Zhao Chen inspected the sword with a close eye. Nothing stood out to him about it, other than two things. The first was that for some reason the sword was able to transform, but only when he inserted his Qi into it. Zhao Chen played around with the transformation function a few times to confirm it wasn’t a fluke.

The second were the letters engraved on the hilt of the sabre. It took Zhao Chen a few minutes to decipher the letters as they were rather worn down, but even when he did manage to decipher it, he remained confused by the inscription.

‘A warrior follows the sun’, was engraved on the front, and ‘a king follows the clouds’ was engraved on the back of the hilt.

Zhao Chen sat on his bed, rereading the two inscriptions for nearly an hour, but he still had no idea what the quote meant. He knew that there was some deeper meaning to it, but he couldn’t understand.

Zhao Chen thought about asking Baifun quite a few times, but after what had happened in the library, even thinking about Baifun caused Zhao Chen's heart to beat faster with rage.

After another hour had passed Zhao Chen finally decided to call it a night. He transformed the sabre back into a bracelet and put it onto the nightstand next to him.

He removed his robes and put on his night clothing. He put out the candle on the nightstand, which seemed to be the only light source in his room.

Zhao Chen laid in bed, tossing and turning in an attempt to sleep but was unable. His mind was too focused on the inscription on the hilt of the sabre.

After what had felt like almost another half hour, Zhao Chen felt his eyes growing heavy. When sleep had finally overtaken him, Zhao Chen's thoughts changed.

‘I wonder what else this academy has in store for me.’ Zhao Chen thought to himself as he drifted off to sleep.

‘ ‘ ‘

When Zhao Chen awoke the next day, he repeated his routine the same as yesterday. The only difference being that today, he was unfathomably tired.

“Just what time did I end up sleeping yesterday?” Zhao Chen said as he sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes.

He sat on the edge of his bed for close to 10 minutes, contemplating his actions of yesterday.

‘Thinking about that stupid inscription had put me into this state.’ Zhao Chen stood up and grabbed the bracelet off the nightstand.

He gave it a close look, but its appearance was no different from the night before. He stood staring at it for a few minutes before putting it on his wrist.

‘I shouldn’t leave it here. It's better to risk hiding it under my robes than here. Before I found out what exactly its origins are, I shouldn’t show it to anyone else.’ Zhao Chen thought up excuses he could use if someone asked him where the bracelet had appeared from.

In the end he decided on the explanation that it was a family heirloom, and that his parents had told him to only wear them on his first day of classes at the academy, as it was more auspicious.

The reason Zhao Chen preferred to keep the bracelet on his wrist rather than inside his room, was simply because the risks of keeping it in his room were far too great.

Should someone notice it under the sleeve of his robes, then he could offer some form of excuse. But should it be discovered in the room Zhao Chen feared he wouldn’t get the chance to explain. If some cleaner found it and recognized it, there was a chance the academy's higher ups would get involved.

Up until then Zhao Chen was under the assumption that the sabre was some kind of precious treasure to the academy. Zhao Chen had only decided to keep the sabre for three reasons.

The first, was he didn’t know how to return it without it being suspicious. He couldn’t exactly return to the library and say,

“Hey, I was getting punished by some spirit in my sea of consciousness after breaking into the library, and then after the punishment was done I woke up and saw this sabre. I’m returning it now cause I've decided it serves me no purpose.” .

The second was because he hadn’t discovered if the sabre was useful to him or not. At present Zhao Chen had no reason to be faithful to the academy. If the sabre proved to be helpful to him, Zhao Chen didn’t feel the slightest bit of guilt about keeping it.

And the final reason was simply because Zhao Chen, at the end of the day, didn’t care. If the academy were to lose something of value to them, how exactly was that his problem? Zhao Chen was no bad person, but he was definitely no saint. There was an old saying that Zhao Chen heard from his previous life's master.

“A true treasure choses the most worthy to wield it, and the most unfit to keep it.”

The sabre was clearly being kept somewhere in the library, and when Zhao Chen had entered it was full of content, it had finally found the correct master. Or at least that was the reasoning Zhao Chen had come up with.

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“Well I guess it’s time to head out.”

Zhao Chen grabbed his robes and his hair piece before setting out to the baths.

He once again took a moment to observe the painting. Zhao Chen was desperately trying to figure out why he felt like he knew the man in the painting.

‘No matter how much you stare you won’t figure it out.’ Baifuns voice popped up in Zhao Chen's ears.

Zhao Chen was about to speak up but then he remembered what had happened yesterday and decided he was still angry at Baifun.

Zhao Chen half expected Baifun to react to the silent treatment he was receiving, but to Zhao Chen's disdain, Baifun said no more.

Zhao Chen looked around him, half expecting to see Xin Zi again, but it seemed that the boy was nowhere to be seen.

‘Well I guess the sect's stronger students can’t be seen that easily.’

In Zhao Chen's mind, Xin Zi had to be on the stronger side of the academy's students . Since their interaction was rather short Zhao Chen couldn’t be 100 percent sure, but he knew that even if Xin Zi wasn’t in the heaven rank, he was most definitely in the earth rank.

Zhao Chen gave one last look to the portrait before turning and heading towards the baths.

To Zhao Chen's disdain, once he had arrived the baths were crowded unlike the day prior.

‘I guess I was just the last to wake up yesterday.’

Zhao Chen washed himself swiftly and tried his best not to interact with anyone. The baths were shared by all students so no one paid him any attention.

Zhao Chen did receive some glares, which he took only a few seconds to deduce that it was probably the young lords. It seemed that they all had scores in their hearts.

He finished bathing, and quickly left the baths after putting on his robes.

As he was exiting the baths, someone bumped into him. Zhao Chen turned, ready to start an argument, but to his surprise, it was a girl that had bumped into him. But not just any girl, it was the young miss of the Chaotian family.

“I don’t suppose you're grounded enough to apologize?” Zhao Chen spoke in a neutral tone.

He recognized the girl's beauty, but he wasn’t interested in some teenage girl. He also didn’t want to drag the conversation or start any more conflict.

However, Zhao Chen was not a soft persimmon that was easy to knead. Just because she had a high status, and she was a woman, did not mean Zhao Chen would let her step over him as she pleased.

Mu Chaotian sized up Zhao Chen for a few seconds. Her expression revealed that she was rather shocked by how Zhao Chen had spoken to her. As if no one had ever dared to ask her to apologize to her in the past. Most men would apologize for standing in her way, but for some reason he seemed as if Zhao Chen could care less how attractive she was. Mu Chaotian smiled.

“And just what should I apologize for? You bumped into me?” Mu Chaotian spoke in a prideful manner, but her real intention was to simply goad Zhao Chen. She wanted to draw out his true character.

“I don’t have time for this. You can apologize or you can regret it.” Zhao Chen wholeheartedly believed in equality between men and women. That included equal fights. If Mu Chaotian insisted on being stubborn, he could only beat good manners into her.

Mu Chaotian almost audibly gasped. She had guessed that Zhao Chen wasn’t drawn in by her looks, but she would have never thought that he didn’t even put her in his sights. Before she was simply trying to goad Zhao Chen, but now she was truly infuriated.

“Don’t think you're special because you can jump realms to battle! There’s a difference of two minor stages between me and you, and I'm only half a step away from the Foundational Harmony Realm! I dare you to come fight me!”

Zhao Chen's expression had no change. He already knew about their difference in strength but didn’t care in the slightest. He was confident in his abilities and he knew that he was currently invincible in the Qi Gather Realm. Reaching the ninth minor stage was only a formality at this point. His only true opponents now would be those at the Foundational Harmony Realm.

“Then I take it young Mr Chaotian agrees to a duel?” Zhao Chen intentionally referred to Mu Chaotian as a man in an effort to further rub dirt in her wounds. And it seemed to do the job, as Mu Chaotian responded by fully unleashing her aura.

Zhao Chen's heart started to beat in excitement, it seemed that after reincarnating his thirst for a good battle grew. But, today his heart would go unsatisfied.

“I dare one of you to attack. If I have any paperwork to do today, you’ll both wish you never even raised your voices at each other.”

A youth appeared in between Zhao Chen and Mu Chaotian. His robes had the emblem of a scale under the academy's symbol, instantly telling the pair that he was a member of the disciplinary hall.

‘I can’t get rid of these guys. Are they just everywhere?’ Zhao Chen was slightly annoyed but he said nothing. He simply palmed his hand to the youth in front of him and walked away.

Mu Chaotian, unsatisfied by the results, turned to the youth that had stopped the fight.

“Do you even know who I am!? How dare you stop me! Tell me your name, I’ll have you expelled from the academy by tomorrow!” Mu Chaotian had flown off the handle, the usual quiet and cold young miss had turned into an arrogant brat. And it was all thanks to Zhao Chen.

A vein bulged on the forehead of the disciplinary hall members forehead as he turned to face Mu Chaotian.

“My name is Zhou Weimin. You’re free to try and get me expelled, but just know if your family tried to put pressure on the academy, and the academy finds out I’ve done nothing wrong. The Chaotian family will most likely be banned from even attempting to send another disciple to the academy. So I'd think twice before trying anything.” The man turned to leave, but shot a quick glance at Mu Chaotian. “Arrogant brat.”

“Hey!” Mu Chaotian tried to grab onto the youth but he had already disappeared. She wanted to have a tantrum, scream and yell at the youth but she knew he was right. She couldn’t afford to ruin the Chaotian family's plans. But then her anger shifted.

“Zhao Chen, I hate you!” She puffed angrily and turned to leave.

Elsewhere Zhao Chen let out a loud sneeze.

“That brat’s probably cursing me out.” Zhao Chen laughed to himself.

He was now standing in front of the academy's lecture hall. At the start of the year students were told to choose five classes to enroll in, and those would be the classes they took for the rest of the year. The academy functioned on a one class a day system, with two days off.

Zhao Chen initially thought the academy was being rather lax on the students, but once he entered his classroom he discovered he couldn’t be any more wrong.

The classes Zhao Chen had chosen were: The basics of beast taming, martial arts, weapons combat, and the fundamentals of cultivation and alchemy. All five were subjects that Zhao Chen was well versed in, so he assumed that they would be easy classes that he could blow off and spend more of his time on cultivating.

But as Zhao Chen arrived at his classroom for his first day of Fundamental of Alchemy, he wished he hadn’t been so conceited. The room was full of close to 100 students, ranging from the soul rank to mind rank students.

The chalkboards, of which there were four, were all full of writing, of which Zhao Chen could not make out. Not because the concepts were hard to understand, but because whoever wrote them out must have been drunk or half asleep, because the handwriting was beyond terrible.

As Zhao Chen found an open seat in between two people, a young man who was fast asleep and a girl who was chatting to the people around her, Zhao Chen continued to try and decipher the writing on the chalkboards.

Just then the doors to the room opened and a middle aged woman walked in. She immediately caught the eye of every man in the room.

She had long red hair, olive skin that complimented her hazel brown eyes. She wore light purple robes, much like the other teachers, but something about how they looked on her was much different.

She walked up to the podium at the front of the class and dropped the pile of textbooks on top of it. She scanned the classroom and upon seeing Zhao Chen's face she stopped for a second. Something about her expression changed, but she quickly returned to a neutral face.

Zhao Chen naturally noticed it but he thought nothing of it. He recognized her beauty, but much like Mu Chaotian, he wasn’t very interested.

“Good morning everyone. Some of you I recognize from last year, but for those that are taking my class for the first time, my name is Yue Mengli, and I will be your professor for the Fundamental of Alchemy.” As the woman introduced herself, Zhao Chen recognized her voice.

‘Hold on. Yue? And that voice where I heard it before… No way!’ Just then something popped up in his head.

During the first round of the entrance exam, Zhao Chen had heard the male instructor call the female instructor by the name Yue. And the professor's voice was identical to the instructors.

Zhao Chen stared at the instructors, trying to lock eyes with her but she seemed to be avoiding direct eye contact with Zhao Chen. Confirming that she was the same instructor he had met during the entrance exam.

‘So beautiful and so strong, but such terrible handwriting. I wouldn’t mind getting to know her more.’ Zhao Chen laid back in his chair with a grin on his face.

The academy was starting to grow on him.