Lianshan Xin increasingly felt that joining Bailudong Academy had been the right choice.
Within Bailudong Academy, those laughing and conversing were indeed royalty, and not a single commoner crossed the paths. Any random person one bumped into was exceedingly likely to be prime "cultivation material."
Take the brother and sister standing before him right now, for instance.
Lianshan Xin had heard of the Sakura Kingdom. It was one of the overseas nations and had a rather complicated relationship with Great Yu.
On the surface, the Sakura Kingdom honored Great Yu as the celestial sovereign realm, frequently dispatching members of its royal family and domestic elites to study in Great Yu.
In private, however, every last one of the overseas nations dreamed of launching a counteroffensive against Great Yu to carve up the splendid rivers and mountains of the Central Plains.
It was just that their strength didn't permit it.
Consequently, they could only resort to petty maneuvers in the shadows.
Such as colluding with the Demon Cult.
In Lianshan Xin's eyes, the Sakura Kingdom—the very origin of this brother and sister—was deeply suspect of colluding with the Demon Cult.
Thus, he felt he was about to render yet another meritorious service.
Of course, what mattered even more to Lianshan Xin was that their appearance opened up another train of thought for him:
No matter how prolific their top patron was at sowing his royal seed, one couldn't just keep shearing wool from a single sheep; there had to be sustainable development.
The royal family of Great Yu was royalty.
What about the royals of these overseas nations?
Could they also serve as his cultivation material?
Lianshan Xin sized up the brother and sister with pleasant surprise, growing fonder the more he looked at them.
Had they not delivered themselves right to his doorstep, he wouldn't even have known whom to use for this experiment.
Mingren naturally had no idea that in Lianshan Xin's eyes, he was nothing more than a piece of raw material.
Assuming Lianshan Xin was pleasantly surprised at getting to know a royal like himself, Mingren said with great satisfaction, "It seems you have heard of my name. Did you notice me from the exam rankings?"
In this Bailudong Academy exam, he had ranked ninth.
One should not underestimate this ranking. For a foreign prince coming to Great Yu to study and sit for the exam, placing ninth was already formidable.
Mingren took immense pride in it.
Yet Lianshan Xin had not paid the slightest attention to the candidate rankings.
Who among direct admissions cared about that sort of thing?
Lianshan Xin told the honest truth: "Never heard of you."
Mingren: "..."
"I merely heard that the Sakura Kingdom's imperial house claims to be descendants of immortals, and therefore possesses no family names, with men's names generally ending in 'ren' and women's names generally ending in 'ko.' Is that so?" Lianshan Xin inquired with modest curiosity.
Mingren frowned. "We do not merely claim it; our Sakura imperial house is indeed descended from immortals."
Lianshan Xin let out a chuckle.
The imperial Xia family of Great Yu was bona fide immortal descent—a fact universally acknowledged. The nobility of the Xia bloodline had also been proven by countless facts. Certain secret arts could be cultivated exclusively by the royal family, and throughout the generations, the Great Yu imperial family had never lacked supreme experts.
The royal houses of those tiny overseas nations always loved trying to leech off Great Yu's Xia family, asserting how glorious their own ancestors had been.
The people of Great Yu simply scoffed at such claims.
Many of those overseas nations had been driven into exile across the seas by Great Yu's soldiers in the first place; who would believe fairy tales meant to deceive fools coming from defeated remnants?
The nobility of the imperial Xia bloodline endured largely because, throughout the past millennium, there had never been a shortage of ambitious overlords and demonic terrors rebelling against Great Yu, yet all had ultimately been reduced to dust. The Xia family continued to suppress the world. When someone backed up their boasts with absolute supremacy, the world had no choice but to acknowledge it.
At the end of the day, the common folk of Great Yu worshipped true immortals and gods, not idle spirits.
"Do you look down upon our Sakura Kingdom?"
From Lianshan Xin's chuckle, Mingren sensed an insult.
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed a dagger right at Lianshan Xin's feet and said sternly, "I have heard that when Great Yu's younger generation engages in duels, teachers and seniors do not intervene. Sir, you and I are of similar age—do you dare fight me?"
Lianshan Xin glanced at the dagger on the ground, then looked back at Mingren. For a moment, he was actually somewhat taken aback by this fellow's bravado. "What is your cultivation level?"
He remained prudent.
Mingren was no fool. He merely gave a cold sneer. "It seems you are afraid. In that case, you need only apologize to me, and I shall forgive your offense against our Sakura imperial house."
"A barbarian from the boonies dares provoke a citizen of the celestial empire? Are you taking my courtesy for weakness?"
Lianshan Xin was only playing it safe; he didn't actually believe Mingren was all that strong.
It was one thing if he couldn't measure up to the prodigies on the Hidden Dragon Rankings, but how could any random nobody be stronger than his present, immortal-cultivating self?
Besides, this Mingren belonged to the Sakura royalty.
If the Dragon-Subduing Immortal Art could subdue dragons, wouldn't suppressing a little snake be effortless?
With that, Lianshan Xin struck out with a single palm.
This time, he did not condense dragon-shaped true qi.
He Ruoyu's warning had been apt.
Taking his Dragon Slaying True Intent as the foundation, he condensed a Golden-Winged Great Peng!
In the legends Lianshan Xin had heard, the Golden-Winged Great Peng fed on dragons, capable of devouring one dragon king and five hundred lesser dragons in a single day across Jambudvipa.
To the common folk of Great Yu, dragons were supreme and sacred, but to Lianshan Xin, who had awakened memories of his previous life, divine beasts that rivaled or even surpassed dragons certainly existed.
Since the royal family forbade condensing dragon-shaped true qi, he would grant them that face and simply switch to another form. What was the big deal?
As it turned out, the might of the Great Peng true qi was not a fraction weaker than that of the dragon-shaped true qi.
And Mingren's strength was roughly on par with Zeng Ningbing's.
The reason Lianshan Xin could judge this so clearly was that Mingren had lasted for the exact same amount of time as Zeng Ningbing.
Sent flying by Lianshan Xin's palm strike, Mingren lay on the ground vomiting blood, staring up at him in utter disbelief. "Peak Qi Condensation? No, are you an expert of the True Intent realm? Peak Qi Condensation could never defeat me in a single strike!"
Lianshan Xin reflected on it and also agreed that his raw cultivation strength shouldn't have been enough to defeat Mingren in one blow.
Mingren was, after all, Sakura royalty; his combat experience and lifelong elite nurturing were bound to be vastly superior.
Then it could basically be confirmed:
Subduing dragons worked, and subduing snakes was just as effortless.
Since subduing snakes was no problem, slaying these two little serpents should also enhance his cultivation, though the gains would most likely be less than those from Dai Yueying and Zeng Ningbing.
Still, even the tiniest mosquito was meat.
Lianshan Xin felt he couldn't afford to be picky right now.
"Since the brother has fallen, little sister should join him."
Lianshan Xin thrust out another palm.
He wanted to continue his experiment.
What if Mingren was simply too weak on his own?
As the unnamed sister was likewise bowled over by Lianshan Xin's palm, revealing her own Qi Condensation realm cultivation that could clearly project true qi outward, a smile spread across his face.
"The two of you... what a splendid defeat. In the future, the overseas nations will have you two to thank for setting such a fine precedent."
At this moment, the royals of the overseas nations had no idea that the wheel of their history had just been kicked into high gear by a pair of fools from the Sakura Kingdom!
"Mm? A quarter of an hour is almost up."
Lianshan Xin turned around and looked back toward the student dormitory.
He then discovered Zeng Ningbing on the second floor, looking down at everything that had just unfolded.
And she hadn't even changed her clothes!
With that, the smile on Lianshan Xin's face slowly faded.
Looking at Zeng Ningbing's flat-as-an-airfield chest, Young Master Xin No. 91 felt thoroughly incensed.
A mere A-cup had the nerve to reject him?
In his previous life, he had been a brave warrior who dared charge headlong into the A-share market!
The Dragon Subduing lineage could not suffer such indignity.
Chapter 61