Chapter 3: Shiyang Academy—the Present Goal!
Half an hour later, around the start of the Hour of the Snake, Gu Lin arrived at Shiyang Academy.
This academy was the largest institution of learning in Shiyang County, an officially sanctioned institution where scholars cultivated their inner Energy and martial students trained in combat, all under renowned instructors. Tuition ran thirty taels of silver a year—a hefty sum that no ordinary household could easily afford.
This year, the Gu family had gritted their teeth and pushed through, his father working himself to exhaustion just to scrape together enough for next year’s tuition.
Gu Lin’s purpose in coming here today was to withdraw!
Now that he possessed the Book of Merit, why would he waste his time sitting idle in some academy?
He headed toward the classroom for the “Wilderness” cohort.
The academy had over seven hundred students total, divided into eight cohorts named after the characters “Heaven, Earth, Mystery, Yellow, Universe, Vast, Wild, Wilderness.” Each cohort held nearly a hundred students.
The Heaven cohort was made up entirely of cultivation elites.
Whereas the worst-performing Wilderness cohort was, without exception, filled with those of extremely poor talent.
That vile woman Li Qingwu was in the Heaven cohort.
Gu Lin searched around but couldn’t find Instructor Zhao, the teacher assigned to the Wilderness cohort, so he had no choice but to return to the study hall and wait.
The sprawling study hall was in complete disarray—some students sat cross-legged in meditation, others practiced punches against wooden posts, some whispered sweet nothings to each other, and still others snored loudly, fast asleep.
The moment he stepped through the door, mocking laughter rose up around him.
“Gu Jingming, I hear Li Qingwu’s got another loyal dog circling her now—he might steal your bone. Aren’t you going to fight for it?”
“Can he even compare to Gu Jingming? Gu Jingming’s spine has been in Li Qingwu’s grip this whole time—who could possibly be more loyal than Jingming?”
“Gu Lin, courtesy name Jingming, First Dog Beneath Qingwu’s Throne, also known as the Little Money-Scattering Boy.”
The teasing rang out one after another.
Gu Lin’s expression remained blank as he found his seat and sat down.
Why should he care?
With the Book of Merit in hand, his future didn’t lie within these cramped four walls—it lay on the most brilliant stage of the entire Feathering Divine Dynasty!
“Jingming, you seem different somehow.”
A pale, beardless chubby boy sidled over.
His name was Wang Mu, the only son of Shopkeeper Wang, owner of Shiyang’s largest silk and satin shop, and one of the few friends Gu Lin actually had.
Wang Mu studied Gu Lin with a faintly puzzled expression.
In the past, Gu Lin had always walked with a hunched back, carrying himself with zero presence—partly out of self-consciousness, partly because of his poor eyesight, which had left him in the habit of keeping his head down to watch where he stepped.
Now Gu Lin stood tall and straight as a pine tree, strolling along with an easy, unhurried air, his bearing carrying an unmistakable weight.
Gu Lin didn’t respond to the comment, instead asking:
“Where’s Instructor Zhao?”
He was eager to get his withdrawal paperwork sorted out.
The chubby boy smiled and answered:
“You don’t even know? The selection trials are coming up fast, so Instructor Zhao’s been over helping out the Heaven cohort.”
“Then again, your head’s only got room for Li Qingwu in it—why would you pay attention to any of this!”
Gu Lin nodded, asking casually:
“What selection trials?”
The chubby boy pulled a fragrant piece of dried meat jerky from his desk drawer, chewed it, then spoke unhurriedly:
“The qualifying selection trials for the Four Great Sacred Grounds, obviously. The Heaven cohort’s been going all out fighting for those ten spots. These past few days, hasn’t Li Qingwu come after you for money again? Whether you can leap through the dragon gate all comes down to the selection trials ten days from now.”
The Four Great Sacred Grounds?
Just hearing that name made Gu Lin sit up with respect.
These weren’t some cultivation sect or noble family’s treasured grounds—they were the four institutions that held overwhelming power throughout the entire Feathering Divine Dynasty.
One Palace!
One Academy!
One Guard!
One Temple!
The Martial Extremity Palace, the Literary Dao Academy, the Heavenly Mystery Guard, the Eastern Temple!
Across all twenty-eight provinces of the Feathering Divine Dynasty, each province had all four of these great institutions stationed within it!!
Whoever could join even one of them—how could that be mere family glory? That was a leap across social classes, a boundless future stretching ahead!!
Gu Lin’s interest was piqued, and he asked in a low voice:
“Ten seed candidate spots—how many of them actually end up employed at the Sacred Grounds?”
“How many?”
The chubby boy snorted, clearly well-informed and finding the question rather absurd, enunciating each word deliberately:
“If even one person from our academy manages to get employed there, Shiyang Academy would erupt in celebration—the headmaster would throw a feast lasting seven days and seven nights!”
“This year, our entire Chuwei Prefecture only has six spots total, and Chuwei Prefecture governs nineteen counties—do you understand how fierce that competition is?”
“The ten seed candidates might be prodigies here at Shiyang Academy, but set against the whole of Chuwei Prefecture, they barely register as anything special. Their most realistic goal is to become a Blade-Bearer!”
Gu Lin kept his eyes on the chubby boy, waiting for him to explain further.
The chubby boy launched into an eager explanation:
“Blade-Bearers—they’re staff attached to departments under the four great power institutions. They also draw a government salary and enjoy the protection of the imperial dynasty. Their whole purpose is to run errands for the Sacred Grounds. For instance, the Chu Province branch of the Martial Extremity Palace has a Blade-Bearer provincial office under it—the Blade-Bearers there exist purely to serve the Martial Extremity Palace, handling all the dirty, exhausting grunt work.”
Gu Lin asked further:
“Something like the difference between officials and clerks?”
The chubby boy shook his head:
“Never mind that the treatment between Sacred Ground disciples and Blade-Bearers is worlds apart—even clerks, if they perform well, have a chance of being promoted to some minor official post and drawing an official’s salary. But Blade-Bearers can never become Sacred Ground disciples, no matter how great their achievements—that rule never bends.”
“Officials and clerks? That’s rulers and slaves!!”
Midway through, the chubby boy gave a bitter laugh and said:
“We call them slaves, sure, but the Blade-Bearer position is something countless people dream of. So many prodigies would claw each other’s eyes out just to become a Blade-Bearer—only under the protection of the dynasty and the Sacred Grounds can someone truly thrive and grow.”
“I dream about becoming a Blade-Bearer myself—bringing honor to my ancestors, strutting about with pride and glory.”
Gu Lin appeared unmoved on the surface, though inside his thoughts churned like a stormy sea.
In that instant, he made his decision.
He wasn’t withdrawing after all!
He would enter the selection trials. He would fight for one of the ten seed candidate spots.
He didn’t dream of merely becoming a Blade-Bearer.
He would become a disciple of the Four Great Sacred Grounds!!
The Four Great Sacred Grounds aligned perfectly with his Book of Merit. Eliminating evil earned rewards, but hunting down evildoers alone, working solo, was slow going and invited retaliation—it would endanger his parents, leaving them living day to day without security.
But if he had truly overwhelming backing, then kill and be done with it—who could touch him then?
The academy’s selection trials were only ten days away, and these ten days mattered immensely!
If he couldn’t even make it into the top ten seed candidates, there was no point even dreaming of the Four Great Sacred Grounds selection trials at the prefectural capital.
This was, right now, the single most important goal.
“Alright, forget it.”
The chubby boy seemed a bit tired of the topic, saying with indifference:
“That’s all dragons and tigers clashing in the Heaven cohort—has nothing to do with the rest of us in these seven lesser cohorts. Just watch from the sidelines, that’s all we can do.”
“Jingming, come on, let me treat you to some roast goose.”
With that, he got up from his seat and walked out of the study hall.
Gu Lin followed.
Out on the academy training grounds, dozens of students sat cross-legged, cultivating Fire-attribute mental techniques facing the rising sun.
And over in the neighboring bamboo grove, a group of handsome young men and elegant young women were discoursing on profound philosophy, everyone’s eyes fixed on the white-robed young man at the center, folding fan in hand—and among them was Li Qingwu.
Her eyes, misty as autumn waters, gazed upon the noble young man, her look brimming with tender affection.
They were all elites of the Heaven cohort!!
Not far off, Gu Lin and chubby Wang Mu watched the scene unfold.
The chubby boy sighed:
“Tsk, tsk—the woman you’re so devotedly in love with, fawning all over Zhao Qilin like that!”
“I really envy Zhao Qilin, though—surrounded by admirers like stars around the moon, he can sleep with whoever he pleases. He’s also the only student in our entire academy with any real hope of getting into the Four Great Sacred Grounds!”
Zhao Qilin, given name Zhao Yao, styled “Young Master Qilin,” also known as the academy’s undisputed leader—Energy Condensation, Eighth Layer, leagues ahead of the entire Heaven cohort, ranking first in every single subject!
His father was, moreover, the county magistrate’s deputy of Shiyang County, second-in-command at the county office.
Of course, the Zhao family boasted an even more dazzling figure.
The deputy magistrate’s eldest son, Zhao Can, had risen above all others three years ago and secured a position at the Chu Province Martial Extremity Palace—also the only person from Shiyang County to have entered a Sacred Ground in the past six years!
And next month, Young Master Qilin himself had a decent shot at entering a Sacred Ground as well.
He was also the only prodigy at Shiyang Academy with any real possibility of being accepted.
That would mean the Zhao family would have two members reaching the very pinnacle!
Once that happened, the Zhao family would hold overwhelming power throughout Shiyang County, their hand covering the sky!
Gu Lin had no interest in watching the bamboo grove any further, his mind turning instead to how he might rapidly accumulate merit and drastically raise his cultivation within these ten days.
“You know,” the chubby boy said, pacing as he spoke, “if someone passes the selection and gets employed at a Sacred Ground, they get one special privilege—they can freely pick three people to fill Blade-Bearer positions of their own choosing!”
“That’s exactly why the whole Heaven cohort fawns over Young Master Qilin. If they end up losing in the selection trials and don’t qualify as a Blade-Bearer on their own merit, one word from Young Master Qilin and they could still leap through the dragon gate.”
“That’s precisely what Li Qingwu’s counting on—she’s probably already given herself to Young Master Qilin over it.”
Having said his piece, the chubby boy studied Gu Lin’s reaction, testing the waters.
But to his surprise, Gu Lin remained completely unmoved—not so much as a flicker of anger, not even the faintest trace of emotion.
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