose. The difference between where I had been growing up for the past ten years and here were evident as day. The clear show of power and wealth of the sect was more than slightly intimidating for a street rat like me. But recalling the sprawling cities of my past life I managed to keep my head up. It may not have been in this world but I had still seen better.

We walked to the centre of the city before encountering another wall, again with guards. This was the gateway to the sect proper. Soon we passed through the gate and an old man was waiting for us dressed in the same light blue robe this time with a purple sash.

Our guide went forward and greeted him with a low bow, he spoke quickly to the old man before gesturing to the boy whose light had been blue and to me, the elder’s eyes shone listening to him. After speaking our guide bowed once more.

The old man stood in front of us, his gaze moving over each of us, holding for slightly longer on me.

“Welcome to Spirit Cloud Sect. I am inner elder Jinn, you may address me as elder Jinn. The twelve of you are the last group to arrive so I will make this short.” He spoke with a raspy voice, toned with age and wisdom. “Our sect is made of three parts, outer, inner and core. Only two of you here will immediately join the inner sect, the rest of you will be outer disciples. To move from outer to inner you must reach foundation building before the age of twenty.” Seeing the confusion spreading through us he paused. “Foundation building is a cultivation realm following qi refining. After foundation building is golden core, reach that by twenty and you can join the core sect. The other way is to rank in the top five in the yearly inner sect tournament or to be chosen by a core elder. More will be explained later by a colleague, for now the ten of you that will be outer disciples with follow outer elder Chen here who was your guide coming here, and the other two will be following me.”

The three of us separated from the larger group and I took the time to study the boy coming with me to the inner sect. He wore flowing silk and his expression was one of smug pride as of everyone around him was below him. Clearly some kind of jumped up rich kid I groaned internally wondering how he was going to get along with me the street rat.

Our two groups set off in different directions, us going even closer to the centre of the inner city and as we walked the elder continued explaining for us.

“You two both have some natural talent and have better spiritual roots, this will allow you to cultivate faster. You’ll both be part of a selection of new disciples living together in this courtyard. You’ll have a room each and inside you’ll find a change of clothes, a book with the sect rules in, a simple cultivation primer and and a bottle of nourishment pills. Eat three pills spaced out over a day and you won’t need anymore food. A fourth if you are currently under nourished.” He said clearly aimed at me and I couldn’t help but look at my stick thin physique. “Gather outside with the other disciples ever morning bell and you’ll be taught some basic cultivation knowledge.”