A deep voice rang out not far behind him.
"It should be here somewhere…"
Ethan didn't let his face show any surprise as he turned around to look at the residents of this new world he was about to meet for the first time.
There he saw three people: a young woman and two young men, all wearing uniform-like robes, as if they were part of some organization.
Within a few seconds, the three noticed Ethan.
With confused expressions and narrowing eyes, they approached him in an intimidating manner.
Ethan wasn't concerned or nervous, or at least he didn't show it on his face.
"Who are you? What are you doing here? Don't you know this place is off-limits to outsiders?" one of the men asked, hostility clear in his eyes.
The woman studied Ethan's face intently before speaking, cutting him off before he could think of an excuse for being there.
"Are you here to participate in the entrance test?"
"Yes," Ethan replied, as though he really was there to take the exam, even though he had no idea what they were talking about.
He assumed it was probably some kind of training school, faction, or clan that raised people to fight from a young age.
After all, they were asking him, a teenager, and they themselves didn't look much older.
Whatever the case, whether it was a training school, a faction, or a clan that trained young fighters, it seemed like a good starting point for him in this new world.
If he managed to get in safely, it wouldn't be hard to learn and assimilate into this place.
"What the hell are you doing here? The entrance exam is taking place in the central palace," the second man asked.
"I'm new. I don't know my way around here. I wandered and ended up here," Ethan replied, shrugging his shoulders.
"Wandered, you say?" the woman muttered as they looked at each other, as if they didn't believe his reasoning for being here.
"What do you have on you?" one of the men asked as he rudely grabbed Ethan's shoulder and started checking him, trying to see if he had anything suspicious on his person.
Fortunately for Ethan, they didn't find anything on him except his clothes.
While the man searched, Ethan noticed something on himself that he had never had before.
A tattoo, or something that looked like one, appeared on his left forearm, right below his elbow joint.
It resembled a ring, as if drawn in red ink on his pale skin.
The man also noticed the tattoo. He found it strange, but didn't think much of it. Having odd tattoos wasn't really uncommon.
"Hmm… he's clean," the man said.
"Follow us. We'll take you to the central palace," the woman said.
"Are we going back? What about the search?" one of the men asked.
"We've scoured this area already. Maybe they were wrong about it after all," the woman replied before turning and walking away.
Ethan followed closely behind.
"The way she's acting, she must be the leader of this group, or at least the strongest among them," Ethan wondered as he walked a few steps behind.
"I wonder what this is supposed to mean?" he thought, glancing at the tattoo on his arm.
It didn't look special, just a simple ring-shaped mark about two inches in diameter.
In all his previous lives, whenever his soul was transported to a new world after death, he would always get a young body, around a teenager's age.
But he had never once woken up with a tattoo. Unless, of course, it was something he had gotten after arriving.
There had been times when his new body came with disabilities: once, he was completely blind; another time, paralyzed from the waist down (yes, even that part was paralyzed); and once, he had been born with a certain dysfunction that made him furious to even think about.
That life had been the hardest he had lived yet.
But never had he been given a tattoo before.
"Maybe the feeling I had was right, that something's different this time? Or maybe I'm just overthinking it and this tattoo means nothing…"
"I guess I'll find out soon enough," Ethan thought, noticing the woman giving him a scrutinizing look.
"What's your name?" the woman asked.
"Ethan," he replied.
"Ethan… My name is Kiara. These are Jin and Enan. If you get into the sect, we'll be your seniors," Kiara said. Her long brown hair framed green eyes that studied him carefully.
"Hmph. It's not easy to get into the sect, even if you do have the ability to cultivate Qi," Jin added, as though he doubted Ethan would ever make it in.
"I'll do my best," Ethan replied.
Inwardly, however, he was smiling as if he had just had a sudden epiphany.
"So this is a cultivation world, where people use energy called Qi to empower themselves. This will be my first time dealing with Qi and Qi cultivators. It should be fun. But I should first find out if I have any attunement to Qi at all."
"Since this is a sect, I might as well take the entrance test and see what this body is capable of compared to the people of this world."
Talking to himself in his mind, he realized the air around them felt heavier, almost pressured, as if they were walking uphill.
After a few more minutes, they arrived at a walled gate crossing.
As they approached, the gate opened on its own. Once they stepped inside, it shut firmly behind them.
"Enchantments? Does Qi work similarly to mana?" Ethan wondered, eyeing the automatic gates.
Inside, he found himself in a massive arena-like ground, surrounded by tall, thick walls.
Hundreds of teenagers, around his apparent age, were gathered in one big group, chattering among themselves as if waiting for something.
"Good luck," Kiara said before she and her subordinates left, leaving Ethan alone.
Ethan didn't linger on them.
Instead, he went forward and joined the group of teenagers, eavesdropping with his sharp hearing to get an understanding of the situation.
He listened to their conversations for a few minutes.
He wasn't able to learn much, but he gathered a basic idea.
The first thing he learned was that this sect was called the Golden Sword Sect, supposedly one of the strongest sects in the world.
As the name suggested, it was a sword-based sect, meaning most of its practitioners followed the way of the sword.
However, that didn't mean only those with talent for the sword could join.
Anyone, regardless of race or gender, could become a disciple as long as they possessed talent.
Ethan even noticed a few teenagers among the group who were clearly not human.
Secondly, the entrance test seemed to be divided into several levels, each one testing a certain aspect.
What exactly those aspects were, however, he couldn't pick up from eavesdropping.
Thirdly, most of the teenagers seemed particularly concerned about the final level of the test.
This one, it seemed, determined whether they possessed the ability to cultivate.
In this case, it meant testing for attunement to the energy known as Qi.
Thinking back, Ethan recalled Jin, the man who checked him for suspicious items, mentioning that it wasn't easy to get into the sect, even for someone who could cultivate Qi.
"Maybe it's similar to the world of Thyara," Ethan mused, rubbing his chin, "where only a small percentage of people are fortunate enough to be born with attunement to process [Auria] in their bodies."
"If it's like that, I won't be able to get in unless I possess attunement to Qi…" Ethan licked his lips.
Still, he wasn't worried.
So what if he didn't have attunement to Qi?
He would simply enjoy a few days of this world's delicacies, experience its way of life for a few years, and then kill himself.
It wasn't as if it would be the end of him.
He would simply awaken in another new world, ready to live and experience all over again.
...
[A/N: If you liked this chapter, don't forget to donate some POWER STONES and add it to your library. No pressure! Thank you for checking out the novel.]