Early the next morning.
Sixteen people dressed in assorted clothes walked out through the gates of Shrek.
At their head was Xuan Zi, as slovenly as ever. Beside him walked Wang Yan, the homeroom teacher of Year Two, Class One.
As the teacher leading the group, Wang Yan felt proud, especially since three students from his class had made it onto the Reserve Team.
Just yesterday, the Academy's academic affairs office had informed him that Dai Huabin had withdrawn for personal reasons and had already left.
He did not know why, and the director of academic affairs had not explained the details.
He had heard rumors, of course. The assassins who had appeared outside Shrek City that day were said to have ties to the White Tiger Duke's Mansion.
But compared with the task ahead of him, the matter seemed insignificant, so he had not told Lu Yi and the others.
Xuan Zi was busy eating and drinking, so he set no hurried pace. The others, too, felt a rare sense of leisure.
The students chatted and laughed along the way.
Xu Sanshi occasionally traded dirty jokes with Bei Bei to pass the time, drawing repeated sidelong glances and looks of disdain from several of the girls.
Jiang Nannan, in particular, chose to stay far away from Xu Sanshi.
Huo Yuhao, however, could not relax. His cultivation, not even at rank twenty-seven and the lowest of the group, weighed heavily on him.
As they walked, he kept trying to coax Lu Yi, the second-lowest ranked, and Wang Dong, the third-lowest, into sparring with him. Lu Yi flatly refused.
Ning Tian walked beside Lu Yi, bringing up a new topic now and then.
Lu Yi answered everything she said and never let the conversation die, but it never went very deep.