The young man handling the enrollment of the Academy was starting to get the impression that he had bitten off more than he could chew by trying to exact his vengeance on this blindfolded young man who had the attention of the stunningly beautiful Bai Mei. As he watched the old man in front of him produce that exquisite little bird in a fraction of a second and then saw its speed as it left, he knew that he had to make a decision about whether he escalated this to the Guardian Protector.
As he was weighing his options he looked at the gathering of new enrollees and their minders looking his way enjoying the spectacle and he saw more than a few looks of disdain from the new students, presumably because he, a representative of the Azure Dragon Academy, was being disregarded and seemed too afraid to do anything about it. He made up his mind almost immediately.
He stood up and bowed in the direction of the huge owl. “Guardian Protector, could I trouble you to remove these trespassers from the plaza, they do not have a valid enrollment token and are refusing to leave.”
Silence. He stood there waiting, but no response came. The Guardian Protector completely ignored his existence. If before he had the impression that he had bitten off more than he could chew, now he was absolutely sure of it. Clearly the Guardian Protector had judged that he was in the wrong, as he stood there in the deafening silence of the giant owl's disregard, only one thought was prominent in his mind. ‘Why didn’t I just read it…”
Fortunately for him, or perhaps not so fortunately, the utter silence was broken by the arrival of a bolt of lightning from the east. It traveled in a relatively straight line horizontally to the ground and then materialized into a man who looked to be in his mid to late twenties and was standing on a sword looking down at the gathering, apparently searching for something.
He found what he was looking for rather quickly and arrived before Old Wu in a flash. He clasped his hands and bowed. “Sorry about this Old Wu, Master honestly didn’t anticipate someone completely disregarding his note and refusing to even read it.”
The young man’s face went completely pale, that was Shi Wencheng and unless he heard wrong, that note that the old man was asking him to read was from his Master…The Headmaster of the Azure Dragon Academy, Huang Zhihao.
“It’s fine Wencheng, just a minor matter. How have you been, kid? You were out traveling last time I visited, I see that you are edging closer to Soul Amalgamation, I will have to congratulate you in advance.”
Shi Wencheng broke out into a hearty laugh. “Indeed, I am planning to advance in the coming months, it has been a long time coming. Anyway, let’s get this enrollment sorted out first.” He then grabbed the large jade tablet off the table and handed it over to Old Wu, who placed his hand over it and presumably entered whatever information that the jade token normally would, manually.
Taking a moment to check it, Shi Wencheng then had the tablet produce another gold medallion which he picked up and flicked in Xu Long's direction, who deftly caught it out of the air causing a smile to appear on Shi Wencheng’s face. “Welcome to the Azure Dragon Academy, Xu Long. I am Shi Wencheng, an instructor at the Academy.”
Xu Long clasped his hands and bowed slightly. “Thank you, Elder Shi.”
The smile on Shi Wencheng’s face disappeared as he turned his attention to the young man who was previously sitting behind the desk but was now frozen in place still standing from his attempt to entreat the Guardian Protector to intervene on his behalf. Just before Shi Wencheng was about to speak to the young man he stopped and looked in the direction of the giant owl, and raised an eyebrow at what he heard.
“So, not only was opening a small slip of paper and reading a short note too much trouble for you to bother with to avoid this whole ridiculous situation, but you also bothered the Guardian Protector with this nonsense. Did no one explain this job to you? You are not here to gatekeep enrollment into the Academy, we already know who is coming and anyone stupid enough to try and sneak in will only have delivered themselves right to us, this is merely a formality to ascertain who arrived and hand out Academy insignias.”
Suddenly Shi Wencheng stopped himself. “I don’t know why I am bothering to explain this to you, this has already been a big enough waste of my time, just sit at your table in case the last few students show up, I will inform whoever assigned this job to you about this farce.”
Shi Wencheng then turned his attention back to Old Wu and nodded his head before taking off the same way he had arrived in a flash of lightning. Old Wu then walked a short distance away with Xu Long and the two ladies of the Bai Clan to make room in front of the table. Eventually the pale looking young man sat back down looking to all the world like he was in a daze.
After the show was over most of the gathered crowd went back to their discussions, though there were certainly more than a few surreptitious glances in Old Wu’s direction, he paid them no mind though.
Xu Long, however, was much more straightforward and asked the question that was on the mind of everybody in their section of plaza. “So, what was written on that note?”
Old Wu simply smiled and materialized it and handed it to an equally curious Bai Mei. She took the note carefully, holding a curious spirit fox cradled in her other hand and flipped it open and read it aloud. “Enroll whoever Old Wu tells you to. Huang Zhihao.”
The entire plaza went silent once again, then there were more than a few chuckles from those that were more familiar with the personality of the current headmaster of the Azure Dragon Academy. Xu Long was smiling, Bai Yue had a neutral expression and Bai Mei was just baffled, her previously held views about the prestige of the Azure Dragon Academy were certainly being tested by this headmaster whom she had yet to meet.
The young man who had just stumbled back to his seat, face still pale, had a lost look in his eyes, he honestly couldn’t remember a time in his life when things had gone worse for him, and it all happened in the space of a few minutes. Now it turned out that the old man with the note was someone so respected by the headmaster that he had given him a blanket pass to enroll whomever he liked.
The rest of the plaza however, largely ignored the plight of the young man, having gotten their entertainment from his antics, he was soon forgotten. The chatting started up again amongst the crowd as they waited for the deadline to pass for any stragglers. Interestingly, no one came over to greet Xu Long’s group, he knew that they were getting quite a few stares and was sure that under normal circumstances Bai Mei would have attracted quite a few people looking to spark up a conversation, but it seemed that Old Wu’s intimidation factor was not to be trifled with.
Xu Long suspected that very few, if any, of the the minders that had escorted the young scions of the various clans to this enrollment were anywhere near the level of power and prestige as Old Wu, even Bai Mei’s clan, which appeared to be quite powerful, seemed perfectly comfortable sending her along with someone at the Soul Amalgamation Realm, he doubted sending someone at the peak of Dao Seeking even crossed their minds.
Regardless, the result was that Xu Long and Bai Mei had a pleasant conversation while the stoic Old Wu and the seemingly emotionless Bai Yue merely stood in their general vicinity. Having arrived at the plaza during the latter portion of the allotted time frame, they did not have that long to wait before it was time to leave. The end of the deadline was signaled by Ming-Yue flapping her wings slightly, which sent quite the small torrent of wind over the crowd and seemed to wake the young man at the desk out of his funk. He hastily stood up and bowed to the Guardian Protector, before packing up the table and chair into a jade talisman that Xu Long suspected was not dissimilar to the storage of his bracelet, considering that the young man was certainly not at the Core Formation Realm.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“If the students could please board the Guardian Protector’s back for the journey to the Azure Dragon Academy, please do not grab onto her feathers, she will control both her angle and the wind that reaches you to the point that you could easily stand up the entire journey if you so wished, that being said she would prefer that you sit.”
As the various new students either walked straight towards the giant owl or said a farewell to their escorts, Xu Long turned towards Old Wu and did something that he wasn’t sure if the old man would approve of, but right now he didn’t care. He took a step forward and hugged him.
“Thanks for everything Old Wu. I will see you soon.”
Old Wu, a small and almost imperceptible smile on his face returned the hug and replied. “Yeah yeah, kid. Go and have fun.”
Xu Long broke the hug and with a big smile on his face clasped his hands to Old Wu and gave him a deep bow before straightening up and walking towards Ming-Yue who appeared to have lowered her torso to get her back horizontal to the ground and extended one of her wings to allow the students to board her back. He was quickly joined by Bai Mei, who reluctantly handed over Xu Xing when Xu Long held out his hand.
Old Wu watched the two walk off with a small smile on his face for a few moments before he suddenly disappeared from the plaza without a soul realizing that he had left.
…
About halfway between Tianyun City and the Azure Dragon Academy, Shi Wencheng stood on a sword, hovering in the air above the forest below.
“Thanks for waiting Wencheng and thanks for sorting out that little annoyance.”
Shi Wencheng smiled as the old man appeared right next to him, barely a ripple of qi evident in his passing. “Think nothing of it Old Wu, what was all that about anyway?”
“What most drama involving the young is about, a beauty and a brash, jealous young man.”
Shi Wencheng had to chuckle. “Some things really are eternal aren’t they.”
“That they are. So, shall we head off?”
Shi Wencheng nodded and the two of them started moving east at incredible speed, disappearing from their meeting place in the skies above the Endless Forest almost instantaneously. Not long after they had set off, they arrived at the gates of the Azure Dragon Academy, it looked to be just a simple yet imposing square arch with a simple dirt path that only extended half a dozen meters out into the forest on one side and nothing but trees on the other. Old Wu and Shi Wencheng casually walked through, the formation letting them pass through instantly as the Academy hidden behind came into view, no one bothered the two of them as they strolled the exquisitely paved central boulevard that had materialized under their feet as they passed through the gate, that was after all why Old Wu had asked Shi Wencheng to wait for him, to ease his entrance into the Academy.
After the two of them walked a short distance down the central boulevard, they soon turned left and entered a seemingly nondescript wooded area in the northeast of the Academy grounds, which to the untrained eye appeared to just be a continuation of the Endless Forest. They traversed the wooded area a lot quicker now that there were no eyes on them, and they soon passed through a formation that was designed to beguile lower realm cultivators, no doubt designed to keep students out.
As they passed through the formation with ease a man that looked no older than Shi Wencheng came into sharp relief, he was sitting in the lotus position, a sword resting on his lap, on a flat rock in front of a large pond, his back facing his two guests.
“I hope I can infer from your message that you have finally brought me what you promised Old Wu.”
Old Wu merely smiled at the man and threw a blue marble with a sheen of lightning at him.
“I am afraid I may have misjudged his talent, Zhihao.”
Huang Zhihao spun himself so that he was facing Old Wu and Shi Wencheng and caught the blue marble in one smooth motion, a look of consternation on his face.
“What do you mean you misjudged him? I have been hearing you sing his praises for nearly a decade now.”
Old Wu waved his hand and materialized a table and three chairs with a bottle of spirit liquor that he may or may not have liberated from the House of Heavenly Respite, he poured three cups and answered the question without looking up. “Just watch it and you will understand.”
Still a little disgruntled about the news he had just heard, Huang Zhihao sat down at the table along with Shi Wencheng and sampled the spirit liquor before he activated the projection.
After a brief flash, a scene appeared before the three of them of a young man dressed in a white robe with a blindfold covering his eyes standing on a rather sizable tree root, facing a rampaging Earth Boar that was charging him at its full speed. The young man had a smile on his face as he remained still and waited for his attacker to close the distance, and close the distance it did. The two to whom this scenario was new were quite surprised that the blindfolded young man held his nerve and didn’t move until the perfect time. Their surprise turned to shock, however, when they watched him spring off the root and over the charging boar as his sword lashed out with perfect form to skewer the head of the boar through the very center of its eye. Needless to say they were both impressed.
Before either of them could comment on what they just saw, the scene changed. Now the young man was standing in the same forest, only this time he was listening to the challenge of a spirit beast off in the distance. After a brief chat with his spirit fox he advanced with a smile on his face, they watched as he came upon a Vine Bear that had clearly established its domain and was challenging the entire forest to fight it on its terms, something that the young blindfolded man seemed happy to do.
They watched incredulously as he unsheathed his sword and strolled right into the clearing, which despite his somewhat questionable acting was clear to the two gentlemen watching that he knew was a trap. On the surface he appeared wary, but the utter confidence radiating out of him and his steady steps as he advanced gave him away, not that these were things that a Vine Bear of this level would be able to distinguish. By the time he was approaching about three quarters of the distance to the Vine Bear the two men watching could tell that he was confused about why the spirit beast was allowing him to close the gap so easily, then it sprung its trap.
The vines all around him shot at him from various angles, their tips hardened to spear points. The young man dealt with them comically easily, still the two men watched with interest, this being their first chance to watch him actually have to try somewhat in a fight. His form was utterly perfect, not a foot out of place, his movements were efficient and his sword moved as if a part of himself. He fought the torrent of vine spears as if it was a game, then brushed off the vines that attempted to grapple him in secret, only to charge right at the Vine Bear during the opportunity that was created by his thwarting of the grapple trap.
Huang Zhihao and Shi Wencheng watched as he slid under the looming frame of the bear that had reared itself onto its hind legs, testing his ability to damage the bark armor as he passed for good measure. As soon as he had passed and determined that he could damage it, he kicked and changed his momentum with a somersault and stabbed his sword into the cut that he had just made. Seeming happy with that, he started making his way to the front of the bear that was now back on four legs, once again easily handling the vine spears that were coming his way with a more frantic velocity than before. When he reached the point that he was aiming for, they watched as he grabbed a vine spear out of the air, slicing it free and then throwing it at the bear’s injured back leg in one smooth motion. Then when the bear inevitably roared in his direction, infuriated at the worsening of its wound, he stabbed out with his sword with unbelievable speed and precision into the roof of the beast's mouth.
If the two of them were shocked and more than a little impressed by the Earth Boar fight, they were floored by this one, but once again before they could comment, the scene changed. Huang Zhihao looked briefly towards Old Wu with a raised eyebrow only to receive a smile in return. He quickly went back to watching as the young man’s spirit fox woke him in the middle of the night to a danger that was approaching from below them. When it became clear to the two men watching what this next opponent was, Huang Zhihao stood up from his seat incredulously.
“A god damn Shadow Cat? Old Wu, are you insane?”
“Just watch.”