IRM Chapter 78

Early summer in Yiste Town was a bleak, gray expanse. This year happened to coincide with the dry season, and the southeastern part of the Saint Trilley Empire hadn’t seen a drop of rain for two or three months. The weeds by the roadside were wilted from the sun, and when the wind blew, it stirred up clouds of dust.

Ji Chi had just stepped out of the narrow, dilapidated teleportation array when he was choked by the dust that hit him in the face, coughing several times.

He wrapped the gray scarf hanging around his neck around his face, covering it slightly to block the all-pervasive dust.

The dust in Yiste Town was different from that of the Fren Desert. The dust here was finer and lighter, like gray mist, casting a dark filter over the surrounding environment.

Ji Chi shifted the hemp cloth backpack from his back to his arms and walked forward while discreetly observing this barren, gloomy little town.

There weren’t many people coming and going in the town, and they were all like Ji Chi, wearing dull gray clothing. The more respectable people would wrap scarves around their heads and faces to block out the choking dust. As for most of those whose clothes were full of patches, they could only let the dust cover their gaunt faces, giving them an appearance of being at death’s door.

Ji Chi lowered his eyes, burying half of his overly fair face in the thin scarf, and walked forward along the town’s widest street.

It must have been because of the academy tests. The originally lifeless town had been infused with many young faces in just a few short days. They came from even more remote countryside, anxiously clutching worn pouches, their expressions and movements cautious and timid.

When the town’s residents saw such children, they would cast them looks of annoyance—there was hardly any profit to be squeezed from them to benefit the town. Instead, they would attract petty thieves and bandits who wouldn’t even let go of mosquito legs, making the security here even more chaotic and terrible.

However, beneath the annoyance on their faces was an envy that couldn’t be hidden… Children who could participate in the tests all had profession talent. As long as they could pass any academy, their future path would be smooth and bright.

If they were fortunate enough to receive the favor of the gods, receive an invitation from the Combat Academy, and successfully pass the professional division test, it would be like ascending to heaven in one step—their prospects would be boundless.

They fantasized in their hearts, their gazes involuntarily drifting to a magical building that rose from flat ground at the edge of town. At the top of the building’s high dome, the sacred and solemn emblem of the Combat Academy conspicuously pierced through the gloom, shining in the sunlight.

Ji Chi’s destination was the Combat Academy test hall. As an Engineer Academy test-taker, he needed to verify his identity in advance at the registration desk at the entrance of the hall and collect his test emblem before he could participate in the engineer test two days later.

The test hall was located on an abandoned farm. The ground was flat and spacious, and all the academies’ temporary test halls were built upon it, forming a cluster of magical buildings with distinctly different styles. This was a grand occasion that Yiste Town could only witness once a year.

By the time Ji Chi arrived near the Combat Academy hall, many young men and women were already shuttling between the various academy halls, carefully clutching letters in their hands, their faces full of nervousness and anticipation.

When they passed under the Combat Academy’s emblem, they couldn’t help but raise their heads to take a deep look at it, engraving that symbol of the pinnacle into the depths of their minds.

This also meant that when Ji Chi stepped into the test hall, he received quite a few envious and jealous looks. Anyone qualified to step in there, regardless of the test results, had bragging rights.

The layout of the test hall was somewhat like a low-budget version of an academy auditorium, but with several more floors. The first floor was for test-takers to register and consult. From the second floor up were the test examination rooms, where tests for seven professions would be held in rotation over seven days.

Ji Chi came at an inopportune time. A long queue had already formed at the registration desk inside the hall, with test-takers from several professions all waiting obediently in line.

He hesitated and checked the time, let out a soft sigh, and still walked to the back of the queue, standing behind a thin young boy. While taking out an engineering tome from his backpack to read, he patiently waited for the queue to inch forward at a snail’s pace.

Quite a few people had gathered in the hall’s lobby, but it was very quiet. This group of half-grown children aged sixteen to eighteen had long since shed their usual liveliness, putting on somber faces, suppressing their panic and anxiety, craning their necks to listen to the faint sounds of conversation coming from the front of the queue.

Ji Chi didn’t have so many nervous emotions. He was immersed in his tome, not feeling at all that time was flying by.

But just as it was about to be his turn, a series of low exclamations broke through his thoughts. Ji Chi raised his eyes and looked toward the thin young boy in front of him, whose expression was panicked.

The young boy had an old wooden bow on his back and a patched-up bundle hanging on his right shoulder. He was now turned sideways, frantically searching through the bundle.

Standing in front of the young boy was a girl who was a head taller than him, with facial features extremely similar to his, also carrying a wooden bow of a similar style.

She turned around and leaned close to the young boy to watch him search through the bundle, her tone unable to hide her anxiety. “Hurry up! It’s almost our turn! Where exactly did you put the gold coins?”

The young boy’s searching movements became more and more violent, and some scattered small items were brought out by his movements, falling all over the floor. “I put them in the bundle, and I specifically put them at the very bottom. Wait, I must not have searched all the way down yet—”

As the young boy spoke, he suddenly stopped all his movements. He stood stiffly in place, letting a string of shiny objects slip from the edge of the bundle and fall to the ground.

The girl waited a while, and when he didn’t take out the gold coins, she frowned and pushed his shoulder. “What are you standing there in a daze for? Hurry up and take them out…”

The girl also stopped short. Her eyes were fixed on the very bottom of the bundle.

By this time, the boy had already reached his arm to the deepest part of the bundle. There, a palm-sized opening was whistling with wind, and the boy’s hand effortlessly passed through it, exposed to the air outside the bundle.

The edge of the tear was very smooth, clearly cut open by someone with a sharp instrument. As for where the gold coins in the bundle were now, one didn’t need to think deeply to guess.

The young men in the queue all noticed the situation here. Sympathy flashed through their eyes, but their fingers tightly clutched the money pouches hidden close to their bodies, watching indifferently from the sidelines.

Those who could appear here wouldn’t be too wealthy. They had worked themselves to death to scrape together even their own registration fees, so of course they had no capacity to lend a helping hand.

The girl opened her mouth, her eyes quickly reddening. She suddenly grabbed her brother’s arm and said angrily, “Search again quickly! This opening, this opening must have been torn by a tree branch! That’s something that absolutely cannot be lost!”

In her agitation, the girl didn’t control her volume well, her shrill voice cutting through the silence of the hall.

The mage in charge of registration at the front looked up and glared at them, shouting sternly, “What’s all this noise? Make any more noise and get out!”

Several people sitting beside him were also wearing Magic Academy student robes and couldn’t help rolling their eyes.

They were the children of several viscounts. Having heard that the King had sent the First Prince to Yiste Town this time to represent the royal family in providing generous accommodation assistance to commoner test-takers, they had fought for assignment slots to come here as staff to maintain order during the testing period.

However, they had already been stuck in the town for several days without even seeing the First Prince’s cloak. Every day they still had to lower themselves to serve a bunch of commoner slaves. By now they were full of resentment and had no pleasant expression for these poor test-takers.

Realizing she had lost her composure, the girl tightly pursed her lips and bowed repeatedly to apologize to them. Only after the mages’ expressions cleared did she straighten her aching back, look back at her brother, her eyes full of pleading inquiry.

The young boy avoided her gaze, bowed his head and shook it gently. His thin body was trembling continuously, and large tears fell to the ground, blooming into dark water stains on the carpet.

A mage who had been watching the show with crossed arms saw this and sneered mockingly, drawing out his voice to order, “Hey, you there in the back, hurry up and pick up the things that fell on the ground. Don’t make this place dirty.”

The items the young boy had dropped were all clothing and small tools—they wouldn’t make the carpet dirty at all. The mage’s words made no effort to hide the disgust and malice in his tone. This wasn’t just directed at the young boy alone, but was contempt toward all the commoners present.

The breathing of the young men in the queue grew heavier. Anger burned in their eyes, yet they didn’t dare say a word or raise their heads to expose their expressions. A wordless depressed mood spread throughout the lobby.

The young boy bit his lips until they turned white. He raised his hand and roughly wiped his face, then squatted down to quickly stuff the scattered items on the floor back into his bundle.

Taking advantage of the commotion of standing up, he softly sobbed once, then lifted his foot to follow the queue that had moved forward a bit. He tugged at his sister’s sleeve with his head lowered, saying nothing, tears pattering down on his arm.

The sadness in his sister’s eyes turned to heartache. She raised her rough hand and gently stroked his soft hair. “Let’s think of another way…”

Ji Chi calmly followed behind them, also walking forward a few steps. Suddenly, he felt himself step on something. When he moved his toes to look, it was a silver nameplate with blackened edges. The center of the nameplate where a name was carved was still shiny, as if it had been rubbed many times.

As he bent down to pick up the nameplate, the queue had already reached the siblings in front.

The mage sitting behind the long table glanced up at them, took their letter, and asked indifferently, “Name and status.”

“Kaili and Kevin, status is…” Kaili hesitated, then said softly, “Commoner.”

As soon as the words fell, an inconspicuous magic array at the edge of the long table suddenly flashed with dazzling red light. A trace of panic flashed across Kaili’s face.

The registering mage stopped his movements and looked up, sneering coldly. He asked without courtesy, “What did you lie about—the name? Or—the status?”

He lowered his eyes to glance at the faintly visible magic brand on the siblings’ cuffs—the distinctive mark of slaves.

Kaili clenched her fist and explained in a low voice, “We were sold as slaves… But doesn’t the Combat Academy not care about origins?”

Indeed, the registration process originally didn’t require asking about status. This was something the mage had added on his own initiative, just to filter out people of “lower class.”

The mage scoffed and immediately picked up a handkerchief nearby to wipe his hands, distancing himself from the verified letter. “That’s right, but it’s still necessary to ask. Otherwise, who knows when one might get contaminated with dirty things.”

Ignoring the siblings’ angry gazes, he took out two emblems from under the table and carved their information with magic with a disgusted expression. Without raising his head, he said, “I won’t hold it against you this time. Hurry up and hand over two gold coins. Don’t give them to me—put them directly on the corner of the table.”

Compared to other academies that charged registration fees of dozens of gold coins at the drop of a hat, the Combat Academy didn’t need to profit from this. It only symbolically charged one gold coin per person. Although this was still a bit expensive for some people, it was still affordable.

Kaili fell silent for a moment, then pleaded with difficulty, “Could you give me some more time… Our money pouch was stolen, and we really can’t come up with that much money right now. I promise I’ll pay you before the test results are announced, okay?”

The mage stopped the magic in his hands and looked up at them in disbelief. “What are you saying? If you can’t even come up with the registration fee, what are you doing here?”

He impatiently scanned the siblings up and down. “Do you think the Combat Academy is some broken tavern in your village where you can run up a tab whenever you want?”

He pinched the letter between two fingers and threw it forward, tossing it on the ground. “If you don’t have money, get lost quickly. Don’t waste my time—”

Kevin’s eyes turned red as he picked up the letter. Just as he was about to step past his sister to continue pleading, he heard a voice from behind.

“I’ll pay for them.” Ji Chi stepped forward and looked down at the mage before him, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, I was wondering why this stupid thing looked so familiar. So it’s you, senior.”

The person before him was precisely the senior student who had previously mocked Saintess Coralie and whom he had given a potion to supplement his brain.

The mage stared at Ji Chi in a daze for quite a while, not even noticing he had been cursed at. He stammered in shock, “You—how are you here?”

Ji Chi clearly saw the shock and fear in his eyes and smiled maliciously. “Why is senior’s brain getting worse the more it’s supplemented? What could I possibly be doing here? Of course I’m here for testing.”

Testing my ass! Haven’t you already enrolled?

The mage’s lips moved a few times. Though he was furious at being cursed at, he didn’t dare do anything to Ji Chi. He could only glare resentfully at his letter.

Thus, when he saw the engineer testing information on it, he was completely stunned. If he remembered correctly, Ji Chi already had three professions. Was this arrogant guy really planning to dabble in all professions?!

The complaints in the mage’s mind went on endlessly, and before he knew it, he had been staring at the letter in reaction for quite a long time.

Ji Chi took out three gold coins, spun them around on his fingertips once, then put them back in his pocket right in front of him. Like a bandit, he said, “Hurry up. Time is money. You’ve already wasted three gold coins of my time. Just cover the registration fee yourself. Remember not to owe the academy.”

The words came back like a boomerang, hitting him in his own face. The mage felt his face burning hot. He swallowed this humiliation with difficulty, lowered his head, and prepared three emblems at the fastest speed, hastily handing them to Ji Chi.

The several mages beside him also looked much more timid, shrinking in place like a bunch of quails. Of course they had heard about many of Ji Chi’s exploits—from his perverted talent to the important figures surrounding him. Even though he was still a commoner, no one dared provoke him.

Ji Chi looked at them with a half-smile, took the emblems, pulled out his own copy, and handed the other two to the stunned siblings. Between the two emblems, an inconspicuous nameplate was sandwiched there.

“Next time, remember to carefully store away important things. Don’t lose them again.” Ji Chi said lightly. “Oh, and one more very important thing—don’t plead with this kind of stupid trash. If you encounter this kind of situation again next time, find a carrier pigeon to explain the situation to the academy. The academy will definitely handle it appropriately.”

Ji Chi glanced sideways at the mages whose expressions looked terrible. With just one special case like himself, it would be absolutely difficult to change these kinds of people’s thinking. To make them truly respect and fear a person, one could only stand in a much higher place.

He raised his voice a bit, reminding not just the siblings before him. “The Combat Academy doesn’t look at origins, only judges by strength. I hope you can pass the test, improve yourselves at the academy, and then… if there are people you find displeasing, just directly take action.”

As he spoke, he looked meaningfully in the direction of the group of mages, making their scalps explode.

Kevin numbly reached out to take the emblem and nodded heavily. When he saw the nameplate fall out from inside, his eyes reddened and he almost shed tears again. He tightly gripped the nameplate and just as he was about to raise his head to give thanks, he found that the black-eyed youth had disappeared.

In the vast hall, the remaining young men and women in line were no longer afraid. Their eyes were full of light, they straightened their chests, their pupils burning with fighting spirit stared straight ahead.

With such hope and confidence, they would undoubtedly perform very well in the upcoming tests, then pass on this pride to the next person mired in self-deprecation, until this entire group completely stood up from the mire.