“Be at ease,” the same loud voice from before said. It was the amplified voice of an older man with white hair. He wore one gold medal, several silver medals, and a gray medal with a set of weighing scales engraved on it. “As the headmaster, I, Dai Yijun, invite Yue Bing to enter the Nine Illusions profession trial. The sponsor should supply ten top-grade spirit stones to drive the trial.”
A single top-grade spirit stone was worth ten thousand high-grade ones.
Cha Ming flicked his sleeve and sent forty top-grade spirit stones, one set for each of his students. He wasn’t rich by any means, but he had certain obligations as their master. The older man nodded and placed ten stones on a dais beside the arch. A thin blue membrane appeared, and Yue Bing walked through it.
“She’ll be entering an illusory world,” Zhou Li explained. “I got my elder designation through this formation. Grandmaster seers and painters are far too difficult to find in this backwater plane, so I couldn’t have any organization vouch for me.”
Cha Ming, having calmed down substantially, nodded. “You seem to be uncharacteristically helpful today.”
“Oh, I’m not being helpful,” Zhou Li said. “I already know what the results will be. I’m a seer, after all. I’m mostly here to rub in the disappointment. Her exploits over the past year are well-known. Three quarters of the medical profession see her as an abomination. I wonder how you’ll react when you see the results?”
Not much time had passed, and suddenly a medal appeared beside the arch. It was a bronze medal—a peak master spirit-doctor medal. He heard murmurs of disapproval from a group in the crowd, however. Things like “not a doctor,” and “traitor.” He wondered how she’d gone from being a prized student the year before to a pariah.
“You’re going to get a shock at the next one,” Zhou Li said. “She ended up dabbling in some dark arts, things you only see in the South. If you ask me nicely, I’ll ask her profession to sponsor her and grant her cultivation materials. For a favor, of course.”
Cha Ming ignored the man’s taunts and focused on the second medal being formed in the air. It was a bronze medal affixed with bloodred characters. Peak-grade blood master. Somehow, his disciple had gone down the same path as Gong Lan and cultivated it to peak mastery, all without him knowing. He shook his head. Though he didn’t trust Zhou Li in the slightest and figured there must be more to the story, he was less than pleased.
“I wonder how you’ll react to your youngest disciple’s results,” Zhou Li said, summoning an apple from a spatial treasure. He bit into it noisily and talked while eating. “Probably not so badly. You’re acquainted with a member of that profession, though its headquarters are still in the South. For a simple favor, I’ll—”
He frowned. His gaze shifted to the arch, which was letting out a third light and generating a third medallion.
Cha Ming chuckled when he saw his reaction. “It seems you’re not as all-knowing as you say. Let’s see what her third profession is.” He highly doubted it was a runic profession.
A faint hint of silver appeared in the swirling cloud as it formed the badge. Soon, a silver medallion appeared. The bloodred characters for “initial grandmaster blood doctor” appeared on it. Murmurs ran through the hall as Yue Bing walked out of the gateway and accepted the badges.
“Interesting,” Gan Quan said. “Though I don’t approve of the blood master profession, I’ve never heard of the blood doctor profession before.”
“It appeared once in the past,” Dai Yijun said, walking up beside them. “There was a famous doctor called Hua Tuo tens of thousands of years ago that claimed a medal for this profession. She must have found his inheritance somehow. It’s all in the history books if you know where to look.
“Still, I must congratulate Cha Ming on raising such a fine disciple. She’ll be welcomed as a full member, the only one in her profession. I doubt her two other professions will be happy about this, but I, for one, welcome the addition of new knowledge to our academy. For science, of course.”
Then he turned to the three remaining disciples with glittering eyes. “Jin Huang, step into the formation.” He flicked his sleeve, and the formation activated. The younger man stepped through, and Cha Ming’s eyes flickered over to the silent Zhou Li.
“Any predictions?” Cha Ming asked smugly.
“None I can taunt you over,” Zhou Li said. “He’ll have two, and my offer still stands. He won’t be able to procure materials without my help.” A minute later, a bronze badge with the words “peak master alchemist” appeared. Then a bronze mid-grade runic alchemist badge appeared; that one raised many eyebrows. Finally, a minute after that, a silver badge appeared. Jin Huang was apparently an initial-grade poison grandmaster, the same profession as Zhou Bei from Quicksilver City.
“Looks like you were wrong again,” Cha Ming said, grinning. “Perhaps they should strip you of that seer designation.”
Zhou Li’s eyes narrowed. “I absolutely despise karmic anomalies like you. You just stroll around, messing up well-laid plans wherever you go, tearing apart centuries of planning and causality.”
“Anything that makes you upset makes me happy,” Cha Ming chided. “Let’s see how Ling Dong does.”
A few minutes passed. Unsurprisingly, Ling Dong was a peak master spiritual blacksmith.
“He ruffled a few feathers some months ago,” Gan Quan muttered. “While I don’t care personally, I heard some of the older and more traditional elders say he was ignoring technique and convention. As a result, his works couldn’t be replicated and had huge variations in quality. He tried to share his secrets with the rest of the profession, but no one could even understand them.” As he spoke, a second
