Rivers of the Night

The disciples could only watch in a daze as Theron greeted them and just… left. Even Tenn, who had set all of this up, didn’t understand what was going on.

Was Theron a Metal Mancer? But they thought he was a Water Mancer?

No, wait… even if he was a Metal Mancer, what good would that do? Even the Ironharts wouldn’t be able to manipulate the metal that forged the Sect’s walls, let alone a Metal Mancer without an Imbued Resonance.

What did they just witness?

Tenn shuddered awake after Theron vanished into the distance, a voice calling out to him.

A young inner disciple who went by Carpe snapped him out of it.

"Tenn? Tenn!"

The law enforcement disciple looked to Carpe, his head still half in a daze.

"What are you going to do now?"

That was right, his plan wasn’t just as simple as watching Theron crawl to get into the Sect, that would hardly be enough. He was aiming for something much better than that.

What he really needed was a method of dealing with Theron within the rules that could allow them to punish him to the greatest extent. The best way to do that was to have him enter the Sect in an unconventional way.

In the end, hadn’t he succeeded?

All Tenn had to do now was wait for Theron to expose himself.

Obviously, he couldn’t be the one to do it, or else things would collapse too easily. But if he could get an Inner Sect Elder to make a move, by the time they realized that there was something wrong, they’d have no choice but to cover things up for him.

Tenn wasn’t worried about this coming back to bite him at all. The Law Enforcement Grand Elder would definitely cover for his own, and more importantly than that…

Everyone felt that Theron was a thorn at their side. How could they let him do what they wanted so easily?

…

Theron’s gaze swept through the Sect as he moved, his thoughts unknown to most but him.

On the inside, the Sect felt more like a community than anything grandiose. Normal roads, normal houses… if there was anything special, it was the density of Mana in the air and the frequent use of what looked like white marble.

But out here, it was so selectively used as an accent to the design that it was easy to miss.

From what Theron could tell, it should be a special jade of sorts that helped increase the concentration of Mana even further.

’It will be difficult to tell where to go Theron thought to himself.

He could guess at Tenn’s intentions. The plan wasn’t bad, and honestly speaking, though Theron looked calm now, he was actually balancing on a knife’s edge.

This was a Sect, the true face of the world of cultivation. A single slip-up, angering the wrong person, overstepping bounds just one time, was enough to be slapped to death with a palm.

So what if they were apologetic about a mistake afterward? You’d already be dead.

However, Theron didn’t have another choice but to take this route. He didn’t have the time to waste playing Tenn’s games, and even if he had managed to find the right entrance to take, it wasn’t lost on him that they had never handed him back his recommendation letter.

They wouldn’t dare to destroy it, but so long as there was enough of a lag between it being presented and when Theron would need it, that would be enough to cosign him to death.

That was the main problem. There were too many ways to accidentally nudge him to death, but the words of the middle-aged man had caught Theron’s attention.

He would never bet everything on a worker elder who likely hadn’t even seen much of the inside of the Sect at all. What he was betting on, however… was the Patriarch.

"Hello," Theron called out to a disciple who seemed to be in her early twenties, "I’m looking for Elder Harlo. Do you know where I might find him?"

"Sorry, I wouldn’t know something like that. Excuse me."

Theron nodded. He didn’t expect it to be that easy, or else Tenn would be more obsessed with following him around and ensuring he couldn’t take any of the obvious ways out.

"Just one more question, sorry to bother you."

"Hm?" The young woman looked back.

"Is Elder Harlo… you know…" Theron nudged as though he was in the know about something he wasn’t.

There had to be some sort of clue in the recommendation letter. The words themselves were too plain. That only left two things… the elder in question and the date.

There was a flash in the young woman’s eyes. She hesitated, but a little boy almost half her age, with a kind smile at that, was easy to let her guard down around.

"You didn’t hear this from me, but Elder Harlo got exposed for some things a couple of months ago. Apparently, he had a rolodex of picture jades filled with nude photos of female disciples. If you’ve been assigned him as your overseer, I’d probably advise you find someone else.

"Once the other foot comes down on his punishments, the disciples will end up scrambling to fit under new elders. By then, it would probably be too late and you could get rejected. You’ll need a good pretense to switch overseers, though…"

The woman’s voice trailed off. Find more to read at

"Does senior sister have any advice for me?" Theron asked, a hopeful look in his eyes.

"Well…" the woman seemed as though she was weighing her options. The longer she thought, the more expectant Theron seemed to become, and the less she could bring herself to not help. "… Listen, there really aren’t any good options. But your aura is sturdy and you’re what, 13? 14?"

"Fourteen."

The woman nodded. "The Chosen Selection should be coming up soon and there’s going to be a push by the Sect soon and some rules have become more lax. How about you try the Luminescent Tower?"