Sky Wings

Xi City Seventeenth High School.

Its predecessor was Xi Village Middle School, a rural high school mainly serving the vast rural areas in the western suburbs of the old city.

Later, the Xi City education system was reorganized, incorporating this rural high school into the urban school sequence and renaming it Xi City Seventeenth High School. However, this did not bring about any substantial changes to the high school.

Squeak!

A military green jeep stopped in front of the school gate.

A group of people got out of the car one after another.

"What kind of school is this? It's so dilapidated!" Su Xiaoxiao took off her sunglasses, looked around, and couldn't help but complain.

"Did anyone ask you to say that?"

Li Ling retorted to Su Xiaoxiao. She could say that her alma mater was dilapidated, but she wouldn't allow others to say that.

The gate of Xi City Seventeenth High School was mottled, and large pieces of the outer wall had fallen off, like scars.

The ground was cement, but there were many cracks, and tenacious weeds sprouted from the gaps.

This school was not big, with only one teaching building, and the rest were single-story tile-roofed houses. However, surprisingly, these buildings had been carefully repaired and looked decent, with no dangerous buildings.

According to Li Ling, there were only three classes in the third grade of Seventeenth High School, two regular classes and one combat class. The student source was not very good, and many were left-behind children whose parents worked elsewhere.

However, to Bai Pu's surprise, the quality of the students in this school was quite good. He didn't see any students with dyed hair, wearing jewelry, or smoking cigarettes. Most people were walking in a hurry, and some were even holding books.

No students came to disturb Bai Pu and the others. At most, they glanced back curiously when passing by.

The principal was an old man with a full head of silver hair, but he was still quite energetic. Li Ling respected him very much. She heard that this old principal had been working at Xi City Seventeenth High School for more than twenty years. When Li Ling was in high school, he was the principal.

After hearing Li Ling's intentions, the old principal readily agreed and joked, "Li Ling, you are a golden phoenix that flew out of our poor corner. I didn't expect that after ten years, you would bring in another golden phoenix!"

Li Ling looked around with some emotion and said, "Principal, I didn't expect my alma mater to be so difficult. I haven't been back all these years, and I haven't been able to help."

"Don't say that. You've helped the school a lot. If you hadn't donated money to repair the teaching building, the students would still be attending classes in dangerous buildings. I understand that you have difficulties..."

The old principal rambled on, revealing Li Ling's background.

Li Ling came from a rural area, and her parents worked in Jiangnan Base City. She studied in the combat class of Xi City Seventeenth High School and was considered a left-behind child.

Through hard work, Li Ling was admitted to a military academy. Two years later, she successfully Awakened. Now, she holds important positions in both the Great Tang Group and the God Strategy Army, and has quite a bit of influence in Jiangnan District. She can be considered a success story.

Of course, her price was becoming a professional soldier, not as free as other Awakened.

Su Xiaoxiao looked at the cracked cement floor and said, "Why don't I make an application to the organization to donate some money to the school to level the ground and repaint the walls?"

The old principal chuckled, "Donations are welcome, but there's no need to change the ground and the walls. It would be better to use it to improve the food for the children in the combat class... Rural children work very hard, but they lack nutritious exotic beast meat. If we can guarantee nutrition, maybe we can produce a few more Li Lings."

Su Xiaoxiao didn't say anything. Exotic beast meat was not cheap. It was obtained by Awakened who hunted mutated beasts in the wilderness. Moreover, improving the food was a long-term investment, not something that a small sum of money could solve.

"The facade has to be changed, right..." Li Ling said, "New students will lose half their spirit when they see such a school."

"Li Ling, you don't know, our school is about to be cut down, so there won't be any new students." The old principal shook his head and said, "The Department of Education issued a document this year stating that Xi City Seventeenth High School is one of the schools planned to be cut down and merged in the next five years. We can't pretend to be fat, it's useless to have such a good-looking facade..."

"Ah?!" Bai Pu had a good impression of this old principal and asked, "Is it because of the low enrollment rate?"

"Not really. Our school's academic performance is not bad. Although there are no top students who can get into the eight famous schools, many are admitted to key universities," the old principal smacked his lips and said with a toothache, "It's just that the enrollment rate of the combat class is not good, and it always fails to meet the target."

Li Ling digested the news and couldn't help but say, "The school is being shut down, where will the students go to study?"

"The document says it will be merged into Xi City Ninth High," the old principal said.

"Ninth High? That school isn't great either, and it's quite far from here," Su Xiaoxiao said.

"Fifteen kilometers, if you don't live on campus, it's a two-hour bike ride to and from school every day," Li Ling sighed. "I didn't choose Ninth High back then because it was too far."

As they spoke, the group arrived at the principal's office.

Bai Pu was surprised again; the principal's office was actually a small shed made of iron sheets. These kinds of small iron sheds aren't warm in the winter, but they get terribly hot in the summer, and they're usually used as carports.

The old principal took the student records Li Ling brought and personally handled Bai Pu's enrollment, even skipping the academic ability test.

In the old principal's words: the academic ability test is for Ordinary Exam candidates. Bai Pu will be taking the Awakened Exam in the future, so there's no need to do the academic ability test. The identity of an Awakened is the best certificate.

Afterward, the old principal arranged a class for Bai Pu, in the only combat class in the third year—Third Year (3) Class.

The class teacher, Ren Zhenghua, was surprised and excited when he heard about Bai Pu's Awakened status. He quickly arranged a seat for Bai Pu, with the best student in the combat class as his deskmate, with the good intention of having him learn from Bai Pu.

Bai Pu quickly declined Teacher Ren's offer. He wouldn't be spending much time at school in the next two months, so he shouldn't take up a good seat. A desk in the back row would be fine.

Teacher Ren gave Bai Pu his treasured textbooks from his three years of high school, which were densely covered with his highlighted points and annotations. He had been teaching for twenty years and knew the key points by heart, so he didn't need these textbooks to teach.

After completing the enrollment procedures and obtaining the college entrance examination qualification, Bai Pu and his group left in a military-green jeep.

Looking back at the mottled walls of Xi City Seventeenth High School, Bai Pu deeply felt that although this school was old and the quality of students was not good, it had a real, upward-striving atmosphere.

From the principal to the students, they basically had clear goals and knew what they should do and what their responsibilities were.

"To shut down and merge a school like this... it's a pity," Bai Pu said softly.

"There's no way around it. Now, Awakened are the priority, and combat classes have a poor college entrance rate, which is considered unqualified in the eyes of the education department," Su Xiaoxiao said.

Combat-type students who are admitted to university may not all be able to advance to become Awakened, but with their strong physique and abundant energy, they are more popular when they switch to other industries than ordinary people who have never been trained.

Therefore, the college entrance rate of combat classes is more important in the eyes of the education department.

Li Ling jokingly said, "If you can break through the siege of tens of thousands of Awakened examinees and win the top spot, maybe you can help the school avoid being shut down."

Bai Pu smiled reservedly and didn't say anything boastful. He sat in the back seat, flipping through the pages of the textbooks Teacher Ren had given him.

"Are you reading too fast?" Su Xiaoxiao couldn't help but lean over to talk.

Bai Pu smiled and said, "Actually, I've studied these textbooks on my own before. Now I'm flipping through them to see how much I can still remember."

"The cultural course part of the Awakened Exam isn't too difficult. What really makes the difference is the simulated combat performance and the Spirit Realm exploration performance! These two require real strength," Li Ling said.

Bai Pu quickly finished reading a book, closed it, and said, "I understand. Can you tell me, what was the approximate level of strength of last year's top scorer in the college entrance examination?"

"I know!" Su Xiaoxiao said, "Last year's top scorer was named Wan Zhen, and he is the Heroic Profession 'Sky Wings'!"