Compared to being in the colonist territories, life in the academy was much more peaceful. Returning to the life of cycling between the dormitories, classes, and training hall, Xiao Lin quickly fell into a routine. His nerves that had been tense since the Rosa Kingdom started to relax, but he would occasionally remember Ibeiya who was still there.
The president would give him the occasional news, such as the fact that Liang Taibai had started the journey back to the Rosa Kingdom a few days ago. Even though they did not know what sort of orders Liang Taibai received this time, just as they predicted before, before the situation in the Rosa’s government stabilized, even the new dean would not easily change the new queen that had been appointed by the last king. Or maybe they thought that Ibeiya, being young, would be easier to control. Basically, Ibeiya would be able to continue being the queen.
The rebels in the Rosa Kingdom disappeared without a trace ever since they retreated from the royal city. After that, even though Dawn City’s troops scoured the country, they could not find a single trace of the rebels. If it was not for the piles of corpses around the royal city signifying the situation when the city was being besieged, they would have thought that the siege was just a strategic ploy.
Asabanor had brought the rebel troops that he earned and disappeared again.
It was a pity there were no satellites on Planet Norma; if Asabanor had really prepared a camp deep in the mountains or a dense forest or some unknown location, it was actually hard to locate him.
Song Junlang still remained in Dawn City. The last time, he had been researching some animals that had been brought over from Earth, and had planned on returning within the month, but since Xiao Lin had brought back more samples from the Rosa Kingdom, Song Junlang’s interest had been massively piqued, and he might not even leave the research center in Dawn City in the next half a year.
The president had given Xiao Lin good news both times, but he kept avoiding talking about Dawn City’s latest situation as well as the dean’s health. He did not seem willing to reveal too much.
Xiao Lin did not try to pursue the matter, as he knew that even if he had more information, there was nothing he could do at his current level. The only thing he could do at that moment was to frantically train himself and increase his abilities as fast as possible to prepare for the inter-academy tournament.
The month’s classes went on as usual, and even Xiao Lin, who had the freedom to choose his own classes, basically went to class according to the time table. At the middle of the month, a new experience welcomed the first-years.
Based on the regulations of the academy, there would be a complete assessment in the middle of every semester. The first reason was to renew the data the academy had, and the second reason was so that the students would have a better understanding of their own growth.
The assessment was done during the weekend, and the process was more or less the same as when they entered the academy. They used a special scanner which would go through checking and analysis on the central computer, and later on, everyone would obtain their reports on their own computers.
What was different from when they entered the academy was that, other than the various physical attributes, there were also various analytics, such as how much they improved after entering the academy, what courses they were in the last semester, and which attributes those courses helped with. They would then compare the students’ growths with historical averages to see where the students stood.
Xiao Lin was somewhat surprised when he received his report, because his four basic attributes had all increased to 80. That meant that his total attribute score was at 320, and Bronze rank only required 300.
In the Rosa Kingdom, Xiao Lin’s attributes had all taken a big leap due to the Shards of Creation, and had all increased to 60 points. After that, with Liang Taibai’s vials of potions, he had temporarily experienced being at Bronze rank, but after the potions wore off, he returned to Black-iron rank.
It seemed that after receiving the shard from the library’s restricted area, the same effect happened, causing his attributes to break through to the Bronze rank.
What caused Xiao Lin to be even more speechless was, after he received the report, he started to get a lot of congratulatory phone calls. He had been curious as to how those people knew, but when Chen Dao asked him to log into the forums, he noticed there was a gigantic title in the middle of the first-year forums. [Congratulations to the monitor of Class Seven, Xiao Lin, for being the first freshman student to break into Bronze rank!]
The other monitors could not possibly have that sort of special privilege on the forums, but Xiao Lin suddenly thought about Bell. That girl had said that she could manage the forums, but the eye-catching title was definitely done out of mischief.
However, the entire first year had been shaken by Xiao Lin’s shocking breakthrough, and even the small handful of conspiracy theorists that were always present in the forums could not continue to slander Xiao Lin when it came to that subject.
The higher one’s basic attributes were, the harder it was to increase, that was something everyone had come to an understanding about as they reached their second semester. It was now very hard for them to increase one attribute by a few points in just one training lesson like last semester, and it was also because of that that Xiao Lin’s incredible speed was even more amazing.
Xiao Lin actually regretted it a little, for if he had known that the shards would have such an obvious help to his attributes, he would have waited a little longer before absorbing them. After all, he would only find it harder and harder to increase his attributes in the future. However, since he was now at Bronze rank, he was a lot more confident about the inter-academy tournament.
Xiao Lin used his rights as a monitor to look at the ranks of the others in this class. Compared to the end of last semester, there was quite an increase in Black-iron ranked students. It was actually not hard to increase basic attributes before reaching the Black-iron rank, and other than Xiao Lin and Gu Xiaoyue, Class Seven had four others students at that rank.
Xiao Lin still focused on Gu Xiaoyue as usual. Since the monthly examination, a series of events had happened and he did not have the time to look for Gu Xiaoyue, but that did not mean that he did not care about her. Gu Xiaoyue was still the same person; her total attributes were already at 240 points. If he did not count the Shards of Creation, Xiao Lin would more or less be at her level.
However, Gu Xiaoyue’s skills were still extremely one-sided. Of the 240 points, her intelligence took up 150 points. The other three only averaged about 30 points, especially her physique, which seemed to have even deteriorated from last semester. That rendered Xiao Lin speechless, as out of so many students in class, Gu Xiaoyue was the only one whose attributes had deteriorated.
Of course, the attributes themselves could not be decreased, and they would often just show a slight decline if neglected for too long. For instance, those who specialized in bureaucracy after graduating would see their states slowly decrease after a long time of living in peace, but Xiao Lin did not think that Gu Xiaoyue would be someone like that.
