One Wish to Own the World



The disciples of the Phoenix Feather Sect jumped off the tall horses and started walking behind Elder Rita. This time she didn't force them to run, as she wanted them to look as respectable as possible for the first impression. Showing up to a meeting running wouldn't garner much respect.

In a few minutes of walking quickly, the group arrived in front of the airship, seeing onboard a young man with long black hair tied behind his head with a few people following his orders.

When they arrived at the foot of the airship, the man jumped off the deck and descended gracefully to the ground.

"I'm Elder Rita of the Phoenix Feather Sect. Pleased to meet you."

Rita cupped her fist and bowed slightly to show respect to the man. She felt he was a seventh-stage cultivator himself, so she greeted him first as he had a higher status as a member of a more powerful sect. His young look was only for show and didn't represent his real age.

"I'm Elder Wesley from the Divine Sword Sect."

He cupped his fist back and gave a slight bow. Many disciples exhaled in relief when they saw the man was approachable and didn't demean the elder. They didn't know what to expect, so seeing the other elder bow put them at ease.

"Is this everyone? How many did your sect send?"

"This is everyone. We sent 978 disciples to participate in your mission."

The man nodded and turned to the disciples of the Phoenix Feather Sect.

"To avoid pulling your sect into the mess, you must change your robes to those of the Divine Sword Sect. You will get plain yellow robes; those represent your status as a normal inner disciple."

He waved his hand, and 978 robes flew out of his storage ring toward the disciples. They were all the same size; they were made of special elastic materials, and the runes inscribed on them allowed them to shrink and expand at the owner's will.

Everyone practiced dressing from their storage rings, so they just placed the robes into their storage rings and pulled them out straight on their bodies, avoiding the need to dress up in front of one another. 

They held their former robes in front of them and let them get pulled away into Rita's storage ring. They then emptied their storage rings of anything that could associate them with the Phoenix Feather, and everything floated to Rita's ring.

"All right, let me give you a short brief so you can decide for the last time whether you are coming or not. If you choose to board the airship after this, you will have to enter the central zone for at least one month before being allowed to return to your sect."

Wesley spoke quietly, yet everyone heard him as if he was standing right next to them, speaking straight to their ears.

'Quite the disturbing experience. If he spoke slightly more quietly, it'd feel like listening to a JOI ASMR for girls.'

Ken thought to himself as he couldn't get the image of the man whispering into his ear out of his head.

"We will take you to our sect and provide you with free lodging and meals for one year. You may leave as soon as you stayed in the exploration areas for at least one month. If you don't enter, we will throw you inside forcibly on the eleventh month."

The disciples didn't like the idea of being forced into anything, but they didn't argue. After all, they didn't go just to have a free vacation, but to find opportunities in the central area for themselves.

"Nobody will guarantee your lives, and many of you are likely to die inside. We send you in the hope you can fight and kill members of the Four Seasons Sect. We established a special point system for you to buy resources from our sect."

Everyone was excited to hear that; having access to the resources of a top 5 sect was an opportunity by itself even if they found nothing in the central area.

"We have a few lists of their high-profile disciples. They're separated according to their stages, so you can find relevant targets more easily. The heads of those ranked disciples will award you with plenty of resources and even some manuals and techniques."

"Elder Wesley, is it true that we can exchange points for Heaven-grade techniques?"

Heaven-grade techniques were the secrets of the sect. Normal inner disciples of the Phoenix Feather Sect could only have access to it after the sect judged their character as trustworthy, and only if they were in the top 5 of their age group.

Even then, there was a very small variety of Heaven-grade techniques they could choose from, and only the core disciples had a bit more. Mostly, core disciples got the legacy of their masters which included one more Heaven-grade technique.

It was one more reason for elders to pick disciples with similar attributes to them, or else the additional Heaven-grade technique might be completely wasted.

"It is, but it comes with a price. We can't let our secret techniques out of the sect, so you'd have to join our sect if you want to get one. Of course, you'd have to hunt down a very high-ranked cultivator for that, so I'd recommend you drop the thought."

Elder Rita frowned upon hearing those words. He basically declared that his sect would poach any extremely talented disciple from the Phoenix Feather Sect without giving her any face.

"This was not part of the deal. I hope you can stick to the deal, Elder Wesley."

"Of course. I didn't mean anything inappropriate by that, only that we can't give the Heaven-grade techniques of our sect to outsiders."

Elder Wesley smiled and moved on. However, the damage was already done; Rita could see the spark of hope lit in the eyes of many commoners. Those commoners couldn't put their hands on such techniques in the Phoenix Feather Sect.