Chapter Ninety-One: Ranking on the First-Year Divine Wood List

Under the sacred tree, a blue gleam flashed across the wrist-mounted mind device. Before long, a stone disk dropped down from above. This time, unlike the first, no one came specially to receive them. The three stepped onto the disk and rose slowly toward the main city.

Before them stood the giant tree, its crown beyond sight. Between the gaps in its branches, one could occasionally glimpse the silhouettes of mutated beasts in the distance. Deep in the forest, tiny forms of mutated creatures moved among the leaves everywhere, but none of truly enormous size could be seen.

“Ling, have you ever seen a mutated beast as huge as the ones drawn in books?”

Ye Bai suddenly grew curious. Where did those gigantic mutated beasts live? The largest he had ever seen in his life might have been the Timber Beast Guard. Compared with the creatures described in books, even that beast looked like a tiny ant.

Yao Ling watched the mutated beasts in the forest grow smaller and smaller, and suddenly felt the world spread out beneath her like a map. She drew her gaze back and thought for a moment before saying, “I don’t think so. On the sacred tree outside the main city, blood from king-tier mutated beasts is smeared all over it. Normally, powerful mutated beasts do not dare come near the main city because of that might.”

Yao Ling turned around. The stone disk was already almost at the city’s edge, when she suddenly cried out, “Or maybe there was.”

She had nearly forgotten that when she was six, the blazing sun had retreated and heaven and earth were swallowed by darkness. Around one or two in the afternoon, the sky suddenly went black, and the entire main city was plunged into gloom. At the time, she had heard that a mutated beast had flown over the main city.

“Oh? Really?”

Ye Bai was somewhat curious about how immense the mutated beasts of this world could be.

Yao Ling racked her brains and came up with a phrase, telling Ye Bai, “It blotted out the sky and covered the sun. The whole main city was hidden beneath its body.”

“What!” Cao Xiao Seng finally woke up and showed an expression even more shocked than Ye Bai’s. His father could be said to be the most widely traveled and knowledgeable man in all of Li City. Cao Xiao Seng remembered hearing his father say that the largest mutated beast he had ever seen was more than ten stories tall. Even then, he had already thought that creature unimaginably huge. Just how enormous would a mutated beast be if it could cover an entire main city?

One hundred stories? Two hundred? Five hundred? A thousand? Cao Xiao Seng did not dare imagine it, and neither did Ye Bai. With mutated beasts of such terrifying scale, how had humanity survived? How had the Three Kings, the Four Great Academies, the Star Core warriors, and the countless ancestors already fallen in battle carved out even a breathing space for humankind from the jaws of those monsters?

“Later, my mother said that beast seemed to have been a roc, the largest bird in the world, and the greatest mutated beast since the Dark Calamity.”

Yao Ling pressed the knife deeper into the wound. She simply liked seeing the astonished expressions on Ye Bai and Cao Xiao Seng’s faces.

With a click, the stone disk came to a steady stop at the city edge. The three stepped down from it and, for the first time, truly felt how small they were, living in this world like mere ants.

Before the main gate of the city, the green qilin still stood there, unchanged. Perhaps in ten or twenty years, new history would be carved upon it.

Inside the city, it remained as lively as ever. Handsome men and beautiful women flowed in and out of all kinds of shops and clothing stores, smiles on their faces. Perhaps for them, the greatest annoyance was only discovering that the things they bought cost more than someone else’s, or that the beauty treatment they received was not quite as good as another’s. Then they would complain a little to the shopkeeper or mutter curses in their hearts at the beautician’s poor skill.

They never cared why life was as it was. They never worried about the struggle for survival. They knew the outside world was dangerous and that death could come at any moment, but what did that have to do with them? There were the Three Kings, the Four Great Academies, and Star Core warriors. Would such matters ever reach ordinary people like them?

Yao Ling was not like the girls of the main city, dressed in gaudy splendor and forever longing for the latest fashions. Like Ye Bai and Cao Xiao Seng, she walked straight through the commercial district and came to the entrance of Mulberry Street.

As they passed through the commercial quarter, people kept glancing at the three who crossed the street without once turning to look at the merchandise. The girl among them had a fair face, and the tear-shaped mole at the corner of her eye was especially striking. Every glance of her features seemed to shimmer with spirit. Behind her followed a lazy-looking man, not especially handsome but with a natural ease about him. Ahead, the dark-eyed young man fixed his gaze on the statue of the Tree Emperor at the boundary between districts. With every step he took, it was as if a divine blade were unsheathed, too sharp to meet directly, forcing others to avert their eyes.

The passersby were curious about the three who had suddenly appeared, but when they saw the clothes they wore, they recoiled as if fleeing a plague. They hastily stepped aside to clear a path for them. Even the laughter and chatter around them seemed to soften. It was as though the space available for everyone else had suddenly been compressed by the arrival of these three, making it a little hard to breathe.

Students of the Purple Star Academy, thought every ordinary person.

If one were to ask whom the people of the main city admired most, perhaps besides the Tree Emperor there were only the members of the two academies. Admiration was one thing, but these were also the last people anyone wanted to become entangled with. One misstep, and a person could be ground to dust. The worlds of ants and men were never the same.

The weak need not think about the troubles of the strong, and the strong need not heed the sorrow of the weak.

The mind device Mu Er flew out, and before the three appeared a gate bearing only the imposing words of the Purple Star Academy. Beyond it, there was nothing particularly eye-catching. The air rippled in waves, and the three vanished from sight. Meanwhile, the old man from the armory, seeing Ye Bai approach the gate, smiled to himself and resumed his “retirement life.”

“Go back and rest first. I’ve already checked this mission. It’s been submitted, and the points should come down in the next few days. As for the black crystal stone, leave it with Ling for now. We can talk tomorrow after we gather again.”

“Okay.” Yao Ling answered Ye Bai and left first. As for Cao Xiao Seng, he had already entered a state of sleepwalking and made his own way back to the dormitory. Perhaps for him, life consisted of little more than fighting and sleeping. Maybe someday Ling would be added to that list too, but who could say what the future held? One could only hope.

Ye Bai shook his head, realizing he had thought too far ahead. Even the things before him had not yet been resolved, and he was already thinking of the future. After entering the Purple Star Academy, his taut nerves finally loosened, and sleepiness came surging wildly into his mind.

He stood there and let out a soft laugh, then turned and walked toward his dormitory.

——————

Before the technology building, many freshmen had gathered. Three at a time, five in a cluster, they chatted now and then, but every so often they would lift their heads to see whether the ranking on the Tree God Board in front of the building had changed.

“I wonder who will be number one on the Tree God Board for our class? I’m kind of looking forward to it.”

Student A glanced at the Tree God Board, which had not changed, then lowered his head and resumed chatting with his companions.

“Yeah. I saw that the first assessment mission for the first-year students had all been submitted, so I rushed over here. I didn’t even have time to touch up my makeup. I want to see who’ll be number one.”

Student B wiped at skin already dried by the July sun, then hid a little behind her companion, trying to escape the sun’s pursuit.

The mind device was linked to the academy system. Whether first-year, second-year, third-year, or fourth-year students took a mission, if they were killed during it, the device would report back to the academy and the mission would be automatically marked as failed. Another team would be dispatched to complete it. If it failed twice, the academy would post the mission to the points bounty board and let all students take it.

For the first assessment mission of the freshmen, it was generally an entry-level intermediate mission, at most no higher than entry-level peak. Once a freshman had died, that team was already considered to have failed. Among the remaining living freshmen, all teams had now submitted their missions, and at that point the first ranking on the Tree God Board would appear.

“I think it might be the young master of Li City. After all, he’s so handsome!!!”

The surrounding people looked at this girl as though she were hopelessly infatuated, but no one said anything.

“Ye Bai and Cao Xiao Seng both have a chance. After all, they both placed in the top ten on the entrance exam; their strength shouldn’t be underestimated.” At this, a rather handsome student spoke up.

“Look, the first place on the Tree God Board is out!”

“Who is it? Who is it!!!”

The technology building began to change, and the entire crowd of first-year students below erupted into excitement.

“The top of the ranking is...”

The student standing in front was the first to see the name that appeared on the Tree God Board, but it seemed odd to him, so he looked again carefully before saying, “First on the Tree God Board is Blade.”

“Blade?”

“Who is Blade?”

“How could there be such a strange name?”

The students began whispering among themselves, discussing who Blade might be.

At that moment, a person stepped out from the student crowd and stood on the highest point outside the technology building. He said loudly, “Blade. You don’t even know who that is? How ignorant.”

With a face full of mockery, the student explained to those below, “The entrance exam, you know about that. Have you seen the final rankings?”

The students below thought about it and shook their heads. At the time, nearly all the limelight had been stolen by Xing Qing Ning and Sha Long. Who would remember anyone else? The only reason someone had recognized Ye Bai and Cao Xiao Seng was that he happened to be in the same class as them; back then, Yao Ling’s exclamation had made him remember their names.

Some of the sharper students now opened their mind devices to check. They had not known before, but after looking, they were stunned.

Reading the information displayed on the mind device, the student said word by word, “Blade, an excellent student in the entrance exam, ranked fourth overall, just below Xing Qing Ning, Sha Long, and Cao Xiao Seng.”

“What?”

In an instant, the student crowd exploded. Another top-ten entrance exam talent? In the past, having two top-ten entrants in the Purple Star Academy was already considered good. This year there were actually three, and both Cao Xiao Seng and Blade were in the top five. Suddenly, everyone felt as though something heavy were pressing down on their shoulders, making it hard to breathe.

In previous joint examinations among the four great academies, regardless of first-year, second-year, third-year, or fourth-year, the Purple Star Academy was usually dead last. This time, three students who had ranked in the entrance exam’s top ten entered the academy all at once, and it gave them the feeling that the Purple Star Academy was about to rise. Instantly, the burden on their shoulders felt far heavier.

The man standing at the highest point saw that his purpose had been achieved. With a smile at the corner of his mouth, he melted back into the crowd.

Blade, true to his name. He was not merely someone carrying a blade; he seemed himself to be a blade: sharp, relentless, unstoppable.

He had been fortunate enough to be in the same team as Blade. At first, he and another person had thought Blade was just a taciturn show-off, the kind who loved to strike cool poses and whose expression never changed, an utterly cold and poker-faced peacock.

But when they reached the mission site, the two of them were already preparing to battle the mutated beasts, only to see a blade-light flash through the sky. The mutated beast was split clean in two and dead beyond doubt.

From the moment they departed the Purple Star Academy to the moment they returned, excluding travel time there and back, they had spent no more than three hours actually on the mission.

Powerful. So powerful it was suffocating. That had been their thought at the time.

“Look, second place is Ye Bai.”

“Third is the young master of Li City.”

“Fourth is someone from Yang City.”

As for Cao Xiao Seng, he had slipped to fifth place, while Yao Ling was even further back, her name not appearing until fifty-fifth.

This was the first ranking for the first-year students. It displayed the standings of all freshmen; after the next assessment, only the top twenty would be shown.