Clavius quickly bought them a train pass out of there to the town where they’d be ferried to the island Nashara had mentioned earlier: the Heaven-Defying Eight Direction Isle of Arts and Martial Education. Usually just “Isle of Arts” for short because no one, not even official school partners, wanted to use the full name.

“Sorry about that, students! I hope you appreciate me taking you here on my dime, this took a lot of of my cash out...” He opened a wallet once stuffed with bills—now it was just merely one lonely silver bill. Buying not merely a long train ride to the middle of the continent but also a private room was quite expensive. “So, as you know by now, you’re accepted by the academy I work for, Flowing River!”

“Yes, we know that...” Jiayun said with a sigh. “How come we didn’t even get a choice, though?”

“Well, to be honest, your application was sent to every single school. The schools fight over and bid for each applicant, see. However...no school besides us would take F-ranks like you!”

Nashara grimaced and buried his face in his hands. “Please stop stabbing me right where it hurts...”

“Oh don’t worry.” Clavius slumped in his bench casually. “As I said, talent really only matters for building your core!” He didn’t explain what that meant, instead immediately moving on. “Now, let’s go over the most pressing question: I’m sure neither of you have ever heard of Flowing River.”

Both of them shook their heads. Jiayun as always spoke up first. “No, and I’m still not sure this place actually exists.”

“Well, it does. The reason is very simple...”

Nashara leaned forward. “It’s totally because it’s some super secret cultivator school with the best and most secret techniques, right?”

“Nope!” Clavius shook his head. The real reason is simple!”

He stood up and thrust a single finger in the air towards the sky.

“We’re the worst-ranked cultivation school ever!”

//////////

“...”

No one said a single word. Then Clavius immediately fell back into his chair, grinning brightly. “That’s right. You’ve been accepted to the most pathetic cultivation school ever.”

“Oh come on!”

“You’re not even going to try to play up the school!?”

Clavius shook his head. “Nah, we’re in a terrible situation, honestly. We’re pitifully underfunded and our facilities are all falling apart. Plus, to make things even worse, we may or may not be about to shut down. We're trying, but the EDCC likes to play favorites...and we're nobody's favorites.”

“You can’t possibly be serious.” Jiayun glared at him with frosty eyes—in terms of ice, this was definitely more spiky hail than svelte snow. “Where would we go then? Why even go to a cultivation school if it’s the worst one!?”

Clavius maintained a completely cool atmosphere. “Because, truth be told, we’re the only ones who are desperate enough to enroll you. The EDCC, you know them, right? They say they’ll forcibly shut us down if we can’t at least place tenth in the next inter-school tournament—or in other words, get in the top half. That’s in the summer.”

“Dammit, we better place well then!” Nashara punched his fists together. “Come on, we have to...” He stopped, something dawning in his head.

He was well familiar with the inter-school tournaments. That was one of the few events that cultivators greatly advertised to the mundane masses, with the results printed in newspapers all across the Expanse. All 20 schools participated. Yet, Flowing River was apparently a school too, and it had never shown up in the tournament. The tournament where all the schools participated.

Flowing River had never even been to the tournament in the first place.

In fact, when cultivators talked to mundane people, they only ever mentioned 20 schools, even though there were apparently 21!

With that, Nashara sighed deeply and buried his face in his hands again. “...you’ve never even been to the tournament, have you?”

Clavius nodded. “Yup! Not once! There’s only 20 slots, and we can never get one. Probably never will, honestly. In the world of cultivation...we got utterly robbed, to be honest. We're so broke we're enrolling F-Ranks like you all. Flowing River is where people the EDCC doesn't like get sent to work at so they can undercut our work at any opportunity.”

“Didn’t you just say low ranking doesn’t matter!?”

“Yes, I did...but you know. In the world of cultivation, being a high rank doesn’t just offer you tangible benefits. It offers you social benefits too. Trust me, 100 Jade Lotus Academy knows that for sure…”

What a stereotypical academy name… Jiayun thought to herself.

“Good luck getting yourself out of this, you’re going to need it!”

//////////

Clavius spent the entire ride from then on sleeping until they got to the town they needed to—Blue Star Lake Village. This small village looked incredibly plain given its importance, on the coast of the massive inland sea the Isle of Arts was located in. This sea wasn’t to be taken lightly, though—its depths contained all sorts of amazing and horrifying Mythic Beasts, and only thanks to massive wards placed at the beach (visible as huge white pillars softly glowing blue) were the townsfolk safe. It was super late at night, so once they awoke Clavius, he bid them farewell and handed them each a scratched and scuffed card. “This will let you stay in the inns for free.” He said before quickly leaving. With no where else to go, they left the station platform and entered Blue Star Lake.

...and there really was not much to see. The entire village appeared to be a rather large market, a smattering of houses of seemingly every cultural style on the Expanse, and a ferry. Walking the entire town would take less than an hour. Nashara expected something slightly more impressive than this. “Man, this place is tiny.” To its credit, the town was impeccably clean. The walls of every building looked brand-new. When he looked down at the stone roads, the stones just felt right, in a way that was slightly unnatural. He detected a level of artifice in the road that one wouldn’t normally expect.

“Ah, you see the Grand Road of 1000 Stones!”

That wasn’t anyone he knew. He finally looked up to see an eastern youth in front of him, about his age. He wore a rather informal tang suit and was grinning brightly at them. He looked pretty similar to Nashara, honestly, only with fairer skin and slightly spikier hair. In fact, he looked like the absolute definition of a fighting comic hero! “This road you see is built with 1000 stones, each one carved to be as pleasing as possible to its traveler if they happen to look down!”

Jiayun looked up and down the road. It was certainly impressive, alright. However, it only stretched from the train station to the ferry. “This is a pretty short road.”

“W-well, 1000 stones isn’t that much...” The youth shook his head and slapped his cheeks, the bright grin returning to his eyes. “Sorry, I haven’t introduced myself. That road was built by a relative of mine, so I’m proud of it.” He strolled up to them confidently. “My name is Xiaolong Yujie. I’m going to be a cultivator soon, just like you.”

Nashara raised an eyebrow to his boldness, but his name his eyes pop right open. “Wait...you can’t mean the Xiaolong Dawn Dragon Clan, right?” Given that this boy was apparently related to the person who made this road, and said road was far too artful to not be made by cultivator hands, there was only one Xiaolong family Yujie could hail from.

Now Jiayun got to state slack-jawed. “W-wha...” There wasn’t a single person in her homeland of the Jade Empire who didn’t know of the Xiaolong, or “Dawn Dragon” Clan. They had an incredible amount of cultivators, due to owning an extremely precious mountain whose jade veins inside were one of the few ways of greatly improving a baby’s chance of having cultivation talent, and were renowned martial artists. “N-Nash, we gotta be careful around this guy.” She was visibly shaking. “He can have us assassinated with a poison dart with no problem!”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“What the hell do you take me for?!” Yujie glared at his fellow countrywoman. “I’m not that kinda guy...”

“Still...holy crap!” Nashara’s eyes were literally glowing. “I can’t believe it! I actually got to meet a real-life member of the Xiaolong clan! I knew this shitty talent would get me somewhere! Now I can at least know people who actually have good talent! Dude, you’re like, SS-rank, right?”

“Hah...” Yujie stepped back and clenched a fist so tight his knuckles went white. His grin showed, though, that this wasn’t out of frustration, but sheer grit. “I aim to reach the apex of Enlightened Arts! I don’t care if I have to scale 1,000 waterfalls higher than any mountain, or if I have to practice my forms 10,000 times...I will reach the ultimate level of cultivation. Not because I want to lord over others, but only for my own sake. I want to reach enlightenment, nirvana, zen, whatever the hell it is at the end of the road! Once you’re on a road, you gotta stay on to the end, right?! That’s my Dao! My Dao of Eternally Marching The Road of Cultivation!”

“Uh….”

“This guy is just rubbing his S-rank or higher talent in our faces.”

“I’m not! For you see...I am F-Rank too!”

//////////

Yujie grinned. “And likewise, I’ve been accepted to Flowing River Academy. I don’t care if it’s not the best, I know the people there have heart.”

“Oh, really?” Nashara sighed. “And how did you guess we were going there...”

“Come on, dude.” Yujie suddenly loosened up a ton. “I’ve seen all the schools thanks to relatives, there’s no way any academy but Flowing River would take F-Ranks. This is the first year any schools are even taking us.”

“Well, then.” Jiayun cut in the conversation. “You must know our school won’t even exist in a year.”

“It will. I know it. We gotta keep trying and fighting! You’re a cultivator. You can’t resist the urge to do great things. And what’s greater than overcoming a seemingly impossible situation? Come on, follow me! This journey on the Dao of Resurrecting Flowing River Academy has only just begun!” Yujie walked off towards a restaurant and beckoned them.

“Is everything a Dao to you…?”

“Come on come on, I’ll explain later!”

//////////

Seemingly every delicacy in the world was piled in front of them. Thick grilled steak, steamed fish, and mountains of vegetables were on every single square inch available—to say nothing of the thick curry so spicy it made their noses twitch or the gallons of tea available.

Yujie had brought them into talk, but the trio were just scarfing down every single bit of food they could possibly could and asking for seconds. Despite the sheer amount of food, they didn’t feel stuffed until their table was piled high with plates and cups. “Ah, don’t worry. We need quite a lot of mortal food to satisfy our hunger. Once you start eating and drinking mythic food, you won’t need to eat so much.” Yujie placed his plate down. “Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it. I don’t even need money.” He motioned to the nearby waitress, who was unfazed by their voracious appetites. “Place this on the Xiaolong clan’s tab, miss.” The lady nodded and walked away. “There, it’s done. Mortal money’s no use on the Isle anyway.”

“It isn’t?” Jiayun leaned in. She didn’t really follow the world of cultivation, so a lot of this stuff was new to her.

“Ah, explaining stuff is boring...most cultivators know all this stuff already, having been involved in the world since their talent was discovered, but you two didn’t know until literally yesterday. Well, this dude’s apparently a super mega otaku about cultivators.”

“Yup!” Nashara crossed his arms and sat as upright as a statue. “Hm, if I’m a cultivator now maybe I should go lotus position...”

“Don’t rush it. Anyway, mortal money is worthless on the Isle, young mistress Jiayun! The only currency the people there accept is jade-orichalcum scrip! Give the cores you take from mythic beasts to EDCC exchange mediators that live on the island and you’ll receive jade-orichalcum scrip in return. That’s what makes the world of cultivators different from mortals! In this world, the only thing that matters is your feats, not your birth, family, or wealth!”

“Except,” Nashara interrupted, eyes rather narrow. “The EDCC uses all these cores to make so much useful stuff that most cultivators fall in line with it.”

“Well...yeah, you’re right. Being an errant cultivator can feel impossible at times.”

Jiayun looked between the two and spoke up. “For apparently being a wonderful world with infinite potential, it sure seems like cultivation just ends in constantly dealing with an arcane bureaucracy. Also, what are these ‘cores’?”

“...I can’t say that’s not true. But! Cores are just internal wells of spiritual essence that cultivators and mythic beasts use to perform superhuman feats! Our beginning training will deal with forming one. Once that’s done, we can actually start rising up the ranks of cultivation! Hell YEAH!” Yujie rose triumphantly in the air in a flash—a move which resulting in him accidentally flipping the table and sending a hundred dishes flying everywhere. Not that they broke, of course. They were jade, which was, truthfully, only relevant at this very moment. They simply clattered on the floor with ear-splitting cacophony. “...crap, let’s get out of here!”

Once they got far enough away from the yelling restaurant owner, they crashed on the beach, the calming ocean waves lazily receding back and forth. The Isle of Arts was barely visible from the beach, the most prominent feature being a gigantic mountain that rose above all the others. Jiayun narrowed her eyes as she saw it. “That mountain is absolutely gigantic. Way larger than any one I’ve ever seen.”

“Ah, that’s the Grand Celestial Peak. It’s where all the schools are located! It’s on an island ringed by a lake in the center of the isle.”

“Isn’t the Isle already ringed by a giant sea…?”

“Yo d--”

THWACK!

“No.”

Once Nashara had managed to cool his throbbing head, they watched the sea once again. The sea itself was horribly dangerous—Yujie had warned Jiayun to not go anymore than about 30 feet inland unless she wanted to be assailed by mythic beasts.

“So, Jiejie, explain further about these cores.”

“I’m not explaining anything unless you rescind that extremely ridiculous nickname you’ve given to a man you’ve known for an hour, little mistress Yuyun!”

“Don’t call me THAT yourself!”

“Only fitting. Anyway...” Yujie got on the sand and took a lotus position. “Cores are collections of spiritual essence. You need one to properly use said spirit, and spirit is what cultivators use to perform supernatural feats! Animals and beasts with them are called mythic beasts. You can kill the non-sentient ones and get them. They power useful artifacts and in a pinch you can just melt them down into pure liquid essence or refine them to make them more portable, though if you refine too much you lose a lot of potency. Plus, you don’t have to use your own essence to fuel certain spells if you have enough cores. As I said, the EDCC is always asking cultivators to donate cores...they probably have around 70% of the ones around these days.”

“...specifying ‘non-sentient beasts’ means there are sentient ones.”

“Well, yeah,though they're usually called youkai. They will generally give you a part of their cores if you can accomplish some kind of task for them...which to be fair is often just ‘beat me in a duel’, but it can get quite specific. My aunt just got an impressive core from a siren by singing a song so beautiful it made the dead rise from their graves to weep. Combine with taking cores from mythic flora and you don't have to be a martial artist to be a good cultivator!”

“That sounds...melodramatic.”

Yujie looked at her with an incredibly cheeky grin. “Get used to it. Cultivators are inherently dramatic people. We’re all completely bonkers in our own ways!”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that...”

“Oh please, you’re probably just not aware of how weird you are.” He rose from his lotus position. “Look! It’s boring as hell just lecturing people! That’s what professors do! The real Dao of a martial artist is to train!” He immediately fell forward and began doing push-ups. “One! Two! Three!”

“The school’s getting closed soon. Why are you so insistent on doing well at it?”

“Ten! Little mistress Jiayun, my family knows about nearly every applicant! I saw your documents! You’re an academic master! Now you have the chance to go beyond all mortal limits and become a truly wise saint of academia, and you’re going to let a simple setback like this pass you by!?”

Jiayun blushed and occupied herself with brushing her hair flowing in the salty sea breeze back. “Well, no...you also stopped counting.”

“THIRTY-THREE! I’m always counting in my head, Jiayun! Look, you have the blood of a cultivator in you! It will drive you to take impossible challenges head on and beat them! That is the Dao of a cultivator! You know the Dao, right? It’s the just way of things! I say that the Dao of Flowing River Academy is to resurrect itself and gain its face back! That doesn’t mean I merely hope that it will happen. It means I know it will happen and I will be there to witness it! Where will you be, Jiayun? Will you take the challenge head on, or will you shirk from it?

I believe that cultivation appears in the blood of those who are meant for more than just this mortal life. It is the Dao of the cultivator to set their sights on not merely difficult goals, but impossible aspirations they achieve anyway! Do not answer my question. I know that you will take this challenge head on. You would not have the thick potential of cultivation in your veins if you didn’t.”

Jiayun watched him do more push-ups than any mortal man ever could have. She must have been there for an hour at least, silently watching him. When he finally finished, falling on the sand and panting heavily, she got up. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m not letting anything get in my way of beating that damned Nash! You hear that, Nash! Even in this F-Ranked school, I’ll beat you!” Something deep in her soul burned. That was the nascent stages of her core, desperate to form itself to push her to greater heights. Had she never learned she had the blood of a cultivator, it would have driven her mad with a desire to accomplish great things regardless. Her heart pounded. She could feel each vibration shaking her chest. That, too, was her nascent cultivation blood, thick with ambition and ready to accomplish any challenge.

“Judging from this knock on my head you’ll literally kill me first!”

The three of them broke out into laughter, the calm ocean breeze carrying their voices far. To think that Class 1F started from this was amazing. They hadn’t even met the other three members yet...