Chapter Ninety-Two: The Five Teams

A little girl in her childhood had once been running in the wild field beside Ye Bai’s home, with the boy trying hard to keep up behind her, burdened by two schoolbags and a half-eaten snack still in his hand. She was laughing and asking about the brilliant stars overhead, pointing to a cluster that looked like a spoon. He told her to remember the stars that marked the way, so that if he were ever gone, she would still know how to find her path.

Then, in the depth of sleep, Ye Bai was drenched in sweat and convulsing, calling out to her again and again. He shouted in panic and sprang upright in bed, only to find the familiar dormitory around him. It had all been a dream.

He washed the sweat from his face, went into the bathing room, and let cold water strike his body. The chill made him shiver by instinct. Eyes closed, he recalled every fragment of the dream. Water ran through his hair, over the hard planes of his chest, and down the taut strength of his legs to the floor.

The great mouth at the end of the dream was surely something he had never seen before, or at least something he could not remember. Ever since he had come to the main city, his dreams had grown increasingly strange: mouths large enough to swallow the sky, beasts whose turning bodies could bring down mountains, enormous birds whose wingbeats could summon hurricanes.

After washing, Ye Bai dried his damp hair with a towel, and suddenly the intelligent device on his wrist lit up.

A tiny figure named Mu Er emerged from the device, no more than a handspan tall, with translucent blue wings. She was round and plump, not unlike the girl in his dream, except that this Mu Er had a red envelope hanging on her chest.

Ye Bai, it’s nearly seven. I’m going to fetch the monk first. We’ll meet at the academy cafeteria at eight.

Medicine Spirit had personally gone to call Cao Xiao Seng. Ye Bai, rarely given to gossip, found himself smiling to the empty air, the towel forgotten in his hand.

Hm?

Just as he was about to switch off the device and let Mu Er return to his wrist, he noticed that the forum for first-year students seemed to have exploded, refreshing madly before his eyes.

With a careless motion, Ye Bai pulled up the holographic projection from Mu Er’s abdomen and began reading the forum.

The very first page displayed the ranking of the Divine Wood List for first-year students.

He himself was second. The monk was fifth. As for Medicine Spirit, Ye Bai was somewhat surprised to find her in fifty-fifth place. There were only a little over one hundred and fifty first-year students in the entire academy.

The four great academies had always followed an elite path. Each of the three major cities accepted three hundred students every year, while Greenforest Main City had two academies, Purple Star Academy and Heavenly Wood Academy, each of which took in only one hundred and fifty.

In truth, Medicine Spirit could have chosen Heavenly Wood Academy on her own. With the standing of the Medicine family and the renown of her elder brother, she would certainly have lived more comfortably there.

She would not have had to gamble her life with him and Cao Xiao Seng on every mission, wagering evolution against death itself: win, and they would live to advance; lose, and they would become a handful of dust.

Yet what surprised Ye Bai even more than Medicine Spirit was the one called Blade. He remembered that name clearly. Blade had ranked third in the entrance examination, even ahead of Cao Xiao Seng. If Star Green Tangerine, Shalong, and the people of the Xiao family had not taken the exam, first place would have belonged to Blade without question.

By rank, Blade should have gone to Heavenly Wood Academy as well. Why had he also come to Purple Star Academy?

After changing into a loose, breathable shirt, Ye Bai immediately felt refreshed. In the radiation zone he had worn the school’s protective suit, sealed up from head to toe, and with the furnace-like heat there, the three of them would already have been roasted alive if they had not all been novice Star Core warriors.

It was not yet half past seven when Ye Bai left the dormitory and headed for the cafeteria. He had been at Purple Star Academy for more than a month, yet he had never properly enjoyed the campus. During the first month he had done little but train, break through, and prepare for the assessment. After that came the radiation zone. Aside from the classroom, the physical training grounds, the technology building, the library, and the cafeteria, he had scarcely gone anywhere else.

Still, it was not really his fault. Many students, even after graduation, hardly went anywhere else. At university, eighty percent of one’s time was spent either in the library or at the training grounds. One could barely see a single idle person wandering about Purple Star Academy. Each monthly assessment was a blade suspended over every student’s head, old or new alike, forcing everyone onward at every moment. With the slightest slackening, the next assessment might be the last one they ever returned from.

As always, the campus was silent. It was vast, yet beyond the luxuriantly green vegetation, little else could be seen. The distance between one building and the next was so great it was hard to imagine.

Now and then, a senior female student, whether from his own class or from a higher year, would hurry past him, her startled gaze skimming over Ye Bai as though she could not understand why someone could seem so leisurely within the academy.

A breeze passed through, carrying the special fragrance of flowers that had come into existence after the Dark Age. It was as enticing as roses, yet deadly beyond compare.

“Sir, how many in your party?”

As soon as Ye Bai stepped into the academy cafeteria, a hostess came forward to greet him.

These hostesses were ordinary people without awakened elemental power. They had entered Purple Star Academy on the basis of their beauty and become reception staff. Here, they were the lowest of the low, yet once outside, they could proudly say they had come from Purple Star Academy.

Though the students were held tightly in place by the monthly assessments, in every other respect the academy was better than the outside world. This cafeteria alone occupied hundreds of acres and was even more luxurious than the finest hotels beyond the campus, yet it was not expensive. One could pay with either academic credits or money.

“I’ve already reserved a place. No need to worry about it,” Ye Bai said with a faint smile, signaling that she need not concern herself with him. He then walked straight toward the private room where they had met last time.

Seeing the tea before him, tea that would be costly outside but was given away freely here, Ye Bai thought of the tea the station master had once served them at the guard post. It had been light and faint, with both bitterness and sweetness and a subtle fragrance; most wondrous of all, after drinking it one could feel the wood attribute grow more stable and the body become more comfortable.

Green tea leaves floated on the water’s surface, turning in circles with the tilt of the pot, one round, then two, then three.

“Monk, what do you want to eat later?”

Medicine Spirit’s voice suddenly reached Ye Bai’s ears, sounding as though she were downstairs.

Clang, clang, clang.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and before long Medicine Spirit and Cao Xiao Seng entered the reserved private room.

Today, as always, Medicine Spirit wore a white dress, but she had paired it with sandals with a slight heel, translucent in appearance and sprinkled with sparkling stars. Her tender, fair feet were exposed to the air, enough to draw countless glances.

“Sit,” Ye Bai said with a smile, letting Cao Xiao Seng sit beside him, while Medicine Spirit took the seat next to Cao Xiao Seng.

“Do you know about the Divine Wood List ranking?” Ye Bai first shared the information he had obtained with the two of them.

They both nodded, though Ye Bai was certain it had been Medicine Spirit who told Cao Xiao Seng.

Cao Xiao Seng’s expression did not change much, but Medicine Spirit looked a little dejected.

After each assessment, the academy would rank the top five individuals and the five best groups. Each person and each group would receive one point, though for groups, only the three members together could obtain that single point.

Ye Bai and Cao Xiao Seng were both in the top five, so they could each gain one point. But Medicine Spirit was in fifty-fifth place and had no points to speak of.

Medicine Spirit had already known her ranking, and though she felt somewhat unwilling, what could she do? She knew only how to heal and save lives. Every craft had its strong and weak points, and once she thought it through, her heart became much lighter.

Medicine Spirit summoned Little Wood from her wrist, and his holographic image appeared before the three of them.

“Is this the group ranking?” Ye Bai examined it carefully, but the first page did not show their group.

“No need to look. Our group is in last place,” Medicine Spirit said with the kind of bluntness that killed with a single blow.

“Last place? How is that possible?”

Ye Bai could hardly believe it. He flipped to the last page, and sure enough, as she had said, they were dead last.

Fiftieth place, First Group, Team Leader: Ye Bai.

Seeing this, Ye Bai’s old face flushed red. “How did it come to this?”

From childhood to now, he had never ranked last. In his class, he had always been either first or second. This time, however, he was actually at the very bottom.

Medicine Spirit explained, “Group rankings are based on how efficiently a team completes its mission, not on individual strength. And this time, we were the last group to finish.”

Ye Bai felt a little unwilling, so he took another large gulp of tea and looked again at the group rankings.

The seventh, tenth, thirteenth, fiftieth, and fortieth groups had taken the top five.

Ye Bai felt a pang of pain for his point. One point. Something he would have to struggle through life and death to obtain, and now it was gone.

After another mouthful of tea to calm himself and settle his mood, he asked, “Then the first group? Don’t tell me that’s Blade’s group too.”

Ever since Ye Bai had seen that name a second time on the Divine Wood List, he had felt the presence of a formidable rival.

Though they had never met, he could vaguely sense that Blade’s strength was anything but ordinary, and he could feel the battle intent between blade and blade.

“Hm.”

Medicine Spirit’s answer made Ye Bai’s guess reality.

Suddenly, he found himself looking forward to meeting Blade. Just how strong would one have to be to hold first place in both rankings?

“Ling’er, do you know anything about Blade?”

Medicine Spirit shook her head. “Blade isn’t from any of the three major cities. He appeared out of nowhere in the entrance examination. Before that, no one had ever heard the name Blade—not in any city. Maybe he came from a guard station. Right now, there’s even less information about him. Perhaps he has only just begun to reveal his edge, and not many people have paid him much attention.”

Ye Bai merely gave an “oh” before lowering his head and eating with gusto, turning sorrow into appetite. One point was heartbreaking indeed.

Cao Xiao Seng, meanwhile, continued eating in silence, as though nothing in the outside world concerned him. Medicine Spirit placed a few dishes into Cao Xiao Seng’s bowl, and she too began to eat in small bites.