Chapter 46

Zairen opened his eyes, revealing a room dimly lit by the moonlight. After admiring the way the room looked for a moment, he sighed a little sigh. There was no way he could sleep.

It wasn’t that the bed was uncomfortable; in fact, lying on it, he could feel that the soft mattress was of much higher quality than the cheap one in Grandpa Dinran’s cabin. But there was a problem. He wasn’t the only one in the bed. Draped firmly around him were two arms, snugly chaining him in.

“Mm…” The owner of the two arms mumbled and slightly shifted herself, resting her head on the back of Zairen’s neck and bringing Zairen more tightly against her.

Alivia was not a still sleeper. Every few moments, she would adjust herself. Soon enough after he had gotten onto the bed, she had ended up in the most convenient position for her: cuddling onto Zairen as if he was a teddy bear.

In actuality, getting snuggled like this with Alivia wasn’t uncomfortable. Because of her affinity with fire spirit energy, her embrace actually felt warm and pleasant. However, maybe it was because he hadn’t ever really engaged in much intimate physical contact in the past, or because he could sense Madam Sue’s displeasure as she looked over this situation, he felt a bit awkward. Madam Sue had already not hesitated in sending chiding remarks his way about the problem of his perversion with women. He didn’t want more!

As he lay there, he tried to gently wiggle his way out of Alivia’s hug, but her arms were like locks, extremely hard to break without force - it was basically impossible with waking her up. Stuck in this predicament, he couldn’t help but softly grumble to himself. At this rate, he would be labeled a pervert forever!

‘Huh?’ He suddenly paused his movement, his eyes widening.

‘...Spirit fluctuations!’ He tilted his head, confirming his feeling. He could clearly sense some distant spirit energy fluctuations coming from outside the window.

Zairen’s eyes brightened. He couldn’t help but have a strong desire to go out and see what was going on. Was this a normal occurrence for Sunrise city?

Yet… he tilted his head backwards and glanced upon Alivia deep in her sleep, still grabbing onto him. The problem was… how was he going to get out of the bed?

“Nnnhnn…” Just at that moment, Alivia suddenly made another unconscious movement, shifting her body once again.

‘...Opportunity!’ Just as Alivia loosened her grip, Zairen made his move. In one swift movement, he rolled out of Alivia’s grasp and off of the bed, landing softly on the ground.

He quickly glanced back. With the big warm human pillow she had been hugging suddenly gone, for a moment, Alivia unconsciously reached out with her hands, touching nothing but space. However, only a moment later, she mumbled to herself and unconsciously shifted over again onto her stomach, her sleep completely undisturbed.

“Phew…” Zairen whispered. He silently exited the room.

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Zairen exited the building and walked out onto the dark and empty street, which was dimly lit only by moonlight and some spirit energy powered street lamps.

Unlike during the day, when the entire street was bustling, there was currently almost nobody on the street, aside from the occasional night dweller. The atmosphere was very still and even a bit eerie. The broken-down street seemed much vaster and wider, extending into the darkness much farther down than it had seemed in the morning.

Wasting no time, Zairen began to follow the trace of the dimming spirit energy fluctuations, stealthily working his way down the wide street. He went down two nearly identical perfectly straight streets before he began to hear some distant angry-sounding voices.

Zairen tilted his head. He was too far to be able to decipher any of the voices, but hearing them piqued his curiosity. Moving low, he began to travel faster.

Soon, he heard the voices become louder and louder. At this point, he could make out a few words.

“...trash.... battle…”

“...defeat… useless...”

Zairen crept forward for another short distance before finally turning a corner and spotting two large groups of young people, ranged about 12-15 in age, arguing with each other. There were about fifteen people in each group, one group wearing expensive-looking gold school uniforms and the other wearing equally expensive-looking purple garments. Stopping and hiding behind the corner, Zairen pointed one eye outward, spying on them. Now, he could hear them clearly.

No wonder he had sensed them! They were making such a ruckus.

“You really think you scum at Golden Gate Academy can compare to us elites at the Purple Bridge Academy?” One gold-wearing boy yelled. “To even shamelessly challenge us like this.”

“Of course we do!” A girl wearing purple on the other side yelled back. “We’re much stronger than you Purple Bridge trash, and we can prove it!”

“Complete bullshit! Remember the last Osiron Tournament? We had two people in the top one hundred, with one even in the top thirty. You only had one in the top two hundred, pathetic!”

“So what? That was three years ago. Haven’t you heard? Now we have three more elemental affinity elites!”

“What?!” The people from the Purple Bridge Academy seemed shocked. “There’s no way that’s true.”

“You don’t believe it? Well, you’ll see!” The Golden Gate side taunted. “You think you guys are so great, with your three blessed elemental affinity talents? We’re going to have five now. All this time, we kept these three secret, and bided our time… this Osiron Tournament, they’re going to make a big splash!”

“Well, you know what? We all know our master of wind Louron will cream all of your so-called talents in seconds anyways!”

“Screw you! Let’s fight, and then we’ll see who’s talking!”

“Fine with us!”

With that, both sides brandished various weapons, channeled their spirit energy, and charged at each other.

Clang! Bash!

The two sides fiercely fought with each other, not hesitating to exchange heavy blows with their weapons.

Zairen couldn’t help but suck in a breath. These juveniles might’ve been immature, but they weren’t weak - even from where he was hiding, he could feel the force of their blows! Just judging from their raw power, many of them didn’t seem to be much weaker than the knife-wielding Naire that he had encountered in Bindan Village, and their weapons were higher quality by an entire tier. Clearly, each of them was wealthy. It appeared that these two prestigious-sounding academies, Golden Gate Academy and Purple Bridge Academy, were not a joke.

“WHO IS MAKING SUCH A RUCKUS THIS LATE AT NIGHT?” An authoritarian voice suddenly boomed out, cutting through the loud sounds of the fight.

“Huh?” Everyone stopped fighting and looked towards the source of the voice.

An old and decrepit-looking man wearing a blue robe was standing intimidatingly in the middle if the street, glaring at the rambunctious group of kids. His arms crossed, he did not look happy. “So it’s the ambitious young fellows from Golden Gate and Purple Bridge. Can someone explain why you’re making this much noise this late at night?”

There was moment of silence.

Then, everyone suddenly burst out in laughter.

“Who exactly are you, old geezer?” One boy chortled, pointing and jeering toward the old man. “Lecturing us like this. Don’t you know who we are?”

The old man scowled.

“Wait, I recognize him!” Another boy suddenly shouted out. “It’s the headmaster of one of the slum academies around here. I’ve seen him around before.”

“Yes, you’re correct,” the old man crankily chided back. “I’m the headmaster of Black Cloud School. It’s the dead of night, and you’re making a ruckus just a half a street down from the school! You young’uns need to quiet down and take your scuffle elsewhere!”

“Hahaha!” All the people in the street simultaneously doubled down in laughter. “Old hog! We’re disturbing your shitty unknown school? News flash: it’s the slums, we’ll do whatever we want here!”

“Oh, Black Cloud school! I’ve actually heard of it!” One girl suddenly commented. “Three years ago before the last Osiron Tournament, they actually had one talent that had a spirit affinity with lightning - the headmaster’s grandson!”

“Really?” Everyone seemed shocked.

“Yeah, and because of that, it was starting to get more popular,” the girl continued. “But just before the tournament started, the boy had an accident with his cultivation and ruined his body. That useless guy can’t channel spirit energy anymore!”

“Oh wow...” Everyone began to snicker and glanced toward the old man with amused expressions.

The old man had a visibly turbulent reaction. Clamping down his jaw, he brought his hands down to his sides and clenched his fists.

“Ever since then, the already poor Black Cloud School has developed a bad reputation. Even among slum kids, it has an extremely low application rate,” the girl kept speaking. “I heard that they’re having extreme financial difficulties!”

“Ha!” One boy chortled out loud. “Serves that lightning affinity boy right for staying in such a shitty school. With his talent, he could’ve gotten a scholarship to pretty much anywhere. If he had moved to Golden Gate Academy, he wouldn’t have ruined his cultivation like this!”

“Shoo! Get out!” The old man suddenly yelled out angrily. It seemed that he was at the end of his rope. Sweeping outward with his hand, he generated a large wave of spirit pressure!

“Gah!” All the people in the street couldn’t withstand the wave of pressure. Bringing their arms up in an attempt to shield it, they all began to run the other way. Even though they were powerful young talents, they couldn’t measure up in power to a school headmaster who had trained for decades, no matter how shitty a school.

But as they hurriedly left, they didn’t hesitate to turn their heads backward and throw out insults toward the old man.

Feeling the pressure wave, Zairen’s eyes couldn’t help but widen. What power! The old man was much stronger than he looked!

Although he thought that, it definitely couldn’t compare to something like the pressure Madam Sue had exerted. It wasn’t even close.

He also sensed a tiny trace of lightning spirit affinity within the pressure. If the old man’s grandson had a strong lightning spirit affinity, then that made sense. The degree of affinity was about as much of an affinity as the governor had to earth - not much, but better than nothing.

Moments later, all the rich academy kids had left the street and it was silent once again.

The old man put his hand down and let go of the pressure, breathing out as he did. As an old man, it was tiring to exert himself like that. “Pesky little kids…”

Having witnessed the entire spectacle, Zairen let out a breath. Just from this one encounter, he had already learned a lot about the power dynamics of the spirit schools in the city. He slowly turned around.

Yet just as he was about to take a step, the old man’s voice suddenly boomed out again. “WHO GOES THERE?”

“What?! He detected me?” Zairen was shocked.

----------------

In a flash, Headmaster Yuan flew across the street and whipped around the corner.

“SPYING ON ME, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU…”

He paused. In the street in front of him, there was no one.

‘That’s weird…’ He scratched his head and blinked a few times. ‘I could’ve sworn someone was here. Was I wrong?’

After a few moments of puzzlement, he shook his head and turned around. ‘I guess it’s nothing.’

He didn’t notice that just a few dozen feet away, Zairen was hiding behind a building, cold sweat running down the back of his neck.

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Morning.

“Master, maybe we should join a Spirit school!” Finn exclaimed.

“Hm?” Zairen’s ears suddenly perked up at that familiar term.

It was currently late morning, and everyone in the apartment was milling about in the living room, chatting. Now that they were stuck here in the city, they were planning out what they were going to do.

Hearing “spirit school,” the governor also raised his head and listened in.

Today, the governor looked a lot better off and healthier than he had yesterday. In fact, if one didn’t closely look, they wouldn’t even be able to tell he was injured. Inwardly, this had scared the governor. What was this crazy recovery rate? Was it because of the pills from Zairen he had taken?

“Yeah, Spirit school!” Finn exclaimed. “I would never doubt your teaching ways, Master, but a spirit school can provide resources that otherwise would be impossible to come by. If we all go to one, we could all get much stronger and beat back those masked freaks!”

“I see…” Zairen slowly stroked his chin.

Seeing that Zairen was intrigued, Finn continued jabbering. “I was thinking about maybe one of those big famous schools like Purple Bridge Academy or Sunrise Academy. Even as someone who grew up in Bindan Village my whole life, even I’ve heard of these academies! They have an extremely lofty reputation, having graduated countless powerful figures!” The more Finn spoke, the more excited he got. “If you’re talented, they can give you nearly unlimited amounts of resources and guidance for your cultivation! We can claim that for ourselves!”

Zairen slowly nodded his head. This made sense. Without resources and guidance, even the most gifted genius couldn’t progress too far.

“Finn, dummy!” The governor suddenly chided in. “Those fancy schools require thousands of both gold and spirit stones to acquire entry. Only rich folk can afford that. Unless you’re extremely talented, like if you have a strong elemental spirit affinity, you could get a scholarship. Otherwise, there’s no way! Are you that talented?”

After a pondering for a moment, Finn sunk his head.

“Actually, Finn has a pretty strong earth spirit energy affinity,” Zairen suddenly said.

“What?!” Both Finn and the governor exclaimed at the same time, lifting their heads up and gawking at Zairen.

“It’s true. I felt it,” Zairen nonchalantly replied. “Alivia has a strong affinity with fire spirit energy as well.”

“Really?!” Alivia suddenly exclaimed, excitedly standing up and looking expectantly at Zairen.

Zairen looked back at Alivia and nodded. Yet, looking at her, he couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward.

Last night, after coming back from investigating the spirit energy fluctuations, after Zairen had gotten back into the bed, Alivia had immediately proceeded to embrace him again in her sleep. Yet this time, instead of feeling awkward, he had felt extremely comfortable… and had immediately fallen sleep. He didn’t know if it was because he still had remnant nervousness from almost getting caught by that Black Turtle School headmaster, but he slept like a baby in Alivia’s arms.

It was only after they both woke up that he realized this had occurred, and it only made it worse that after seeing what had happened, Alivia was proud of being a “momma hen” to her little brother. This, of course, had started a new wave of rebukes from Madam Sue.

“..huh?” Meanwhile, the governor was still sitting there, gawking at Zairen. Was he hearing this straight?

Apparently, Alivia and Finn had spirit affinities? So they were both geniuses?!

One had to know just how rare a elemental spirit energy affinity was. Even among spirit energy cultivators, it was perhaps one in fifty thousand - that rare! If someone was blessed to be born with one, as long as they didn’t run into any accidents, their progress to master-status was pretty much guaranteed! Not only did it make their cultivation faster, but they were usually much more powerful and could practice far more versatile, powerful, and unique skills. This made people with them extremely desirable in Spirit schools.

The governor himself had just a twinge of an earth spirit energy affinity, not fully considered a proper affinity, and he considered himself lucky. What were the chances that both Finn and Alivia were among the highest ranks of geniuses? He rubbed his eyes and slightly shook his head. How had Zairen even sensed that?

Zairen cleared his throat. “We can immediately get started in training you two. I can refine spirit awakening pills for you two - I believe you are both ready to take them and get a jumpstart on everyone else.”

“Really?!” Alivia and Finn squealed at the same time. “We’re ready whenever!”

“...what?!”

This time, the governor was even more shaken. His mouth gaped open, he stared at Zairen with highly raised brows. Was he hearing this right? Spirit awakening pills for Alivia and Finn?!

What kind of nonsense was that?

It was an established and agreed upon rule that spirit energy would only naturally awaken by itself in children at a range of ages, usually around age ten. There was no way to awaken it early!

Then what was this “Spirit Awakening Pill”? Could it really allow one to awaken their spirit energy earlier? The governor was fully aware of just how insane of an idea this was. If these pills really did exist, and word got out, there would be an uproar!

The early childhood years were the most important in one’s cultivation. If the early years went well, the later years would go well as well! On the flip side, if spirit energy didn’t awaken until later on in the teenage years, the childhood years were skipped and the person would not likely progress very far later on in life. Geniuses usually had their spirit energy awakening early on, allowing them to take full advantage of their precious childhood years to cultivate a strong base.

If there was a pill that allowed one to directly cause them to awaken their spirit energy early… that was crazy! The world would not be still! The governor couldn’t believe it.

“We can go to a school,” Zairen continued. “The only thing is, even though we can definitely go to those high-end famous schools, I don’t have a good impression of them. Let’s go check out the local Black Cloud School first. I heard that despite its lack of wealth, it has a very large herb garden.”

After the encounter the previous night, he had done some research and had found out that the Black Cloud School was somewhat famous locally for its herb garden, piquing his interest.

“Ohoho! A caring young man!” Madam Sue’s patronizing voice chortled out in Zairen’s head. “Isn’t that the poor slum school of that headmaster from last night? Wow… what a coincidence~~”

Although the muscles on his face momentarily tightened, Zairen managed to keep his face expressionless.

“Black Cloud School…?” Hearing this school name, everyone was puzzled. They pondered for a few moments but but found that they had never heard of this school before. However, Finn and Alivia immediately nodded their heads and consented. They trusted Zairen and believed he had good judgment.

‘Wait… Black Cloud School…’ The governor pondered, and then suddenly had a revelation. ‘That’s the small school just three blocks down from here, the one with the lightning spirit affinity boy who had an accident with his cultivation!’

However, even though he glanced at Zairen puzzledly, he smartly kept his mouth closed. He also figured that Zairen probably knew what he was doing - compared to everything he had said, this was the least crazy thing.

However, he still couldn’t help but be curious. Aside from the short walking distance, if Alivia and Finn were truly as talented as Zairen had claimed, why choose there?