Chapter 6: Good Friends
Imperial Boundless Academy.
This military academy trains spiritual talents for the empire and is divided into four grades. Xia Feng is a second-semester first-year student.
In this world, one can only begin practicing spiritual pressure and become a spiritual master once they reach the age of eighteen. Therefore, after graduating from high school, students with a certain level of spiritual talent apply to Imperial Boundless Academy. Only after several rounds of rigorous screening are they admitted, with an acceptance rate of less than one in ten thousand.
"Feng, over here!"
As soon as Xia Feng entered the classroom, a short girl with fluffy, slightly curly mushroom-cut hair and wearing dark blue overalls waved at him excitedly. She wore thick black-framed glasses, but they couldn't hide the dark circles under her eyes.
"Mushroom, it's rare to see you attending an open class," Xia Feng said, surprised.
"Ha!" The mushroom-haired girl raised her cute face and smirked. "If I hadn't heard that a stunning senior would be attending this class, do you think I'd bother coming?"
"You're hopeless."
Xia Feng glanced at her disdainfully. "Weren't you fawning over Senior Sister Lin before? It hasn't been long, and you already have a new target?"
The girl crossed her arms and looked up at Xia Feng with disdain. "Hmph, you don't understand. This is called casting a wide net! In this three-dimensional world full of lies, only by fawning over enough people can you find true love!"
Xia Feng was used to Mushroom's antics.
Her real name was Mo Gugu, nicknamed Mushroom. She was his good friend—well, more like a good "gay" friend, if such a term applied.
Their friendship began on a dark and windy night, with a clichéd hero-saves-the-damsel scenario. To put it simply, Xia Feng was walking alone at night when a middle-aged female criminal, impressed by his looks, tried to attack him with the strength of a first-level spiritual master. Mo Gugu happened to pass by, called the police, and shouted for the woman to let him go.
It just goes to show—boys really need to protect themselves in this world. The natives are terrifying!
"By the way, didn't you say you were busy these days? What brings you to class today?" Mushroom asked, tilting her sleepy face.
Xia Feng smiled but didn't answer. He had come to find Mu Qingtong.
Mu Qingtong was somewhat famous in the second grade, and her class schedule wasn't hard to find. One of her classes was this open swordsmanship lecture.
Imperial Boundless Academy operated on a self-attendance model. Except for three compulsory courses in the first semester of the first year, students weren't required to attend any specific classes from the second semester onward. They could choose whichever courses they liked. The teaching resources were available, and the high tuition fees had already been paid. Whether students studied or not was entirely up to them. The academy only intervened in cases of legal or disciplinary violations.
Because of this, internet-addicted girls like Mushroom, who loved gaming and were obsessed with the second dimension, rarely attended classes after the first semester.
However, Mushroom was an exception in the college. With tuition fees exceeding 300,000 yuan a year, most students wanted to fill every hour of their day with classes and study hard. Not making the most of such an expensive education was practically disrespectful to money!
"She's here, she's here!" Mushroom tugged excitedly at Xia Feng's sleeve.
Xia Feng looked up, puzzled.
A woman in an elegant dark dress and stylish high heels stepped over the threshold.
"Senior Mu."
"Hello, Senior."
The girls passing by greeted her warmly.
Mu Qingtong smiled gently, nodded slightly, and made her way to the second-grade seating area. However, just as she was about to sit down, she seemed to notice something and glanced toward the first-grade seating area at the back.
"She's looking at me! Goddess Mu is looking at me!" Mushroom shook Xia Feng's sleeve excitedly.
Xia Feng's eye twitched slightly as he pushed her face away and smiled, nodding at the woman in the black dress.
Mu Qingtong's eyes curved slightly as she nodded back and gracefully took her seat. The girls around her immediately gathered, chattering enthusiastically.
"Is she your new target?" Xia Feng asked, tilting his head.
Mushroom nodded seriously. "That's right!"
"You've got good taste."
Xia Feng chuckled softly. "Let me tell you a secret—she already has a fiancé."
"What?! No way!" Mushroom's eyes widened. "Who is it?"
"Me," Xia Feng replied with a smile.
"Pfft—" Mushroom rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. "Yeah, right. If you were her fiancé, I'd be her unborn daughter!"
Xia Feng didn't argue. He simply reached out and ruffled her hair, his eyes as gentle as a doting father.
"Hey!" Mushroom, who stood just over 1.5 meters tall, swatted his hand away angrily. "Get lost!"
Xia Feng retracted his hand and glanced at the popular Mu Qingtong, who was surrounded by admirers. "She seems really popular."
"That's Goddess Mu for you. Of course, she's popular."
Mushroom snorted and explained, "At last year's New Year's Eve party, Mu Qingtong's piano performance went viral. You hadn't enrolled yet, so it's no surprise you didn't know."
At this, she sighed. "It's a shame Goddess Mu, with her average spiritual talent, applied to this lousy spiritual academy. If she'd gone into the entertainment industry, she'd be a superstar!"
Her spiritual talent is average?
If this scheming woman has average talent, then everyone here should be thrown into the trash.
Xia Feng held back his thoughts and was about to ask more when a faint commotion erupted at the door.
"Why is she here?"
"Who is it?"
"One of the Black Moon Church's candidate saints, Cha Naxue. Rumor has it she's only twenty-one but has already broken through to the second level of spiritual mastery!"
"That's impressive!" a boy exclaimed. "She's on par with the fourth-year geniuses."
"But what's someone from the Black Moon Church doing here?"
"Quiet!"
Suddenly, Professor Freya at the podium struck the spirit bell lightly. The resonant sound silenced the room.
"It's time. Everyone, take your seats."
Though Professor Freya was beautiful, her stern demeanor commanded respect. Once everyone was seated, she began the lecture without delay.
"Countless spirit particles are attached to the surface of each person's soul. These particles can be decomposed and reconstructed to form spirit robes and spiritual pressure."
"In our last class, we discussed the relationship and definition between spirit robes and spiritual pressure. Spiritual pressure refers to the process by which a living individual rearranges the 'chaotic spirit particle structure' into an orderly 'double-helix spirit particle structure' during the transition to becoming an apprentice spiritual master. This process causes the soul's essence to evolve, creating a powerful aura that exerts pressure on lower life forms—hence the term 'spiritual pressure.'"
"Later, when this 'double-helix spirit particle structure' is further decomposed and reconstructed into other 'special spirit particle structures,' various unique abilities emerge. In ancient times, before the world was unified, these were referred to as martial arts, psychic templates, spell models, and magic circuits."
"But in modern times, because these abilities manifest as a layer of flowing energy around the body, they are uniformly called 'spirit robes.'"
"Thus, although the 'double-helix spirit substructure' corresponding to spiritual pressure doesn't grant special abilities, it is still a type of spirit robe and serves as the foundation for forming other spirit robes."
As Professor Freya lectured, Cha Naxue, seated in the front row of the invited guests' section, seemed lost in thought.
After a while, the nun beside her leaned over and handed her a phone. "Ma'am, take a look at this."
"What is it?" Cha Naxue asked, taking the phone.
[Six-Tails Society - Qi Xiao: I have some bad news. Your childhood sweetheart is actually a first-level spiritual master. This bastard has fooled us all!]
The message was filled with anger and hostility. Cha Naxue's thin eyebrows furrowed as she read it. "He's a first-level spiritual master? How is that possible?"
She was certain her childhood sweetheart was a lost cause when it came to cultivation. Calling him a waste might be harsh, but in a place like Imperial Boundless Academy, where geniuses were everywhere, his talent was far from remarkable.
Reaching first-level spiritual mastery at eighteen was impossible.
According to her calculations, Xia Feng might reach first-level spiritual mastery by his junior or senior year at the earliest. But now? It was unthinkable.
[Six-Tails Society - Qi Xiao: I know you won't believe it. I just found out the boy is attending Freya's class. Haha~ I bet he still has designs on you. Test his strength yourself.]
Another message popped up. Cha Naxue raised an eyebrow and instinctively turned around, her eyes landing on the familiar figure.
(End of this chapter)