The Second Master's Broken Arm, the Master's Corpse, a Flood Dragon Diving into the Water!
Bianjing, Peach Talisman Street.
At the end of this street stood a five-story, brick-and-timber building facing south, with a hard-gable roof. Its sloping rooftop was tiled in blue-gray scales, layer upon layer, gleaming faintly beneath the moonlight.
The first floor was six bays wide and six bays deep. Apart from the stairwell, the second floor was one vast open chamber, divided by bookcases. Before the pavilion, Diligent Study Lake had been excavated.
Its gardens were arranged around "self-cultivation, poetry, books, rites, changes, calculation, riding, archery, and miscellany," forming the overall design.
This place was the Academy.
Just two utterly plain words, without any ornament or embellishment.
Yet it was a place revered by every scholar under heaven.
At the Academy's highest point stood Self-Cultivation Hall, where the Master had once taught and nurtured his students.
It was only five stories tall. Thus, out of respect, none of the Academy's other buildings—or even the buildings along Peach Talisman Street—were permitted to rise above the fifth floor.
At this moment!
Outside Self-Cultivation Hall.
Forty students stood in formation, straight as pines, their breaths restrained and profound. All were deeply cultivated martial artists. Gathered together, their aura formed a force like "a silver bottle suddenly shattering, water and wine bursting forth," like a Flood Dragon coiled in wait, ready to strike.
Great Qi was vast, and martial arts flourished. There were only several dozen cultivators in the ninth rank of the Jade Pivot Core realm throughout the realm, yet the Academy alone possessed twenty of them.
Even more astonishingly, the Academy held half of Great Qi's martial experts in the Upper Three Realms. That was precisely why the Academy's name could awe the world.
At present, all forty remained silent, staring fixedly at the steps before Self-Cultivation Hall's entrance, as though awaiting some