Inside the Gate
Early the next morning, Long Tian went to Spirit City Junior Academy.
The academy stood in the eastern part of the city, occupying more than half a street. Its gray brick walls were nearly twice as high as those of Bluestone Town Academy. Silver-white flags had been planted every few paces along the top, their sword-and-star emblems unfurling in the morning breeze. The entrance consisted of two heavy cast-iron gates. The academy motto was carved into the gateposts, its lettering weathered and mottled. Long Tian stood at the entrance and looked up, then took a breath and walked in.
Director Zhao Min was waiting for him in her office on the first floor of the academic affairs building. The room was considerably larger than Mr. Wang's, with shelves crammed full of files and books and a lush potted plant in the corner. Zhao Min handed him a cup of hot tea and, in a cordial manner, went over the academy's curriculum, teaching staff, cultivation resources, and other matters. Long Tian listened attentively, nodding from time to time, and finally signed his name on the enrollment form.
"I've looked into your situation," Zhao Min said, putting the form away, a hint of satisfaction in her voice. "Twin light and dark Martial Souls, three rings, a Mixed-Color Soul Ring, and you've just won the age-group tournament. You'll have a dedicated mentor at the academy, with a focus on Soul Power control and Martial Soul development. As for the two companions you brought-Chen Hao can apply to transfer here, and although Zhao Xiaopang's Vegetable Stump Martial Soul has a weak foundation, he can enter the preparatory class. I'll help take care of their paperwork as well."
Long Tian was slightly taken aback. He hadn't even brought up the two of them, and Zhao Min had already made arrangements. He thanked her, but privately equated her efficiency with the amount of information she might have at her disposal.
The three of them moved into the academy's student dormitory that same day. The dormitory was a small, three-story building on the academy's west side, built of red brick with gray roof tiles. Each room housed two students. Long Tian and Chen Hao were assigned the same room, while Zhao Xiaopang stayed next door with a quiet boy from the preparatory class. While they were moving their luggage, Zhao Xiaopang ran up and down the corridor with a loud thumping until the dorm matron called out to him twice.
It was already afternoon by the time they had settled in. Long Tian exchanged a glance with Chen Hao, and the two went out separately to look around. Long Tian walked along several of the academy's main roads, making a mental note of the approximate locations of the classroom buildings, training grounds, dining hall, and library. The academy was several times larger than the one in Bluestone Town, with paths crisscrossing between the buildings and signposts at some intersections. He paid particular attention to whether any buildings were marked "secret vault," "records room," or "forbidden area." He saw no obvious signs along the way, but he did notice a drab old gray building behind the library, mostly hidden by several old cypress trees. Its doors were tightly locked, and a thick layer of dust lay on the windowsills.
He didn't go closer for a better look. He simply committed the building's location to memory and turned away.
That night, the three gathered in the dormitory. Zhao Xiaopang had already learned the academy dining hall's menu inside out and was listing which dishes were good and which were traps to avoid, until Chen Hao cut him off with, "All right, I can't remember all that." Long Tian unrolled his bedding, sat down on the edge of the bed, and lowered his voice. "There's a gray building behind the library. It's locked, and no one goes in or out. It's probably a place where old things are stored. If the Mysterious Light Mirror really is in the academy, it's most likely somewhere like that."
Chen Hao leaned against the windowsill. "Places like that usually have restrictions. This afternoon I saw a notice on the academy affairs board saying there are three places students aren't allowed to enter-the library basement, the gymnasium's old equipment storeroom, and an 'old archives building.' The one you saw should be the old archives building."
"The basement and equipment storeroom were marked off-limits too?"
"Yes. But the library basement is where student records from past years are kept, and the equipment storeroom holds discarded cultivation equipment. The old archives building is still the most likely place to hide something. But we can't rule out the other two. What if that person mixed the mirror in with ordinary objects?"
Long Tian thought for a moment. "Then we'll check them one by one. We'll start with the closest. How is access to the library basement controlled?"
"The notice says, 'Entry permitted only with a file retrieval letter issued by the academic affairs office.' That means it uses a key and a registration system, not an array restriction. If it were an array restriction, there'd be no need for a key. The old archives building didn't mention a file retrieval letter. It just said 'entry strictly forbidden,' so it might be locked with a restriction."
Zhao Xiaopang listened from the side, his plump face scrunched up. "Are you two playing thieves?"
Long Tian's lips curved slightly. "We're not stealing anything. We're just going in for a look. Once we've looked, we'll come right back out."
Over the next few days, Long Tian familiarized himself with the academy's daily routine as a new student. Morning classes covered Soul Power theory, afternoons were for combat training, and there was free cultivation time after evening classes. His mentor was a middle-aged female Soul Master surnamed Bai, whose Martial Soul was a White Fox and whose cultivation was at the four-ring level. She taught in a crisp, straightforward manner and was very interested in Long Tian's Mixed-Color Soul Ring, but only out of enthusiasm for teaching; she didn't pry further. Long Tian behaved himself in front of Teacher Bai, practicing and studying as required. He kept his sharp edge sheathed just enough, neither concealing his abilities nor showing off.
On the evening of the fifth day, he found an excuse to return late and slipped into a stairwell leading underground beside the reading room, taking advantage of the dwindling crowd before the library closed. A paper notice on the stairwell door read: "Underground area · credentials required for entry and exit." The door wasn't locked, only left ajar. He pushed it open and squeezed through sideways. The stairs were narrow and steep, the wall lamps dim, and the farther down he went, the staler the air became. At the bottom, he came to an iron door fitted with an old-fashioned copper-cylinder lock. It really wasn't an array restriction.
Long Tian covered his fingertips with Shadow Dragon Power and probed the keyhole, condensing his Soul Power into extremely fine threads to manipulate the springs inside the lock cylinder. Back in Bluestone Town, he had practiced the tricks of picking locks on Zhao Xiaopang's old lock when he had time to spare. Though he was out of practice, the cylinder came loose with a click after a few minutes. He pushed the door open and swept his gaze around by the dim light of the wall lamps. Several sheet-metal cabinets stood against the walls of the small room, their doors bearing labels by year, from 2635 at the oldest to last year at the newest. The cabinets presumably contained the academy's student enrollment files and graduation records from past years.
He leafed through several files from around 2638 but found no information related to the Iron Guard or the Mysterious Light Mirror. Just as he was about to leave, he spotted the corner of a yellowed page sticking out from the bottom of a dusty sheet-metal cabinet in the corner. Long Tian pulled it out and glanced at it. It was an item handover list, titled "2640 · registration of relics received into storage." At the end, the handover party's signature read "Iron Guard · Sixth Squad." The items transferred were listed as: "One old mirror, copper, seven inches in diameter, intact. Transferred to the fourth cabinet of the old archives building."
The transfer date was the autumn of 2640. The copper mirror had been registered into storage by the handover party, and its storage location was listed as the fourth cabinet of the old archives building. This record confirmed the gray-clothed man's words-the Mysterious Light Mirror really had been taken into the academy, and it was in the old archives building.
Long Tian returned the list to its place, left the basement, locked the door, and retraced his route to the surface. It was already completely dark outside. The library's last light went out just as he emerged, and the librarian was locking the main doors. Long Tian slipped out through a side door and hurried back to the dormitory.
Chen Hao and Zhao Xiaopang were waiting for him. Long Tian entered and told them what he had found on the list, and the three fell silent beneath the lamplight for a moment. Zhao Xiaopang rubbed his hands. "The old archives building has a restriction, right? How do we break it?"
"Restrictions generally require a certain cultivation level or a particular token." Chen Hao flipped through an old edition of the academy rules he had borrowed from the library that day, stopping at a page. "It says here that the old archives building was built in 2635, and the original array was a four-ring restriction. Soul Masters below four rings would be bounced back if they tried to enter, while those at four rings or above could come and go freely. The restriction was upgraded several times afterward, but the basic threshold is still four rings."
Long Tian frowned. He had three rings, Chen Hao had three rings, and Zhao Xiaopang had one. Even with all three of them together, not one had four rings.
"We need to find someone with four rings to open the door for us," Long Tian said. "Or find a way to temporarily disable the restriction."
Chen Hao closed the book. "Someone with four rings... Your mentor, Teacher Bai, is one. But you can't possibly ask her to open the restriction for you. That would be like putting up a sign saying 'No three hundred taels of silver buried here.'"
Zhao Xiaopang suddenly raised his hand. "What about Director Zhao? That day, when she said she'd arrange a mentor for you, I heard her mention to a teacher beside her, 'Pull the old files and check the past records of mixed-color Martial Souls.' She should have something like a file retrieval letter. If she happens to be going to the old archives building to look something up..."
Long Tian glanced at Zhao Xiaopang. The fatty's mind had suddenly started working quickly when it came to this sort of thing. If Zhao Min went to the old archives building herself, they could follow her inside. As for how to get away from her and act on their own once they were in, that was another question.
"Tomorrow I'll go to the academic affairs office and ask Director Zhao about the historical records of mixed-color Martial Souls," Long Tian said. "We'll see if that gives her reason to take me to look through the old files."
Outside the window, the night was as still as water, and the lights in the dormitory went out one after another. Long Tian blew out the lamp and lay down on his bed. In the darkness, he took out the copper-colored fragment and held it tightly in his palm. The gold-and-black streak of light on its surface glimmered faintly in the dark, like a tiny eye held open, waiting to see how things would unfold tomorrow.