Battle

In Fallen Star Academy, all enrolled students are categorized into four grades, First to Fourth. All new incoming students belong to First Grade. They almost never have any cultivation experience. When someone reaches the Fourth stage Body refinement realm, they can apply for promotion to the Second Grade. Similarly, all Second Grade students who reach the Seventh stage of Body refinement can advance to the Third Grade.

But the Fourth Grade is a bit special. Usually, when students break through to Qi Condensation realm, they apply for entrance to higher Academies such as Pure Mist Academy or pursue their goals elsewhere. But the entrance test to these Academies only happens once a year. So, people who broke through after the test would have to wait until the next test which is a year later. These students cannot be put together with the Third Grade students, hence they created another grade just for them. Although most of the time there will only be a couple of students, this year there were at least a dozen. Meaning in the next Pure Mist Academy entrance test, there were more than a dozen participants from just the Fallen Star Academies. There were Three hundred and twelve cities ruled by the Pure Mist Country. There were dozens of much bigger cities than the Fallen Star City. The total amount of participants in the entrance test for Pure Mist Academy will easily be in the thousands.

Although the capital city has multiple Academies, most of the students would like to go for Pure Mist Academy. Not because the other Academies are worse, because Pure Mist Academy has a huge background that not even the King could offend, the Vermillion Bird Academy. Just some random elder from there could easily erase the entire Pure Mist Country off the map.

…

When Xue'er and her maids arrived, they attracted a lot of attention. All three of them were in the Fourth Grade and all of them were beauties of the highest quality, especially Xue'er. On top of that, she was the only daughter of the most powerful man currently in Fallen Star City. Whoever gets her favor, they would be settled for life which made her the most desirable woman in the entire city. Supposedly, a couple of fights have privately been fought to determine who could pursue her.

"Look isn't that Miss Lin Xue'er, no matter how many times I look, it will never be enough!"

"If I can have her, I would be willing to trade half my life for it!"

"Jeez, stop it. She won't even look at an ugly creature like you,"

"I heard Young Master Ping tried to capture her, but instead got himself int trouble!"

"What Young Master, his family is already finished!"

"My father said if I can win favor any of the three, he would immediately name me the next head of the family,"

"I heard Fang Shi, Du Fen and Shen Lei from the Fourth Grade trying to woo her. All of them come from small families. If they could form a relationship with the Lin family, they would directly rise to the top!"

…

"Do you know, I have a friend among the Lin family guards who went together with Miss Xue'er to forest the other day, guess what he told me?"

"Story of an epic battle?"

"No, idiot! He told me, they had rescued an expert along the way. He and Miss Xue'er fell deeply in love with each other!"

"What nonsense, how can Goddess Xue'er fall in love with some random person? He must have lied to you,"

"Yes, I thought so too."

"Yun the tigress, Yi the kitten, and Xue'er the fox! How fitting!"

…

"Wow! They even have names for us!" exclaimed Yun.

"Nonsense, why would I be the fox?"

"Well it's true Miss can enchant people with your looks," said Yi meekly just like a kitten, "Didn't Young Master Yan get enchanted with just one look?"

"Yi, now you have done it!" Xue'er's face became red started pinching Yi's waist.

"ha-ha-ha," Yun laughed loudly, "I like mine though, Yun the Tigress! It has a nice ring to it."

"Yeah, you keep up with that and no one will ever marry you!" said Xue'er.

It was now Yun's turn to be embarrassed. The three of them joked and enjoyed their way that they didn't even notice, the nosebleed they had caused was enough to fill a lake.

After they left,

"Wow! If I can watch this daily, I would have no regrets in this life," said someone wiping the blood from his nose.

In the Fallen Star Academy, the Fourth Grade did not have a classroom. They didn't have any classes either. They would have to wait for when they join a higher Academy to get access to advanced lectures. Fourth Graders usually gathered in a hall.

When Xue'er trio entered the hall, there were already a few people present.

"Xue'er long time no see," one of the females called out.

"Hi, Jing! How are you?" asked Xue'er.

"Not good actually, that idiot of a cousin keeps pestering me to set you up on a date with him," said Fang Jing appearing depressed. Even Xue'er could tell she was just acting and couldn't wait to finish her task given by their patriarch. "You know, cousin Fang Shi, Du Fen and Shen Lei fought with each other to see who is better suited to pursue you, and my cousin won. Can you give him a chance? There are only three weeks before the recruitment for Pure Mist Academy, I am sure you will depart soon and so does me and cousin Fang Shi, My other cousin, cousin Fang Shi's elder brother is already an inner court disciple there. I think it's better to have someone dependable once we get there. Even if just as a friend can you meet him for a lunch or dinner?"

Xue'er would have usually ignored these as they had no effect on her, but now she was Xiao Yan's lover. They might have separated, but in her mind, she still thinks that she belongs only to him. Any thoughts towards her should be punished because it's not her prestige alone anymore.

Although Xue'er was enraged at Fang Jing, she still smiled and said, "You see, I have Yun here who is strong and dependable, and I trust her a lot. If your cousin can fight her, even if he doesn't win, a tie is fine for me to consider."

'Wow, Young Miss has become diabolical,' thought Yi, but she understood. Within just a few days she had fought, was betrayed, wounded, loved and finally separated from her love. It would be a surprise if she didn't mature.

Fang Jing thought Xue'er was sincerely giving him a chance because to her knowledge Xue'er was in the Third Stage, Yi was in the First Stage and Yun was in the Second Stage Qi Condensation realm. It would be a beating if Fang Shi who was in First Stage fought against Xue'er. But she was confident in her cousin could hold his ground against Yun.

'Cousin, I have done my job, please don't mess it up! Now, I can receive my rewards' thought Fang Jing excited.

"Where and when?" asked Fang Jing.

"We will be practicing for the Hunt from tomorrow, tell him we will be here for another couple of hours," said Xue'er.

"Great! He will be here in half an hour," with that she scurried off excitedly.

"Humph" snorted Yun, "Miss, you can't have me working like this for free,"

"Ha-ha, what do you want? Do you want me to ask my father for a raise?" asked Xue'er teasingly.

"You …" no words came out of Yun's mouth. She knew even though Lin Jian had forgiven her in words, he was still vigilant. It was already a huge favor that he didn't kill her, perhaps because of Xiao Yan, asking for a raise? She would be a fool to think it would do well for her.

"Ha-ha," both Xue'er and Yi laughed.

..

Half an hour later, Fallen Star Arena. This was the place the Academy created for private duels between students.

Currently, Yun stood on one end of the arena looking at her opponent. He was almost the same age as her probably a bit older but not much. He was tall and lean. He had an average face, if you place him in a group there was no way he would stand out. He was Fang Shi, Fang Jing's older cousin. His talent was weaker than Fang Jing, but he had a higher status than her as he was the Fang family Young Master, the current Patriarch's second son.

Fang Shi was over the moon when he heard her cousin say Xue'er agreed to give him a chance. He was already thinking about Du Fen and Shen Lei's face when he and Xue'er showed up in public together.

It was rare for Fourth Graders to duel in Fallen Star Academy as there were only a couple of them each year, so there were a lot of people gathered to watch it.

He looked around, when he saw Xue'er sitting there with Yi, he yelled at them loudly, "Miss Xue'er please watch my family's top art Eagle King Slash, it's a mid-level Yellow Grade art which my brother brought from the Capital," many gasps could be heard from the crowd.

Xue'er also nodded her head as if she was impressed by the art. Only she was smirking inside, 'mid-level Yellow Grade?' her Father although left Xiao Clan years ago, his arts were from THE Xiao Clan. If this Eagle King Slash was thrown on floor inside Xiao Clan, not even maids and servants will bother to pick it up, oh, sorry, the maids might throw it out.

"Miss Yun, I am attacking," said Fang Shi with a gentleman's tone and posture which caused Yun to almost vomit.

'This guy is asking for a beating' Xue'er and Yi looked at each other thought at the same time.

After finishing showing off, he gathered green colored Qi on his palm and slashed it towards Yun. It looked so cool that many praised it to no end.

'Flashy but no substance,' thought Yun. She rushed towards Fang Shi, raising her palm, she slightly pushed it forward. There was no colorful Qi around her nor any flashy movements, just a simple palm.

Many of the spectators closed their eyes not wanting to see a beauty getting injured. Even Fang Shi thought 'If she is injured, will Xue'er hate me? Damm'

When everyone waiting with bated breaths, the palm and the green-ray collided. The green-ray couldn't even withstand for a moment before it shattered, and the palm continued as before and struck Fang Shi's chest.

*bam*

'Eh, why am I flying backward? And why am I feeling so much pain? Ahh' that was his only thought before he threw mouthful of blood and fainted.