A Teenage Girl Measures Her Spiritual Roots and Talent

Once every ten years.

Exactly once every ten years.

It was a special day when the Hyeonyang Sect opened the path of cultivation to mortals, too.

For that reason, several hundred applicants had gathered in the plaza.

Their ages and backgrounds varied.

There were young men barely past twenty, farmers with rough hands, armed martial artists, and even middle-aged people who'd closed their businesses and staked their last hope on this.

If they were lucky, a farmer who'd been plowing fields until yesterday could become a cultivator tomorrow, consuming spirit stones and learning spells.

It was, quite literally, a chance to leap across the barriers of both status and lifespan at once, so the Five-Way Intersection Plaza had been packed since early morning.

But they said the earlier one began cultivating, the better.

As people aged, their meridians stiffened and their innate qi waned...