Begin

One of the academy students walked up to Zhao Song and greeted him with a bow.

"Greetings, senior brother Zhao."

"Greetings, junior brother Lin." Zhao Song looked back at him.

Jiang Ting gave Zhao Song a look.

Zhao Song stared back, confused, before realization hit him. He bowed to the student, "My apologies, I forgot."

The student waved his hands in a hurry, "It's not a problem, senior brother." Meanwhile he was really surprised. 'So, the awkward senior brother of the academy can even be taught etiquettes. No wonder this guy could impress the Headmaster enough to become his disciple.'

"Junior brother Lin, this is Jiang Ting, my junior brother, you might have seen him at sparring day last month. Junior brother Jiang, this is Lin Fan, he joined the academy this year as well, just a couple of months before you. He is quite talented, so you must be careful if you run into him in the competition."

"Oh, so this is brother Jiang, greetings." Lin Fan bowed.

"Greetings, brother Lin." Jiang Ting bowed back.

Lin Fan looked towards Zhao Song, "Senior brother Zhao, do you know who all those seniors sitting with the core elders are?"

Zhao Song looked towards the stage, "Oh, you mean the elders? That's right, you guys haven't been in the academy long enough. Let me introduce them to you. You can see that the elders are divided into three groups. In the center are the martial wing's elders since they are the ones supervising this event while the others are just here to join in the fun. That's administrative head Xia in the middle of the stage. To his left are elders Zhou Yan and Li Na. Those 2 old might look similar, that's because they are twins. Don't be taken in by their kind appearance, those two are violent old fogeys. To his right are elders Yang Wei and Chen Mei. The 4 elders are the core elders of the martial wing of the academy."

"In the group to the left of the stage, all the elders are from the academic wing of the academy. Sitting in the center with the spectacles is elder Zhang Yin, the head of medicine. To her left are elder Huang Jun, the head of literature, and elder Xu Mingwei, head of music. To her right with the afro is elder Wu Jing, head of painting."

"To the right of the stage are the elders from the vocational wing. In the middle is elder Huang Mei, the head of weapon smithing. To her right is elder Wang Ya, head of gardening, and to her right is elder Liu Hui, head of construction."

"These elders put together make up all the core elders of the village.'

Lin Fan was in awe at the sight. "Since my house is at the outskirts of the village and neither of my parents are martial artists, I could never come all the way here to watch the event. Now that I am in the academy and reside in the student's quarters, I am getting to learn so many new things. It is quite an amazing feeling."

Lin Fan suddenly had a confused look on his face, "That is some lineup indeed. However, why are all these elders present here? This event should belong only to the martial wing, right? It's not like the students from other wings will join in the fight?"

Zhao Song shook his head, "The competition affects the future of the village. The top talents picked out from this tournament will be nurtured so as to fight for the status of the village in the future. Since this matter indirectly affects the entire village, all the core elders of the village must naturally be here."

Jiang Ting gazed up at the stage. He had known all of these elders well enough in the past life. As such, Zhao Song and Lin Fan's little dialogue wasn't something he was interested in. He felt a little weirded out by Zhao Song's description of the twin elders, but figured this fellow must have inadvertently offended them somehow and got a beating.

What really interested Jiang Ting, however, was which two of the four core elders from the martial arts wing had the encounter with the fierce beast.

'Logically speaking, it must have been a middle grade fierce beast at the peak of its rank if two core elders together could not defeat it. Yet such an entity would destroy the two grade 4 experts as easily as squashing a bug. Then it could only be one thing.' Jiang Ting's eyes gleamed. 'They obtained some sort of opportunity, allowing them to break through the situation, possibly with precious treasures.' He wasn't worried, though. The elders were very united, and even in such an unpredictable situation, if the two elders used this mysterious opportunity to surpass the headmaster, the headmaster would hand over his position gladly. After the incident from fifty years ago, the level of unity in the village was indestructible, and truthfully, even in such a case the headmaster would still be the most respected man in the village.

At this point, he questioned Zhao Song, "Senior brother, which two core elders were you talking about before?"

Zhao Song's face fell. "The twins."

Lin Fan looked on confused, but it became apparent that neither Zhao Song nor Jiang Ting intended to explain, so he dropped the matter.

Jiang Ting, meanwhile, smiled at Zhao Song. 'This guy might have some beef with the twin elders, but he sure looked glum when he talked about them having disappeared.'

At this point in time, the crowd went silent again. Everyone looked towards the stage. Two people slowly walked up the stage before Xia Mo and Yang Wei got up to offer them seats in the middle of the stage, before themselves grabbing seats to their side.

At this point, one of the men now in the middle stood up. Zhao Song sighed with relief. "Master is finally out of secluded cultivation. It seems the village chief came as well."

Wang Chun walked to the front of the stage, his voice booming, "I welcome you all to Fudi village's quinquennial competition. I believe you all are already aware of the rules, rewards, and punishments. I wish the best of luck to the participants. Let the competition begin!"