99: I'm done

Ning was stunned for a moment. "Did they forget to include the bone book as well?" he wondered.

He pointed at the ingredients and asked, "Hmm... Can I touch the ingredients?"

The woman smiled and said, "If you're sure they're not poisonous, then go ahead."

Ning paused. "Poisonous? Impossible, right? Anyway, if I really get poisoned, I'll cure it myself," he thought. Then, he walked over to the bone and picked it up with both hands.

He tried to squeeze the bone to see if it was a real bone and not some strange plant shaped like a bone. Unfortunately, it was as hard as bone and as white as bone. So, it was a bone.

"This doesn't look like anything in the book. Are the ingredients wrong?" he wondered. But that shouldn't be the case. As far as he knew, the people here knew enough not to make such mistakes. Even if they did, it would have been corrected by now.

"So I can assume this isn't a mistake, and this bone is indeed supposed to be here," he thought, checking the information in his mind again and recalling every ingredient from the book.

Not a single one matched the bone.

"Then, is the bone not an ingredient? Is that why it doesn't have anything?" Ning wondered. "No, she told me to name all five ingredients." He suddenly realized, his eyes sparkling.

Ning decided to gamble on what he had just learned.

"I've had enough," he said.

The woman was a little surprised and asked, "Aren't you going to name the bone?"

"No, I've already done as you said and named all the ingredients on the table. The bone isn't one of them," Ning said.

"Very interesting, very interesting," the lady said. "Well done. We put the bone in the mixture to either make people give up early or to make them realize that getting stuck in research isn't a good thing."

"Or, to bravely ask us what these ingredients themselves are. We are just looking for people who can understand that there are limits to what one can learn, or who can think outside the box."

"You managed to do both and found that the bone is not one of the ingredients. Congratulations, you passed the test," the woman turned to the disciple at the door and said, "He passed."

The disciple nodded and led Ning to another room. He walked in and saw that there were already quite a few people there, most of them elderly, with only a small number of young people like Ning.

Ning nodded to the people and walked to a corner to wait.

The room was quiet, and it stayed that way for a while. Some people even began to sit down and cultivate. Ning just stayed there and waited.

People came in one after another. After waiting for several hours, the examiner also came in. The examination lasted for about 8 hours, and among the initial examinees, only 40 passed the test.

"Congratulations to everyone who passed the entrance examination. We are pleased to see that many of you did not give up because you couldn't answer the ingredients, but instead understood your limitations."

"So, from now on, all of you are new members of the Pure Cultivation Sect. Welcome everyone," the examiner applauded, and the people behind him also began to applaud.

"Our sect has no distinction between outer and inner disciples. Everyone is equal and helps others. You can read books and learn different techniques for free."

"Our only requirement is that you cut your hair to show that you are a disciple of the Pure Cultification Sect, and after the first month, join the Physicians Guild to help us earn money so that we can maintain the operation of the sect. Haha," the examiner laughed.

"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself again. Alas, my name is Sebund Fier, and I am the First Elder of this sect. You can call me First Elder. You really don't have anything else to learn. You can learn the rules from the manual."

"Rest assured, we are not very strict."

The First Elder said a few more words and then left the hall. Ning and the others were taken to get their identification, their robes, and a deciphering book.

After that, they were taken to another room to have their hair cut. They applied a special paste to their bald heads to prevent hair from growing back.

Ning felt his bald head and thought, "This feels so strange." However, he had already accepted the fact that he would be bald today, so it wasn't that bad.

Then they were allowed to join the sect.

The sect was a simple place, with important buildings in the center and all the residences around them. They could choose the house they wanted and live in it.

These were small farmhouses. Ning found a simple farmhouse behind the sect and lived there.

By the time he reached the cottage, it was already evening, so he decided to cultivate first. In the past 30 days, his cultivation speed had improved by leaps and bounds, growing very noticeably.

He could already feel that the next breakthrough was coming; it was only a matter of time.

Even his body gradually adapted to the Qi in the atmosphere. He was sure that soon, his body would fully adapt to Qi, and he would no longer be bound by Qi.