One hundred candidates made it through. Elder Huang confirmed each token, dismissed the failed candidates, and assigned numbers to the successful ones.
Wen Dao was number sixty-seven. Li Meng was eighty-one. Cai Rong was forty-four.
The Grey Peak clique took forty-one spots as Li Meng had predicted.
In the evening, the new outer disciples were assigned housing. A long stone building with individual rooms barely large enough for a bed and a small desk. The rooms were clean. The beds were real.
Wen Dao sat on his bed and looked at the ceiling.
He had done it. He was inside. He had access to resources — the sect's training halls, the public technique library, the pill distribution for outer disciples.
He also had no allies beyond Li Meng and Cai Rong, enemies in the Grey Peak clique, and a target on his back from the Iron Claw Gang somewhere outside the walls.
He got up and trained.
The first week at Iron Mountain Sect was instruction. Fundamentals. The outer disciple master — a sharp-faced man named Master Ren — ran them through the basics of qi sensing, body movement, and sect rules each morning.
Master Ren was strict. He corrected mistakes immediately and without kindness. But he corrected correctly. Wen Dao paid close attention to everything.
'Why do you watch Master Ren's feet when he demonstrates?' Li Meng asked on the third day.
'Because the feet show where weight actually goes. The hands demonstrate technique. The feet show reality.'
Li Meng thought about that. Then he started watching feet too.
On the fourth day, trouble.
One of the Grey Peak disciples — a boy named Pei Tao, heavyset and mean-eyed — found Wen Dao in the equipment hall choosing practice equipment.
'Number sixty-seven,' Pei Tao said. He had two friends behind him. 'Fang Lie noticed you during the trial. That means we noticed you.'
'That must be meaningful to someone,' Wen Dao said.
'It means you're being watched. Step carefully.'
'Is that a warning or a threat?'
'Call it advice.'
'Advice is useful when it serves the person receiving it,' Wen Dao said, selecting a practice rod from the rack. 'What does this serve me, exactly?'
Pei Tao's face darkened. He reached out and knocked the practice rod from Wen Dao's hand.
Wen Dao looked at it on the floor. Then at Pei Tao.
'Now you've told me something interesting,' Wen Dao said.
'What?'
'That you're afraid. People who have real power don't need to knock things from weaker people's hands. It's performance. It means Fang Lie sent you because he's not ready to come himself.'
Pei Tao went red.
He swung.
Wen Dao moved his head. The fist passed. He stepped back, created distance.
Master Ren's voice came from the doorway. Cold.
'Pei Tao. Three days of stone-carrying duty.' He looked at Wen Dao. 'And you. What did you say to provoke this?'
'I told him he was afraid,' Wen Dao said honestly.
'One day of stone-carrying duty,' Master Ren said.
As punishments went, Wen Dao thought that was fairly distributed.
He picked up the practice rod.
That night, he searched out the public technique library. He had four hours before lights-out.
The library was small but real. Twenty-eight cultivation techniques available to outer disciples. He sat and read titles until one stopped him cold.
'IRON QUESTION FIST — A combat technique derived from the principle of using an opponent's certainty against them. Each strike asks a question. The follow-up is the answer.'
He opened the scroll.
He read it twice.
Then he went back to his room and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
The Iron Question Fist. Created by a philosopher-warrior six hundred years ago. Designed for fighters who read opponents rather than overwhelm them.
This was his technique. He had found it.
He got up and started practicing the first form.