Sun Wu Fen, the Clan Leader of the second most powerful clan on the Maple Continent, the Sun Clan, said in a calm tone, “The second prince can actually match up to someone in the Meridian Opening realm, using only Basic-level techniques. That’s quite the accomplishment since there has never been someone capable of that, even the crown prince with a similar comprehension grade couldn’t.”
Even though what Xi Shen did should be shocking to everyone, Sun Wu Fen and everyone else was rather calm, even a bit dismissive. After all, Xi Shen might be showing off his heaven-defying talent now, but without a foundation grade that display just made them petty him even more.
Fu Wei who was alone on the plain pavilion was chuckling in his heart.
‘So little brother you actually weren’t lying, when you said that who was holding back. Your Spectral Steps have reached the Completion, even stepping into the legendary territory of becoming one with the technique. Hahaha, this should be considered amazing, but with your current situation, I’m afraid that it’s nothing more than a spark in the night sky. Beautiful and dazzling, but will eventually fade away.’
As Fu Wei thinks that, he suddenly had another thought.
‘If you're hiding this much of your strength up until now, what else are you hiding?’
Fu Wei went back in his memory to that time when he entered Xi Shen's room. He hadn’t forgotten how strange the entire situation was.
Ever since that moment, he started to suspect that his little brother was different. But as the years went by that feeling was starting to fade, only appearing ever so often, today increasingly so.
Fu Wei came out of his thoughts and looked back at the podium.
After Xi Shen broke the elder’s arm, he appeared next to the ragged clothe youth.
“Are you okay?”
When Xi Shen asked that, the ragged clothe youth glanced up at him through teary eyes.
“Se..second prince?!”
The youth was slightly taken aback as he said that through his sobs.
“Are you able to stand?” Xi Shen asked again.
The ragged clothe youth tried to stand up again but the pain coming from his broken arm made his knees buckle under him.
Before he could fall though, Xi Shen caught him and said, “If you can’t stand get on my back.”
After saying that, Xi Shen knelt in front of him.
Hearing that, the youth hesitated slightly.
The fact that the second prince of the Maple Continent wanted him to climb on his back, made him extremely nervous. He wondered if he was in a dream right now, and was back in his village snoring off in the cowshed like usual.
If so, he wanted to wake up immediately because his mother could find him at any moment and scold him.
As the youth was wondering how he could wake up from this dream, he suddenly heard the second prince’s voice again.
“What are you waiting for? Hurry up, I don’t have time to waste.”
Hearing that the youth snapped out of his thoughts and nervously climb onto Xi Shen’s back.
Although Xi Shen was around the same age as him, the ragged clothe youth realized that he was significantly more well built than himself and was even a head and a half taller.
This made the ragged clothe youth thought of his older brother, who had tragically died when he was younger.
Resting his head on Xi Shen’s shoulder, he got the feeling that Xi Shen was his older brother.
This made his sobbing return.
Xi Shen then placed his hand under the ragged clothe youth's thighs and slowly walked off the podium, while trying not to aggravate the youth’s hand resting over his shoulder.
While walking away Xi Shen’s voice rang out in the venue, “I’m taking this person as my assistant!!”
As Xi Shen said that, he began walking towards the outer disciple courtyards, in the inner regions of the academy.
Everyone remained silent as he walked away.
No one objected to his announcement or mention the fact that he had just injured an elder of the Celestial Academy.
Some people at the venue probably thought that the Celestial Academy didn’t say anything because they disagreed with the elder's actions against the ragged clothe youth.
Said elder that had his arm broken was even replaced by another Outer Sect elder, who eventually went on to finish the Disciple Selection Ceremony.
It was found that eight children out of over a thousand candidates possess Sky-grade innate talent.
Two were from the Ming Clan, and the rest were from the other six major Clans.
Everyone was lamenting about the fact that only the major clans had persons who were qualified to enter the Celestial Academy this year again.
However, that was soon overshadowed by the news of the second prince being unable to cultivate.
The events of the Celestial Academy’s Disciple Selection Ceremony had spread like wildfire across the Maple Continent. Everyone found out that Xi Shen had been the first person in the Maple Continent’s history to possess two Supreme-grade attributes, but was dumbfounded when they heard that he possessed no foundation to cultivate Spiritual Qi.
In the midst of all this, several ridiculing names were given to Xi Shen, but the two prominent ones were, the ‘fallen prince’ and the ‘talented trash’.
The latter being a play on words, as Xi Shen possessed Supreme-grade attributes for his soul and comprehension, but was unable to cultivate due to a lack of foundation.
Everyone thought those were fitting names for Xi Shen’s current predicament.
Though, the news of the Emperor’s decree that allowed Xi Shen to still enter the Celestial Academy had picked up traction as well.
Most people didn’t question the Emperor’s decree, however, some group of people in the shadows were voicing their disagreement, and were even inciting the populace to speak out about the Emperor’s supposed selfish decision of letting his crippled son enter the prestigious Celestial Academy, and taint their record.
They even went as far as to say that the Emperor was abusing his power, and shockingly, should be removed from his position.
However, that absurd commotion was quickly squashed by an unknown force.
----
~Three Months Later~
The Celestial Academy’s outer sect was located in the outer regions of the Celestial Academy. One could even say that it was somewhat separated from the true academy itself.
Most of the outer disciples’ courtyards look the same.
They were surrounded by a three-meter-tall wall and had a shabby built hut at the center, that was around twenty meters from corner to corner.
There was also a convenient space within the courtyard for disciples to train.
The outer sect disciples couldn’t complain about their accommodation, as they were practically at the bottom of the barrel among the disciples in the Celestial Academy.
One thing that also should be mentioned, is that the outer sect courtyards were actually for disciples that didn’t meet the Sky-grade innate talent requirement.
The Celestial Academy might be rigid in their qualifications to enter, but they have made exceptions for some people. For example, there might be a disciple in the outer sect that had Sky-grade for their foundation and comprehension but have an Earth-grade for their soul.
Some of them even had a Heaven-grade for one of their attributes.
However, even in this scenario, the Celestial Academy still had a requirement, and it’s that their foundation grade should at the very least be at the Sky-grade, even if all their other attributes were Human-grade or Earth-grade.
Aside from the outer sect courtyards, there were also the Inner disciple courtyards, the Core disciple courtyards, and the Conclave disciple courtyards.
For an outer disciple to become an inner disciple, they would have to reach the Sea Expansion realm before their sixteen years old.
Even for a disciple with a Sky-grade innate talent, this would be significantly difficult to accomplish. To cultivate through the five Physical realms it would normally take five to ten years, but disciples in the Celestial Academy had to do it within three.
And what’s even worse, is that the amount of cultivation resources an outer disciple has access to was limited.
This made competition for resources between the newly arrived disciples intense to a terrifying degree.
Every time the Celestial Academy held its Disciple Selection Ceremony, all the older outer sect disciples who weren’t able to meet the Celestial Academy’s requirement to become an Inner Disciple would watch on in amusement as the new disciples frantically fought over resources to increase their cultivation.Though, the outer sect disciples didn’t face this type of pressure alone. The people who had Sky-grade innate talent and were promoted straight to an Inner Sect disciple would face a demotion to an outer sect disciple if they weren’t able to reach the Sea Expansion realm before they turn sixteen.It’s been three months and the ‘Freshmen Disciple Competition’ was coming up.This competition was separated by outer and inner sect disciples. And as it draws near, it caused the tension between all the new disciples to become noticeable, the outer sect disciples even more so.
Within the small stone hut, Xi Shen was seated in a cross-legged position with Yang Su in front of him.“All right Yang Su, are you ready?”As Xi Shen said that, Yang Su looked nervous as he said, “Wait, elder brother Xi Shen you haven’t exactly told me what you're going to do.”After Yang Su had greeted Xi Shen, the latter had immediately dragged him into the hut without any explanation.They were currently within the only bedroom in the house, and Yang Su could see that most of the furniture was either knocked over or totally destroyed. Yang Su also saw burnt marks on the white-blanketed bed in the corner.The whole room just looked as if a burning tornado had swept through the room. And even though there was a formation that gathers the Spiritual Qi from the surrounding area here and acts as a protection for the small house, Yang Su still saw fine
Xi Shen still had his hand on the floor, which he sent his perception through to control his master rune. All of the Spiritual Qi the black formation on the mountain was supplying to all the outer disciple's courtyards suddenly began rushing towards his room.The room began to shake as the Spiritual Qi poured out from the red rune, towards the rotating sphere of Spiritual Qi in front of Yang Su’s dantian.The furious aura that came from a fifth mountain some distance away from the four outer disciple mountains, was due to the Head Elder of the Outer Sect, who was at the Soul Transformation Realm.That Head Elder was currently hovering in the sky above the mountain. His raging aura towered to the heavens causing the clouds to become dark while flashing phenomenons appeared lightening up the mid-day sky.As soon as his figure appeared above the mountain, he shot across the sky in a colorful strea
Xi Shen who was guiding the Six Elemental Qi to fuse with Yang Su’s dantian slowly lifted his gaze towards the ceiling of the bedroom. As if he could see through the stone ceiling to look at the ever-increasing tribulation that was around three hundred meters now, Xi Shen’s eyes narrowed into slits.A smile then suddenly spread across his lips as he said, “You want to stop me?” As Xi Shen said that a derisive expression appeared on his face before he condescendingly yell, “Don’t make me laugh!! Who the fuck do you think you are?!!”As if the consciousness heard Xi Shen's words, the dark clouds swirled in fury before a lightning bolt with the thickness of a meter struck down from the heavens toward the small stone hut.Seeing this, the Head Elder and all the disciples on the second mountain face drained of blood, the disciples even more so. They all frantically rush off the mounta
Without saying anything, Donghuan grasped towards Xi Shen.With that gesture, Xi Shen immediately felt his body become rigid and he was unable to move even a finger.Seeing this a cold look flashed within Xi Shen's eyes, but it quickly disappeared and was replaced with a frightened expression, after which he started screaming hysterically, “Wait!! Head Elder, it wasn’t me I swear, you have the wrong person!!”Donghuan frowned upon hearing Xi Shen’s wails. He formed a hand seal and then pointed at Xi Shen, causing his mouth to clamp shut. After that Donghuan used his Divine Will to lift Xi Shen off the ground.He then said, “No form of pleading will allow you to escape the Academy’s punishment. Even if you’re the second prince, trash like you won’t escape the enforcement of the Academy’s rules.”When Xi Shen heard that, he suddenly had
Within the Celestial Academy, there were various divisions specific to the different paths of cultivation. For example, there is the Alchemy Pavilion, which focuses on studying the myriads of spirit herbs under heaven and concocting medicinal pills using pill formulas from them.Aside from the Alchemy Pavilion, there are also divisions like the Blacksmith Pavilion, the Formations Pavilion, the Beast Tamers Pavilion, and a bunch of other major and minor paths of cultivation.With that said, out of all of those divisions, the one with the most fame and prestige is the Sword Pavilion. They’re also the strongest division and they have the power to influence the Academy as a whole.Despite the Blade Pavilion, which was the Sword Pavilion’s rival, being said to have power that’s close to theirs, in reality, they were way behind.The Head Master of the Sword Pavilion was said to have reach
As Ye Fei said that, his sharp gaze wandered around the room searching for any fluctuating signs in space.Seeing this, Xi Shen frowned and said, “Vice Head Master Ye Fei, I think we have gone way off topic from what we were supposed to be talking about, and by we I mean you.”Hearing that, Ye Fei coughed awkwardly and said, “Right, right, second prince, you might not want to admit it, but these are evidence against you that shows your nature to cause trouble.” Ye Fei gestured to the stack of papers as he said that.Looking at the frowning Xi Shen, he continued and said, “Due to you being the second prince, the Celestial Academy will overlook this incident”Xi Shen raised his eyebrow upon hearing that.“And who exactly are you to speak for the Celestial Academy?”“Oh, don’t get it wrong, I’m on
Xi Shen looked at Yang Su’s bemoaning expression and he couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty. He had completely forgotten that Yan Su was back in the Outer Sect getting familiar with his new Dao Foundation.“Ahem”Coughing awkwardly Xi Shen changed the topic by pointing out Yang Su’s cultivation, “Yang Su, I see you’ve already stepped on the path of a cultivator by entering the 1st Stage of the Qi Condensation Realm. Since you had a bit of time to examine and get familiar with your Six Elemental Qi Dao Foundation. What do you think of it?”Both Xi Shen and Yang Su were out in the training ground, with Yang Su seated cross-legged on the ground while Xi Shen stood in front of him similar to a teacher and disciple scenario.Yang Su placed his upset emotions away and answered Xi Shen, “Elder brother Xi Shen, the Foundation you ga…”