As evening descended upon the city, Jessica and I strolled out from the school cafeteria after dinner. We didn't go straight to our dorm room but hopped on Roy to get a bird view of the entire school.
It was really fun dashing through the wind in the vast night sky. I stood on Roy's back while Jessica sat dead frightened. I had complete resonance with Roy's mind, so I really couldn't fear of being hurt. Below were myriads of private courtyards and quarters with so many inhabitants residing within. The reason why all of these accomodations were here, was something still unclear to me.
As we moved on air, I mediated my spiritual consciousness into my Academy Token to keep an eye on where we were at the moment.
"See that skyscraper over there?" I asked, pointing forward.
"Uhun?" Jessica replied, raising her head to take in the sight. Her hair fluttered in the wind, carelessly.
"That's where we'll be having our school lessons!" I said.
Her eyes widened, as she pointed to the large building.
"That's the Tower of Cultivation?"
I nodded, raising my Academy Token to signify my source of information.
"How do they expect non-beast tamers to trek here every single day?"
I simply shrugged, before issuing some orders to Roy for him to return us back to Dormitory A.
On returning to Room 1, Xueyi was already asleep with a poison barrier to serve as her security. I shrugged my shoulder unperturbed and went off to wash myself, while Jessica went into her bed and muttered something about trust issues.
I laid on bed and began picturing those wonderful scenes I'd seen today; those ancient-old buildings and the people of all races within the walls of the academy.
Before I knew it, I'd drafted into sleep. But I wasn't a fool to sleep too deeply. I was lucky to have eliminated Xueyi's poison, somehow, didn't mean I would keep taking in lethal poisons.
Despite waking up earlier than usual — though not quite early — I realised that Xueyi was wide awake. In fact, she was cultivating. Teacher Kira wouldn't give me any cultivation method, and told me I'd learn all about it in my first cultivation lesson here in the academy, so I could only wait patiently, all this time.
Right then, a knock came from the door. Without thinking, I stood up to get it.
"Let me in."
The cold, stone-faced Receptionist A stood at the front door. There was no smile or any pleasantry whatsoever.
"Good morning to you too," I muttered then gave her way to walk in.
She stared blankly at Xueyi and I for a moment before slapping her palms together. The vibrative sound caused Jessica to jerk awake, and she ran behind me, red-eyed, hiding somewhat.
"Ten seconds madness," I muttered underneath my breath, remembering what my former school teacher called the weird mannerism one behaves during the first ten seconds after awakening from sleep.
Receptionist A snorted then began to speak.
"Room 1, today's first day of school. So you'll all head for the Tower of Cultivation in your uniforms. You can get directions from your Academy Tokens. You have ten minutes to leave, do you understand?" After some thoughts, she added, "Don't think I'd be doing this a second time. School rules compels me to wake everyone on the first day of school."
Our trio exchanged surprised looks, before quickly scurrying here and there to get prepared. Jessica ran to the kitchen to wash her face and mouth... since it was an oddly useless place when we could always eat free food in the school cafeteria. I, on the other hand, ran into the bathroom to clean myself up.
The ever cold Xueyi was already in a new set of clothes by the time I dashed out of the bathroom. She'd made herself a personal changing room beside her bed, so I didn't waste time thinking about these trivial matters. Noticing I was out, Jessica dashed into the bathroom with her glasses seated oddly on her nose. I ran a comb through my hair and did the usual ponytail everyone seemed to do when in a hurry.
"How do we get there in ten minutes?" Xueyi suddenly asked when we were all set in our various uniform robes over our clothes.
I smirked.
"Why d'you both think you have a beast tamer amongst you?" I casually flicked my wrist and Roy appeared beside me.
Xueyi took a startled step backward.
"Well, I wouldn't mind a ride."
* * *
"Noooo! Get me fricking down! Ah! Mummy! I'm afraid of heights! I mind a ride! I so mind a ride! Drop me, I wanna trek!"
Few seconds after, Xueyi was screaming in the air. It seemed like she'd never been on a freestyled flying beast.
Jessica and I laughed continuously. Who could have thought the ever cold, undaunted, Xueyi could be scared of heights? Roy wasn't even making things easier, twirling here and there. He was having lots of fun, himself.
Ten minutes after, we arrived before the mighty tower. I let Roy fly away to have some fun while we walked into the building. After all, I could summon him over with a jerk of my thought.
Three words hung over the entrance of the building.
Tower of Cultivation.
A unique feeling could be caught just by staring at the name plaque. We all arranged ourselves to make sure nothing was off about ourselves before taking meticulous strides into the building.
We entered a reception hall with students clothed in different uniforms. Earlier, before leaving Dormitory A, our receptionist had instructed us to hand over our Academy Tokens to the receptionist here, for us to be allotted our different classes. After waiting in a little queue for two minutes, we finally handed over our Academy Tokens to the receptionist.
The receptionist was a middle-aged woman as well. She had a cold expression on, but nothing one could compare with Receptionist A.
After scanning the tokens, she then said, "Strange enough, late comers, your trio is allotted to the same classroom. There's a recruited teacher for that class, so you better put out your best. He's not yet in class, so you're quite fortunate. Class 192. Fourth floor.
We nodded and thanked her, before hurrying to the hallway. We didn't dare take the stairs for fear of increasing our lateness, so we joined a group of students heading for the fourth floor, in an elevator.
Jessica whispered to me. "I'm kinda nervous."
I nodded, noticing my own heartbeat. "Me too."
"Well why?" she asked.
"Well, because I'm not such an outstanding cultivator," I replied, stretching emphasis on "cultivator".
She remained silent. I couldn't tell why. It could probably have been because that was exactly her fear, or just because she didn't have what else to say.
Xueyi was also looking pale, but we shared no similar reasons. It was obvious she hadn't gotten over the aerial ride. Seeing her like this kind of made me smile.
'Ping!'
The elevator door opened automatically, and everyone began marching out to their various classes. The fourth floor covered from Room 190 to Room 200. Hence, our new classroom was definitely not far away. It was on the second room on the left.
As Jessica and I stopped to stare at the room number in nervousness, Xueyi just walked straight passed us through the door, not even giving us the breath to compose ourselves. We quickly scurried behind her and found ourselves empty seats to sit on.
The room was a large hall with only twelve students. With us adding to the number, that made fifteen. We sat by the wall. Xueyi sat beside a boy with the same uniform as her, while Jessica and I sat right behind them. There was just more than enough space in the classroom which made it feel way too bizarrely.
I sighed and began to observe the others. Some were speaking, others were nervously still, yet a few others — like the two seated in front of me — were simply keeping a cold disposition that none could read through.
Just then, the door was pushed open, revealing a tall man with a face as though carved out from jade; he walked into the classroom, attracting the eyes of one and all.