Shokoya grinned at me. "Guess summer's results didn't change the top ranks much."
"No surprise there," I replied, moving off with him away from the main crowd of students, "I don't think enough besides us crossed the Gate of Yang to fill Class A."
The four class instructors left with the other 90 students, leaving us being watched only by Senior Liam. That was plenty, of course. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you what this means for you all," he said once the rest had gone, "in a few minutes, the Head Instructor of the Academy will arrive to escort you to the Inner Court Dormitory. There, you will be issued your new uniforms and IDs, confirming your status as Inner Court students. This will be followed by a brief event for you to meet and integrate with the senior Inner Court students who will be your classmates for the next year.
As Inner Court students, you carry the honor of the Academy with you. For the most part, you already do us proud—you had a 100% kill rate on the Ascended Beasts of Tribulation Mountain, the first time this has happened since the Academy's program started. All I can say is, continue to hone your skills, advance your knowledge, and become worthy of the sects who accept you on graduation."
"Or perhaps, some of you might become worthy of more than that," said a new voice. Perhaps in a bid to impress us, the tall, wizened, well-tanned Head Instructor had teleported in and somehow listened in without anyone spotting him. Well, if that was the idea, it sure worked on me. I gave Jue Zhu a quick, quizzical glance, wondering if he'd somehow sensed him, to which he shook his head. "All of you follow me," he continued, "I know you're excited, but try to contain yourselves and act with dignity. The road ahead of you will not be easy."
That was all well and good for him to say, but any hope of most of us remaining composed was dashed on our first sight of the main hall of the Inner Court Building. The decor was a match for most lordly manors in any VRMMO I'd ever played and servants had turned out to line up as a welcoming committee. One by one, the Head Instructor called us to update our ID badges to allow us at-will access to all Inner Court facilities, then a servant attended to each of us, leading us to our new rooms, each of which only opened with our particular badge. My room's bedroom alone was nearly the size of my entire old apartment, and the bathroom was nicer than any I'd ever used in the real world. An Inner Court uniform had been laid out on the bed, and a few more sets were visible in the closet. "The Head Teacher bids you get changed and proceed to the event hall for the Inner Court welcome banquet," said my attendant.
I nodded back at their respectful bow. "Of course."
The welcome banquet was like a blur. It was pretty fun to meet the group I'd seen from afar at the start of 2 summers up close, and talk to them, but by the end, among the names I'd heard I couldn't with any confidence match even one of them to a new face correctly. The Head Instructor never even gave his name, and that continued into our first day of class with him. The classroom was located not far inside the central academy building, and even the desks were obviously much better than the ones in the normal classroom. Half of them even had placards with the senior students' names on them.
I caught Shokoya's attention. "The two of us are the studious ones, right? There's a pair of empty seats front and center."
Shokoya shrugged. "All right, I guess."
Jue Zhu took the seat right behind me, Jong and Quan took the two available far-left window seats in the 2nd and 3rd rows respectively, Mei took the remaining seat in the front row closest to the door, Wang Jing grabbed the other available seat in the 3rd row, and Qilong, Jiaoping, and Shai Shan filled out the back row. In about 30 more seconds, the last few seniors took their seats, and the Head Instructor entered mere moments after that.
"I see all of you have found seats. We'll start today with some explanations for the newcomers. In the Academy's Inner Court, class is still held for 4 out of every 7 days, and involves the same periods. The order is Technical Studies, Etiquette, Combat Practice, History and Politics, with free period ending each class day. The explanation of the Inner Court's facilities is today's Technical Studies lesson, so the seniors have my permission to study other materials for a short while. Take heed, though: the material we cover here will be rather different than what you've grown accustomed to, or what you would be covering in the normal senior classes."
He went on, describing the various amenities and specialized training areas the Inner Court possessed, as well as a few privileges we had should we have business in the Outer Court areas such as the library. "Finally, as you have previously heard, you are permitted to exchange Academy Points for gold to enjoy yourselves visiting Diklon City via the teleport formation. However, you are not permitted to visit more than once a week. You are expected to work at improving your knowledge and cultivation outside of class, and that expectation has not changed now that you are in the Inner Court class. If anything, expectations on you are even higher than before. If you decide to start lazing, expect correction."
Those words of warning ended the lesson, and as he'd said, he launched right into the days' etiquette lesson. He wasn't kidding when he said the material covered would be different. Since we'd made it to a privileged position in the Academy, we would now begin lessons on the subject of expected behavior toward cultivators traditionally considered below us as well as above or roughly equal. That was VERY different from the very first lesson.
Next, the Head Teacher led us to the Inner Training Field for the physical training period. As Shokoya had once claimed, the lessons there were extremely personalized to each of us. For me, that meant sparring with a DG Instructor's Assistant to more effectively hone my ability to read my opponents, as well as develop my style to better counter the sort of fighters who relied on overpowering their enemy.
Of course, Quan was receiving his own training on how to better overwhelm opponents with his relentless style, so the question of which of us would graduate as the superior cultivator was still very much undecided.
When we returned to the classroom, I expected more dry who's whom stuff, even if the Head Instructor had said the material would be different. What I got was the most interesting lesson I'd ever received at the Academy...no, it was more than that, I just hadn't known it yet.