I open my eyes and am greeted with the view of a blue sky and the shining sun.
It took some time, but I was slowly comprehending the things around me, like the night breeze, the chirping of the crickets, and the rustling leaves on the trees. I slowly get up from my lying position and look around as I try to remember what happened, but it seems my memories are a bit jumbled up.
Since it was taking time for my memories to come to me, i decided to walk around the forest i currently find myself in.
Let's go forward.
I feel like heading forward will take me to where I might get some answers, so of course I will move forward. Lo and behold, I find a courtyard in the distance, through the stems of the trees in infront of me.
I increased my pace and became a bit disappointed when I realized that the courtyard I saw was actually on a mountain, and the position I was looking at it from made it look close.
"I can fly there," I said to myself.
I close my eyes and slowly feel the energy in me swirl, creating a gust of wind around me. I propel myself to the courtyard in the distance, though it was a bit farther than I thought since it took me a couple of minutes to get there.
I land in front of the gate of the courtyard and slowly knock. Well, it was a loud knock, since from my observation when I was flying, it would take some minutes before the owners of said courtyard would arrive at the gate from their home, so I assumed it would take a powerful knock to announce my presence.
Why did I not just fly in?
Well, I would not be happy if someone just flew into my own courtyard. Do unto others what you want done to yourself. Basically, I don't want to seem rude, and for someone to have a courtyard on a mountain, they had to be wealthy.
As I waited for the owners... Since they are wealthy, they might have a gateman.
So as I waited for the gateman to come, I took my time to see if I could remember some things about myself, since my memories were a bit foggy.
Hmm, so it seems my name is Phys Zen, an elder of the Ink Cloud sect.
I was flying to the Qidian kingdom sects' annual meeting when I suddenly fell; that would explain why I was a bit disoriented and even had mild amnesia.
Though the reason for my fall was because my flying sword ran out of power, the reason I was using a flying sword when I could fly on my own was because I did not want to waste too much energy flying.
Now that my memories were slowly returning, I already knew where I was and where I was going. So I decided to leave and not cause any trouble for these people by asking for directions.
It seems the poor gateman might walk all the way here for nothing.
"Let me leave a note then."
I bent down and wrote some words on the ground and left, flying northeast, with a smile on my face.
Not with my finger, of course; that is dirty, and kids might be reading this before they pick up some bad habits.
It's good to have memories.
...
It took about four hours to get to Lin City, where the annual meeting was being held.
"Now i knew why i was flying with a flying sword; this place is too far."
Looking at the large and bustling city from above, I slowly descended in front of the city gate, startling the guards stationed there.
"Sorry." Of course I would apologize; I never meant to scare them and the people around.
"It...Its not a problem, sir." The guard on the right said, bowing his head.
I waved my hand, saying it was my fault in the first place, and also materialized two gold coins from my storage ring, handing them to the guards as I crossed the gates.
I, of course, was not the only one passing through, but the people were kind enough to make way for me. The people in the mortal realm are really nice.
The annual meeting is being held at the city center, so that would explain the large amount of people on the streets.
"Excuse me sir."
"Oh, no problem."
I let the little child that bumped into me pass by.
What a respectful kid.
I leisurely walked towards the city center, finding it harder to navigate the bustling streets.
I could have just flown to the city center, but that would seem rude, since the city had rules against flying, though some practitioners never cared about that and just flew in, drawing gasps of admiration from the people on the streets as they looked up.
I, on the other hand, was raised right; my parents trained me well.
The city of Lin was one of the only cities in Qidian that the practitioners considered a worthy city to host them, since we practitioners had cities of our own, but due to the annual Qidian sects meeting, the practitioners of these sects had to host it in a city, and since Lin City is the biggest city and also the capital of Qidian, they decided to hold it here.
Oh, right, the reason for this annual meeting is to select suitable people from the populace to become disciples in the various sects. The people selected had to be about 16 to 18 years old; of course, there are some candidates who were selected from as young as 7 years old.
I was a young prodigy who was selected from as young as 4 years old; that was how I became an elder at 23 years of age.
The reason such an event is held is to prevent certain instances that happened years ago among the sects, where a sect elder accepted a young man as his disciple but had an urgent matter to attend to, so he had to leave the young man after teaching him some of his techniques.
Then another elder of a different but high ranking sect saw the same boy practicing the techniques of his master and assumed the boy was gifted and took him in.
Yes, a lot of practitioner elders, mostly those from high-ranking sects, don't really pay attention to other practitioners since most of them are usually in seclusion in their sects, teaching their disciples. The only ones they acknowledge are practitioners from the top sects, so it can't really be blamed on this master for not knowing the techniques of an elder from a low-ranking sect and also on the young man for not properly explaining to the elder.
Some practitioners did say that the young man preferred the other elder since he was from a high-ranking sect.
So after being taken in by that elder, the elder of the low-ranking sect came by, only to see his disciple being taken in as a disciple of the elder of a high-ranking sect, and felt outraged.
So the low-ranking sects appealed to the high-ranking sects for justice for the elder, and then this meeting was announced.
Basically, youths who feel that they are qualified to become practitioners will come here and get tested to see how talented they are, as will big clans and families with their youths.
Those with high talents will be taken by the high-ranking sects, and those with low talents by the low-ranking sects.
This is so that the low- and high-ranking sects will know who belongs to whom, because this very same situation had happened between high-ranking sects too, so this was a win-win for everyone.