The leader of the group, a middle-aged-looking man approached first, and the three behind him followed, it looked like a bunch of ruffians, unfit to be members of the Heavenly Academy, they came at us, with lust towards Liang Yu and complete disregard towards me.
The middle-aged man nodded his head and one of the three followers tried to put his hand on me.
If I allowed that, I would be in trouble. Because the moment he'll touch my robes, he'll be immediately poisoned and I don't want to be revealed on the first day.
I quickly intercepted his hand, and with as little as a flick, broke his wrist.
"AHHHHH!"
The man groaned in pain as he looked at his broken hand in a daze and at me, unbelieving how this could happen.
The rest of the group became wearier.
"You, a newcomer dare make trouble in the Heavenly Academy! You sure want to standoff, don't you," the middle-aged man spoke, without a hint of worry or care.
"Now, you know what happens to those who cause trouble in the Heavenly Academy?" the old man spoke with a wide grin.
I actually, do, and an elder immediately appeared.
An old man, wearing blue robes came fast, "What's going on in here?" spoke the elder.
"Elder Pong, these newcomers are causing problems, look at what they did to my junior disciple! They broke his wrist when he wanted to greet them," the man said, with a lot of spite in his words.
"Is that so," the elder said as he turned towards me, "Why have you harmed a member of the heavenly academy? You, right now, are still not a member, do you wish to have the whole academy against you? A punishment is needed, indeed," the elder said.
"So, you're not going to ask why I broke his wrist and will proceed directly with punishment, what a good Heavenly Academy," I retorted.
"There is no need, you're nothing but a newcomer!" the old man said and sent a palm strike to my abdomen.
The fuck is this asshole trying to do, destroy my cultivation?!
I took a step back using Old Man Gin's movement technique, and the elder immediately stopped his attack the moment he saw me move away.
He frowned at first and said, "Drop this matter," to the middle-aged assailant.
"But, Elder Pong! He wronged us!" he said.
"I said, drop this matter, you can't afford to provoke that man," the elder said and turned then left the area. Before he sent a divine sense, "Don't cause too much trouble, the name of Elder Gin can't carry much weight beyond the Starting Grounds."
The group finding their backer useless could only glare at us and decided to leave.
But, I promised myself this, I'll never bother or come to harm someone who didn't provoke me needlessly, however, once provoked, or caused to come to malice, I'll make sure to avenge myself, and in the most ruthless of ways.
"Liang Yu, let's find you a housing area," I said and then headed to the nearest house next to us.
I gave the door a few knocks and immediately received an answer, "Newcomers should head to the deacon for a place to stay, head out to the main building up north. You'll find the deacons there. They'll give you your housing and caves. These houses you're standing next to are off-limit to newcomers."
The voice was feminine, and I didn't know who it belonged to, but it gave us enough information to work. So, we left for the main building.
Since the first incident, nothing else came to happen, we've been able to move smoothly and head to the main building, where we were also limited in accessing most of its facilities.
Our normal robes exposed us as newcomers, and we couldn't get anyone to help us even to find the deacons.
Thankfully, Liang Yu took charge and went up to a few cultivators who seemed too busy with their own manuscripts, and scrolls to even give me a glance, the moment they saw her coming their way, they perked up like peacocks.
She smiled and told them a few words, and it was all it took for them to point her directly where she needed to head off.
The moment she turned my way and asked me to follow after her, I felt stares colder than ice pointing my way.
Seriously? Are we in a teenager movie or something?
I shook my head and moved after Liang Yu.
After a few twists and turns inside the main building, we arrived at a large desk that was manned by a young girl in yellow robes.
"What do you need?" she asked rather coldly.
"The deacons, we need housing," Liang Yu said, the girl didn't give her another look and began searching through some documents. Fully ignoring her.
"Your turn," Liang Yu said through transmission.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"She is a woman, and you're very handsome, put one and one together, you'll get your way," she said.
"I don't think the world works like that," I said.
"You're underestimating yourself a lot," she said smiling at me.
"Right, here goes nothing," I replied then headed to the desk.
"Hello," I said.
The girl at the desk didn't even look up at me.
"What…" she replied coldly.
"Could you please, give me directions on how to get proper housing? I'll appreciate your help," I said.
"And who might you be for me to care about your apprecia-" the girl finally looked at me and coughed, "I'm sorry, what was your question again? The deacon? Housing right, give me one moment," she said smiling like a young bashful girl.
She stood up and headed to a room that wasn't too far.
"Seriously?"
"Told you not to cut your hair, see, looks are very helpful," Liang Yu replied grinning.
"Huh… interesting," I said calmly.
The girl came back fast a pace and approached us, "Here you go," she said and handed me one housing document.
"Say… what's your name?" she asked.
"It's Shen Bao, why do you ask?"
"Just formalities, you know for signing the document and stuff," she said.
She was pretty awkward.
I realized there was only one document for housing it seems that she didn't want to help Liang Yu.
But I didn't really care, "I'll give you this one like the old man said, I can't use the caves,"
"You haven't introduced yourself," I said.
"Ah yes I'm Hwa Chu," she said.
"Good name, so tell me Hwa Chu, how can I head to the Advent Tower?" I asked.
"The Advent Tower? You'll need to get permission from one of the elders, but I can get you one, is it for visit? Or training?" she asked.
"Training," I said.
"Oh, is that so, it's a bit difficult, shouldn't you focus on studies first, like most cultivators, I can give you a good study curriculum, you'll be having the same classes as me," she said.
Clearly, she wants to approach me for more of my time, it's a bother.
"I'm a person of adventurous spirit, I would like to see the Tower First and know my limit before working on what I'm lacking," I said.
"Oh, such powerful words, and who is that?" she said finally admitting that there was an elephant in the room.
I looked back at Liang Yu who seemed to be grinning.
Damn.
"My companion," I said, and I made sure to keep my eyes on Liang Yu to see her expression once I spoke the words, they didn't change.
"A companion…I thought she was more like your girlfriend," Hwa said.
"No, I'm single, anyway, enough with that, can you please help me with the Advent Tower," I said.
"Oh yes, of course," she said, and then headed back to the same room again.
"Take this, I'll get you housed up first, and once that's done I'll head to the advent tower," I said.
"Well of course, I mean, I'm just your companion why should you care if I was properly housed or if I don't get assaulted, ah, such a young maiden, left alone in a den of wolves, my master would weep for ten days at my dead ravaged body, ah, the despair!" Liang Yu spoke exaggerating the situation.
She's pissed… god damn it.
As I tried to calm her down, Hwa arrived back with another document, a map, and two white robes.
"These are for you two, wear these since you're officially people of the Heavenly Academy, usually these robes will only be presented on the day of the admission of the rest of the newcomers, but I pulled some strings for Junior, Brother Shen Bao, as for you," she said to Liang Yu, "I couldn't find another housing area, so you'll need to figure out a way to stay inside one of the caves. It's also forbidden to share cultivation caves, so don't think of bothering Brother Shen Bao."
She was clearly discriminating against Liang Yu.
"And this is the permission needed to enter the Advent Tower, you'll still need to pay a small sum of Spirit Stones," she said "I can't wave that off sadly," she said.
"No need to," I said. "But since my companion is going to be left outside, I can't stand it, here," I said as I handed the housing document to Liang Yu.
"Wait, that, you can't do that?!" she said.
"Is there a rule saying that I can't?" I asked.
"But, where will you be staying, we don't have any other housing until the day of entry, she said.
Now, I needed to defuse the situation, because this was clearly slapping her in the face after giving the cave she gave me away.
"Are you worried about me?" I said smiling at her and approaching rather too close to her.
"A-a bit," she said.
"No need to, your Junior brother is very capable, I'll be at the Advent Tower anyway, I'll need to train so it would be a waste to leave that house uninhabited, it would be best I gave it to my companion here, don't you think," I said.
The closeness caused her a bit of 'enjoyable' discomfort, so she said, "You're right, yes, it would be a waste, but…if you want I can…" she said and then sent the rest through divine sense.
"You can crash over my place, I have a very large cultivation cave," she said.
"As much as I would like that," I said, clearly lying, "It would be against the rules, I wouldn't want to cause such a beautiful, kind, and smart girl like you trouble, it would pain me dearly," I said.
"Thank you," I said this time loudly, and the two of us walked away.
"What a player," she said.
"Learned from the best," I said.
"Hey, don't say that, it makes me look sleazy," Liang Yu replied.
I couldn't help but grin.
"Thank you," I said to Liang Yu.
"What for?" she said.
"You showed me that I had a weapon, a tool that I never used before, so a thanks are due," I said.
"Well, you better repay it with more than words," she said and hurried ahead of me.
I couldn't help but grin as the two of us walked away from the main building of the Starting Area. Next stop, the Advent Tower, let's see how that's going to go.