Over the next two days, the group pressed on without pause, traveling from one major city to another. With the list Li Zhilong had provided, they successfully contacted several senior alumni teaching at other academies. Under those alumni's arrangements, sparring matches unfolded one after another. With their increasingly seamless teamwork and the improvement in Xu Xiaoyan's and Ye Xinglan's strength, they swept through their opponents like a blade splitting bamboo, completing nine matches in succession and racking up victories.
As the last glow of their ninth battle faded, they stood beside the soul car, gazing at the city's outline beneath the setting sun. They felt both the relief of having completed most of their task and the gravity of an approaching final trial.
Xu Xiaoyan took out the list, its edges curling from repeated handling, and carefully read it from beginning to end. Her brows furrowed slightly. "Strange. There aren't any senior alumni from the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy on this list. That academy is one of the best on the entire continent. How could none of our Shrek alumni be teaching there?"
Tang Wulin leaned against the car door, looking into the distance, toward Mingdu, where the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy stood. He spoke slowly, his low voice carrying a hint of history's weight. "You didn't know? The Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy's situation is rather special. Ten thousand years ago, that academy was once destroyed, and its destruction was directly connected to our Shrek Academy."
He turned to meet their startled gazes and continued, "Because of that feud, they've always been hostile toward us. It's also the only academy on the entire continent that won't hire Shrek Academy graduates as teachers. Of course, most of our senior alumni don't want to teach there