Chapter 61: Royal Hunter Academy
Translated by Kollumceti of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
The Capital Star Royal Hunter Academy was located in a verdant and lush forest. The four founders of the Royal Hunter Academy came from four different ancient aristocratic families and each was rumored to be more mighty, kind-hearted, courageous, and resourceful than the other. In actual fact, each one of them was more unreliable and unorthodox than the other. Thus, when building this academy, each founder s.n.a.t.c.hed a portion of the land according to their likes and built buildings in four different architectural styles in their respective areas.
Of course, this so-called s.n.a.t.c.hing of the land was only a parceling of the land in a superficial sense. It was not the kind of division that meant the complete separation of the courses of study in the different inst.i.tutions.
Putting it in clearer and simpler terms, a more comprehensive a.n.a.logy was—
The main gate and academic building of the Royal Hunter Academy was completely in an antique style and it was in the design of the ancient Chinese Imperial Palace. Even the sign on the main gate was entirely written in ancient Traditional Chinese. As for the other random languages and written scripts, the founder, who was in charge of this piece of land and doubled as the headmaster once awesomely stated – Lao Zi is the one in-charge of everything on Lao Zi"s territory! You can"t you read the words on the main gate and the academic building? Ha ha ha ha, then go and learn ancient Chinese! Lao Zi has no time to translate for you!
Such a tough as nails att.i.tude made people indignant and had directly led to tough students graduating from the Hunting Academy. After all, there were no poor soldiers under a good general and it was also feasible to apply this theory in a school.
When one entered the gate and headed towards to the dormitory building, one was able to see a series of diverse castles, from gloomy to enchanting, to elegant to strange. It was remarkably similar to the ancient European style. It was said that the founder who s.n.a.t.c.hed this piece of land always had a lack of sleep in the early years of his life, leading to extremely anemic and pale complexion. Therefore, all the materials used in the castles functioning as a dormitory were objects that made outsiders envious till they saw red in order to prevent future generations from facing the same issue. There was also a hidden purpose to this – to test the moral conduct of the students, for instance to check if they liked to steal.
Well, in the words of the other three founders, this was a person who had so much money that he had no place to spend it, so this was why he was bored enough to burn money. But seeing as he was not recklessly spending his money, they no longer scolded him as a foolish idiot.
A complete hodgepodge of buildings greeted one"s sight upon leaving the dormitory building and walking to the dining hall. Although the frontage of the dining hall was in the same fool-proof design as the Anjie, it looked just like a hamburger. It was rumored that the founder of this area wanted to eat one of these traditional hamburgers so much that he was even dreaming about it, yet he never succeeded in the end. Thus, he established his will here for the later generations to inherit his wish… Although the majority of the students were itching to spit on and even disdained this foodie, the food in the dining hall was good in quality and cheap, unlike some private colleges which charged a fraudulent price of thirty silver coins for a Wotou (1). Therefore, this blemish in an otherwise perfect thing could still be ignored.
The last section was the real combat training ground, which included the drill grounds, sports field, combat arena and other practical training bases. This was also the area with the strangest style in the whole academy—
The buildings here were made of all kinds of natural materials. The wooden houses in gigantic trees were the most normal places. The woven mat seats which were like bird nests, swamps, deserts, stone walls and lakes were full of a wild nature. Yet, there just happened to be a sagacity in the arrangement and combination in this wildness that allowed every student to drastically advance in strength after completing their training here.
A talented student of philosophy and theory once made a speculation about the fourth founder based on the distribution and appearance of this area – this style, which not only vividly displayed wildness but also highlighted spirituality, was most probably laid out by a powerful beast with extremely high wisdom. That was to say, one of the four founders of the Royal Beast Academy was not a ‘human", but a beast!
This inference had been denied by school officials with the fastest speed and the toughest att.i.tude, with them expressing ‘how could a beast be one of the great founders?!". However, this theory had spread rapidly among every student and many teachers had even privately agreed with it.
It was because of this theory that almost all the students in the Royal Hunter Academy had a strong sense of reverence and compet.i.tion for the beasts. They attached great importance to the beasts and often went all over the Capital Star and even set foot on Desolate Stars in order to find a powerful beast suitable for themselves. When the beasts were strong, they could do almost anything for the beasts and did not stinge on delicacies; When the beasts became weak, they also treated the beasts exceptionally cruelly and most of them would decisively abandon the beasts. The difference was that conscientious people would properly provide care for the aged beasts, while those unconscientious people would abandon their comrades that went though life-and-death with them.
The annual freshman entrance exam was one of the most famous events of the Royal Hunter Academy. Close to ten thousand new students came from all parts of Capital Star every year to gain the opportunity to enter the academy, after going through multiple compet.i.tions and selections. The entrance exam for new students was the most direct selection test for one to become a qualified hunter.
Generally, as long as they pa.s.sed the entrance exam for freshmen, they could become a student of the Hunter Academy and the Adventurer Academy and become a powerful hunter or adventurer in the future. However, if they failed, they could only become an ordinary service worker doing beast-related jobs, or a student learning a portion of the curriculum unless a miracle happened.
So on the day of the exam, even the extremely vast Royal Hunting Academy was packed with people. All the parents were worried about whether their children could pa.s.s the exam, and all the students were praying that they would have the mental energy to control at least one beast and enter the two academies.
JinYu brought along DaBai, XiaoBai, BaoZi, XiaoXue, ErHei, and w.a.n.gw.a.n.g – the six powerful Level A beats that could disperse a crowd from the area around them everywhere they went – and calmly stood and posed beside the natural training ground of the Royal Hunter Academy. He did not blush in the slightest as he enjoyed the exclamation and admiration of others, yet he lamented in his heart, sure enough, a physical advertis.e.m.e.nt still had the greatest effect.
Boss Qi felt annoyed by the number of people in the area. Thus, he simply turned into a tiny Qilin and laid on JinYu"s shoulder as he boredly looked at his partner being a poser. The perfect and harmonious atmosphere was suddenly broken by a familiar voice that sounded nearby. It was accompanied by breathy and meng barking that did not have the slightest threat.
“B-B-B-B-B-Boss! You guys are here! Haha, I asked myself, why was the little wolf pup so excited today? So it was because of you guys ah!”
JinYu watched a blue-haired youngster weaved through the enormous crowd in a strange yet unhazardous way as he spoke. JinYu suddenly had a kind of premonition that disaster was about to arrive…
T/N:
(1) Wotou, also called Chinese cornbread, is a type of steamed bread made from cornmeal in Northern China.