Heavenly Academy

Like every morning in the past fourteen years, Chen Chang Sheng woke up at five, used five seconds to calm, got off the bed, dressed up, folded the quilts, and made the bed. In the dining room of the inn, he ate a bowl of duck porridge and four freshly made hot meat buns. He then returned to his bedroom, rinsed his mouth using the tea from last night, and dressed up before walking out into the yard.

–Now he was not in the small temple at Xi Ning town. He didn’t have to chop firewood and deliver water. Facing the morning fog and light coming from far away, he closed his eyes and started to silently read the scrolls of ways. Until he felt refreshed and alert, his daily routine of the day was over. He walked from the side door to the crowded and noisy street in the capital.

He had a roster in his hand. On the roster were the names of some schools in the capital. After getting the addressed from the market manager, he walked faster. He didn’t notice that there was a wagon following him. He didn’t see that the horse possessed unicorn bloodline, and of course, he didn’t notice the bloody phoenix label on the wheel.

Long time ago, The Books came to the world. Humans were enlightened, developed countless teachings, but all the change originated from one point. The classics and scrolls that were written in the past all traced the source of the change. Agriculture, industry, business, and education were all included. Now, publicly, the most authoritative evaluation to these was the annual Great Trial.

The Great Trial was initiated by the first emperor of Zhou. Whether to become a government official, military general, or even a priest in The Tradition, the grade from the Great Trial was the most important criteria. Most importantly, the first emperor declared that only the top three tiers had the right to enter the Mausoleum of the books. Because of this rule, each year countless elites would come to the capital. During the year of the first Great Trial, the first emperor stood on the wall to look at the geniuses from various sects on the continent who came in. He smiled and gave spoke a line which was not only famous today but also established the status of the Great Trial.

(TL Note: The Tradition is the name of a fraction of priests. They are NOT like monks as far as I know for now…)

In the Southern countries, the powerful sects, such as the Longevity sect, were extremely dissatisfied with this rule. To them, even though the Mausoleum of the books was at the capital of Zhou, the Books were the divine rocks that had fell from the heaven and should be the commonwealth of the entire continent. Therefore, the South had attempted to resist the Great Trial for many years making the relationship between the two sides tense.

The Mausoleum of the Books was too important to the xiu xingists. Even though the Zhou Dynasty was very strong, it still could not monopolize it. The South, on the other hand, also could not resist the lure to enter the Mausoleum to see the stela. Even after the demons were defeated, the South still tired to resist the Great Trial publicly. Even though the South tried to resist, there were many elites that came from the South to take the exam in private.

After the Divine Queen held power, Zhou Dynasty eventually formed an agreement with the South. The Southern secs and countries were allowed to freely send out diplomatic corps to take the Great Trial. To make it fairer, the evaluation was based on the both sides. Moreover, the southern students did not have to accept the grants from the Zhou Dynasty. The test takers will all be treated equally. After many years, the trials got a brand new name: Great Trial.

In many years, the Great Trial filtered out countless elites. It’s known that the strongest elites on the continent all had came to the Zhou capital and took the Great Trial. Other well known facts were: the current Pope of The Tradition and the elder of the south Mountain Virgin were once winners of the Great Trials. Not to mention, some geniuses from the West Yao race transformed as humans and came to take the Great Trial. Even in the Demons race, there was a prince who took the risk to come. His identity was detected by the former Pope and exorcised into ashes.

Those were stories from many years ago. Now, what people are more concerned about was in next year’s Great Trail. Would Qiu Shan Jun from the Longevity Sect attend? How many of the Seven Rulings would get into the first tier? Would Xu You Rong break through her stage early and leave the Mountain Virgin to returned to the capital? Would the cold and mysterious genius elite in the demon’s wild plain appeared in front of people for the first time? Or would he continue violently chase and kill more demons? People in the capital also cared about how many outstanding geniuses from all the schools in the capital will show up this year.

Yes, there are many schools in the capital. The Divine Queen held power. Under her strict rule, the government officials were candid and efficient. (TL: Yea sure… look at the Xu family please >.> they are totally candid…) People’s livings gradually improved. In these decades, the empire was in a golden age. Multiple schools appeared like the bamboo shoots in spring after raining. Indeed, in the recent years there were many private schools that were taught by the elites from The Tradition. Their goal is aiming specifically for the Great Trial. Of course, the most famous and influential schools were still the ones with long history. Among them, two of the schools were even established earlier than the Zhou Dynasty.

On Chen Chang Sheng’s roster were six schools, The Heavenly Academy he was currently walking to was on the top of the list. In fact, even among the entire continent, Heavenly Academy could be ranked highly — In the recent two hundred years, the students from Heavenly Academy had gotten 1st place on the Great Trial for twenty four times. The students in the Heavenly Academy were all very talented. The school cultivated many important priests for The Tradition, and educated countless xiu xing elites for many sects. More importantly, the current Pope of The Tradition was a past student from the Heavenly Academy.

Heavenly Academy had the best record so it was the hardest to get into, but there were still many taking the entrance exam. Chen Chang Sheng walked to the entry of the Heavenly Academy. Looking at the gate and looking at the name written by the 1st emperor, he naturally felt a yearning to attend the school. Almost immediately, such feeling was crushed due to the sweat and ink smell. Subconsciously, he looked down.

When he left Xi Ning, he had already calculated the time. The time he arrived to the capital was the days the schools were recruiting students. He also expected that the number of people taking the exam would be large, but he didn’t expect it to be a horrifying amount. Especially when he looked at the young men who stood crookedly, looked lazy, and pointed at the crowd, he felt extremely uneasy.

Those young men wore the same style of attire. The clothes were mostly black and tied with a golden belt. They should be the uniforms of the Heavenly Academy. Chen Chang Sheng knew that the people in line were the students who failed to pass the entrance exam at the beginning of the year. These people were usually full of themselves but now they were embarrassed due to their failure. They didn’t show any good attitudes toward the test takers. Looking at the mocking expression in their eyes, Chen Chang Sheng lowered his head even more.

The act of lowering his head wasn’t due to fear, but rather due to his slight mysophobia. No matter mentally or physically he didn’t want to smell the sweat and insulting words of the crowd.

“Just look at that idiot, looking like a pig. Why would he stick a fan into his collar? Does he think he is Prince Huan Yu? Why didn’t he think that his fat neck will break the fan?”

“True, his steps seem to be soft and unsteady. He probably only went through Purification for two months. How does he dare come to the entrance exam of the Heavenly Academy when he hasn’t set the groundwork for the Purification Stage? Where does he think he is? Traditional Academy? Hilarious…..I don’t understand what these idiots are thinking of, do they really think they can read and understand all of Scroll of the Way with those weak spirit and mind?”

“Read and understand all of Scroll of the Way? Even the book worm Gou Han Shi didn’t dare to say he accomplished that. You guys may sympathize the troubles those idiots are going to endure, but I feel bad for their parents. Embarrassing themselves may be bad, but the money they wasted earlier couldn’t be refunded. If I was the parent of that idiot pig, I would use the money to buy some pill and lose some weight to at least find a wife to marry.”

“What if he found a wife to marry? The Han Mei Pill can only cure one person. If he has seventeen sons and daughters in the future, all of them will be as fat and stupid as he is. Is taking care of a nest of pigs a good thing?”

These students were laughing amongst themselves and recklessly commenting on the people taking the entrance exam. Their words were unbearable and they didn’t control their volume. They actually wanted to be heard by the people they insulted. The face of the fat kid who got bullied turned bright red but he dared not to resist because all of what the students said were true. He just reached Purification ten days ago and probably had no chance to enter the Heavenly Academy, but the most important point was that even if he did enter the academy, he wouldn’t dare to mess with these seniors.

Chen Chang Sheng walked through the crowd and heard the unbearable conversation. He raised his eyebrows slightly and thought that if it was him that the students were commenting on, he didn’t know if he could endure such insults. But luckily his head was low and his presence was ordinary. No one noticed him in the sea of people. He successfully passed the inky jade door and entered the school.

Because he was thinking about other things and his head was low, he didn’t notice that the two big stone walls, next to the entrance of the Heavenly Academy, had a few hundred names carved on them. It seemed like a list of some sort. Many desperate and admired eyes were observing the names.

The family members and servants following the students taking the entrance exam weren’t allowed into the Heavenly Academy, therefore after the students entered the school the environment suddenly became spacious. Chen Chang Sheng took out a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and swiped the sweat off his face. He took deep breaths to feel better before he advanced. Following the student in front of him, he got to the back of the long line.

The number of people taking the entrance exam were countless. The line was so long that it looked like the Hundred Yard Snake from western mythology. The line stretched from the far away building all the way to the grassfield in front of Chen Chang Sheng. There was even a beautiful brook between the two locations. Many students who were taking the entrance exam stood on the wooden bridge on top of the brook. The cold wind of early spring blew into their faces and they were chilled by the coolness.

Soon enough, there were people coming out of the building and all of them were young men and young girls.They were just as expressionless as the people standing on top of the bridge due to the cold air. But since they weren’t blown by the cool wind, it was probably due to their bad results. The people who were still in line became nervous after seeing their terrible expressions and stopped chatting with each other.

Since Chen Chang Sheng knew nobody, he didn’t chat with anyone. He looked at the far away building curiously. The only thing he cared right now was the entrance exam of the Heavenly Academy. Was it still tested the same way it stated in the books? Why did the people who failed backed out so quickly? Did the exam of the Heavenly Academy actually changed?

The crowd kept on moving forward. After passing the grassfield and the brook, Chen Chang Sheng arrived at a bamboo scaffold. Looking at the teacher with a serious expression sitting behind the stone desk, Chen Chang Sheng saw a black stone fragment on the table, He realized the identity of the item. Remembering an old event that occurred in the Tao Scroll, he was slightly stunned.