15 Lecture Begins (1/2)
”T-there are so many people here!” Sofie exclaimed in amazement, while looking at the giant crowd of people gathered in front of the gathering hall. This was by far the largest amount of people gathered in one place Sofie had ever seen, even the dining hall was not so packed with people.
”Of course! Today is the day where new disciples get accepted, so some show up to see the new disciples while others are interested and want to see whether anything interesting would happen.” Ling Yue answered happily, as she quickly moved to stand besides Sofie.
Looking at the surrounding crowd, Sofie had no idea what she was going to do not. Should she just enter the gathering hall? Maybe wait outside and wait for the crowd to scatter?
”You can just enter the gathering hall. Most of the disciples standing directly in front of the gathering hall is senior disciples, who wants to see if there will be any talented disciples after the lesson on cultivation.” Likely seeing the troubled look on Sofie's face, Ling Yue explained the reason for the wall of senior disciples in front of the gathering hall's entrance.
Sofie listened attentively to her explanation, as she remembered to nod her head from time to time in understanding.
New disciples arrived from time to time and entered the gathering hall by squeezing through the wall of senior disciples in front of the entrance. But Sofie discovered something important while observing the new disciples entering the gathering hall.
There was way too many of them!
From what Sofie could remember, there were not that many children chosen from her village entering the scorching sun sect.
”W-why is there so many disciples entering the gathering hall? Are they all new disciples? B-but there was not that many children entering the sect… R-right?” Giving life to her doubts, Sofie asked Ling Yue with a questioning look.
”Indeed, all the disciples entering the gathering hall are new disciples. The reason there is so many, is because our sect takes in new disciples from all the villages and towns on the scorching sun island! We even take in disciples from some nearby islands as well. You might not know this, but the group we came with was the last one.” With a triumphant look etched onto her face, Ling Yue explained the reason for there being so many new disciples entering the gathering hall.
All this without forgetting to brag about how the scorching sun sect could recruit new disciples from nearby islands!
Being able to recruit disciples from other islands than the one where the sect was located meant the sect had a certain amount of power. Sofie of course had no idea about this and mostly ignored the part about picking up disciples from other islands nearby.
Both Sofie and Ling Yue stood in front of the crowd of disciples for a moment, before Sofie finally said goodbye to Ling Yue and squeezed her way through the senior disciples blocking the entrance to the gathering hall.
*****
The first thing Sofie saw the moment she entered the gathering hall, was a crowd of new disciples moving towards somewhere in the back of the gathering.
Curious about where they were going, Sofie asked a few of the new disciples close to her and found out, that the lecture on cultivation for new disciples would be held inside a big courtyard behind the gathering hall.
With her information gathering being successful, Sofie proudly moved towards the courtyard along with the crowd of new disciples, wondering how they managed to find out where to go for the lecture today.
Following behind the new disciples, Sofie and the other new disciples like her made it to the courtyard behind the gathering hall.
The courtyard was mostly empty except an open spot in the middle, that was filled with benches. Most likely to make space for the new disciples to sit and listen to the lecture about cultivation. Other than the open spot filled with benches for the lecture, Sofie saw a pond off to the side filled with fish in all sorts of colours.
The courtyard was in Sofie's eyes, quite boring. The only thing that managed to catch her attention was the pond filled with colourful fish.
So, with that in mind, Sofie sat down at the bench closest to the pond filled with the colourful fish.
Time passed, as Sofie enjoyed observing the colourful fishes in the pond swimming back and forth, sometimes jumping up into the air, before landing back down into the water with a splash.