After the inner courtyard was rebuilt, the outer courtyard also began expansion and renovation.

The disciples’ daily cultivation was temporarily moved to the inner courtyard. Fortunately, the small training field was large enough.

After consuming the Body Tempering Pills, Li Luoqiu was deeply shaken in her heart—after all, the improvements to her physical body, meridians, and blood and flesh could be directly felt.

She had brought her subordinates to join the Tiegu Sect because they’d been captured and because of the Desert Eagle. Now she felt fortunate about her decision.

The Drizzle Hall members who weren’t out gathering intelligence had all consumed Body Tempering Pills and integrated into the sect.

Having walked in darkness for years, they naturally cherished this bright life immensely.

Unfortunately, most of the gold-rank assassins had Wutu cultivation, so they could only cultivate Explosive Fist and Execution Slash, unable to cultivate the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Scripture.

To have Li Luoqiu and her subordinates completely identify with the Tiegu Sect, Jun Changxiao gave the Drizzle Hall quite a few preferential policies—for instance, setting aside two Body Tempering Machines in the training room specifically for their use.

He even considered that after they accumulated more contribution points, he could equip them with several Type 88 sniper rifles, creating something similar to a special forces unit from his former world.

A group of professional assassins equipped with sniper rifles, wearing ghillie suits and executing missions in the darkness—just thinking about it was exciting!

The outer courtyard was being renovated, new and old disciples cultivated in the inner courtyard, and everything was as peaceful as usual.

Several days later.

That is, the first full month after various rules were established, all disciples underwent strength testing.

After the strength testing system was established, Li Qingyang had already compiled statistics on his junior brothers’ and sisters’ strength, so this test determined winners based on the degree of improvement.

“Su Xiaomo, six thousand jin.”

“Xiao Zuiji, nine thousand jin.”

“Long Ziyang, four thousand jin.”

“Ling Yuanxue, seven hundred jin.”

“Ye Xingchen, ten thousand jin.”

“…”

After a round of testing, the inner sect disciples like Su Xiaomo had high cultivation levels and long training times, so they produced high strength values.

Most newly admitted disciples were at the fourth or fifth segment of Meridian Opening, so their strength values naturally weren’t high.

Moreover, this was only testing strength combined with spiritual energy. Some disciples’ specialties weren’t displayed—for instance, Su Xiaomo and Li Fei’s speed and leg power.

For now, the fastest improvement in strength belonged to Ye Xingchen.

Cultivating both the Muscle-Tendon Transformation Scripture and the Supreme Mystery Scripture, having also broken through to Second-Rank Wutu, his advantages were gradually manifesting.

Jun Changxiao knew this disciple might have cultivated some Divine-grade or higher mental cultivation method, so he was a key focus of attention. He thought to himself, “When going to challenge the Mighty Qi Sect, I need to bring him along.”

The one whose level and strength were extremely mismatched was Xiao Zuiji—only at the ninth segment of Meridian Opening yet able to produce nearly ten thousand jin. The reason was still his previous extreme physical body cultivation.

Li Fei and Tian Qi were also not bad. Though their strength was weaker than their senior brothers, the overall gap wasn’t too large.

Lu Qianqian was somewhat mysterious, because she hadn’t used her full strength at all during testing.

If judging purely by strength, these inner sect disciples were definitely representatives among the sect’s disciples.

But Li Qingyang was destined to be the internal affairs steward, so the stable main force disciples used to deal damage would definitely fall to Lu Qianqian, Xiao Zuiji, and Ye Xingchen.

“Qianqian excels at spiritual energy application.”

“Zuiji has an extremely strong physical body.”

“Xingchen’s pair of fists are hard enough.”

“Xiaomo is good at hit-and-run tactics.”

“We have a tank, ranged DPS, melee DPS…”

Jun Changxiao muttered, “Add a healer to this and it would absolutely be the best combination for running dungeons.”

They could only run five-man dungeons though—entering a twenty-five-man large-scale dungeon would mean a total party wipe.

There was one more person in the DPS position!

“Ding!”

Zhou Hong, who tested last, slashed his sword on the testing stone. Although he didn’t cut through it, the displayed strength value was—50,000!

“Good heavens!”

“Junior Brother Zhou is so formidable!”

Looking at the unreachably high strength data, the assembled disciples all cried out in shock.

Ye Xingchen was unimpressed.

This was a sword cultivator whose strength probably wasn’t lower than a Sword Master. Gathering sword qi in his weapon to produce 50,000 jin of strength was very normal.

He even speculated that this boy might just be going through the motions with the test and hadn’t completely erupted with full power.

“Not bad, not bad.” Jun Changxiao said with satisfaction.

The monthly strength test didn’t compare who had the highest strength, but rather the degree of improvement. So the five outer sect disciples with the highest strength increases received three Qi-Gathering Pills.

The five outer sect disciples with the lowest improvement rates unfortunately began a bitter seven-day life of sweeping courtyards, washing clothes, and scrubbing dishes.

As for the inner sect disciples, because they received fixed Qi-Gathering Pill rewards every month, they merely took the routine test together with everyone but weren’t included in the evaluation.

…

In the study.

Li Qingyang said, “Sect Master, we have more and more disciples and need more uniforms.”

Jun Changxiao directly gave him ten thousand taels and instructed, “Order many uniforms in different sizes to keep on hand for distributing to newly admitted disciples.”

“Oh right.”

“The Drizzle Hall is a hall, after all.”

“Their uniforms need to be different from the disciples’. Have some made according to this sketch.”

“Yes.”

With money, things get done.

The uniforms were delivered the next day.

The Drizzle Hall members’ uniforms were primarily gray, with a style not much different from the male disciples’ uniforms.

The hall master’s uniform was different—simple and bold in style, perfectly accentuating a woman’s excellent figure.

“Does it look good?”

After changing into her exclusive gray uniform, Li Luoqiu turned lightly in a circle in the study. Every one of a beautiful woman’s strong points was thoroughly displayed under the clothing’s enhancement.

Two words—enchanting!

“Hurry up and put on the robe.”

Jun Changxiao was afraid that if he kept looking, he’d get a nosebleed.

Li Luoqiu draped the black robe over herself and smiled, “I heard the Sect Master designed the clothing. It quite suits my taste.”

Jun Changxiao said, “Any woman who loves beauty would definitely like it.”

“Oh, right. This seat plans to select a few clever disciples to enter the Drizzle Hall for you to be responsible for training.”

“That’s fine.”

Li Luoqiu said, “However, my Drizzle Hall needs an independent area to conduct special training.”

She wanted to train them according to the assassin style.

Jun Changxiao allocated a section of the back mountain as the Drizzle Hall’s dedicated training ground.

Although the mountain where the Tiegu Sect was located had no name and wasn’t any kind of auspicious feng shui location, the mountain was very large and vast. The area the sect occupied was merely the tip of the iceberg.

In Jun Changxiao’s plans, once they had funds and more disciples, they would develop deeper, making the sect’s facilities more complete.

…

Ten disciples were assigned to the Drizzle Hall, each one very clever—for instance, Li Shangtian who dreamed of growing wings and flying to the sky.

Li Luoqiu had quite a system for training assassins and was exceptionally strict. After the training ground was built, the ten disciples were trained for one day and collectively hugged each other, crying tears of pain.

Li Shangtian recalled Li Fei with infinite nostalgia—because compared to strict training, being kicked in the face by a ball was such a happy thing!

The most tragic was none other than Ye Xingchen.

Jun Changxiao had given him a Divine-grade sword technique, but damn it, he hadn’t given him a sword. How was he supposed to cultivate!

He couldn’t very well make him poke around with a tree branch, could he?

No, he had to go ask for one!

“The Cold Edge Sword can be given to you, but on one condition.”

Jun Changxiao rested his chin on the back of his hand and said, “Soon we’ll be going to challenge the Mighty Qi Sect. You must perform well.”

Secret manuals and pills could be given, but weapons couldn’t be casually given—one had to make contributions to the sect.

Su Xiaomo and the others had shown brilliance at the sect competition, so they’d received Cold Edge Swords.

“How soon?”

“About a month.”

Ye Xingchen said indifferently, “It’s merely a sixth-rate sect. Sect Master, there’s no need to bring other disciples. I alone am enough to resolve them all!”