Wu Jian spent a moment admiring the young woman. He didn’t want to interrupt her when she was in the middle of sparring. There was another part of him that just wanted to admire her. Hou Jingshu was at her most beautiful when she was in the middle of combat. She looked like a fierce warrior princess from ancient myth.

She moved like a graceful dancer as she dodged attacks.

Her attacks were fiercer than a dragon.

The look in her eyes captivated the soul.

He watched and almost felt bad for her sparring partner as the young man she fought received a powerful uppercut to the chin. Her opponent rocketed into the air, flying in a graceful parabolic arc, before hitting the ground with a dull thud. His feet twitched several times, but he did not get back up.

Wu Jian walked onto the mat. He was behind her, so she hadn’t noticed him yet.

“That was a good match.”

“Ah?!” Hou Jingshu spun around. Her leg extended in a kick as if by instinct, but Wu Jian dodged it by arching his spine backward. The moment she realized who was behind her, however, her eyes brightened as she went up to him. “Jian Wu! You’re finally here. How was the admittance test?”

She reached out to gently touch his arm. The gesture seemed to garner a lot of attention from the people around them, but Wu Jian ignored them.

“It was pretty easy, all things considered,” he admitted.

“Mmm. The test isn’t that hard, so I knew you’d pass easily.” She beamed at him.

While Wu Jian and Hou Jingshu spoke, the surrounding people began their own conversations, and they weren’t all that silent about it. He didn’t know if they were purposefully trying to be overheard or were just lacking in common sense. However, he could hear every word being spoken.

“Just who is this guy?! Why is he so close to Her Highness?!”

“I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him before.”

“Look at how she’s touching him.”

“Grrr! Watching her touch him like that burns me up! I wish she would touch me like that!”

“With your face? You’d be lucky to get a girl to spit on you.”

Hou Jingshu’s ears turned red as she heard what everyone was saying about them. He thought she might remove her hand from his arm, but instead she gripped the fabric.

While it was embarrassing to hear people talking about them so blatantly, Wu Jian had grown used to that when he was in the Wu Clan. His fellow clansmen had often talked about him, Wu Meiying, and Hou Jingshu whenever they entered a room. He had learned how to ignore the people’s whispering. Hou Jingshu probably had as well, but it was different this time because of his presence.

“It seems you two really do know each other,” someone said.

Wu Jian turned around as Yu Qiang walked over to them with a placid smile.

“Yu Qiang, I thought you were in closed cultivation,” Hou Jingshu said.

“I just got out,” he admitted with a shrug. “I was on my way back to my compound when I ran into Jian Wu here. I was curious to know why an Outer Court Disciple was located inside the Inner Court.”

“And so you brought him here. Thank you for bringing him to me,” Hou Jingshu said with a smile.

Yu Qiang smiled back. “It was my pleasure. I’m going to head back to my room now. I just stabilized my cultivation not long ago, so I need a good rest.”

“Of course. Thank you again, and congratulations on your breakthrough,” said Hou Jingshu. Yu Qiang bowed to her before leaving. Hou Jingshu then turned to Wu Jian once more. “The test just ended, right? That means you probably haven’t had anything to eat. Why don’t I show you around the Inner Courtyard, and then we can have lunch together?”

“I would like that,” Wu Jian said with a smile.

Hou Jingshu and Wu Jian ignored the crowd of dumbfounded onlookers and left the training hall. They held hands as they walked. They had even laced their fingers together. It seemed Hou Jingshu had no intention of hiding their relationship, which was just fine with Wu Jian. He wasn’t really the possessive type, but it was a good idea to establish their relationship now so no one would try anything later.

Or maybe I’m just overthinking it, he thought as he looked at Hou Jingshu’s happily smiling beside him. She doesn’t really seem like the type to care about that sort of thing. It would be a different story if the one beside me was Wu Meiying.

Wu Meiying was the devious one of their group. He could see her making calculating moves like that, but Hou Jingshu was a bit too innocent and pure for that.

She took him around the Inner Courtyard, which was large enough to be considered a small town in its own right. It wasn’t much smaller than Zahn City. However, it wasn’t built like a city at all. There were multiple compounds spread throughout the area, separated by gardens, parks, and buildings. Unlike the Core Disciple’s compound, which had almost everything you could want all in one place, the Inner Court Disciple compounds only consisted of housing.

“The Inner Court has roughly five-thousand disciples. The buildings between the housing complexes are training halls and mess halls. We only have one library and one medicine hall. The library is that large building over there. You can’t see the medicine hall because it’s not very big, but I’ll take you there later. Let’s visit the library first,” Hou Jingshu said.

The library was three stories high and maybe two times wider and longer than the one in Zahn City. The intricate balustrade lining the staircase that led to the second floor was decorated to look like a dragon and plated with gold. Each shelf was lined with scrolls of all sorts. Wu Jian walked further in with Hou Jingshu as she explained everything to him.

“Inner Court Disciples are allowed on the first and second floors. Core Disciples can go on the third floor. Most of the techniques located here are only Earth Rank, but we do have a few Spirit Rank techniques on the third floor.”

“Have you learned any of the techniques here?” asked Wu Jian.

Hou Jingshu shook her head. “I looked, but none of the techniques in this library match my cultivation method. I did once try learning a technique called Nine Rending Claws, but it didn’t work out.”

Cultivation methods were odd in that some techniques wouldn’t work with certain cultivation methods. The more esoteric and specific the cultivation method, the less techniques would work with it. Wu Jian’s own cultivation method was like that. For the most part, he could only learn techniques that used the Dao of Space. That was why he didn’t know any normal techniques. Hou Jingshu’s cultivation method was less restrictive than his, but it still had some heavy requirements, and thus a lot of normal techniques were closed off to her.

They spent quite a long time inside of the library. This was something they used to do a lot back in Zahn City, and it made Wu Jian feel nostalgic. Sadly, one of them was still missing. He wondered where Wu Meiying was. Was she safe? He hoped she hadn’t been caught.

As they walked up to the third floor, an old woman with sharp glasses and an even sharper look in her eye stopped them at the staircase.

“Your Highness, you know our rules. That man is an Outer Court Disciple. He’s not even allowed in this library, much less the third floor.”

“I know the rules, and they state that Outer Court Disciples cannot take techniques from the Inner Court’s library. It says nothing about them not being allowed inside. Please, don’t worry. We don’t intend to take any techniques. I’m just showing him around. I also have Yu Chenguang’s permission.”

Hou Jingshu summoned a scroll from her storage ring and presented it to the woman, who pursed her lips as she read through it. The frown on her face grew. She already had several wrinkles, but that new frown made even more.

“Very well,” she said at last, sighing. “However, I will be keeping an eye on you both to make sure you don’t take anything. You might be the princess of our nation, but you must still follow the rules.”

“I won’t set a bad example for my fellow disciples,” Hou Jingshu assured her.

With her hand still in Wu Jian’s, Hou Jingshu led him onto the third floor, which was a lot smaller than the previous two. It looked like there were only one hundred or so scrolls. These technique scrolls must have been the cream of the crop.

“All of these are technique scrolls. All of our cultivation methods are located in a library near the Outer Courtyard,” Hou Jingshu explained. “When someone first joins the academy, we find a cultivation method that suits them.”

Wu Jian nodded. “It’s hard to change cultivation methods.”

Cultivators could not just change cultivation methods on a whim. If they wanted to change their cultivation method, they first had to find another method that wasn’t too different from the one they originally used. It was possible to switch between two different methods if the cultivation practice was similar. However, if the cultivation method they wanted to switch to was too different from the one they were using, they would have to destroy their entire cultivation and start over from scratch. Not many people were willing to do that.

As they walked through the library, Wu Jian felt his spine straight, and he looked at one of the shelves as if something was pulling him toward it.

“Is something wrong?” asked Hou Jingshu.

“I’m not sure.” He furrowed his brow. “It felt like there is something over there.”

“Really? Hmmm…”

Wu Jian and Hou Jingshu made their way to the shelf in question. It looked no different from the other shelves, but the feeling Wu Jian had was pulling him here like a moth to a flame. He looked around for a moment before his eyes landed on a scroll that looked older than the rest. The aged parchment was yellow and worn.

“That’s it.”

“This scroll?”

“Yes.”

Hou Jingshu picked up the scroll and unfurled it. She was allowed to do so, though she was not allowed to remove scrolls from the library.

“Space Lock. A technique that involves using the Dao of Space to lock someone in place. Manipulates space to prevent them from moving. High-grade Spirit Rank.” Hou Jingshu looked at Wu Jian. “Don’t you have a similar technique?”

He nodded. “Yes, but it’s incomplete. I can’t progress it any further because my understanding of the Dao of Space is still lacking.”

“Hmmm. We can’t take this out, and you’re not allowed to read it, but it shouldn’t be hard for you to become a Core Disciple. You can learn this once you do,” Hou Jingshu placed the scroll back where it was. “We’ve been here for a while now. Let’s grab lunch.”

“Sounds good to me.”

They left the library and went back to the Core Disciple’s compound, which did not have a mess hall like the Inner and Outer Courtyards. There were several restaurants in the compound. Each restaurant focused on a specific cuisine. While most were Shang Kingdom cuisines, there were a few that had foods from other nations.

The one they found themselves sitting at was a nice restaurant with an outdoor sitting area. They sat on their haunches at a low-sitting table. A soft mattress protected their shins from the hardwood floor. Situated before them was a beautiful zen garden with an aesthetically pleasing design that brought dragons to mind. It seemed dragons were a major theme in decorations found in the Shang Kingdom.

The food that was brought out; rice, fruits, and vegetables like grapes, peaches, green onions, and ginger root. All the food was slow cooked in a three-legged pot. It was very different from the meat heavy Shang Kingdom food. Hou Jingshu said this food was popular in the Xia Dynasty.

“Now that you’ve entered the academy, we should discuss our next step,” Hou Jingshu said.

Wu Jian nodded as he sampled some of the cuisine. The sounds of the softly flowing stream that split the zen garden accompanied their conversation.