Time passed and the holy orchid institute year end examination came closer. Everyone began putting in the hard work , even Ning'er and especially Hong. Since he wanted to enter the genius class and enter the heavenly sacred border to increase his spiritual cultivation. He used a half assed technique he had made that creates attributeless spiritual force from the energy gathered , but that took long time to digest that spirit force into his soul realm. Currently he was at two star bronze rank in soul cultivation, and he had aimed to be at least three star by the time of testing.
The day of the examination arrived , and Hong dressed in all black clothes and left his sword back at home. He carried a seal of the winged dragon family to show his standing and followed silently behind Xiao Ning'er to show that he was her guard.
Ning'er dressed in orange clothed that matched her hair, Hong had told her many times that they weren't matching ,but in the end had to concede to her wishes.
Meeting up with Nei Li , his group and Ziyun outside by chance, they all walked into the testing area. Hundreds of students were gathered at the field where the tests were held all chattering or weeping or even warming up. Hong along with Nei Li's group caught the attention of many due to the presence of two beautiful girls. But when they tried looking or even trying ' accidentally' touch Xiao Ning'er , they would feel heavy murderous intent on them. And catching the look of Hong staring at them with a look that promised pain, they wisely cleared away from her thereon.
Hong was having the time of his life. Lots of people were gathered chatting, and The drums and gongs added a rustic feeling to the atmosphere making him feel nostalgic. He had met up with Lu Piao and others, but he didn't engage in much conversations, since he had to keep blasting off killing intent every five seconds to keep away the flies buzzing around his protection target, which was also part of the fun. At least until a dung beetle began moving towards them.
Shen Fei, even though he was a minor character in the novel who was beaten up by Nei Li to increase her attention towards him, they didn't mention much about the shitty character. The only reason Hong could imagine, he was alive was because he was an important member of the sacred family. Not to mention that if the rumours about his 'adventures ' were true, then he was no better than a criminal.
The entire Shen family entourage consisting of Shen Fei, Shen Yue and other unimportant side characters stood infront of them blocking their way.
If she was to walk away like she had in the manhua, then Hong would have followed her without questioning, even though he would increase her training, but for his suprise, she stood her ground looking dead straight in his eyes.
"Shen Fei, what do you want?" She basically spat out , making the ones surrounding her to look at her in suprised. Shen Fei too was suprised, but quickly recovered. " what? Can't i meet up with my fiance" he said making a ugly face, which made his intention to make trouble clear to everyone.
Nei Li, seeing a chance to humiliate the sacred family almost took action, but before he could , Xiao Ning'er glared at him before angrily berating him in a loud voice.
"Who's your fiance! I told you before and I will tell this to you now, I will never recognice you as my fiance!"
Her loud voice attracted the attention of many studenta and even a few adults gathered there. Shen Fei, the man in the receiving end began to feel embarrassed, as he became a laughing stock under their eyes. Unable to take it, he decided to force his way. He reached out with his hand trying to grab Xiao Ning'er's hand to drag her away, but when he was about an inch away, he felt his body stop moving.
A few seconds earlier, while the war of words between Xiao Ning'er and Shen Fei was going on, Hong standing next to Xiao Ning'er was watching , observing every twitch of muscle on Shen Fei.
From what he had seen from the manhua, he knew that Shen Fei was someone who quickly resorted to physical means. Noticing the twitch in his leg muscles, Hong concluded that Shen Fei was about to make his move.
Now Hong could've stopped him before he made a move, but that would put the blame on winged dragon family, and if he used a super powerful or flashy move, then they would underestimate him and try to make a move on her again. What he needed to do was, stop Shen Fei's approach in a non flashy but overpowered way that would make Shen Fei hesitate on advancing towards her.
Letting Shen Fei advance a few feet, he let out five his flying knives, each targeting a limb, with a simple gesture of his hand. Each knife, tied to a blue qi string wrapped around the targeted limb ,arms, legs and neck and anchored themselves to the earth, effectively stopping him a meter away from Xiao Ning'er.
A few gasps rouse as many eyes rested on Hong who held five energy strings that kept Shen Fei away from Ning'er, but he paid no attention to them.
Looking at Shen Fei, who looked like he was frozen in time with an expression that displayed undisguised disgust, he said ,"the patriach of the winged dragon family and the sacred family have already finished agreeing with the annulment, and you are not to approach miss Ning'er in the future, otherwise, i have been given the authority to permanently cripple you, should the situation arise "
After the winged dragon family and the alchemist guild had joined forces, with heavenly marks family ,they had recived a higher standing which allowed them to stand against the sacred family at a fair level. So the patriarchs of each family had arrived to an agreement that made sure to keep a hooligan like Shen Fei away from a blossoming talent like Xiao Ning'er.
With his message delivered , he let go of his limbs and collected his flying knives back into their sheaths that were around his gauntlet.
Lu Piao was the first to break the stunned silence.
" Dude, What was that !? you were like swoosh and shoom and then bam ! " He began talking animatedly, and others were no different. Even though they all appeared calm on the outside, they were burning with curiosity to know what that was. Looking flustered at the attention he was gaining from his friends, he simply pulled out a flying knife with a flick of his left index finger before floating it on the tip of his finger.
A two inch long and only half an inch wide at the widest place , black streamlined blade with a string made of spirit force connected to the base floated up, and under his command more and more string unravelled making it travel few meters before moving in complex patterns around them. Then before they could say anything, he pulled back the string, wrapping the excess length around the base of his finger before sheathing the knife once more. Looking closely they noticed that there were thread wrapped around the base of every finger,in both his arms implying that he carried more knives than he had shown.
"Why are you even carrying an artifact like that around?, isn't that dangerous ?" Nei Li was the first to question. A thing like this didn't happen in his past life. Not to mention the emergence of an artifact like that, and he was curious to see what had exactly happened to change such a thing.
"Well , I needed a lot of money and a cultivation technique to cultivate soul force since I unlocked my soul realm, so when Miss Ning'er offered me a job as her teacher I took it." Then ignoring the flabbergasted looks on his friends faces, he continued" what I didn't know was that it came with a side job of being her guard against pests, but her dad managed to convince me to be her guard when she was out and her teacher when she was at home with a lot of resources"
He finished satiating the curiosity of many.
Though the disturbance had calmed down, Hong didn't know the impact of his actions amount the higher ups that had gathered to witness the exams.
"Put him in the genius class " the vice principal ordered the man next to him.
"But we don't even know his soul force and physical strength, for all we know he's relying on the artifact the entire time"
Shen Xiu on the other hand was cursing Shen Fei from the bottom of her mind.' It took almost ten days of bargaining to get the winged dragon family to keep their hands off our business, and that fool almost ruined that effort'. She also noted herself mentally to inform the elder about the new body guard of the daughter of the winged dragon clan and about her cousin's misconduct. But they quickly left her mind as she remembered her bet with Nei Li.
The test began soon after. The test contained two parts, one for spiritual force testing and one for physical strength testing.
The soul force testing was simple, they had to pour soul force into a giant soul crystal and the examiner would count the soul force a person has.
The strength test used a stone in the past, which the students had to punch with all their strength. But instead of the stone there was a steam punk style machine in it's place. Which as the bespectacled man with a serious double chin explained, measured the strength perfectly and accurately unlike the old test.
Shen Yue went first, scoring a bronze rank spiritualist rank thanks to his constant use of elixirs which Nei Li had given to the alchemist guild.
After which Lu Piao, Wei Nan and Zang ming were tested revealing all of them to be above two star bronze rank. Du Ze went next, which allowed Hong to witness the legendary act of shattering the power scouter. The primary soul crystal can display only up to six hundred soul force. And he displayed strength of a five star bronze rank fighter immediately landing him in the genius class.
Zhu Xian too scored above three hundred landing him in genius class like the others. Ye Ziyun too exploded the primary soul crystal, but she refrained fron using the punching machine.
Next came Xiao Ning'er's turn. Hong wasn't worried about her soul force value, since she was cultivating the technique gifted to her by Nei Li. And sure enough,
'BANG!!'
The primary soul crystal exploded again. But Hong was curious about her physical strength, especially since he had personally overseen her training in that department. Du Ze was the one who had shown the most strength and he needed to see if she had surpassed him. Noticing her looking back, Hong pointed the punching machine, which made her face turn sour, but seeing no change in her teacher's expression she began moving towards the machine while grumbling internally.
Slender jade hands were another requirement for the nine Yin Lightning art. This is the physical requirement for Warping touch, a technique Xiao Ning'er was currently on the verge of mastering. The users must strengthen their hands to be strong, fast and nimble without retaining any injuries, like a piece of polished jade. And after practicing it for nearly two weeks she had just started to temper her hands. The number body tempering pills used to achive this ran up to fifty, but otherwise it would take at least half a decade to achive the same effect.
Seeing Ning'er turn back and walk towards the testing grounds confused the gang a bit, but seeing her stop infront of the strength measuring machine gave them an idea on what she wants to do.
Ignoring all distractions, Xiao Ning'er placed her legs about two and half feet apart, with her knees bent slightly and her right arm at shoulder level. Taking a deep breath, she suddenly shifted all her weight to her back foot while simultaneously twisting her upper body and releasing her right arm in a punch.
"BANG!!"
Loud noise like a gunshot echoed , silencing the entire field of students and even the adults into a stupor. Ning'er turned back looking right to the group, Nei Li, Lu Piao, Ye Ziyun, Du Ze, Zhu Xian, Wei Nan and Zang ming all turned and looked towards the direction of her attention to see Hong with a Sincerely happy smile.
"It's... over eight hundred "
An instructor near the machine said causing pandemonium. Even Shen Fei looked uncomfortably at the direction of Xiao Ning'er with a little fear as he thanked heavens for sending the body guard with the vicious she beast.
The higher ups were no different.
"A genius, an absolute genius" the vice principle said looking down at the girl who had caused all the commotion."we need to inform the principal and the city Lord Ye Mo " to which all the executives nodded their heads in unison. This was a heaven gifted genius, one who could change the entire glory city in the future. They couldn't let anything happen to her , and they began collectively talking about protective actions that should be implemented to protect her and her family. But they were interrupted by another loud gunshot like bang. Only a bit sharper.
Hong looked at the reader that said nine hundred and nodded with satisfaction. He didn't use all his strength, much less infuse his qi, but the reading would let him join the genius class and even enter the heavenly sacred border before Nei Li takes away the thunder god's meteorite sword.
He then put his palm against the origin soul crystal which read five hundred. He only needed a hundred more to enter the silver level and then he could see what was the fuss about demon beast spirits.
"Well, at least we know that she will be protected when she is alone" the vice principal said looking at the dumbfounded academy staff to which a few absent minded nods were shown.
'Seriously' the vice principle thought while stroking his pointy beard.' A peak bronze level spiritualist with the strength of a four star silver rank fighter, I don't even know what they are feeding him, this year is filled with monsters' he thought looking at the group of students chosen for the genius class, and smile broke out' but it isn't a bad thing is it, looks like glory city will have a bright future.'