The Next Level

The crowd around the second-year ranking board was smaller this time—many had decided not even to worry about where they placed in the exam and start to train and prepare for the start of the camp in a week right away. Shokoya was among those who showed up. He struck up a conversation when he saw me.

"Zuhui, how's it going? Think you'll get the perfect score this time?"

I nodded slightly. "Finding out is why I'm here. I think I've figured out how to not get docked points on the written responses. I notice Jong and Quan didn't show."

"I doubt Quan will improve his score much, or Jong will fall back any. If anything, Quan might score outside the top 10 since you beat him so bad in the last match."

"So why're you checking the scores? You didn't lose a match did you?"

"Actually, I came here because I figured you'd be here."

"Oh?" In front of us, the scores up to 50th appeared.

"It looks like there won't be an alliance meeting for the top 10 this year. Jong said he'd try to search somewhere I wasn't if I put a group together, but he also said no promises for anything else. Senyu Quan actually laughed at me. Mei is going to be with her usual clique, of course. And Jue Zhu is being unusually insistent on going alone. Which just leaves me, Wang Jing, Qilong and Jiaoping...and I was hoping, you."

I raised my eyebrows. On the board, the scores up to 30th appeared. "The others are already down with grouping up with you?"

"They are. Qilong and Jiaoping worked particularly well with me last time, and Qilong even said he wants to repay me for giving him the spear last year, by helping me find something for myself. Wang Jing...she seemed grateful I even asked. I think there's something to unpack, there."

"Why come to me too, then? Four elites is a decent sized group. And considering my cultivation base, I'd be shocked if you hadn't already anticipated that I want to push for the far side of the mountain as soon as possible."

"I want to push for that too. That's where all of the Ascended Beasts—and more to the point, the treasures they're guarding—will be."

"But the staff won't let you through the Gate of Yang without reaching the Fifth Realm. I'm already at Fifth Realm, so--"

"Let me finish. Of course, you won't be with us from the start. I'd like you to join us once we're able to pass the Gate of Yang. We'll need to train on the Trail of Shadows for some time, so if you've moved on from it, all I ask is that you check if we've made it every few days or so. If you haven't run into us by the end of the first month, then you can forget about it."

I sighed. By now, the results had finished appearing and people were starting to disperse. "Arranging something like this would be SO much easier if our darn System had so much as a text communication function! The more I dwell on it, the weirder it seems that there isn't one. I'm not opposed to helping you take out an Ascended Beast to get you a Treasure quality weapon. For one, the last one I took on sucked to fight solo, and for another, there's that rule that those who don't get the treasure get the Contribution Points.

As for training alongside you other than against a 'boss'...I'm gonna say let's wait and see on that. If it seems like I can without jeopardizing my reaching the Sixth Realm, then sure." I looked away from Shokoya, to get a proper look at the board. Sure enough, I'd pulled off the perfect score. Shokoya was at #2, only 3 points behind me. As he'd predicted, Quan was all the way down at #14. "You know, it's never come up whether you have a Talent. I'm pretty sure you do, though."

Shokoya shrugged. "I do have a 'medium' talent in Comprehension. I started cultivating before the first week of classes was over, and Instructor Feng says I'm good at analyzing my opponents. What's holding me back is that I don't really have the endurance required to fully bring out the potential of my defensive style, so that's what I've been working on the most."

"I see. Yeah, kind of hard to match a former soldier for endurance, huh?"

"I'll turn it around once we're in the Inner Court. They have specialized regimens I can undergo there, according to Instructor Feng."

"All right. Well, good luck to you."

(chapter break)

I was full of nervous energy as I took my place in the assembly, once again third in line but this time in the second group from the back. I wasn't the only one, either. For all his posturing to us and his insistence on going it alone, Quan right behind me may have been as still as a statue but he was much too clearly tense to make a decent impression of one. Shokoya wasn't much better, and Jue Zhu in the front position, strangely, was practically radiating nervousness as though it was spiritual pressure.

Jong was more like nervously excited—and apparently, when he got nervously excited, he got chatty. "Just think," he said, as we passed the Inner Court Dormitory, "once our trip to Tribulation Mountain is over, we'll be moving in there!"

"Under a few reasonable assumptions," I said, annoyed, "that is true, but nevertheless I really must condemn the foolishness of tempting fate THAT obviously."

I got a few nervous laughs from those around me for my trouble. "Ooh, good point. This world has its own magic and all. I don't want to ask to get cursed. But still...I'm raring to go even more than I was last year!"

"That makes one of us," Shokoya murmured.

By the time we reached the facility with the Teleport Formation, there was nervous chatter everywhere. This time, I got an even better look at the two groups of ten students each that made up the Inner Court class. Definitely, we're going to look as odd as them next year. If not even more eccentric.

Just like last year, it seemed to take forever for the senior classes ahead of us to finish teleporting and to be called onto the formation's platform. It wasn't instantaneous once all 100 students were on, either. By the time we finally appeared at the base camp of Tribulation Mountain, I was as eager as Jue Zhu and Jong to get cracking.

There was little to stop me, too. After all, we'd already completed survival training last year. So, after a short speech by the head-of-year reminding us to be careful, and the passing out of the distress-signal totem objects, I decided there was no harm in setting out together with Jong and Jue Zhu.

Jong separated from us early on, though—compared to the two of us, he was behind in cultivation base. Fishing the River Lord had taken up a great deal of his time last year, and though he'd gained a lot from it with the Experiential Physique, he was still about 10 million Qi short of the Core Solidification Realm.