Soul Land: The Savage Star

After an hour or so, Beibei woke up with a startled and frantic expression. Looking at his brother, he said hesitantly, as if grasping desperately for hope " Brother, I think I had a nightmare. There were "

" Beibei, it was not a nightmare. What we saw was real, the real side of spirit hall. The strongest and the wealthiest yes but certainly not the most righteous. " Seeing his brother about to cry, Feng placed a hand on his shoulder as he added " Beibei, you will have to remember today. We have to be strong to leave spirit hall with mom. "

" Yes "

" Good, now go back to sleep, you need it. "

" Yes "

As he left Beibei's side, Feng got on his bed and cultivated. A simple truth made its way into his head today: might makes right. He was determined to leave spirit hall with his family but for that, he would need strength and most of all, not let spirit hall know that he doesn't want to become their dog.

They didn't have the will to get out and eat so they stayed in their room until the time for the first lecture to begin. This morning, they went to the class after a quick breakfast and saw that teacher Qian was the only one present. Even though they were nervous at the idea of being by themselves with him, they still entered and went to their seats.

The class began to fill up though, more than half of the students didn't come. As he expected this, teacher Qian began the lecture nonetheless, keeping in mind the name of those who didn't come. All those who didn't come would be presented an ultimatum. They could choose to stay in class B, integrate class C or leave the academy.

What these students do not know though is that if they choose to leave, they would be eliminated. Everyone who was chosen for class B was a genius at the top of the whole continent. If they don't integrate spirit hall, they might become enemies of spirit hall so even after the awakening ceremony, all those who had great talents and no background but still chose to not integrate spirit hall were killed.

That aside, the lectures, after the special lesson, were normal. Normal to a fault. They began to learn how to read, count and basic knowledge about spirit master and spirit beasts. Teacher Qian even almost seemed nice. These normal lectures continued for six months before it was time for a test. The test would determine whether one would have holidays by the way.

Of the initial 30 kids of class B, 22 stayed, 4 went to class C and 4 were killed-left the academy. Which means 8 other kids were brought to class B and had to take the special lesson. A few decided to not stay in class B and this made the process repeat until there were 30 kids in class B.

In these six months, Feng's cultivation rose to rank 15, making him the best genius of the whole school and Beibei finally attained rank 10. As Feng's twin brother, he was escorted by a temple knight for his first spirit ring, which was an Ice devil wolf of a hundred years. They often went to the practice field for sparring matches and were advised quite a few times by their teacher.

In the beginning, their fighting skills were so crappy that they were mocked each time they got out but, as time passed, no one would mock them anymore. Six months weren't enough to make them experts but they were enough to make them surpass their generation at the very least. They became the most interesting topics of Lu Piao, who would try to get some info from time to time.

Beibei's spirit ring was a hundred years old one and it was offensive. The skill he got was ice claw, coating his claws in ice making them freeze the area they touched. In these six months though, they came to know that even though Feng's spirit had no offensive power, it made him extremely sturdy, strong and endurant. He was even heavy.

They didn't have tools to measure weight precisely but he was about two hundred kilograms, even though his physique could be considered almost frail. This gain of weight didn't happen overnight. It happened little by little and he had the faint intuition that it had to do with the day's first sun rays.

This gain of weight was, of course, reported to his teacher and the Dean and the both of them told him to not change anything as this was probably a good thing. This made it so that even if he just stayed and did nothing, no one below rank 20 could even scratch him.

He knew that because each month, they had to be in teams of three and fight. He was put with a kid who had a fire-related spirit, named Zu Zhen and the other had a light related spirit named Ru Xiong. This made his support abilities visible to all. Unfortunately, they both didn't have their first spirit ring yet, making them not able to do anything and Feng had to punch his opponents to bring them down himself. He... was quite the fierce support.

But, there was one point that made these six months excruciating to the twins: their mother never came to look for them, which made them very worried and whenever they asked, they were told that she was busy.

Aside from that, the lectures, which looked normal, were oddly displaying the grandiosity of spirit hall and its virtues. Two terms Feng didn't know of but perfectly described the situation were propaganda and brainwashing. Most of his comrades thus came to accept the first lesson's event as the right thing to do in order to protect spirit hall and their loved ones.

....

As this was the day of the test, teacher Qian evaluated their cultivation, their battle prowess, and their ' knowledge'.

The knowledge test was a written test, the cultivation one was just displaying their full spirit power and the battle prowess was just that, a battle on an arena. With his team, Feng had to face fairly strong opponents. They were all spirit masters with matching abilities. One had a lizard spirit, another a bow spirit and the last a dagger.

As the signal to begin resounded, Feng activated his spirit ring while the vanguard of the enemy team transformed into a lizard and activated his first spirit ring: fire breath. This didn't pose any problem for Feng as he even thought that it felt nice if anything, though his allies had to dodge. Once they dodged, they were both targeted by explosive arrows, which came from the kid with the bow spirit.

The arrows made them stagger back and while they tried to regain their equilibrium, the kid with the dagger sneaked on Ru Xiong, incapacitating him even before he could demonstrate anything, not that there was anything he could do. This made Feng release a tired sigh. Battles between a spirit master and a trainee were just meaningless.

He tried to go near the kid with the bow spirit but was stopped by the one with the lizard spirit. In terms of strength, he was way above but his technique was lacking as the kid was apparently a descendant from some martial art family. In the end, he was stalled enough time to permit his enemies to finish with Zu Zhen.

In short, his teammates were quickly disposed of and he himself was pushed off the arena after a fierce battle on his front. He lost but nonetheless was sure that he had a high score. Beibei and his team won though as he was the only one in both teams to be a spirit master.

Feng got 40/40 on cultivation, 25/30 on battle prowess and 15/30 on 'knowledge'. Beibei got 35/40 on cultivation, 28/30 on battle prowess and 15/30 on 'knowledge'. This made them have 80/100 and 78/100 respectively. 60/100 was enough to earn holidays so they had theirs.

Before they were dismissed for their holidays, teacher Qian faced his class and announced " There will be a special lesson after these vacations. "

This announcement made the happy mood at the idea of vacations a little dampened and the cold weather of the winter helped to send a chill down their spines.

As Feng was very important to spirit hall, a temple knight was instructed to protect him and consequently Beibei as well when they left the academy. They wanted to go to flying snow village as they dearly needed someone close to release some stress but it was a month away of travel from spirit city while there were only two weeks of vacation.

They missed their nanny very dearly but had to wait for the grand two months-long vacations at the end of the year.