98: Pure Face Sect

In the early morning, Ning walked out of his tavern room. The tavern’s operating license still had a few days left, but he didn’t care; if he left today, he wouldn’t need to come back at all.

Ning walked to the city center and registered to join the sect.

For the Pure Purification Sect, the qualifications were simple: as long as a person was a cultivator and wished to learn healing arts, they allowed anyone to join.

Age wasn't even a factor for consideration.

“These people are very benevolent,” Ning muttered to himself.

He was now waiting with others in a large hall for the examination.

Soon, a middle-aged man walked into the room and bowed to everyone.

Ning was surprised that an examiner would bow before the candidates.

He looked closely and realized that this was the person who had made the healing paste for Ye.

“Oh, he’s the inspector, huh,” Ning thought.

“Welcome everyone to our humble sect.

We only have one requirement to join this sect,” the middle-aged bald man said, “and that is the ability to study things and identify different items.”

“So, I will call out your names.

Once I call your name, please come up, and one of our disciples will take you to the examination room,” the man said.

With that, he called out five different names.

Five people, of varying ages, all stood up and walked to the door.

There were five disciples ready to take them to their respective examination rooms.

The room was quiet for a few minutes, and it was only after 30 minutes that one of the disciples returned.

“Alright, next one,” the examiner said, calling out another name.

That disciple led the person to the back.

Another disciple came, taking another candidate for the exam.

The same thing happened for a while; a disciple would take a candidate for the exam, and after the exam, the disciples would quickly return to take another one.

Finally, it was Ning’s turn.

A disciple led him through a narrow corridor into one of its five attached rooms.

The disciple stayed at the door, letting Ning walk in.

Inside was a white room, with nothing but a table, and behind the table was a woman.

The woman seemed very old, with a strand of white hair flowing down the side of the table.

“Ah, please come in,” she said upon seeing Ning.

Ning walked in and stood in front of the table.

On the table were five different items, spaced apart from each other.

In the corner of the table was a set of different books.

Ning wondered and asked, “What is this about?”

The old woman said, “Please tell me the names of these ingredients in front of you.

You can take as long as you want and are free to browse through these books to find the answers.”

Ning was somewhat surprised by how different this test was from the Mist Origin Sect’s, and said, “Alright.”

“Very good, you may begin now,” she said, as she took out an hourglass and turned it over on the table.

“An hourglass? Why? I thought we could take as long as we wanted?” Ning asked.

“Wait a minute, if we can take as long as we want, then how do they choose who gets in? Could it be that the ‘enough time’ is a lie?” Ning wondered.

“Well, I have no time to waste,” he thought, looking at the five items on the table.

From left to right were a root, a berry, a leaf, a bone, and a flower.

Ning immediately picked up the first book and began flipping through it.

He wanted to find images that matched the items in front of him, but there were too many images in the books.

Nevertheless, he didn't give up.

After finishing the first book, he opened the second and found one item.

It was a flower called Spring Dew Orchid.

“This is a Spring Dew Orchid,” he said.

“Yes,” the woman said, placing a badge with its name on the flower.

“Alright, check the others,” he thought.

He flipped through the remaining books, but the sheer quantity was too much for him to read and find matching images at the same time.

“Oh dear, I wonder how many times I’ve already missed them,” Ning thought.

Due to the art of forging and the process of minimizing and backing up spiritual energy, his mind was much faster than that of a normal person.

Even then, it was impossible to flip through the entire book to look for these ingredients, so Ning decided to take a shortcut.

“System, directly instill the information from this book into my mind,” he said.

“<This will cost you 734,000,000 miles of energy to read all books>”

“Yes, do it,” he said.

“<Confirmed>”

Suddenly, all the knowledge from the books was at his fingertips.

His eyes lit up as he recognized the root on the left.

He picked up the corresponding book and flipped to where the information for the root was located.

He acted as if he had found the page randomly and said, “That is the root of the Twin-Leaf Tree.”

“Correct,” the lady said, then took out a badge with the name on it and placed it in front.

Ning looked through the books again, and a few minutes later, correctly named the leaf and the small berry.

“This berry is a Wild Galeberry.”

“This leaf is a Leaf of Suffering.”

Apparently, both his statements were correct.

The woman also took out badges for them and placed them in front of the items.

Now, only the bone remained, but this was where the problem lay.

He had no idea what that bone was.