Chapter 17: Thought Message

His eyes slowly came open. Zen saw a pair feet in sandals, rapidly moving out of his sight as soon as his head began to stir. When he sat up all he could see was Shibi, looking at him in worry. There was no one else with him, other than the beast.

“Shibi, you came back.” He scratched the monkey before he rose to his feet.

Zen climbed to his feet, grabbing his neck, which still had a dull pain in it. He walked to his apartment in C32, which was the second floor in the three storey building. The apartment was small, having two sets of bunk beds. The two bottom beds had already been occupied. One by a bespectacled man reading a book, the other was a man, who was combing his hair out into a quiff. They both looked at Zen as his monkey sped into the room, bouncing on the bed.

“Yeah,” Zen said dismissively.

“My name is Deng Ai and that is Li Ao.” The boy with the book said.

Ao stopped combing his hair to wink at Zen.

Zen scowled, “Deng and Li? Commoners?”

“Yes,” the boy said. “We commoners should stick together.”

“I’m not a commoner,” Zen said as he climbed to the bed above the boy with the book.

Shibi hung from the top bunk bed to look at Ai.

‘Hey, that’s a Scorch Ape.”

Zen leaned over to look at Ai, “You know them?”

“Yes, but they’re from the Rising Dragon province, the biggest province in the country.” Ai said, fixing his glasses on his face. “Is that where you’re from?”

“No, we were visiting in that province when I found Shibi.” Zen explained. “His mother must have been killed either by another beast or a cultivator, because he was alone and hungry when we found him. So I decided to take care of him.”

“You hear that Ai?” Ao said, admiring his hair in the mirror. “You know someone is a noble when he visits another province for fun. He was talking the truth.”

“I’m glad someone sees it,” Zen said before looking to the ceiling and allowing his eyes to close.

-

Wang Zen was woken the next by a gentle poke to the arm. He awoke to find Ao staring at him. “Rise and shine, sleepy.”

“Leave me alone,” Zen said, turning away from him, facing Shibi, who was curled up in a ball next to him.

“Fine, but don’t blame us when your late for your first class.”

Zen groaned in frustration before getting up, leaving Shibi sleeping peacefully. He walked to the shower room, which he found was a single room with multiple shower heads lined against a wall and a few walled off showers. The students who were in the apartment building, which was comprised of only males, had to share this shower room. Zen found a shower head, far away from the other showering students and swore at ever coming to the academy as he cleaned himself.

After getting dressed back in his room, he left for the day, letting Shibi explore the campus on his own. As he walked to his classes, his emblem began to vibrate. He unclasped it from his breast and looked at it.

“This happened yesterday too,” he said. Using his qi, he accessed the message in the emblem. A miniature image of a man with noticeable muscles appeared before him, projected above the emblem.

‘Greetings Wang Zen, this is a thought message.”

“A thought message,” Wang Zen said. He gazed closely at the man and realised he had seen him before. He was the examiner from yesterday! However, his form here was much too muscled. Wang Zen scowled; Thought Messages took an excellent amount of qi control to make. They allow the user to imagine any picture of sound and commit it to the stone they record it on. It was a difficult skill to learn and therefore, not many, even among the elemental ranked cultivators, could do it. Which is why most of them stuck to recording Real Messages Zen scowled at the man’s image of himself, as the examiner from yesterday did not speak in such a deep, manly voice and in no way did he have all the muscles he saw now.

“I suggest, for your sake and mine, that you delete this message after seeing it.” The examiner continued. “As you saw yesterday, I tweaked your results so that you could be accepted into the academy. This means you are probably the weakest student on campus a ruse you will have to remedy in time with hard work and diligence to your studies. Do not draw too much attention to yourself until you become acceptingly strong, avoid being scanned because if you are discovered, it will mean the end of my job and great shame for your family. Good luck!”

The message ended, leaving Zen more ashamed than ever. To think, he had to rely on subterfuge to make it this far and now, he was at the bottom of the barrel. He used his qi to erase the Thought Message.