The carriage stopped in front of a large courtyard surrounded by grey walls. The female disciple opened the door and gestured for them to step out.

  "This is the Barched Wind Sect's selection hall in Dusthaven," she said, gesturing at the buildings around them. "You will stay here for the next three days while we conduct the trials, so make yourselves comfortable."

  Yan Qiu climbed out and looked around. The courtyard was wide and clean, with stone tiles covering the ground and wooden buildings lining the edges. There were other carriages already parked nearby, and children from other villages were gathering in small groups, talking nervously among themselves.

  He counted at least forty candidates, and the differences between them were obvious. Some wore clothes as rough as his own, patched and faded from years of use, while others wore fabrics that looked new and clean with embroidery on their sleeves and jade ornaments in their hair.

  "Follow me," the male disciple said. "First, we go to the supply hall."

  The supply hall was a long building at the far end of the courtyard. Inside, wooden shelves lined the walls, stacked with folded robes and wooden weapons of various sizes. An old man sat behind a counter near the entrance, his eyes half-closed as if he were sleeping.

  "New batch," the male disciple said to him.

  The old man opened his eyes and looked at the children. He studied them for a moment, then sighed and pushed himself up from his stool. "Another batch of hopefuls. Alright, line up. One at a time, don't shove."

  Yan Qiu waited his turn. When he reached the counter, the old man looked him up and down, taking in his thin frame and the patches on his old clothes.

  "Skinny one, aren't you," the old man said. He reached under the counter and pulled out a bundle of white cloth and a wooden sword. "Training robes. Try not to tear them on the first day." He placed a small porcelain bottle on the counter and tapped it with his finger. "Root Nourishing Pill. One dose. This little thing costs more than most of you have ever seen, so don't go swallowing it until the elder tells you how. Understood?"

  Yan Qiu nodded.

  "Good lad." The old man's voice softened slightly. "Good luck in there."

  Yan Qiu stared at the items on the counter. The robes were plain and clean, and when he touched them they were softer than anything he had ever felt before. The wooden sword was smooth and light in his hand. The pill in its small porcelain bottle was worth more than everything his family owned.

  This was what forty copper coins bought. This was what his mother's jade hairpin had become.

  He picked up the items and held them close to his chest.

  "Next," the old man said.

  They changed into their training robes in a side room, and Yan Qiu folded his old clothes carefully before placing them in his bundle. The white robes felt strange on his skin, too clean and too light, and when he looked at the other children he saw that they all looked the same now, dressed in identical white with wooden swords at their waists.

  Chen Bao caught his eye and grinned. "We look like real cultivators."

  Yan Qiu nodded, though he did not feel like a real cultivator at all. He felt like a village boy wearing clothes that did not belong to him.

  Elder Shen was waiting for them in the main hall, standing at the front of the room with his hands clasped behind his back while the two young disciples stood on either side of him. The candidates sat on the floor in neat rows with their wooden swords laid across their laps.

  "You have all been given a Root Nourishing Pill," Elder Shen said, his voice calm and clear as it carried across the hall. "This pill will help awaken your spiritual roots and allow you to sense the qi in the air around you, and for most of you, this will be your first time gathering qi."

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  He paused and looked at them.

  "The process is simple," he continued. "You will swallow the pill and sit in meditation, close your eyes, breathe slowly, and focus on the warmth spreading through your body. That warmth is the pill activating and strengthening your spiritual roots, and once you feel it, try to draw the energy inward toward your chest. Do not force it, just let it flow naturally."

  Yan Qiu listened carefully. He had heard stories about qi gathering, but he had never understood what it actually meant. Now he was about to try it himself.

  "Take out your pills," Elder Shen said.

  Yan Qiu uncorked the porcelain bottle and tipped the pill into his palm, a small round thing, pale green in color, that smelled faintly of herbs. He looked at it for a moment, then placed it on his tongue and swallowed.

  The pill dissolved quickly, and for a few seconds nothing happened. Then he felt it, a warmth spreading from his stomach outward and moving through his chest and into his limbs. It was not unpleasant, just strange, like drinking hot tea on a cold morning.

  "Close your eyes," Elder Shen said. "Breathe."

  Yan Qiu closed his eyes and breathed, trying to focus on the warmth and follow it as it moved through his body. He could feel it pulsing faintly, like a second heartbeat, but when he tried to draw it inward it slipped away from him.

  He tried again, and the warmth was there, he could sense it, but it would not obey him. It scattered whenever he reached for it, spreading thin and fading at the edges.

  Around him, he could hear the other children shifting on the floor. A boy somewhere to his left let out a small gasp and whispered to his neighbor that he could feel something warm moving through his arms. A girl near the front giggled nervously and said the energy was tickling her fingers.

  Yan Qiu kept trying, but the warmth grew weaker with each attempt and his body began to ache. His muscles were tight and his breathing had gone shallow, and there was a dull pain forming behind his eyes that made it hard to concentrate.

  "That is enough," Elder Shen said. "Open your eyes."

  Yan Qiu opened his eyes, and his hands were trembling slightly with sweat on his forehead. He looked around and saw that some of the children looked calm and satisfied, while others looked as exhausted as he felt.

  "Qi gathering is not easy," Elder Shen said, and his voice carried a note of understanding that surprised Yan Qiu. "Some of you succeeded in drawing energy inward, and others did not, but that is perfectly normal for a first attempt. The trial tomorrow will test your ability to use what you have gathered, so rest well tonight and do not worry too much about what happened here."

  That night, Yan Qiu lay on a thin mat in the sleeping hall and stared at the ceiling while the other children slept around him, their breathing slow and steady.

  He could not sleep, and he kept thinking about the warmth from the pill, how it had slipped through his fingers no matter how hard he tried to hold it. The other children had done it, so why couldn't he?

  His body ached, and his arms and legs felt heavy. There was a hollowness in his chest that would not go away. He thought about his parents, about the jade hairpin his mother had sold, about all the copper coins they had scraped together. Forty coins, everything they had, and he could not even gather qi properly.

  He turned onto his side and closed his eyes.

  Tomorrow was the trial, and he would try again because he had to.

  The sparring grounds were behind the main hall, a wide open space with packed dirt floors and wooden posts marking the boundaries, and the candidates stood in a loose circle around the edge watching as Elder Shen walked to the center.

  "The trial is simple," he said, looking around at the nervous faces. "You will spar with wooden swords, and the goal is not to win. What we want to see is whether you can move qi through your body while fighting, so speed, strength, and technique matter less than control."

  He gestured to the two young disciples. "They will demonstrate."

  The male and female disciples stepped into the center of the ring. They faced each other, bowed, and then began to move. Their wooden swords clashed with sharp cracks, and Yan Qiu could see something flowing around them, a faint shimmer in the air that followed their movements. They were fast, really fast, and he had never seen anyone move like that before. Their strikes were precise and controlled in a way that made the village hunters look clumsy.

  After a few exchanges, they stopped and bowed again.

  "That is what qi-enhanced combat looks like," Elder Shen said, and there was a hint of pride in his voice as he watched his disciples bow to each other. "You will not reach that level today, of course, but we only want to see if you can channel even a small amount of energy while moving. Pairs will be called at random."

  Yan Qiu gripped his wooden sword, and his palms were sweating.

  The first pair was called, two boys from different villages who stepped into the ring and faced each other nervously. When they began to spar, their movements were clumsy and slow compared to the disciples, but Yan Qiu could see that one of them had a faint glow around his sword arm, and the elder nodded approvingly.

  More pairs were called as the morning went on. Some did well, channeling visible energy into their strikes, while others struggled and swung their swords with no enhancement at all. A few were so nervous they could barely hold their weapons steady, and one girl dropped her sword twice before the elder told her to step aside.

  Then Yan Qiu heard his name.

  "Yan Qiu. Liu Feng."

  He stepped into the ring, and his opponent was a boy about his age, taller and broader, with clean skin and well-fed cheeks. Liu Feng looked confident and held his wooden sword loosely, like he had done this before.

  They bowed to each other.

  "Begin," Elder Shen said.