/*unedited*/

The uneven road and the sound of hooves reverberate through the quiet surroundings. The neighs pulling the wagons slowly traverse the countryside-like view as they neared the academy.

Inside a wagon where six people sat quietly, s.h.i.+n Jiao closes his eyes as he tried to continuously absorb the Qi and natural energy from the core in his artificial dantian. He has neglected his cultivation for a while as he busied himself preparing for his departure. He needed to make sure that his mother would be safe as he leaves.

Only with his own hands, he can protect the people he loves. He knows that there are those who target his loved ones, so he would not be negligent with them. Since he is able to protect his family using his knowledge and gears, he didn't hesitate to prepare everything.

The long span of time of being silent made everyone inside the wagon feel a little uneasy and awkward.

"Why is this trash with us?" suddenly one of the young men who looks like in his 20's muttered.

"Don't spout your nonsense if you don't know anything." the one beside him said as he took a glance at s.h.i.+n Jiao with cautious eyes.

"Since you are too busy with your cultivation, you didn't know what happened in the city. He is a friend of Prince Mingsha Wu."

"Che… so he is so high and mighty just because he has the prince as his backing. Such smug people are just trash… He is a trash a year ago, and it still is until now." the young man said with disdain clearly written on his face.

In the Jiao family, many of the youth and even elders are angry with s.h.i.+n Jiao. This is because he has offended a lot of them and did many unspeakable deeds that warrant their ire. So this is not a surprise to s.h.i.+n Jiao that these people are angry with him. He didn't mind it though as the youth with him in the carriage are just kids in his eyes. As their elder, he would not lower himself to their level as long as they didn't hit his bottom line.

"Such a pompous att.i.tude that he would not even put us in his eyes. I'll let him see how I mock him when he fails the entrance test." The young man said with a cold snort.

Not long later, the carriages arrived at the entrance gate of the Great Wu Academy gate.

"Welcome to the academy, all those who are coming here for the entrance test, please follow me." a man in his 30's wearing a dark green long robe said as he welcomes the hundred-plus people alighting the carriages.

As s.h.i.+n Jiao goes with the group he can see the huge campus of the academy. The ground looks like that in the old eastern fantasy movies, where flying islands can be seen from far away. He can also see many mountains that reach high up to the sky. On the campus, there are many eastern styled buildings built just like that in China when he was on Earth. This is his first time coming to a school in this land and he felt amazed at the edifice and the surroundings. Even the thick Qi and natural energy in the area makes his body feel really comfortable.

Even without absorbing the already half spent core inside his artificial dantian he can already improve his cultivation.

"This place is too amazing… The amount of spiritual Qi here is ten times that of the outside. Those invisible array formations are the cause of this. I guess this is the reason why many would like to enter academies and sects." s.h.i.+n Jiao thought as he followed the group.

In front of them is a large stone with glyphs written all over its body. The weird energy coming from the stone is making s.h.i.+n Jiao feel a little uncomfortable.

"This is the test stone that the academy is using to test out our student's potential. All you have to do is touch the stone so that we can a.s.sess the quality of your spiritual root." The man said with a smile.

In the outside world, no one can gauge one's spiritual roots quality. Only with special stones can one a.s.sess the quality of one's spiritual roots.

Spiritual root's quality is actually rated according to their color.

Starting from the lowest green, then blue, orange, yellow, red, and violet is the highest. The quality of the spiritual roots is the reason why some cultivators can improve faster than others. The higher the quality of one's spiritual root, the faster the improvement and speed of one's cultivation.

As the man explained about the quality of spiritual roots, s.h.i.+n Jiao suddenly began showing interest. His cultivation right now is coming to a crawl especially after she reached the gold core realms. He feels that after reaching the mid-stages of the gold core realms, he could not improve as fast as before. This is because when he reached the mid-stages of the gold core realm, he noticed that the spheres in his mind dantian look like lakes of water. He needed an enormous amount of natural energy and spiritual Qi just to fill a sphere.

This is making him feel a little helpless, but if he can know the quality of his spiritual roots he can decide what his next move is on improving his cultivation.

Right now, he is fostering all the types of elements as his spiritual roots. Meaning her has many roots in his dantian. If the quality of those roots is poor, then he would just decide to foster one or two and neglect the others. This way he can just focus on one or two elements and rely on elemental essences to support the others.

So he felt excited to take the test.

"As I call your names, please come forward and place the palm of your hand on the surface of the stone." The man said as he took out a list of names.

Before arriving in the academy their names were already reported by their families or clans. So the academy has already known about some basic information about each and every single person taking the test.

The reaction of those taking the test is mixed with happiness and sorrow. Those who found out that they have an orange and above grade spirit roots felt happy and those who have the blue ones felt a little down but still happy to pa.s.s the a.s.sessment. However, the ones who showed green felt sorrowful as they have not pa.s.sed the test and would be sent home.

Suddenly everyone turns their attention to one person as his name was called.

"s.h.i.+n Jiao… please step up." the man said with a weird expression in his face.

He already read the profile of this young man in front of him and in his opinion; he is not fit to be in the academy. But since he is bound by his duty so, he just follows his role as the one a.s.signed to a.s.sess the new students.

"Che… With his pompous att.i.tude, I think his spirit root is green. The academy doesn't need someone like him in the first place… he should just go home and stay there. The academy doesn't need some nuisances like him."

Many people who heard and knew about the old s.h.i.+n Jiao said as they threw him a disdaining look with their eyes.

Right now, s.h.i.+n Jiao many people have already seen and heard his name which made them remember those things he did in the city.

Among these people is a young woman, she has not seen him for a year and now that she saw his face again she felt a little angry deep in her heart, the young woman is Qilin Xiemen.

Last year, was the first time she saw s.h.i.+n Jiao in a small birthday gathering of her friend. The Jiao family at that time was invited and s.h.i.+n Jiao was there. At first glance, she already fell for him and wanted to know him better.

But after she approached him, he suddenly made something that made her feel like she wanted to kill him. As a pompous son and was spoiled by his mother, s.h.i.+n Jiao actually thought that Qilin Xiemen wanted to have an intimate time with him. With s.e.x in his mind, he suddenly stretches forth his hand and hit her b.u.t.t.

This action of his dumbfounded the girl, and when she came through he has already held her b.u.t.t. With rage, she slaps him as hard as she could and with her strength, s.h.i.+n Jiao flew away while twirling in the air before cras.h.i.+ng to some tables.

That was the start of the trouble with old s.h.i.+n Jiao's life.

And now after seeing him again, she felt the anger in her heart coming back. Her almost forgotten shameful memory started to come back in her mind.

"I hope you fail… then I will tell my father about this and we will make sure that you die this time. My humiliation would not be gone while you are alive." Qilin Xiemen muttered with a clenched fist.

s.h.i.+n Jiao is not aware of this and he didn't care. He can feel the killing intent on his back, but he doesn't mind as he knows of the grudges that the old s.h.i.+n Jiao did to these people.

He slowly stretched forth his hand and closes his eyes.

When his hand touches the stone, many showed sneer on their faces and some even smirked loudly.