Cult of the Sacred Runes

Chapter 107 – Polaris Academy

‘Three years… I wonder how much Cao Ning has grown. I heard he got into Senior One.’ Ye Wei walked out of the dining hall and slowly walked to the classrooms after he finished his meal.

Ye Wei smiled as he thought about Cao Ning’s clumsiness and silly, modest face. Ning was his only close friend at South Star Academy, the only person who he cared about. ‘He should be reasonably strong now.’ When he was training with Master YI he sent pills, herbs, and other cultivation supplies to Cao Ning.

On his way to the classrooms, Ye Wei bumped into a few worried-looking students who were dashing towards the school gate. He felt slightly puzzled, as he worriedly frowned thinking that something bad might had happened.

‘They would have sounded the bell if it was an emergency; I will look into it once I find Ning…’ Although curious, Ye Wei did not put too much mind to it and kept making his way to the Senior One classroom.

Upon arriving at the classroom, Ye Wei walked into no less than ten Senior One students exiting.

“These Polaris Academy students crossed the line!”

“Let’s go! Brother Cao would have started a fight with them by now! We better hurry, there are many of them!”

“Let’s go!” All of them looked angry and concerned. It seems Cao Ning had become something of a leader for the boys, and he was now in trouble.

“Wait!” Ye Wei was going to keep a low profile, but hearing Cao Ning’s name mentioned, he stopped the group before they left. “What happened? Where is Cao Ning?”

“Who are you?” They didn’t stop for Ye Wei as none of these students knew him but they could tell from his concerned tone that he knew the boss of Senior One. They stopped because they heard their leader’s name.

“I am Cao Ning’s close friend. Where is he now? Is he okay?” Ye Wei asked.

“Brother Cao’s close friend?” They looked suspiciously at Ye Wei, and couldn’t sense the slightest Qi disturbance from him thus deduced that he was Cao Ning’s commoner friend from before entering South Star.

“Polaris Academy students are here. One of them bumped into a South Star student, and they started a fight because of it. Brother Cao is already there helping out, do you want to tag along?” One of the Senior One students explained.

“Polaris Academy? The school in Polaris City?” Ye Wei raised his eyebrows and went with the group hastily.

On the way to the school gate, Ye Wei threw a few questions at the students and got a brief idea of what was going down.

The cultivation tournament of the outer districts was starting in half a month. This was an event held by the Zhou dynasty, and it is a time when cultivators from the thirty-six cities in the outer districts gathered and represented their schools in the arena. After which a new school ranking was published according to the tournament’s result. The Zhou dynasty’s Green Army would send talent scouts to recruit young blood.

All the participating schools took the tournament very seriously, and the representatives of Polaris Academy decided to head to the venue early so they could settle down and recover from the long travel before competing. As they were on their way to Ning City for the event, their supervising tutors arranged a meeting with the South Star tutors and the visiting students for some reason felt like starting a fight.

Polaris Academy students were picking a fight with South Star students on their campus? There was no way South Star Academy’s students would just take a beating without saying anything. Hearing the news, top students from different classes rushed to the school gate where the fight was taking place.

Cao Ning, the head student of Senior One, was walking passed after he finished lunch and stumbled upon them. He was not sure if he could deal with Polaris Academy’s elites on his own, so he told his friends to get help.

“This is not just a random street fight…” Ye Wei frowned and mumbled to himself; he could see more and more people rushing towards the gate. ‘People don’t gather up like this for a small scale harmless standoff.’

It wasn’t before long when they arrived at the school gate, and it was crowded with a couple hundred students.

The crowd arranged itself in a circle in the middle of which was an open space and inside stood seven youngsters in black robes.

“Is South Star Academy this weak nowadays? I can’t even find a worthy opponent it seems. I think you people should not even think about participating in the tournament! You will just embarrass yourselves!” All seven of the black-robed youngsters stood with a frivolous posture and wore mocking smiles on their faces as they looked out over the crowd.

Twenty South Star Academy students laid before them, all of them injured. One of them was Ye Wei’s closest friend, Cao Ning.

Ye Wei stood outside of the gathered crowd. He could not see the casualties from where he stood, but he could hear their hysterical laugh clearly. He frowned and narrowed his eyes trying to get a glimpse of the action from between the crowd. Although he had been training with Master Yi this whole time, in the end, he was a South Star student. He was not happy to hear what the black-robed cultivators had to say about his school.

All of a sudden Ye Wei’s eyes widened when he saw a tanned young man with a sturdy build. Ye Wei could recognize this person’s honest face anywhere.

It’s had been three years, and Ye Wei never imagined he would reunite with Cao Ning in such a situation.

Ye Wei’s face turned ash-white. The people who stood around him could feel a cold presence, and they all unconsciously moved and turned to the source of the Qi disturbance. “Brother Cao!” The students who came with Ye Wei ran through the crowd into the open area. All of them were angry to see their leader hurt. Ye Wei did not say a word. He just followed the Senior One boys.

Out of the few hundred people, most of them were junior or intermediate Students, and seeing that the senior students have arrived on the scene, they all made way for the stronger ones to come through.

“Brother Cao, are you okay?” The Senior One boys helped Cao Ning up while their eyes spat fire staring while staring at the black-robed cultivators.

Cao Ning was the boss of Senior One. He always had a sense of justice and was happy to help others. He had a great reputation, and although he was from a normal family, even students from martial family respected him inside and outside the classroom. Now that he was injured, none of Senior One students could hold back their anger. They were all pissed and got ready to attack these bad-mannered visitors.

“Oh you, watch bother Cao. I’m going to help them!” The chubby student who helped Cao Ning up didn’t want to ditch his friends, so he rushed in after making sure the boss was in good hands.

“How are you feeling?” Ye Wei held Cao Ning so he could stand steadily. He was relieved as he could sense Cao Ning’s injuries were not serious.

These Polaris Academy students were very ingenious they hit just hard enough to knock the South Star students down but not hard enough to be punished for bodily harm by the academy’s student discipline committee.

“I’m fine!” Cao Ning’s tried to open his bruised eye as he shook his head. Cao Ning did not recognize Ye Wei right away, and he thought the boy next to him was just a kind-hearted classmate.

“Who are they?” Ye Wei looked at the black-robed youngster and asked.

“These students from Polaris are too strong; I am no match to them. We need some teachers here, or a few of South Star’s top ten students to defend ourselves!” Cao Ning was looking at Ye Wei sure he had seen this face somewhere in the past.

“You are doing pretty well for yourself. These guys love you it seems. Three years ago you were too scared to even speak loudly, and now these guys are calling you their boss? Haha!” Ye Wei chuckled mischievously, in the mood to joke as his old friend’s minor injuries were pretty funny. ‘Humm… Should I do something about this?’

“W…Wei?” It was not Ye Wei’s sense of humor, but his accent that gave it away.

Ye Wei had changed a lot. His appearance, posture, and even his way of behaving had changed. Cao Ning would not be able to recognize this good looking young man if he didn’t know Ye Wei better than anyone else at South Star Academy.

“Finally… Took you some time. Was that because of your eye?” Ye Wei’s lips curled into a familiar smile, one that Cao Ning had missed for quite some time.

“It really is you! Where have you been all these years? I have been to the Ye mansion more than a few times, but all they did was give me these pills and herbs and… Nevermind that! They said you went to train with Master Yi, and even they didn’t know where you were!” There was excitement on Cao Ning’s face. He was excited to see his old friend again after three years.

“Me? As you said, I’ve been training!” Ye Wei said casually as he thought about his experiences and the pain of it. He smiled satisfyingly knowing how the three years had changed him.

Although Ye Wei mentioned it as if it was nothing, nobody except him and Master Yi knew what kind of torture and hardship he had to endure.

“Trash!” Amongst the seven black-robed cultivators, a red-haired youngster stepped forward. He spoke in a disdainful tone while sneering.

He stared at the Senior One students as they approached. He laughed and then stomped. The ground fractured, and his body was suddenly filled with Qi as an invisible pressure wave spread from his foot.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Before the Senior One students could get close to him, they were already knocked into the air then fell to the ground. The pressure wave impacted them internally causing them to be stunned and unable to fight.

“What do they teach you here? How to be a punching bag?” The red-haired youngster looked down at where the Senior One students laid and said derisively.

“This strength!”

The surrounding students gasped and exclaimed. All the students from Senior One were seven-star Students or above, and the ones who just rushed into the crowd circle were some of the best students in the class, many of which were ten-star Students.

The ability to knock down that many top Students with just a stomp was telling. The crowd now knew that this red-haired youngster was at least a three-star Warrior!

It was no surprise that a Warrior could beat Students, but neutralizing them with just Qi meant that this Warrior was very well trained…