The sun crept higher in the sky, heat settling across Redleaf Town like a shawl of warm stone. The air was dry, but the people in the square glistened with sweat. The pressure of the crowd. The pressure of hope. The pressure of time.
Names were called, one after the next. Young, old, thin, broad, loud, silent. The faces changed, but the pattern repeated.
Strike the pillar. Watch the light. Step away.
Still, the iron stood unyielding, its surface marred only slightly by the hundreds who had tested their worth against it. Beneath the marks, the metal still shone cold.
Li Yao inched closer to the front, yet still held back. Three from Green Pine Village had already gone ahead. Two had walked away in shame. The third—a sharp-eyed butcher's son named Rui Fen—had earned a modest orange flicker and looked like he might cry from joy.
Li Yao remembered him vaguely. Always chasing chickens with a wooden cleaver. Now, he had the eyes of someone who thought he'd seen a path open beneath his feet.
The names kept coming.
"Zhang Meifeng."
A tall, broad-shouldered woman stepped forward. Her hair was braided tight, her arms crisscrossed with faded scars. She moved like someone used to chopping wood or hauling stone. Her weapon was a blunt, iron-handled hammer strapped to her back with thick rope.
She grunted, swung the hammer up with practiced ease, and brought it down on the pillar with a roar that sent pigeons flying from nearby rooftops.
A bright orange glow rippled out from the pillar's base.
One of the younger cultivators blinked in surprise. "Body refinement?"
"Second stage, perhaps. Steady foundation."
"Mark her."
Meifeng didn't bow. She just walked back into the crowd and spat on the stones.
**
Then came one of the middle-aged men—Jin Shuo, a former mercenary who now ran a training hall in a village to the west. He wore half-armor and carried a polished saber. His beard was neatly oiled, his expression carefully blank.
He approached the pillar with the calm certainty of someone who believed he had already passed.
He took up a wide stance and whispered a technique name under his breath—some inherited form, maybe, or a borrowed one.
The saber cut down in a brilliant arc. The air shimmered faintly with silver-blue qi.
The pillar glowed yellow.
A respectable result.
Jin Shuo stood tall. A flicker of pride in his eyes.
But one of the Chasing Clouds Sect disciples only sighed.
"Too rigid," he said. "No growth. Everything's carved already. Can't take in more."
"Stalled for years," another added. "Probably spent more time teaching than cultivating."
They marked his name without comment. He would not be invited further, though he'd done better than most.
Jin Shuo did not know that.
He bowed low, smiling faintly, and returned to the edge of the square.
**
"Next—Huani and Huayun, twin applicants."
Two boys stepped forward, maybe sixteen or seventeen, lean and wiry, their heads shaved clean and their eyes sharp as cut obsidian. One carried a long staff, the other, a pair of iron rings looped through his fingers.
The staff bearer went first. He spun his weapon, planted his feet, and struck low and rising, using the torque of his waist to generate force.
A flicker of yellow bloomed from the pillar.
He grinned.
His brother followed, whirling his iron rings together and striking with a precise twin-palm technique. A pale orange shimmer.
The two looked at each other, nodded in tandem, and walked off without a word.
"Trained together," a disciple noted. "Not bad. But they've reached the edge of what shared technique can do."
"They'd need different masters to progress."
The names were marked.
Not rejected.
Not praised.
Just observed.
**
Some came with strange ideas.
One youth claimed he'd invented a sword-drawing art that could cut mountains. He drew so fast his blade flew from his hands, bounced off the pillar, and clattered across the stone. The pillar remained silent.
Another used smoke bombs to "distract the iron's spirit." He was quietly ushered away.
But others struck true.
An older woman with trembling hands summoned a flickering blue flame from her palm. It scorched the base of the pillar, which glowed pale orange in response. She had barely any qi left afterward and had to be supported from the square, but her name was marked.
And still Li Yao waited.
Every face that passed brought with it something—a story, a stubbornness, a dream clutched too tightly.
The line had shortened.
Soon it would be his turn.
**
A boy behind him muttered something.
Li Yao turned slightly, listening.
"He's just standing there like he's better than everyone."
Another voice: "That's Li Yao, right? From Green Pine?"
"Is he even a real cultivator? I heard he has no root."
"Then why's he here?"
"I bet he found a scrap of a technique and thinks he's clever."
Li Yao said nothing.
He didn't care.
But deep inside, his blade shifted slightly across his back.
Not from anger.
From attention.
**
Then came someone different.
A hunched man in a black robe stepped forward. His face was obscured by a long scarf. His hands trembled, but not from age—something else. Sickness, maybe. Madness.
He held no weapon.
But the air around him changed subtly as he stepped into the circle.
He raised his hand.
No chant. No posture.
Just a tap.
Clink.
The iron flared orange—then quickly turned yellow, then bright yellow.
The disciples straightened slightly.
"Name?" one asked, surprised.
The man turned.
His eyes gleamed faintly beneath the scarf.
"Call me Shen."
And then he walked off before they could mark it down.
He disappeared into the crowd, leaving only silence behind.
**
Li Yao felt something stir.
Not in fear. Not quite.
But something primal. As if the earth had shifted beneath him.
Then, at last:
"Li Yao."
He stepped forward.
One foot, then the next.
Slow. Measured. Calm.
The stone blade remained strapped across his back, cloth-wrapped and worn.
The disciples glanced up.
There was no ripple of excitement. No hush from the crowd.
Just another name.
Another fool, perhaps, who thought to impress the pillar.
Another stone to be broken.