"Anything else?" Senior Sister Yun asked. "Very well, then. Come to my chamber after your last session and I'll set up some training dummies for you to practice on before moving on to people. Poorly controlled, the technique is intensely uncomfortable. We don't want to give anyone traumas."
Wei Zian narrowed his eyes. He wouldn't. Not even Wei Dai would... oh, who was he kidding? Of course he would have. Practicing such a technique on your own little brother was precisely what Wei Dai would do.
"Disciple Ao Jiao, you can leave, I have something else to discuss with Disciple Wei Zian."
Senior Sister Yun began to speak the moment Ao Jiao was gone, catching Wei Zian somewhat by surprise. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, trying to ignore his annoyance with Wei Dai in favor of paying attention to what Senior Sister Yun was saying.
"So Wei Zian," she said with a faint smile. "How are you getting along with your guiding elder?"
"He's having me work on my basic three," Wei Zian told her flatly. "We're still on the levitation exercise."
Yes, even after four weeks, Elder Xu was still making him levitate a jade brush over and over again. Begin again. Begin again. Begin again. The only thing Wei Zian learned in those sessions was how to dodge spirit stones that Elder Xu kept throwing at him. The old man seemed to have an endless supply of those things.
"Yes, Elder Xu likes his disciples to have a firm grasp of the basics before moving on to advanced techniques," Senior Sister Yun agreed.
That or he hates his disciples. Wei Zian personally thought his theory was a lot more plausible.
"Well, I just wanted to tell you that you might be able to change guiding elders soon," Senior Sister Yun said. "One of my disciples will be leaving after the Phoenix Renewal Festival, and I'll have a vacancy to fill. Unless something unexpected happens, you're almost certain to be the one I choose. That is, if you're actually interested in a transfer."
"Of course I'm interested!" Wei Zian half-shouted, much to Senior Sister Yun's amusement. He frowned for a moment. "Unless you also plan to throw spirit stones at me? Is that some kind of standard training method?"
"No," Senior Sister Yun chuckled. "Elder Xu is special that way. Well, I just wanted to see how you feel about this before making any arrangements. Have a pleasant day."
It was only after he was out of the training hall that he realized this development greatly complicated his plan to skip out on the ceremony. He couldn't afford to annoy his (potential) new guiding elder too much, else he'd be stuck with Elder Xu for the rest of his education.
Well played, Senior Sister. Well played.
⋆⋆⋆
"Why can't we just perform that technique on ourselves once the ceremony starts?"
Wei Zian let out a long-suffering sigh. "You can't make a puppet technique do something you don't know how to do yourself. You don't know the ritual movements, hence you cannot control anyone else to perform them either. Also, how are you going to break the technique once the ceremony ends if you can't move your hands where you want them to be? This really isn't the sort of technique you should be using on yourself."
Really, there were so many problems with that idea that Wei Zian struggled to put them all into words. Were these people even thinking about the questions they were asking?
"So how many ritual movements do we have to learn?"
"Ten," said Wei Zian, bracing himself for the cries of outrage.
Sure enough, a rumble of complaints erupted after that statement. Thankfully, Senior Sister Yun took over the session at this point, instructing everyone to pair up and scatter throughout the spacious hall to give everyone enough room. Wei Zian could already feel a qi deviation headache coming and cursed himself for letting Senior Sister Yun talk him into this. Even though Training Hall Six was fairly spacious, there were many disciples present and the invisible pressure they gave off was particularly strong today.
"Are you alright?" Bai Ning asked, putting his hand on Wei Zian's shoulder.
"I'm fine," Wei Zian said, waving his hand off. He didn't like to be touched much. "I just have a slight qi disturbance. Did you need help with something?"
"Nah, you just looked like you could use some company, standing all alone in your little corner," Bai Ning said. Wei Zian decided not to tell him that he was intentionally keeping to the sidelines unless he was needed. Bai Ning wasn't the sort of person who understood the need for personal space. "Say, who is your partner for the ceremony anyway?"
Wei Zian suppressed a groan. Of course Bai Ning would want to talk about that.
Dual cultivation partners weren't something Wei Zian thought about often. The chances that one of his fellow disciples would agree to form a bond with him were minuscule. For one, such a partnership would quickly become known to the rest of their cohort, and the resulting merciless teasing was something few partnerships could survive for any appreciable length. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, all female disciples preferred older male cultivators. Pairing with a male disciple who was two or three years more advanced than you seemed to be a status symbol for a female disciple, and the majority of them loudly disparaged male disciples their own age as crude and immature. When they were in their first year, all the female disciples wanted to partner with third-year males. Now that they were in their third year, all the female disciples wanted to partner with inner disciples or peak stage Foundation Establishment cultivators. Since there were plenty of male disciples willing to accommodate them, the chances that some female disciple in his cohort would give him the time of day was negligible.
And the female disciples that weren't his fellow third-tier disciples? To most of them he wasn't Wei Zian, but 'that disciple who is a brother of Wei Dai and Wei Fu'. They had an image of what he ought to be like, and once it became obvious that the real Wei Zian didn't match their expectations, they inevitably became disappointed.