《F-Ranked Cultivators in an F-Ranked School》 1: F-Rank Cultivating Duo In the Grand Expanse existed humans who broke through all limits mortality imposed on them. Forging their bodies with training, potions, medicine, elixirs, manuals, and gods knew what else, these ¡°cultivators¡± defied Heaven¡¯s intentions on the state of man and became everything from incredibly powerful martial artists to impossibly devious thieves, orators whose powerful words made statues weep, strongmen who literally moved cities brick by brick, craftsmen whose works literally enlightened their viewer, and so much more. There were western cultivators in thick plate armor forged of steel mixed with ground dragon scales and eastern ones whose flowing kimonos and qipaos were artistic works all to themselves¡ªto say nothing of the northern cultivators whose thick frost-rimmed helmets were adorned with jagged horns or the southern cultivators whose dark skin was kept hidden from the searing heat with robes and headwear, for their kukris and scimitars did the talking. They were so powerful, in fact, that they had come to an agreement with nearly every nation of the Grand Expanse¡ªthey were to be treated as a nation into themselves, one with no true homeland, simply a collective known as the Eight Directions Cultivator Collective, bound to never interfere with other nations unless asked or if situations were absolutely dire. In return, the Collective received quite the handsome income from all the nations aligned with it, and ensured that the schools training newfound Cultivators would be up the proper standard. That was for people who had the talent for Cultivation, though. Nashara Zaras didn¡¯t have the talent. It wasn¡¯t his fault¡ªcultivation talent was a borderline luck of the draw. Anyone from a street urchin to a royal scion had pretty much equal chance to become a cultivator, which meant it was super rare across all families. Less than 5% of people were even D-rank, the lowest possible rank, and by the time you got to SSS-rank, it was incredible anyone occupied that tier. Nashara¡ªor ¡°Nash¡± to people about to be punched in the face¡ªwasn¡¯t even D-rank. He had never gotten his talent tested, because why even waste the money? He had focused his efforts on doing well in school, but things got in the way of that¡­ Nashara buried his face in the comic book he was reading. Comics started to become a thing just a little over a decade before, and before he knew it he was blowing all his damn money on these ridiculous tales of adventure, almost all involving cultivators. Some may have even been written by them! Hah, as if. Point was, he had once spent time going to a Visual Narrative Fantatics club and nearly flunked secondary school. Nashara was an average height man with short black hair, but as his family hailed from the southern nations, his skin was a tan caramel color, taking on a slightly golden hue when it shone on him. More notable was the geometric black tattoos adoring parts of his body, but the thick western-style coat and pants he was wearing obscured those. He put down his comic and looked outside to the scenery passing by. There was a massive snowstorm assaulting the endless valleys and mountains in his vision. ¡°Man, trains are convenient...¡± He sighed and leaned back. This was the first time in his life where his mom hadn¡¯t immediately lectured him about how she didn¡¯t have them when she was a kid until he groaned and fell asleep. His eyes felt heavy. He might as well sleep on the train¡­ ////////// ¡°Um, excuse me, sir?¡± Nashara opened his eyes with a groan. Sheesh, what had happened? The train was stationary, that was for sure¡­ ¡°Huh...what time is it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s late, sir. I assume you¡¯re here for the Higher Education Entrance Test, so you might wanna book it--¡± Nashara¡¯s eyes immediately flew open. ¡°SHIT! It¡¯s that late already?¡± He immediately lept from his chair and scrambled to make sure everything was in his pockets. Wallet, check. Train pass, check. Assorted snacks, check! He threw his comic in his backpack and rushed past the female attendant down the empty aisle. ¡°How the hell did I sleep this long?!¡± He checked the windows as he ran. He was at his stop, 8th station of Lavonia, capital of the Halma Empire. Here he¡¯d be able to apply for any of the colleges in the empire! He could also apply to a Cultivator school, but it would be literally pointless. He had no pretensions of ever being one¡ªhe could not be one. That was final. He had made his peace with that a long time ago! After rushing to the front and opening the door, he lept out with a borderline cringy vault, as if he were a cultivator himself. Hey, he was still a chuuni-- WHONK Nashara¡¯s leg smashed into something, immediately making him corkscrew through the air wildly, his backpack flying from his body. He bounced off the brick station platform and slid at least 5 feet on his face, coming to an unceremonious stop as his flying backpack smashed into the back of his head and slumped next to him. Unfortunately, some quite heavy textbooks had been in that backpack. Nashara¡¯s head swam as he picked his crumpled self off the ground. Thankfully, the station was such a busy and bustling place that no one paid attention to him. The one girl who did was quickly told off by her friend with ¡°look, spend enough time riding these trains and you see all sorts of crazy bullshit, now get moving!¡± Fumbling around, his hand clumsily grabbed the backpack. Finally, he stood, a bleeding scar on his face and blood running from his nose as he turned to see what he had collided with. A girl was lying on the ground near the door. ¡°Oh gods dammit, are you okay!?¡± He rushed over to her. She was surrounded by luggage¡ªmaybe she planned to stay longer than the few days he needed? One of the boxes was open and bleeding clothes¡ªhe quickly shoved them back in before rolling her over. ¡°Hey now, I¡¯m really sorry, I didn¡¯t mean to¡ªoh. It¡¯s you.¡± His face immediately hardened. The girl had been none other than Jiayun Xue, an immigrant girl from the eastern lands of the Great Expanse who had moved in next to his family when he was a kid. Obviously, that meant that the two of them were inseparable childhood friends. Absolutely, 100% wrong. Jiayun and Nashara were ultimate rivals. This wasn¡¯t a tsundere relationship¡ªthey were just pure tsun for each other, no matter what anyone else said. They didn¡¯t hate each other, but instead each viewed the other as the rival they must surpass in life. Jiayun, the moment she had moved to his town, had declared him and him alone as the person she would surpass. Why? Who the hell knew, Nashara sure didn¡¯t. Still, he looked up from his comic to look at her and say ¡°you¡¯re on.¡± He had done it out of pure boredom, and a need for competition. Suddenly he began to care about scholarly pursuits...enough to not fail. If this were a xianxia novel, he clearly would have been the hidden master with SSS-rank talent who just needed a push. Jiayun opened her eyes and immediately hardened them too. She was a quite beautiful girl, with long scarlet hair that, unusually enough, faded into frosty light blue at the tips. Her eyes however, were a bright verdant green. This girl had a lot of colors going on! She was dressed in a thick dress with an eastern-style tabard, looking like some kind of lolita with an eastern flair. ¡°I can¡¯t believe you actually came here, Nash.¡± Nashara stared coldly back at her. ¡°Of course I did. You thought I wasn¡¯t going to go to college?¡± Jiayun said nothing before twitching slightly. Nashara immediately lept back, executing a slightly awkward combat roll as she did a near-perfect backflip kick and landed on her feet. Her boots had barely grazed his chin. ¡°Sorry. I needed to get up.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t even give me that silliness, Yuyun. You wanted to kick me.¡± ¡°Well, that was an added benefit, I suppose.¡± Jiayun acted dumb as she tied her bags to her larger wheeled luggage. ¡°I have to go now¡ªI¡¯m already late enough for the application process.¡± ¡°Woah there!¡± Nashara slipped his backpack on finally and followed after her. They had to stick close as they entered the crowd to still hear each other. The low din of the station was certainly something neither of them were used to. ¡°Who are you, thinkin¡¯ you can walk ahead of me?¡± With a smirk he increased his stride to outpace her. A tiny grin escaped Jiayun¡¯s stoic face as she sped up as well, despite hauling a big bag of luggage. Soon she was outpacing Nashara. Then he outpaced her. This game repeated until the two were in a full-blown run, dodging the crowds around them with surprising ease as they nimbly ducked and weaved in response to every obstacle the people around them presented, both of them unable to hide the grin on their faces as they raced to a wall at the end of the station. Jiayun effortlessly lept over it, throwing her luggage into her hands while Nashara ran up the wall and did an incredibly flashy pivot around the top, looking like a pro skater without his board.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Even mortal humans in the Grand Expanse were capable of surprisingly superhuman feats with effort! Unfortunately for those two, Nashara¡¯s outstretched foot hooked onto Jiayun¡¯s and they both slammed into the ground, slid for several feet, and flopped down the stairs ahead till they were bloody messes on the floor. ////////// Lavonia was built in and around a mountain, so in addition to being a freezing hellhole year-round (and this was the winter to make it worse), there was little space to build elaborate roads for motorcycles and automobiles, though admittedly those were extremely recent inventions. Instead, Jiayun and Nashara had to run down slick snow-caked streets hemmed in by buildings seemingly groaning under the thick white snowfall that covered their every surface. Since horizontal space was at a premium, these streets rarely carried on straight for long. Why oh why did university admissions have to take place here? In any case, they had to hurry¡ªthe sun was already falling. Early admissions meant one got the stressful lines out of the way and could spend the next few weeks goofing off! Nashara distracted himself from the cold nipping at his exposed face by admiring all the various restaurants they passed. Lavonia was a big metropolis, so places hawking everything from stir fried rice dishes to pita stuffed with beef to thick hearty stew passed them by. ¡°So much damn good food...hey, I¡¯m stopping by that place when I come back. If you¡¯re nice I might treat you.¡± ¡°Even now, you¡¯re thinking of food...¡± ¡°Oh come on, you were in my parents¡¯ restaurant damn near every day stuffing your mouth full of gyro beef!¡± ¡°Oh come on!¡± Jiayun looked back at him as they rounded a corner and shot off down towards a rather foreboding cathedral-esque place in the distance ahead, unsullied by snow. ¡°It was cheap and your parents liked me!¡± ¡°Yeah, you definitely brought business with lookin¡¯ so fine.¡± ¡°If you think my heart is as easy to captivate with such silly words, you really are hopeless.¡± ¡°Talking like that doesn¡¯t make you sound smart!¡± Nashara had no intention on stressing that word, he just found a new wind and surged on forward. He was going to surpass her even to the admissions building! Not that Jiayun would make it easy, of course. She slowed down slightly. This wasn¡¯t conceding to him. She needed to focus to use both hands to grip her luggage, throwing it in the air and catching it in her arms so she could charge on ahead. She was keeping up with him despite the extra weight! The two of them came up to the rare road where cars could travel, a white convertible ahead of them. No matter. They didn¡¯t slow down for it at all. Nashara quickly vaulted over it, sliding on his hand across the hood in front of the stunned driver. His hand certainly enjoyed the warmth. Jiayun had no hands free to slide on, so she simply jumped right over the driver and landed on the other side, dashing away. Finally at the front of this imposing cathedral, a massive clock built into its front fascia, they were neck and neck, the wind whipping across their faces. Nashara divebombed forward at the last minute, smashing the doors wide open--and skidding on his shoulder across the far warmer floor in a manner that was somehow cool and ridiculous at the same time¡­ ...at least until he collided with a table and sent valuable college documentation flying everywhere. ////////// The Lavonia Cathedral had been temporarily re-purposed as the place for the College Admissions Fair. Anyone in the Halma Empire who wanted to do a university worth a damn had to attend this fair, a ritual both Nashara and Jiayun were honestly mystified by. Still, one had to work within the rules. Unfortunately Nashara¡¯s DYNAMIC ENTRY had delayed the process quite a bit as the entrance desk had to be rearranged. He could feel the glaring stares at the back of his head from other applicants¡ªmost horrible of all being Jiayun''s. ¡°Hey, I still won, though¡ªOW!¡± Jiayun slapped his face. Not very hard. She huffed. ¡°Look at where we are now, dumbass.¡± They were at the back of the line. They very back. In fact, they had been so engrossed with their mad dash to the cathedral they had not noticed the line went ALL the way back past the door, so they were stuck in the freezing cold again. She checked her watch. 7PM already. They only had an hour before the fair ended. ¡°We have an hour. Great. There¡¯s no way we¡¯re getting in today...¡± ¡°Oh have faith. There¡¯s people behind us, and they wouldn¡¯t be there unless they thought they could get in too!¡± ¡°That just means they¡¯re fools...and I guess we¡¯re fools too.¡± Jiayun stuck her hands in her pockets and sighed. ¡°Sheesh. Let¡¯s try your silly plan for once.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll treat you for this kindness!¡± ¡°I can¡¯t be bought!¡± After a bit, Nashara was getting the feeling that maybe she had been right. At the current rate, they wouldn¡¯t get to the front in time. People already in could stay till 9PM, so they just had to get in, but¡­ Thankfully, luck was on their side as the people behind and several in front left, complaining all the while. They were the only two left! Nashara shot a cheeky smirk at Jiayun, who remained stone-faced as the two of them walked up inside. The cathedral was heated with various fire magics, so it was nice and toasty inside. The front desk had a sweet-looking lady not much older than them. A huge pile of papers was to her right, and to her left was a small crystal orb and a large pot filled with what looked like coal briquettes¡ªbut they had softly glowing blue veins etched into them. They both presented their documentation to the lady. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s see...Nashara Zaras and Jiayun Xue...mhmm...mhmm...oh.¡± The lady¡¯s voice changed. ¡°Ah, you two don¡¯t have a cultivation talent level on your paperwork...¡± ¡°Well...¡± Nashara scratched the back of his head awkwardly. ¡°Hah hah...we don¡¯t have any talent, see. That world¡¯s just a dream for us.¡± ¡°Yes, sir, I understand, but the thing is, your paperwork says nothing in there, not ¡®no talent¡¯. It should say that. You have tested your talent before, right?¡± The two of them looked at each other awkwardly. They had simply never thought about getting tested. Most people in the Expanse did, but testing cost money and their families had never had any cultivators to begin with, so what was the point? Jiayun answered her. ¡°We never tested, ever. It¡¯s not like testing is legally required, anyway, ma¡¯am, so can we please go on ahead?¡± Cultivation talent made itself obviously manifest in various ways early on in life, so very few countries actually legally mandated testing. ¡°Yes, I understand, miss, but we would like you to test, regardless. Your talent level is up in the air anyway.¡± ¡°What on earth...¡± Nashara sighed. ¡°We don¡¯t have time for this. Our talent level isn¡¯t up in the air. We know we¡¯re not talented. This isn¡¯t some novel where it turns out we have secret SSS-rank talent, you know.¡± He sounded slightly wistful. ¡°Still...¡± The lady produced another crystal ball and laid it next to the first. ¡°Please place your hands on this. It will only take five seconds or so.¡± The two of them looked at each other and shrugged with sighs. This felt utterly pointless. They had already made peace with their inability to cultivate. Given that cultivators willingly distanced themselves from interfering with normal society without express permission of the mundane world, they could still make an appreciable impact in the world somehow. They stepped forward and each placed a hand on the orbs. They expected nothing to happen. Instead, however, fate had another idea. The balls faintly glowed¡ªNashara¡¯s a faint silver mixed with tints of green, and Jiayun''s. an equal faint blue and red. ¡°What the...¡± ¡°Wait...¡± ¡°Ah, I see. You two have F-rank cultivation talent!¡± They...they had cultivation talent! Actual cultivation talent! ...god-awful cultivation talent, granted. In fact, the first response the lady got wasn¡¯t ¡°My dreams have expanded!¡± or ¡°With this newfound power, I shall reach the apex and seal the heavens!¡± or ¡°I¡¯m gonna be so badass, hell yeah!¡± but ¡°What the fuck is an F-rank?!¡± from both of them. 2: Clavius Corona The lady smiled at their flabbergasted faces. ¡°You see, F-Rank is the lowest level of cultivation talent. Only with modern advances in spirit-detecting artifacts can we actually learn it exists¡ªand, as you probably can figure out by now, it manifests very weakly as slightly increased physical attributes and mental clarity, as well as slightly increased appetite...there probably have been millions of unknown F-Ranks. Still, a cultivator is a cultivator, so...¡± She took the their documents, wrote ¡°F-Rank¡± on the front, and then lit the pot. The coals lit up in blue flames which incinerated the papers totally¡ªnot even ash remained. ¡°I¡¯ve sent your documents to the EDCC. You¡¯ll be contacted by a cultivator school soon! I hope you two get in the same school.¡± Since they had no social Arts, they had no way of knowing that she thought The only school desperate enough to take two F-Ranks is that school¡­ The two of them had absolutely no reaction as the enormity dawned on them. Eventually Jiayun managed to clear her head and talk. ¡°W-wait! If F-Rank was found only recently, then why wasn¡¯t D-Rank called F-Rank? Why leave F free! That makes zero sense!¡± ¡°Well, you see, miss...no one wants to be called an F-Rank. To make it nicer to D-Ranks, we called them that instead of, you know, ¡®Failure¡¯-Ranks!¡± ¡°So it¡¯s okay for US to be called Failure-Ranks!¡± Nashara finally got a hold of himself. ¡°I¡¯m a cultivator...¡± ¡°No you aren¡¯t.¡± The Lady quickly reminded him. ¡°You have the talent.¡± ¡°I¡¯m...a cultivator...I¡¯m...¡± Nashara raised his fist to the sky¡­ ...and cried. ¡°I¡¯m a trash-tier Cultivator¡­hah...¡± Tears streamed down his face. ¡°Hah...fuck.¡± Jiayun got in on the action, though she refrained from silly crying. ¡°We went from pretty top-tier mortals to just shitty cultivators.¡± ¡°Can you, uh, leave? My shift doesn¡¯t end until all the applicants are dealt with. Leave. You don¡¯t need to be here!¡± The two of them only looked at each other with misty eyes¡ªmisty eyes of elation mixed with disappointment. The lady stand up and sighed. Her hand slightly glowed with energy. ¡°OUT!¡± Thrusting out her palm, the two immediately got slammed with an extremely powerful gust of wind, their eyes popping right open as they rocketed back and flew out the still-open cathedral doors, their impacts on the snowy ground outside throwing up giant plumes of dusty snow. They stayed there for a bit. //////// Nashara and Jiayun alike shoved bowls of crappy buffet food down their gullets and kept going to the food counters of this awful buffet they only chose out of indecision. The staff was starting to eye them with annoyed grimaces. ¡°Finally, some goddamn FOOD!¡± Nashara managed to say between throwing another spoonful of teriyaki chicken into his mouth. ¡°This ¡®food¡¯ is absolute trash.¡± Jiayun said, though the seven empty plates on her side of the table certainly said otherwise. ¡°Trash you¡¯re shoving in your mouth like it¡¯s nothing!¡± ¡°Well I¡¯m still hungry!¡± She sighed and took a gulp of tea. ¡°Besides, trash-tier food for a trash-tier cultivator.¡± ¡°Oh come on, we¡¯re not...okay we are trash-tier cultivators, so bad I didn¡¯t even know our rank existed...¡± Nashara was a big fan of following cultivators, but their world only intersected with the moral world in very specific ways, so new developments like that could take months or even years to filter down to normal mortals like him. Well...he wasn¡¯t technically a mortal. ¡°But...damn, I can¡¯t believe this. We might be able to become cultivators. Wait, we definitely can! We¡¯ll be accepted by a school! You know, their schools don¡¯t cost anything. They¡¯ll contact Halma itself and have the government pay for our tuition! I might be able to save all 5,000 karas I saved up to pay for tuition...¡± Nashara pulled a wallet out and showed off 50 silver paper bills. ¡°You dork. First of all after graduation they¡¯ll want their investment back and secondly, the school probably won¡¯t take our money. You do realize that all the cultivator schools are on a giant island with its own laws and money, right?¡± ¡°Of course I do. Don¡¯t make me info-dump it.¡± ¡°Do it for me.¡± ¡°Why the hell would I ever do anything for your benefit?¡± ¡°Just do it!!¡± ¡°Okay, fine. Yes, they¡¯re on all an island in the middle of our continent, a 200,000 square mile island, owned by the Eight Directions Cultivator Collective. Apparently an ancient cultivator carved the whole thing out and surrounded it by a giant sea of sorts. Well, given it¡¯s hemmed in by the continent, it¡¯s more an absurdly huge lake...apparently the island has its own magically-forced weather system, so the southern part is an inexplicable desert and the northern part is a frozen hellhole even though it should be a temperate forest all around.¡± ¡°Thank you for the info-dump. I¡¯m sure someone appreciates it.¡± ¡°I just feel like I was taken advantage of.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll make it clear: you were.¡± Jiayun capped that off with taking a sip of tea. ¡°...moving on, I wonder what school will take us.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll be amazed if any school takes our utterly incompetent asses at this point, really. ¡°Oh, be positive...¡± ...she did have a point. ////////// Thankfully, they got their answer quick. Surprisingly quick. That night, they grabbed a cheap two-bedroom hotel to rent until they got their answer. The lodging wasn¡¯t the best, but they grabbed one on the outside of the mountain, so they saw the valleys and plains stretching for miles out their window, which was pretty nice. Said view was obscured slightly, though, by the intra-city railways circling the city like giant rings. The design of Lavonia meant that you couldn¡¯t travel straight inward for far. Instead, Lavonia more resembled a set of rings stacked on top of each other and getting smaller and smaller as they reached the peak. Thus, the trains didn¡¯t bring people in and out of the city as much as they did up and down it, forming a bigger set of rings on elevated bridges outside of the city¡¯s actual rings. Since sharp drops and climbs would be vomit-inducing, the rings slowly inclined up, trains running up and down it. It was truly a spectacular sight.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The chance of the above two paragraphs¡¯ information being relevant later was next to none, for the record. The two admired the view a bit. For the first time in a long while, they actually managed to not snark at each other. Eventually they retreated to their bedrooms. Nashara went to sleep thinking of all the food he could try¡ªJiayun was doing the same, to be completely blunt. Both of them had huge appetites. The next day, they got dressed and walked the city for a bit. Just for the fun of it, they bought train passes for the intra-city rail and rode it all the way to the peak and back down again, just to admire the sights of the mountain range Lavonia was built on and the trains themselves. Down at the bottom, they tried their hand at fishing in the mountain¡¯s various caves, and at the top, they toured the capitol building, a massive palatial manse of marble. Finally, they came back to their hotel at around 6PM. The sky was already a deep orange, the light of the falling sun casting gorgeous crepuscular rays through the steel frame of the intra-city railway. They were admiring the view yet again. ¡°Pretty city, huh. Kinda wished I lived here. Only problem is the lack of roads...I wanna be a biker one day, ya know.¡± ¡°Huh?¡± Jiayun looked over at him. ¡°Really? Didn¡¯t strike you as the type. But I¡¯d be you¡¯d be surprised to know I want a motorcycle one day too.¡± ¡°Huh, really¡ªwait, what is that?¡± Nashara pointed at a black dot in the sky slowly getting bigger. Jiayun narrowed her icy eyes and looked closer. ¡°It¡¯s coming for us.¡± She said rather blankly. ¡°Wait, is that a flying sword? The ones eastern cultivators use?¡± ¡°You automatically thought that from a black dot in the sky?!¡± ¡°Duh. Maybe it¡¯s from our school. It¡¯s obviously coming right at us.¡± ¡°Well, it is...¡± They watched it intently. The dot got bigger and bigger. Soon, its features became barely visible in the twilight. ¡°It¡¯s coming really fast, huh.¡± ¡°Yeah. It¡¯s gonna stop soon, right? Like, in the comics and novels they always slow in front of their recipient if they¡¯re sending a message. ¡°I guess so...it¡¯s...uh, not stopping.¡± ¡°I guess it¡¯s a really cool one that can stop quickly.¡± ¡°No it¡¯s just not stopping.¡± ¡°...huh, you¡¯re right. Wait, it¡¯s gonna stab us--¡± The sword just kept flying towards them. Now they could blatantly tell it was a sword. It made zero attempt to slow down. At all. It just flew straight at them. Nashara and Jiayun got the idea and immediately lept out of the way as the sword smashed straight through the window and shot straight into the ground at an angle, glass shards flying everywhere. The two shielded their faces with their arms, the shards glinting in the twilight as they both lept backwards into various furniture, knocking a bunch of crap on the ground and leaving the floor a mess. The sword just sat half-impaled in the floor¡ªclearly enough to poke through the roof of the room below as a ¡°what the hell is THAT!?¡± sounded from below. Nashara got up and dusted himself off, looking at the broken window with dread. ¡°By the gods...we don¡¯t...have to pay for that, do we?¡± ¡°What do you think? I¡¯m sure the hotel will accept ¡®this sword tried to kill us and flew straight through the window¡¯ when they see this disaster!¡± Jiayun got up as well and stumbled over to the sword. It was a simple shortsword, and looked incredibly low-quality from something coming from a cultivator. It had no signature forged into it, the metal was rusting, the leather grip was horribly frayed, and the small strip of...something attached to it was worn. ¡°This thing looks like a counterfeit replica of a cultivator sword. What on earth?¡± She grabbed the strip, at which point it immediately glowed. She made a surprisingly cute ¡°kyaa!¡± and dropped it, but the strip immediately produced a piece of paper from seemingly nowhere. Jiayun immediately grabbed it, blushing a bit. Nashara walked over and looked at it too. Dear Nashara Zaras and Jiayun Xue, Congratulations on your realization of your cultivating potential. We at Flowing River Cultivation Academy are proud to say we have selected you to be students at our school. An instructor will be here to provide you more details soon. Enjoy your life of cultivation! -Headmistress Adelaina Xufeng ...that was it? ¡°This is the shortest and least flowery acceptance letter I¡¯ve ever seen.¡± Jiayun said with furrowed eyebrows. Nashara on the other hand, was more focused on the name. While, as said before, information on the cultivator world was difficult for a mortal to come by, he was roughly familiar with the various cultivator schools¡ªand he had never ever heard of any school named Flowing River Cultivation Academy. The name wasn¡¯t even impressive. The others were called things like Jade Mountain Lotus Academy of Cultivation or Seturnius Candidatus Lyceum. ¡°Flowing River¡±? Rivers naturally flowed! Why not ¡°Jade River¡± at least! ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of this place before.¡± ¡°I think we just got set up. This has to be a scam. That lady was in on it.¡± ¡°I''m starting to think that too-- WHAM~! The door to their room flew straight into the wall between them. They pushed their naturally high dexterity to the limit to avoid it, the wood grazing each of their noses. Both of them were as still as a rock, though their positions meant they were rather comically staring straight at each other. ¡°Whoops, sorry! I may be a pretty low stage, but I should watch myself...¡± A man in his early 30¡¯s or so walked into the room and apologized to the two of them. ¡°I¡¯ll put the door back on.¡± His hand glowed with wisps of spiritual energy, and with a wave the door¡¯s pieces suddenly recombined and solidified as it flew back to the doorframe, seemingly as new. ¡°How¡¯s that for some nice Enlightened Arts! Ah, come on, you two! Don¡¯t look at me like that?¡± Like usual Jiayun was the first to speak. ¡°...you have about five seconds to explain who you are.¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t you get the memo on the jade slip?¡± The man laughed without any care at all and looked around, nodding when he saw the sword and message. ¡°Ah, you did.¡± He grabbed both and stashed them away¡ªas in, he put them behind his back and they suddenly disappeared without a trace. ¡°It said I was coming.¡± ¡°I assumed a school official would at least KNOCK!¡± ¡°Sorry, the door was locked and I was kind of in a rush. I fixed it anyway! Ah, let¡¯s just move on. Now the two of them could get a good look at him¡ªhe was rather tall, with rather muscular arms and messy red hair a deep hue, like blood .¡°My name is Clavius Corona. I¡¯m a teacher at Flowing River Cultivation Academy. I just had to say hi to our newest F-Rank students.¡± Nashara finally responded, tears streaming down his face. ¡°Jab the knife in deeper, won¡¯t you.¡± ¡°Ah, don¡¯t worry. Talent only matters for the first few stages. Once you get up to speed and form a core, it doesn¡¯t matter anymore. Everyone¡¯s the same from then on!¡± A knock resounded from the door. ¡°Hello! Hello?! Open up right now! Half the damn hotel¡¯s complaining about this noise and I am NOT losing customers!¡± ¡°Ah, shit. We better bounce.¡± Clavius grinned wildly and grabbed the two¡¯s luggage. He then just straight up threw it out the window, Jiayun¡¯s making sure the window was wrecked even worse. That snapped Jiayun into action. ¡°What the hell?! MY CLOTHES!¡± She rushed to the shattered remains of the window and looked down at the falling bags five stories below that crashed into the ground with a loud bang. Any nearby bystanders yelped in surprise and retreated away. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll fix them when we get down.¡± ¡°What do you mean, ¡®we¡¯--HEY!¡± Jiayun yelped as Clavius grabbed the duo and lept effortlessly out the window, just as the hotel manager unlocked the door. The three fell quickly, the F-Rank duo thrashing wildly out of instinct as the chilling air whipped past them. Clavius merely grinned. They impacted the ground with a loud thud that kicked up a corona of powdery snow, but his legs were totally fine. ¡°There, see?¡± Putting them down he waved his glowing hand again and the busted luggage was as good as new. ¡°Now get going and follow me!¡± The two of them were too busy hyperventilating to follow him until he was nearly out of sight, though to be fair, the hotel manager screaming his head off at them from the window was a pretty good motivator. 3: Guys I Swear It Will Actually Be Funny When They Finally Get To The School 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¡ªnow 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 patheticcultivation 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¡ªin 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¡ªor 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¡ªBlue 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¡ªits 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!¡±If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°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¡ªto 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¡ªa 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¡ªYujie 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... 4: Yet Another Arrogant Young Master! The next few days proceeded mostly as normal. The school year began on the first day of the year, so they had a while to get prepped. Yujie stuck to the other two like they were already best friends, but to be fair to him, he was a great motivator. Of interest to Jiayun specifically was the village, which was abnormally temperate despite it being the dead of winter. Apparently when the Isle¡¯s weather control infrastructure was being upgraded, the village took an old system off the EDCC¡¯s hands and used it. Apparently, also, it sometimes...didn¡¯t work right and it would become searing hot or freezing cold or other, even stranger kinds of things until it was fixed, Jiayun¡¯s digging being sufficient enough to learn that ¡°fixing¡± usually meant beating on it with a hammer till it worked. In fact, she was interested enough in the Isle that she bought a map of the whole place from a store right before they boarded the ferry to take them to the school, packed in with hundreds of other new cultivators. She studied it while it languidly approached the island, projecting a powerful defense barrier to ward off mythic beasts. How convenient, she thought. More annoying, in her mind, was the fact that they were crammed like sardines in a can. Weren¡¯t they supposed to be glorious martial heroes? The Isle was a roughly square-shaped island split very cleanly into four parts, each corresponding to a cardinal direction and each of which clearly meant to test different kinds of terrain. The west section was a massive dense field of plains and thick forest, a few mountain ranges poking through. The north was almost entirely a freezing mountain range with almost no flat ground, save for a slight tundra in the far northwest. The east was a swampy and marshy wetland with literally thousands of minor rivers and streams leading off from a few gigantic rivers which crossed the whole area and bled into the sea. The south was a roiling desert, its northernmost part being parched savannahs and badlands at the foot of mountains and the rest being endless wastes of sands. Finally, in the center, was a single circular island with a mountain at the top. Of note was that a small amount of cities and towns were on the isle. Jiayun presumed they were for students to stock up without having to head all the way back to their schools. The Isle even had a halfway decent highway system, though many sections would require going on foot or enduring dirt roads. Speaking of the academies, they all were on the central island...but Flowing River wasn¡¯t even listed on them. Thankfully, by now, they had boarded land, and were on a train to the center of the Isle. This was far more quiet and suitable for grilling Yujie endlessly. ¡°I got several questions.¡± She said with furrowed eyebrows, glancing at Yujie next to her. ¡°First of all, people seem to actually live on this place?¡± ¡°Someone¡¯s gotta keep the place running when cultivators aren¡¯t around, and many of us live on the island too. They bring their families along and eventually they make towns and cities.¡± ¡°Yes, but this place is apparently teeming with mythic beasts...¡± Jiayun looked out the window and scenery passing them by. They boarded on the western section of the Isle, so all she saw were seemingly endless forests of thick trees. ¡°Isn¡¯t it horribly dangerous for mortals?¡± ¡°The towns all have state-of-the-art defense artifacts that repel anything. Of course, once you¡¯re out of them...you¡¯re on your own.¡± ¡°There has to be some kind of beast so strong it can break through them...¡± ¡°You underestimate how extremely powerful these defense systems are. You are at least aware of the ranking system, right? Even a Rank 10 beast can¡¯t get through them, and the Isle¡¯s youkai are bound by an ancient geas to not attack humans inside the towns. Outside though...as I said, some youkai may be sentient and murderous.¡± Nashara, for the record, was sitting next to Jiayun, absorbed in a cultivation novel. He had bought an ungodly amount of them a few days earlier and somehow managed to finish nearly all of them by this time. Yujie snorted. ¡°You know those things are full of crap, right? That pulp stuff barely resembles actual cultivator lives at all.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t break the magic for me!¡± Nashara glared at him, though a knock at their door interrupted any argument. ¡°It¡¯s me, Clavius!¡± Nashara quickly opened the door and Clavius strode in, looking the same as he always did. ¡°¡¯Sup. We¡¯re about to reach the Grand Celestial Peak and enter the train loop that connects all the schools, so stay sharp.¡± ¡°Oh, wow, really!?¡± Nashara immediately clambered over an extremely annoyed Jiayun to get a good look out the window. Luckily, they were on the side of the loop facing the mountain, and the sheer enormity of the peak was staggering. There wasn¡¯t a single place in the Isle where the Grand Celestial Peak wasn¡¯t blatantly visible in the sky. It was large enough that entire valleys existed in on its slopes, covered with trees and rivers. Since it was winter, the entire mountain and island were blanketed in thick glinting snow and the highest rivers were clearly frozen solid. ¡°Godsdamn, it¡¯s even bigger than I thought!¡± Jiayun craned to see it. ¡°I find it hard to believe such an enormous mountain could form normally...¡± Clavius raised a finger and waggled it. ¡°It didn¡¯t! An ancient cultivator who had ascended to beyond Terrestrial Rankings and had reached the Celestial Domain carved it themselves.¡± ¡°...cultivators are that powerful?¡± ¡°Almost none these days are, to be fair...¡± Of course, the main attraction was the schools. They ringed the island in four clusters, each housing five schools¡ªexcept for the western cluster, as that had six including Flowing River. When they saw the schools, both Nashara and Jiayun¡¯s jaws dropped. Elaborate jade pavilions, massive brick libraries, huge castles¡ªthese schools boggled the mind. Their grounds extended for miles and the buildings themselves exhibited such artifice only cultivators could have made them. By far the most impressive was 100 Jade Lotus Academy, a massive eastern-style castle compound dotted with pagodas and enormous red lecture halls and roadways literally made from jade, their various paths forming an artful design of a lotus when viewed from up above. Even the thick snow blanketing the grounds could not outshine the sheer level of artifice on display. ¡°That¡¯s 100 Jade Lotus Academy...I have a lot of relatives in there!¡± Yujie explained. ¡°It¡¯s easily the most brutal of all the schools. It only takes A-Ranks and above, and is the only one that takes SSS-Ranks...there, even an A-Rank is a small fry.¡± Jiayun quickly counted up the grounds. It was rather easy, as the five schools there were all wildly distinct in shape an architectural style, and the map she had bought also included pamphlets on all the schools, including aerial pictures. She saw 100 Jade Lotus Academy, Highweald University of Cultivation and Magical Arts (a massive castle situated in the beginning slopes of the mountain), Nine-Pointed Star School of Body Refinement (another eastern-style school, though this one looked more Sakura Shogunate-ish), The Lyceum of Martial Excellence (a flat, rather Roman-esque set of white marble parthenons and open forums, and finally, Deva¡¯s Grace Gymnasium, whose temples and buildings definitely resembled something from the Southern reaches of the Grand Expanse. The schools were surprisingly far apart from each other¡ªclose enough to walk in about half a day¡¯s each, but far enough to justify driving. ¡°Where¡¯s Flowing River?¡± She scanned the area for it, but it was the one school the map didn¡¯t have a pamphlet for. ¡°It¡¯s not listed on my map and I don¡¯t have pictures for it.¡± ¡°Oh, it¡¯s right there.¡± Clavius pointed directly next to 100 Jade Lotus Academy. ¡°See it?¡± ¡°But there¡¯s nothing there, there¡¯s just some crappy buildings...oh. Oh no.¡± Jiayun was right. Directly outside of 100 Jade Lotus Academy¡¯s thick vibrant walls was a complete dump. It was far smaller than the other schools, and while the buildings would have been pretty impressive back in Lavonia, they looked like poorhouses compared to the other schools. One section of the tiny grounds was covered by a massive building which was half rubble and the other half clearly having been never touched for decades. Most of the buildings were rather dull colors, as well, the direct proximity to 100 Jade Lotus Academy making them even more drob. ¡°That can¡¯t possibly be Flowing River.¡± Clavius responded with zero shame. ¡°Yup! It is.¡± ¡°It looks like it¡¯s about to be condemned!¡± ¡°Well, to be fair, it is...¡± ¡°We¡¯re going to school in that place, right next to the most impressive school on the Isle!¡± ¡°Yeah, 100 Jade Lotus students sometimes pick on us...¡± Yujie frowned. He had known about Flowing River for a long time¡ªbeing in a clan of cultivators brought him to 100 Jade Lotus Academy enough as a kid that they couldn¡¯t hide its existence forever¡ªbut now it just dawned on him that the same relatives who had mocked him for not having cultivation talent wouldn¡¯t stop just because he had it. Now they¡¯d just mock him for having F-Rank talent. Especially that one young master¡­ ////////// Jiayun exited the train rather matter-of-factly, hauling her luggage behind her. Nashara and Yujie on the other hand had literally waterfalls of tears streaming down their face as they realized just how much of a crap hand they had been dealt.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Yujie, sometimes I wonder if I should have just withdrawn and spent life as a normal mortal...¡± ¡°Stay strong, Nashara...though I can¡¯t blame you for shedding manly tears.¡± Jiayun looked back at them with frost eyes, rolling them after several silent seconds. ¡°Come on.¡± The train had let them off half a day¡¯s walk from Flowing River and 100 Jade Lotus Academy, at a very small ¡°town¡± that was really just a quick stop to grab supplies and food. Of course, the 100 Jade Lotus Academy students quickly bullied their way past the Flowing River students. Since cultivation talent was effectively random, it didn¡¯t look like a bunch of well-robed bourgeoisie bowling over the proletariat¡ªsome of the Lotus Academy students were paupers in barely-passable hand-me-downs, and some of Flowing River¡¯s student body was luxuriously garbed. Rather, the difference was clear in their mannerisms. The Lotus Academy students carried themselves with a smug air of superiority that only a few suppressed. The Flowing River students had a sort of humbleness to their actions, which the Lotus Academy¡¯s student body ruthlessly exploited. Soon, a variety of shuttles came to deliver the students to their schools. Of course, the shuttles were paid by the schools, and Flowing River¡¯s looked like veritable deathtraps compared to the almost offensively opulent Lotus Academy¡¯s shuttles, the former having worn paint and leaking smoke whereas the latter were decorated with elaborate gold filligree on the sides making beautiful lotus patterns. Nashara himself tilted his head in confusion at the veritable parade of glorified taxis. ¡°Using a bus doesn¡¯t sound very cultivator-like...¡± Yujie slapped him in the back, the force making Nashara have to maintain his posture. ¡°Dude, you¡¯re acting like we have to use mystical crap ALL the time. No point in wasting a core on some precious treasure when we can just drive there...I told you those books were full of crap.¡± ¡°Dammit, don¡¯t remind me! Ah, they said it was so much more exciting than this!¡± Nashara walked to a bench and slumped in it. ¡°Where¡¯s the part where I punch people!?¡± ¡°It is, I swear. Just gotta deal with annoying EDCC fat cats sometimes!¡± ¡°Augh...I gotta make the best of this. Very few people get this chance. I just wish I hadn¡¯t gotten screwed on every single thing related to this, you know.¡± Yujie remained silent for over half a minute. Nashara only glanced at him. Finally, the Xiaolong scion rose up and took a series of deep, controlled breaths. ¡°Nashara Zaras. The blood of cultivation doesn¡¯t flow in anyone, you know. Only those who don¡¯t back down from challenges, who aim higher and higher constantly, are the ones who get it. If you don¡¯t have the heart for cultivation, you¡¯ll know soon. Just remember: the Dao of the cultivator is to be as strong as solid steel, as relentless as crashing waves, as patient as grinding glaciers, and as vibrant as an orchard. So stop worrying about it! You will see very soon that you¡¯re not as mortal as you think you are.¡± ¡°Sheesh man...¡± Nashara got up and fist-bumped Yujie. ¡°You¡¯re a dork. But you¡¯re a damn cool dork. Come on, let¡¯s go get something to eat before the shuttles leave. ////////// Head Motorized Palanquin Cavalier (read: head bus driver) Tao watched the students mingle. It was blatantly obvious which group were the Lotus Academy and which were his flock. He took a bite of the sandwich sitting on his dashboard, the discolored plastic showcasing many grease stains from his previous hundreds of meals. Sitting directly behind him, on a chair facing the rear of the bus, was an extremely straight-faced lady with long white hair. Adelaina Xufeng: Headmistress of Flowing River. Adelaina merely getting up was enough to make the bus lurch in ways it probably shouldn¡¯t have. ¡°Tao, this might be your last year here. Have you thought about where you¡¯ll go?¡± ¡°No way, boss. Right now I¡¯m more worried about having enough gas to get back to the school, actually...¡± ¡°Well, since we¡¯re getting shut down anyway...get some gas. Here¡¯s the money.¡± Adelaina tapped a ring on her finger and a large hose materialized in thin air. This wasn¡¯t some fancy artifact. It was just...a hose. ¡°Oh, you probably need a mint for afterwards...¡± She produced a small green mint and threw both in his hands. ¡°Aw man, I gotta siphon gas again? Doctor said if I do that anymore I might actually get brain damage next time.¡± ¡°You know our funds are tight! The Lotus Academy buses are unguarded for an hour, so hurry!¡± Just then, Clavius hopped on board, waving to the two of them. ¡°¡¯Sup. Can¡¯t believe these old behemoths are still running. And they don¡¯t even look that bad!¡± Tao snorted. ¡°Yeah, if you ignore the squeaking seats, the nearly flat tires, the broken suspension, the worn paint, the completely lifeless steering and--¡± Right then a massive hideous sound of shearing metal sounded throughout the bus, Adelaina and Clavius plugging their ears and grimacing. Tao remained as stoic-faced as ever, only taking another bite into the sandwich. When the three of them turned around, they saw that the floorpanels of the bus had simply broken off. There was now a giant hole in the floor, big enough for a grown man to literally fall into and bonk their head on the driveshaft. ¡°...that¡¯s fixable, right?¡± ¡°I mean,¡± Tao finished his sandwich off and stared Clavius. ¡°It¡¯s fixable. I don¡¯t think it¡¯s worth the money, though. They¡¯re cultivators in training, they can walk around the hole. Adds character.¡± //////// Jiayn had noticed that awful noise¡ªdamn near everyone around had, and watched with slightly horrified eyes. That bus was a literal deathtrap. Was this the first test of her cultivation, merely surviving getting to Flowing River in the first place! While the Lotus Academy students laughed at the absurd sight, she walked up and peeked in the door. ¡°How can you still drive this thing?!¡± Tao looked down at her and shrugged. ¡°Kid, I do the driving. You do the sitting in the chairs. Not row 8, though, that¡¯s one¡¯s been due to collapse into the street for like, 6 months now. I wouldn¡¯t risk it.¡± ¡°How on earth...what happened to Flowing River? How did this place get like this¡­?¡± ¡°Kid...lemme tell you: the EDCC has its favorites and we sure ain¡¯t one of them. It¡¯s amazing we¡¯ve survived this far at all. Have fun with your only year here. The people are nice and friendly , but in the world of cultivation, being friendly¡¯s a bad idea...¡± Jiayun frowned. ¡°...the more I learn, the more it seems like this place isn¡¯t some dump but a well-meaning place that¡¯s just been screwed constantly.¡± ¡°Haha...yeah, that¡¯s maybe it. Oh, don¡¯t mind the girl behind me. That¡¯s our headmistress.¡± ¡°Oh!¡± Jiayun¡¯s eyes opened wide. Adelaina was quite a pretty and voluptuous woman. ¡°Nice to meet--¡± ¡°WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT MY SWORD, TALENT PEASANT?!¡± That conversation was quickly ended as the arrogant rage of a well-dressed man adorned in blue robes with gold highlights sounded throughout the area. All three of them turned their eyes to see said man alongside...Nashara? Nashara was holding an extremely elaborate saber. Too elaborate, even. An incredibly busy amount of detailed engravings and greebles were all over it, and it an absolutely hideously gaudy array of rainbow colors. The thing looked like it could barely cut anything without spiritual power. Nashara had seen it up against a wall and said ¡°What the hell is this chintzy garbage?¡± Then, exhibiting probably a suicidal amount of boldness, he picked it up. It was exceptionally heavy for its size. Suddenly, that blue-robed man had yelled at him. Nashara turned to him. ¡°I said what the hell is this chintzy sword? It looks like a 12-year-old had designed it. Is this yours? Sheesh, dude.¡± Nashara cocked his arm back and flung the sword at the man. The man caught the spinning weapon with zero trouble and pointed it at him. ¡°You Flowing River trash...I am Xiaolong Yifeng, SSS-Rank talent cultivator and disciple of 100 Jade Lotus Academy...I understand that you can¡¯t understand such transcendent graceness when you see it, but if I had asked for a pauper¡¯s opinion on my Nine Rainbow Saber, I would have asked for it. Which I would ever have asked! Ever! Ling and Huang, deal with...where the hell are you two!?¡± ¡°Oh shit, boss¡¯s calling us...¡± Two men, one in green, one in red approached from the crowd, all eyes having locked on Nashara and Yifeng. Both of them looked rather plain, and the one in green was...stuffing a burrito in his mouth? ¡°Boss, you gotta try this burrito, man, this thing is the bomb!¡± The one clad in green motioned towards Yifeng, his words slurred from the food in his mouth. He didn¡¯t appear to be taking this very seriously. Yifeng turned nearly so red with rage he looked he might blow his top and punched the green-clad lackey in the gut, though it didn¡¯t appear to do much. ¡°You IDIOTS! Why weren¡¯t you at my side and guarding my sword!? And Ming, stop shoving your mouth full of that damned burrito!¡± ¡°Sorry boss, I was hungry as hell. And, like, once I saw this burrito in the nearby gas station--¡± Ming took some time off to take another bite, grinning in delight. ¡°I had to have to, boss. Let¡¯s just go, man.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t just GO. This talent peasant insulted my precious treasure!¡± He turned back to Nashara, his face red-hot. ¡°You! You have no idea how valuable this is! It¡¯s carved from five kinds of jade, and inlaid with crystals forged by artisans from all over the Great Expanse!¡± ¡°Mmmm, oh my gods¡­dude, they put like, five cheeses in this burrito, it¡¯s just nutty. Holy shit. I gotta go back there.¡± ¡°The handle is made from a mythic oak deep within the forests of Midgard, having absorbed essence from the world for 1000 years, harder than almost any steel, wrapped in the thin yet strong shed skin of 30-foot long serpents!¡± ¡°boss, we just got that handle at a cultivator flea market for like, 50 bucks¡± ¡°It¡¯s even been drenched in the blood of snipes whose thick veins run with jade blood to make it even stronger!¡± ¡°That¡¯s not even real, boss.¡± Ming leaned over and looked at Nashara. ¡°He¡¯s making up like half this shit, really, we just bought the sword from some cultivator because literally no one wanted it.¡± ¡°MING IF YOU DO NOT SHUT UP THIS INSTANT I WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE!¡± Ming shrugged and wolfed down the last of his burrito. ¡°Chill dude, we still wrapped it up. I gotta go if you¡¯re just gonna yell at this dude.¡± Yifeng grabbed his ear forcefully and pulled him to his side, grimacing and literally quivering with rage. ¡°You will not be going anywhere until my business is finished!¡± Ming thrashed about. ¡°Aw come on, maaaaaaaan! It¡¯s Taco Tuesday!¡± Yifeng growled and hurled him away in a flash, Ming flying through the air comically and landing perfectly square center into a trash can and falling over. ¡°Ow! Come on boss, I¡¯m in literal garbage right now! ...oh, yeah, an unopened chip bag.¡± Soon the sounds of plastic being torn open and munching sounded through the gas station¡¯s lot. ¡°Sweet, it¡¯s Flaming Hot flavor too!¡± Yifeng stepped towards Nashara before this farce got any worse. He pointed his gaudy mess of a sword at him. ¡°You! What do you have to say for yourself?¡± ¡°Me?¡± Nashara dug his hands in his pockets and scoffed. ¡°I don¡¯t have to say anything. Just because you¡¯re a buster who can¡¯t handle someone clowning on his crappy sword doesn¡¯t mean I have to be nice about it.¡± ¡°YOU¡­.¡± Yifeng laid down the sword and thrust it into the ground. The sheer force made the area slightly shake, plumes of snow blowing through the area. The sword remained straight upright in the ground, the crowd ooohing-and-aaahing at the sight...until the imbalanced detailed bits made it fall over into the snow with a pathetic fwomp. ¡°Nice sword, bro. Where¡¯d you get it, back of a cereal box?¡± ¡°...your school is going to be shut down in a year. I¡¯ll make sure its final year starts properly¡ªby beating one of its students into the dirt!¡± ¡°Really man?¡± Nashara rolled his eyes and coolly strode up to him. ¡°You¡¯re doing the whole ¡®hot-tempered young master¡¯ thing without even the slightest twist? Dude, I read stories with tropes less stereotypical than you. Ah, screw it.¡± His heart burned to take this challenge head on. There was no way he could back down now. ¡°Sure, why not. Bring it.¡± Truth be told, this was an idiotic move, but Nashara had too much fire in his veins to not take it on. Yujie watched from afar...his relative was an SSS-Rank, yes, but his martial training was extremely lazy and unfocused. ¡°Nash might have a chance...¡±