At that moment, even from a distance, they could see many people gathering around the Beast Appraisal Pavilion.
Surprised, Li Xinqi hurried over at once, leaving Lin Jin behind her. He surveyed the building, thinking to himself, ‘Heavenly Spiral Academy sure is extraordinary. Its structures are complex and the materials they used to construct this building are top-notch. It must have stood here for hundreds of years, but it’s still as sturdy as it was first built.
In addition, Lin Jin noticed quite a few beast statues that seemed to be carved out of wood on the building’s eaves. While they appeared on the surface to serve only an aesthetic purpose, Lin Jin could easily sense traces of spells and the bestial aura they emitted.
If his assumptions were correct, it would take only one relevant command spell to bring these wooden statues to life. Of course, it couldn’t have been any more obvious when these statues would come into play.
These statues would probably only be activated when the academy was under attack.
Lin Jin had seen many of these on his way here. There were a number of stone statues that possessed similar spell energy.
For this reason, Lin Jin came to have a higher opinion of Heavenly Spiral Academy.
Suddenly, Li Xinqi ran over and exclaimed, “Appraiser Lin, Tan Lin has gotten into a fight with someone. Come quick!”
Gotten into a fight?
Lin Jin was dumbstruck. Although he had no idea what was going on, he still made haste. So many people had gathered around the Beast Appraisal Pavilion that they turned into a near-impenetrable wall for people looking to get into the building.
The same could not be said for Lin Jin.
At the sight of the three rings on his sleeve, the students quickly backed away under the mistaken assumption that he was one of their lecturers. It was thanks to this that Lin Jin was able to lead Li Xinqi forward.
Inside the hall of the Beast Appraisal Pavilion, Lin Jin immediately located Tan Lin.
She was sitting upright at a desk, scribbling away on a piece of paper. On the other side of the hall was another desk where one other girl did the same thing.
Inside this hall, a colorful feather was being suspended in the air by a ball of light.
Lin Jin breathed a sigh of relief at this. This wasn’t the type of fight he had imagined. He really thought that Tan Lin was duking it out with someone.
However, after hearing Li Xinqi’s explanation, Lin Jin realized that the circumstances really did amount to a fight of sorts.
According to a local custom, they were in the midst of a beast appraising contest. Because of a disagreement between Tan Lin and the girl, they decided to compete in their appraisal skills and knowledge.
This Beast Appraisal Pavilion of Heavenly Spiral Academy was said to contain specimens of all the rare creatures in this world. Of course, some were only in the form of a scale piece, perhaps a piece of rawhide, or several feathers.
In an attempt to enrich the learning experience of their students, Heavenly Spiral Academy granted them unbridled access to their collection of specimens. They had complete freedom to appraise these samples and come up with their own evaluation reports.
This was a privilege open to all students of the academy, but at times, it also served as a medium for students to compete among themselves. They would randomly pick a sample of a rare beast and each would come up with their own evaluation report of it. Then, the teacher assigned to the Beast Appraisal Pavilion would assess their evaluation reports to see who’s appraisal was more accurate.
As time passed, the academy acquiesced to such competitions between students. Sometimes, they even encouraged them to engage in friendly competition.
“That girl over there is called Jiang Fengfeng and she has a horrible temper. In the past, Tan Lin had had clashes with her on different occasions, so their grudge goes way back. She would try to give Tan Lin trouble whenever she could after their first clash, and whatever Tan Lin did, she wanted to do as well. She’d also come up with new ideas on how to win too,” Li Xinqi whispered to Lin Jin.
Lin Jin understood the situation now.
In every place in the world, not everyone was bound to like each other. It was only natural for one to have enemies if one was an active participant in society.
Lin Jin didn’t really care for the competition. He was actually more interested in the specimens of rare beasts being kept in the Beast Appraisal Pavilion.
He asked Li Xinqi about it, and although she knew only parts of the whole picture, it was helpful enough to Lin Jin.
Ever since the establishment of this Beast Appraisal Pavilion five hundred years ago, specimens of various rare beasts have been continuously added to the collection. Now that it has been hundreds of years, no one knew just how many specimen samples this building contained.
What Li Xinqi told him was common knowledge shared between the students of this academy.
However, this knowledge had a whole different meaning in Lin Jin’s ears.
A treasure trove!
To Lin Jin, this Beast Appraisal Pavilion was nothing more than a cave of treasures. Just the thought of the massive sample collection in here made Lin Jin’s fingers tremble with excitement.
Ever since obtaining the Museum of Deadly Beast, collecting information on beasts had become somewhat of a daily ritual. Whenever an opportunity presented itself, Lin Jin would archive the information of new creatures into the museum.
However, there was a limit to how much he could achieve alone, and up until now, the number of beasts he recorded was only in the thousands.
Most of them were normal beasts; rare beasts only made up a tiny percentage of what he owned in total.
This didn’t match with the Museum of Deadly Beast’s title at all. In comparison, this Beast Appraisal Pavilion here seemed much more like a museum instead.
After learning the background of this place, Lin Jin’s first intent was to try accumulating all the information of the specimens here into the museum.
With this, not only could he expand the information bank of the museum, but he could also gain the museum’s rewards.
In the past, this museum was where he got the Beast Deterrence, Beast Energy Formation, and Demonic Transformation techniques.
Hence, this matter was of great importance to Lin Jin.
As Li Xinqi continued talking about the pavilion, new ideas and possibilities kept running through Lin Jin’s head.
The most straightforward method was to simply record them all, but Heavenly Spiral Kingdom surely wouldn’t allow it. He would have to resort to force then. Lin Jin wasn’t against violence, but if even violence couldn’t resolve the issue, that would just be a foolish act.
After all, he wasn’t almighty and invincible yet.
What’s left was to obtain a workable plan for him to legally access the specimens in here. And who could do that?
Lin Jin abruptly asked Li Xinqi, “You mentioned earlier that this Beast Appraisal Pavilion has a teacher in charge. What do they do around here?”
“I’m not sure about this. They’re probably tasked with arranging the samples and coming up with evaluation reports,” Li Xinqi answered.
Her response was quite similar to Lin Jin’s deductions.
Meanwhile, Tan Lin hadn’t noticed Lin Jin’s presence at all because she was fully focused on writing her evaluation report.
She and Jiang Fengfeng were like ice and fire. Ever since coming to Heavenly Spiral Academy, both girls had been at odds with each other. Jiang Fengfeng would constantly try to one-up Tan Lin, who refused to back down no matter what.
This beast appraising match today, where they were supposed to work out a creature’s background based on one single feather, was a contest that Tan Lin had to win.
However, to come up with a firm statement on the beast and its background based solely on a single feather was a difficult feat for Tan Lin, especially when they were expected to write more about the beast itself. Her qualification as a Rank 2 beast appraiser wasn’t fake, but her knowledge wasn’t that profound yet.
Still, Jiang Fengfeng should be facing the same problem as well. At the very least, Tan Lin was confident that her appraising skills were superior to Jiang Fengfeng’s.
What Tan Lin failed to notice was how Jiang Fengfeng was nodding in secret as she stared in a certain direction at the crowd outside. Standing among this crowd was a handsome man clad in white, discreetly giving her hand signals.
No one noticed this happening except Lin Jin.
