Chapter 51

Over the course of the next few days, everyone at the school did everything in a daze. They could scarcely believe what was happening.

When they thought back to that fateful day, they could only think: when they had woken up that day, they had been completely oblivious to how earth-shattering it would be to their conceptions of reality.

Of the three new students, two were spirit affinity geniuses?! - and this whole time, they hadn’t even realized how special they were. Furthermore, their control of their spirit energies were beyond their comprehension - compounded by the fact that they both still hadn’t even turned ten yet!

Of course, this was amazing news. However, the students were so shocked that they could barely process it.

If someone had told their past selves that this would happen, that two amazing young spirit affinity geniuses would enroll at their school, there was no way there they would have believed it. How was that possible? Spirit affinity geniuses went to big schools that had enormous amounts of resources! That was the rule! Why would they come to a poor school like theirs? (although, Jannie was the exception, since he was Headmaster Yuan’s grandson)

It was incredible. And unbelievable. Many students found that even as time passed, they still expected to wake up each morning and realize that the whole thing had been a dream.

When they thought about, many feared that any moment, Alivia and Finn would leave their dingy school for another bigger school. After realizing their talents, what reason would they have to stay here?

Headmaster Yuan’s and Jannie’s reactions were even more drastic.

After seeing the kids channel their spirit energy for himself, Headmaster Yuan’s eyes had nearly bulged out of his head. It was already shocking enough that talented young students that awakened their spirit energies early would come to his school. But never in his wildest dreams would he ever imagine… spirit affinity geniuses would come to his door! What were they doing here?

At first, he didn’t let himself believe the good news. His denial was truly unbelievable, almost reminiscent of a child disobeying their parents, putting his hands over his ears, saying “nuh-uh, nuh-uh!” Even after witnessing Alivia and Finn channel their spirit energies in front of his very eyes, multiple times even, he still pretended as if he had never seen them at all. Zairen didn’t know what this phenomena was, but Headmaster Yuan had a very severe case of it.

In actuality, Zairen kind of understood. Headmaster Yuan was likely scared that after these three bleak years, that if he accepted the good fortune, it would all be wiped away just as fast - that as soon as something good came, it would go, leaving an even bigger gaping hole. It was worse to gain million spirit stones and then lose it all then it was to gain nothing at all in the first place. Spirit affinity cultivators just wouldn’t come to this kind of a small school on their own volition, right? He had never heard of such thing.

Either way, because of this denial, even now, days later, he would still avoid eye contact with the three new students. However, he still made an effort to put even more zest into his lectures, making sure they were interesting and comprehensive.

When Jannie had heard the news, in a way, he was even more shocked than his grandfather. His denial was not quite as strong, but his disbelief was immeasurable. Those three little kids… two of then were spirit affinity geniuses? It seemed utterly ridiculous when you said it out loud.

After the third time visiting the training gymnasium and watching Alivia and Finn cheerfully channel their spirit energy first-hand, he was finally starting to come around, although every time, he still had to wipe his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

Now, he realized why they had requested the fire and earth basic art jade scrolls.

The more he let himself believe it, the more excitement he felt, and the more he frequently found himself in an ecstatic mood. However, this good mood also scared him - he had been in a good spot in his life, in an ecstatic mood, just before he had injured himself, before he had ruined everything.

It really was unbelievable. If he had read about it in a fiction novel, he would have laughed it off as a bit too unbelievable for a compelling story. Yet, it seemed that truth was sometimes stranger than fiction…

It was only days later that Jannie suddenly remembered something. One of the three kids, Zairen, had claimed that he was a spirit doctor, and could heal his spirit injury. Remembering Zairen‘s clear eyed gaze, he couldn’t help but feel a tingle in his chest.

However, he still couldn’t bring himself to believe it. Who would believe that a seven year old could be a skilled doctor? Especially, a skilled doctor that could heal meridian injuries, for god’s sake! Even if his world that had been shaken up and down, some things were just too unbelievable.

As the days passed, seeing that the three were here to stay, many of the original students’ shock eventually slowly began to fade (although Headmaster Yuan’s shock would be more persistent), turning into purely excitement, friendship, and comradery. All three of the new students were very laid back, unlike many other geniuses from other schools, allowing the other students to see them as just who they were: fellow friends and classmates.

In this small familial environment, there would be no jealousy, only vicarious happiness.

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One day, a week later.

Alivia turned toward Zairen. “What do you think? Impressive huh?”

Zairen tried his best to keep his face neutral.

“Um… yes. Good… good job.”

Alivia had just shown Zairen her newest iteration of her fire dragon, leaving him, yet again, in a state of shock.

Frankly, at this point, it was getting excessive. The dragon was now much more detailed, sporting tiny little claws and feet. Its wings would now flap organically, causing it to glide more smoothly, and it could even open its little mouth and spit out a line of fire. Staring at it with wide eyes, Zairen almost felt that some heavenly authority was mocking him. Oh yes, lecture her about how spirit energy control is important. Do it. She needs to be able to control the flame. Make sure to tell her!

“I’ve only been able to do this because of you. Your techniques and advice have been really helpful these past few days,” Alivia continued, seemingly unaware of Zairen’s awe. “I wouldn’t have been able to progress so far without it.”

“I agree!” From the side, Finn suddenly added on. “Master’s personal advice has been so helpful. You basically summarize the entire beginner Earth art scroll I got in a much more coherent and insightful way.”

“Yes, same for me!” Alivia continued. “After reading it once, I’ve barely touched my beginner Fire art scroll. I just needed to find you if I needed any help.”

Since they had first awakened their spirit energies, Alivia and Finn had spared no effort, vigorously training every day. Over the course of almost two weeks, they had made amazing progress, as made evident by their vivid demonstrations! After receiving the beginner fire and earth art jade scrolls from Jannie, they had read through them a few times, but found that if they asked for help, Zairen usually stated exactly what the scroll said in a much clearer and concise manner, rendering the jade scrolls quite useless.

“Oh…” Zairen pretended not to be shocked and cleared his throat. He blinked a couple times, seeming to have lost his train of thought. “Um, don’t worry. I’ll get more advanced arts for you soon. Continue to consult me if you have any questions.”

“Alright,” Finn and Alivia agreed happily.

What’s happening? Incredulous thoughts silently spiraled through Zairen’s head like a whirlwind. He had never quite witnessed anything like this before. In some ways, it was even scarier than facing a powerful enemy. At least, if he was facing a powerful enemy, he knew exactly what he was dealing with. But more and more, he found that he didn’t know how to deal with Alivia and Finn. They were an enigma. The progress was simply monstrous!

Other than this scary situation, the past week had passed relatively normally. For multiple lengthy periods of time per day, Zairen would meditate on his Silent Shadow Art, resulting in significant progress. As time passed, he could slowly feel himself reaching the peak of the realm of beginner cultivation. Of course, he would never forget to fill the black stone on his sword with his leftover spirit energy at the end of each day.

Further, although the original Black Cloud School students had initially acted strange around him, Alivia, and Finn, they had more or less returned to normal at this point, seeing them as trustworthy comrades. In fact, they were now even more enthusiastic - how couldn’t they be? Jannie and Headmaster Yuan, however, had still not quite touched the ground.

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“Oh, great! The price of Mijin Flower has also risen,” Jannie’s excited voice rang out.

“Really?” Yinry and Horace’s excited voices resounded in response. “We grew a lot of Mijin Flower in the garden, didn’t we?”

Jannie, Yinry, and Horace were standing next to each other in the middle of a massive, crowded bazaar in front of a big stand that was selling various herbs. They were roaming around and noting all of the prices of various herbs and plants.

After the scheduled class and training had ended, Jannie had taken Yinry and Horace to the local market with him to aid him in checking on all of the fluctuating herb prices. Although it was a ‘local market,’ it was about the size of Bindan Village’s entire central square!

So far, they were happy: two of the main herbs they had grown the past year had risen in price. When sold, they could make a greater profit and continue to finance the school.

“Yes we did,” Jannie responded, smiling pleasantly. “I was hoping the sell price would grow, and lo’ and behold, it has! I dedicated an entire tenth of the garden this year to Mijin flower.”

“Great, then we should be financially stable this year!” Yinry and Horace both smiled. They had both experienced years in which the schools had to cut costs and even had to sell equipment in order to continue running. Hoping to prevent another such year, they were relieved to hear this news.

Jannie smiled in response. At this moment, he was also feeling intense relief.

“Oh, if it isn’t the slum hoodlums from Black Cloud School!”

“Hm?” Jannie, Yinry, and Horace all turned around.

Behind them, striding through the crowd toward them, was another group of three teenagers wearing red school uniforms: two boys and one girl. The leading boy looked around Jannie’s age, while the boy and girl behind him looked a bit younger.

“Red Ribbon Academy.” A few bitter words slipped from Jannie’s mouth. The words seemed very practiced, as if he had said them multiple times in the past.

Before he knew it, he was standing in a defensive martial stance. At the same time, Yinry and Horace unconsciously moved to his sides in a reinforcing manner, as if ready to fight at a moment’s notice. The atmosphere immediately turned tense.

“Whoa, whoa! Calm down!” The other leading boy put his hands up in a carefree manner as he strode forward, smiling. With yellow hair just like Jannie and a handsome face, he had a somewhat noble aura. “No need for that! No violence, please! We come in peace.”

Sensing a dramatic confrontation, the surrounding crowd automatically parted. In no time, a small circle of observing city folk had formed around the two groups.

“What do you want, Hansel?” Yinry asked aggressively, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Haven’t had enough from last time?”

“Hey, hey now Yinry,” the lead boy from Red Ribbon Academy responded with a smirk. “You act as if we’re specifically here to cause trouble. I can assure you that that’s definitely not the case! We saw you here and just wanted to come over and say hi, as friends. Would I, the amazing Hansel, lie?”

“Shut it, Hansel!” Horace growled back. “No one buys your facade. You should really stop, it’s making me sick!”

“Hahaha!” Hansel tilted his head back in laughter. “As blunt as always, Horace. I’m glad to see that hasn’t changed.”

“You said your greetings. Anything else you want?” Yinry interjected firmly. “We’re busy and unfortunately don’t have the time to attend to you.”

“Oh, Yinry!” Hansel turned toward Yinry and smiled. “Why so hostile toward an old friend? Don’t you remember, me and your senior Jannie used to be good rivals. His lightning affinity and my gold affinity… I used to be so dedicated to surpassing him.”

“That is, until he completely lost everything and became a worthless person. Hahaha!” Tilting his head back again, he began laughing loudly. The next him, his two sidekicks began laughing as well.

“Shut it!” Horace shouted back, clenching his fists. “What do you know?”

Jannie hurriedly pat Horace’s shoulder, reminding him to calm down.

“Yinry, Horace,” Hansel continued, pointing a finger toward Jannie. “What do you see in this person? Damaging his own meridians? He’s trash!” He smirked. “You know, you both have plenty of talent, I’ve seen it. The problem is that your shitty senior and your shitty school is holding you back.”

“You!” Yinry seemed to be on the verge of snapping, and took a threatening step forward.

Seeing that Yinry was now about to explode, Jannie hurriedly held up his arm up in front of her. However, although he seemed to be advocating for peace, he was gritting his teeth as well. Seeing the arm, Yinry furrowed her brows, seemingly unable to accept this restraint.

“What?” Hansel raised his hands in a mocking surrender pose. “It’s the truth. This garbage guy took the school down with him when he stupidly damaged his own meridians. What an idiot.”

“That’s it!”

Whoosh! Ignoring Jannie’s warnings, Horace and Yinry simultaneously burst forward toward Hansel. Each instantly pulled out a weapon, a hammer for Horace and a pair of gauntlets for Yinry. A small earth energy layer formed around Horace’s hammer and large amounts of grey spirit energy flowed around Yinry’s gauntlets as she slipped them on.

They didn’t dare hold anything back!

“Hm…? Whoa, since last time, you’ve improved!” Hansel’s cheer-ey voice immediately rang out. He seemed a bit surprised. “With the amount of resources you have, I’m quite impressed. However, I’m afraid it isn’t nearly enough.”

Hansel smiled and raised his finger. At the same time, a bright yellow light began to gather at the tip of his finger, becoming brighter and brighter at a nearly exponential rate.

Jannie’s eyes widened. The light seemed to have a noble property, as if everything on the earth should bow down to it. “Horace, Yinry! …Stop!”

But it was too late. Horace and Yinry had already approached Hansel and his golden finger, their weapons fully cocked.

Whoosh! With a smile, Hansel swiped his finger sideways. The golden light on the tip of his finger immediately expanded into a large, blurry, circular, mass and then followed the direction of his finger sideways.

Boom!

Boom!

Following its trajectory, the golden ball of light collided into Yinry and Horace, picking them both up and sending them airborne.

“Gah!” Horace and Yinry flew sideways directly into a crowd of people, their weapons following them.

Crash!

Boom!

Some screams rang out as several people were knocked over, causing a large commotion and creating a heap of bodies on the ground. Everyone else who wasn’t affected gasped and immediately backed up.

“You’ve really fallen, Jannie.” Hansel stared at Jannie and said seriously. “I can’t believe you used to be my rival. What happened?”

Jannie merely stood there and glared at Hansel.

It was true. He was powerless.

Hansel shook his head. “Whatever. I can’t stare at this garbage any longer.”

Waving his hand dismissively, he turned around. His two sidekicks snickered and turned around as well, and the three of them set off. Within moments, they had disappeared into the crowd.

Seeing that the conflict was over, the cityfolk slowly began to go their separate ways again. The people who had been knocked over picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and quickly dispersed. Slowly, the scene returned to normal.

“Ugh… jeez,” Horace groaned, sitting back up tiredly in the middle of the road, his hammer resting beside him. “That guy got stronger. What the hell was that?”

Yinry grumbled as well and a bit disorientedly sat up as well, her gauntlets unceremoniously sprawled a short distance from her. She was equally as discontent.

“You guys… are you okay?” Jannie quickly rushed over to help them up. “You really didn’t need to do that.”

“Of course we did!” Yinry grasped Jannie’s hand to help her hoist herself back up. “They were shit-talking you. We can’t just stand by and watch that happen.”

“Yeah!” Horace agreed, tugging on Jannie’s other hand to also hoist his body back up. “None of them understand senior Jannie’s merits. If you still had your spirit energy, you would’ve wiped all three of them off the floor!” His face was full of trust in his senior.

Jannie was silent for a moment. “If only I could get my spirit energy back, right?”

“Yeah, if only. Then you could show all these guys up,” Horace nodded profusely.

“Yeah! Imagine showing up to the next Osiron Tournament next year and getting a higher place than anyone who ever trash talked us. Then, no one would be able to talk anymore,” Yinry clenched her fists.

“I have a question,” Jannie suddenly spoke again.

“Hm?” Yinry and Horace raised their heads. Question? What was this, all the sudden?

“What do you think about Zairen?” Jannie asked. His eyes shined, as if this conversation was extremely important. “The new student.”

“Zairen…?” Horace and Yinry looked at each other puzzledly. The question was about one of the new students, Zairen? What was this about?

After thinking for a moment, Horace spoke. “I think he’s very knowledgeable. During lecture last week, he contributed an extremely insightful thought about the nature of spirit energy.”

“Yes, and I’ve also noticed that when he cultivates, he emits a strange yet powerful-feeling aura,” Yinry nodded as well. “I’m not sure what it is, but it seems mysterious and powerful.”

“He’s also very well-respected by his two miracle spirit affinity friends, even though he’s the youngest and doesn’t seem to have a spirit affinity,” Horace added on with a chuckle. “He’s even regarded as ‘master’ by Finn. I think that’s curious. He must know or have something special that those two really value.”

“Yeah, it’s weird!” Yinry suddenly realized and piped up. “He’s the youngest and has no spirit affinity. Yet, his absurdly talented, older spirit affinity friends, Alivia and Finn, still see him as the leader and look up to him. I feel like there’s something about him that we aren’t aware of.”

“Yeah, and Alivia and Finn are no little fish either,” Horace nodded along. “You should’ve seen their display of their spirit energy earlier today. Their control of it was so amazing - Alivia flying dragon has become even crazier and crazier! They’re so amazing. Hansel is wrong. The school definitely has a bright future, for sure. Keke…” As he said his last statement, giggles began to uncontrollably slip out of his mouth.

“Is that what you needed?”

“Yes, thank you.” Jannie thanked his two students. As he stared into space, he turned silent. He seemed to be deep in thought.