(MC POV)

“You’re that Master Lin?” A young man asked with an arrogant air.

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I tilted my head slightly at the man’s question, “Yes, that would be me.”

“How old are you even?”

“Forty… I mean, Twenty two.”

“Haaaah? You’re younger than me! What makes you think you can teach me anything?!”

I raised an eyebrow at his outburst, wondering what I had done to offend him. It’s a good thing my disciples aren’t here to be traumatised by his attitude.

The young man who was raising his voice was a little taller than me in his early thirties. He had broad shoulders and a squarish jaw with his black hair tied neatly in a bun on top of his head.

The sole female beside him was a brunette in her early twenties, her hair tied in a braid that reached to her lower back. Her angular features were accentuated by the pink qipao that she wore, the slit at the side revealing her fair toned legs.

A real beauty, basically, but I’ve seen my share to feel nothing from her. I’m not a young kid anymore to be drooling at every piece of meat thrown my way.

According to what I could find, he had came to the Sect during the time I was at Manami’s village, leading a group of three men and a young woman banging on our Sect doors demanding entry.

They were turned away at first but they had claimed to be exceptional talents so they were allowed in for a quick test.

Using the method I performed, Elder Qing deemed that they might possess the same potential as Lian Li whom, last they saw, had miraculously been revealed as a Practitioner despite not having Pure Elemental Quarks.

They surmised it had something to do with the fact that they could withstand the Elemental Pressure exuded from a Practitioner that made them different. The Sect Master agreed to admit them into the Sect but none of the Elders or Masters knew how to teach them since they had no Pure Elemental Quarks.

They decided to leave them to me to deal with when I came back.

What they didn’t expect was for me to return with even more disciples in tow.

They then took some time to discuss on what would be the better option to do since they were afraid of stunting my disciple’s growth. At least, according to them, that was the reason for their hesitation.

They didn’t manage to come up with a solution before the Sect Showcase Festival came around so they decided that kicking the can down the road would be best. They had left them behind at the Sect during the Festival since they didn’t want the other Sects to know about them.

Only when they saw how much Lian Li had grown did they decide the best choice was to still push this group of students to me.

“Watch your mouth young one, do you not know Master Lin?” Elder Xiao admonished.

“Why should I know about some young upstart?! Do you not know who I am?!”

“Not really,” I admitted.

His face reddened upon my answer, “Feng Xian! The rightful heir of the country of Dong! How could you have not heard of me?!”

Ignoring his outburst, I looked towards the group behind him, “And the rest of you?”

The woman did a perfect curtsey, “Greetings, Master Lin. My name is Diao Chan, I am young master Feng Xian’s retainer.”

“I am Cheng Lian.”

“My name is Wei Yue.”

“Hu Zhen is my name.”

I didn’t bother with those three since they were obviously side characters.

“So what is the ‘rightful heir of the country of Dong’ doing here?” I asked, mixing a little sarcasm in there.

The youth crossed his arms, “Hmph! I was betrayed! Do you Beiyang people even know what is going on across the mountains?! How ignorant can you be?!”

I looked at Elder Xiao who only shrugged at me, showing that he was unaware of such a thing as well.

I decided to humour him.

“Well then, mind telling us what your situation is then?”

He scoffed, “Hmph! Of course such uncultured people like you wouldn’t know! The king of Dong was disposed merely a few weeks ago and my trusted advisor betrayed me! Claiming that I was the one who killed the king!”

“And so, you ran away?” I guessed.

“It was merely a tactical retreat!” He corrected. “I will build up my strength here and return back to claim what belongs to me!”

“Hmmm… If I remember right, wasn’t the king known to be a tyrant?”

“Ha! What do any of you know about martial valor?!”

I shrugged, knowing it was pointless to continue any form of argument with him.

“Alright, right now, I care just as much about your background as you do about mine. Once you’ve been accepted entry here, you are a student and nothing more.”

He seemed offended but I didn’t care.

I just returned to the Sect barely an hour ago, you know? I’m tired, sweaty and pissed, why can’t they let me have a proper bath first before slapping these problem kids on me?

I continued, “Specifically, you’ll be my student. I’ve heard that your group’s constitution is similar to one of my disciples, making me the only one who can properly teach you. It’s up to you if you want to learn under me or not.”

“You mean the great me has to bow to someone younger than myself and call Master?! I’ve never even called anyone else Master before and you expect the first one is to some young upstart like you?!”

“Whether you do, or do not, I frankly don’t care. You’re here to learn and I’m only interested in teaching people who have an interest to learn which you seem to have a lack of.”

He gritted his teeth, the other three men had similar dissatisfied expressions but the girl didn’t look like she cared. In fact, all this while she seemed quite disinterested in what was going on.

I turned my back on them, “Seeing as I’ve just returned from our trip, I’m going back to my courtyard to rest. If any of you want instruction then come to my place.  If not, the exit is right where you came in from.”

“You! How dare you turn your back on this prince?! Do you not care what will happen to you once I’ve gone back to take over Dong?! I’ll slaughter you!” the kid screeched.

I made a show of digging through my pockets, taking out something from within before turning back to him. I gestured for his palm which he stretched out, confusion clear on his face.

I dropped a piece of candy that I’ve kept for Cai Hong in his open palm, “Sorry, but that’s all the care that I could give about that.”

I didn’t wait to see his reaction before strutting away, teleporting the candy that he tried to throw on the ground back into my pocket. No way will I let Cai Hong’s candy go to waste.

If this young master was expecting me to pursue him, he’ll be thoroughly disappointed.

Honestly, if any of them come, I wouldn’t mind trying to teach them. They actually do have quite a unique constitution, but I’ll need to have a closer look at them if I was to be sure.

A quick scan from me revealed that all of them had a Cultivation Point at least, except for that Diao Chan.

Finding out how she managed to withstand Elder Qing’s Elemental Pressure would be quite interesting.