The subway’s doors hissed shut, and her last view of the station was occluded by cold steel and uncaring plastic. Her last view of home, in more ways than one… a home that was no longer hers. She’d transcended the 32nd precinct. It was a striking thought, made all the more so for its truth…

She sighed, plodding over to the other side of the train and sitting down near where Zhihu had decided to stand. After a moment, Avyr followed— and nobody else dared. Such was the reputation of the Bloody Saffron Sect.

Avyr chuffed softly as he laid down beside her, resting his head on folded paws. “At least they’re not afraid of me for once. That’s nice…” Lily chuckled softly. As always, Avyr stuck out— but what was a single cat when compared to an Outer Sect Disciple? If they wanted to gawk, there was a far better target for their attention.

“Can you believe it?” She all but shivered with excitement— “it’s finally happening. We’re finally going!”

“You could say that again.”

“I—”

Avyr lazily swiped a paw at her, the halfhearted blow still hard enough to sting a little. “That was sarcasm, Lily.” She blushed a little bit. It could be hard when it came to him, alright! It definitely wasn’t her fault for endlessly harping on something they both anticipated…

Grinning broadly, she pressed herself further back into her seat, an almost physical effort of will preventing her from fidgeting in nervous excitement. She’d heard so much about the University of Saffron— in the teachers, the mentors and friends and so many others who’d spoken of it assuming she’d certainly never get to go there. From the network, from the library, from… so many different sources. She’d heard about it almost as much as she’d heard about the Sect, and most of the stuff she’d learnt was less… mythologized compared to the ancient sect itself. Soon…

Soon that would be her life. She giggled nervously, smoothing down her clothes again. Soon. Soon…

Avyr butted his head against her leg, giving her a weighted look. “Calm down. It’s just another school. You’ll be fine.”

“It’s the school, though, Avyr. The school.”

“Not entirely.” Zhihu interjected for the first time, drawing their attention— and, however reluctantly from across the train car— Xinshi’s as well. “The University of East Saffron is… it is a school, and it is similar in many ways to the sect, but neither of them are its ultimate purpose. Ultimately…” she frowned, pausing for a second, then shrugged and continued anyways. “The various scions will probably know this— and it's somewhat obvious regardless, so I might as well. The best way of looking at the University of East Saffron’s elite cohort— what you’ll be joining as chosen graduates from one of the various academies— is as a test. One great filter, to take the promising disciples from the entire city and find the most promising disciples.”

Lily nodded quickly. It did make sense, actually… “How many disciples do they usually accept each year?”

Zhihu gave her a slight grin. “That’s a good question. It varies. One or two, for the most part— I was the only disciple from East Saffron accepted my year, while I know Suli was one or three. The Sect Master and Elder Flowing Blade were famously accepted together.”

She’d had no idea, but then again, it also made sense to her that what was famous within the sect would be incredibly obscure outside it… though— “from East Saffron?”

That just earned her another wry smile. “Sect politics are far more complex than you could possibly imagine, and as the most powerful sect on Ca Cao, there’s… well, it’s complicated. You’ll learn about part of it your Contemporaneous Cultivator Politics class, but you’ll learn the true nuance of the situation when you get accepted into the sect yourself.” The stoic confidence with which Zhihu stated that, as if there was only one possible conclusion and that reality merely had to reel itself out to meet it…

It was reassuring.

It also only made her more excited. Not even talking with Avyr about all their favorite stuff and techniques and formations and plants and— not even that could distract her as their train approached their final destination. Strangely— or perhaps not that strangely given that Zhihu was just standing there, menacingly, their car remained mostly empty the entire time, and by the time they were finally approaching the 6th Precinct station, she almost felt as though her heart was going to leap out of her chest, such was her excitement—

The doors opened, and they were there. Kind of. Lily took in everything as they walked out of the train and into the busy station— the way it was so much larger than the 32nd Precinct’s station in every respect, the incredible busyness of it, the milling throngs of people. As they moved, so many little fish in a wide sea— all shying back from the Zhihu as she led them across the platforms and up a few flights of stairs to the street level. Again, the differences were obvious.

The modern, cheap architecture of the 32nd Precinct was wholly absent. Even the older architecture from what part of the precinct hadn’t been destroyed in the past wars was utterly incomparable to the grandeur of the city block around them. While the business district bordering Saffron Lake had its skyscrapers that reached up to scrape at the wide pan of azure heaven, here lay the record of the very first age of East Saffron’s existence. Towering pagodas, long temple-buildings, ornately decorated halls— all interspersed with more modern construction, almost artistic in their reinterpretation of the ancient motifs. An eclectic but somehow in that, united, collection of different architectural styles from across time…

She repressed a giggle, realizing how she and Avyr— and even Xinshi, probably— had to look; were it not for Zhihu’s stoic presence, they were picture-perfect tourists, staring at everything with wide-eyed awe. She didn’t even think there was anything wrong with that— not when everything was so deserving of awe. Pictures and stories had not done the area justice.

Minutes passed in a blur until they were in front another pagoda, this one both taller than most of them and also, despite that, a little more demure in its decoration. It lacked the drapery of golden figures of past immortals and evocative symbols of heavenly might— rather, instead leaving only the quiet solemnity of stately wealth in its overhanging eaves and tiled—

“I always wondered why they built this boring thing.” Zhuhu’s scathing critique caught her up out of her reverie. “Unfortunately, you’re going to be spending a lot of time here, probably. This is the administrative hub for your cohort. If you ever need any paperwork or assistance or… essentially, if anything boring comes up, you’ll come here. They’ll handle your admission.” She led them toward the door— then paused, mere moments before entering. “Remember what I said earlier.” Tests. “And though this is a little antithetical to my own attitude, please, be on your best behavior. The Outer Elder’s office is in this building, and…

An Elder. She shivered at the mere insinuation that she was going to be in the same building as an Elder of the Bloody Saffron Sect. The memory of that titanic clash they’d observed in the Dragonspine Mountains surfaced, unbidden.

Then, without a word further, Zhihu just pushed the door open and they followed her in.

Unlike the rest of the city so far, nobody reacted to Zhihu’s presence as if it was anything out of the ordinary. Probably because it was ordinary— just at first glance, just in the lobby, Lily spotted at least three other outer disciples going about their… whatever they were doing. Moreover, there was this… sense, this weight of the place, not of aura she didn’t think— though she didn’t know what was possible for an elder, so she wouldn’t even guess— but of… she frowned. “Is this entire place made of our spirit materials?”

A wide smile lit up Zhihu’s face, and she clapped brightly. “Yes! Exactly— astutely observed. This place is built for—” someone behind a desk glared at them, and Zhihu sheepishly dropped her voice. “Ah. This place is built to last. In many ways, it’s almost as fortress as much as it is an administrative hub…” she shook her head. “But I digress. Just head over to the booths over there, and they’ll help you through administrative intake.” She stepped back, that smile so slowly fading to something… serene, for a moment, and sad for the next, and then simply quiet. “I’ll check in on you tw— three every now and then, but…” she clasped her fists together and gave them a respectful bow— Lily and Xinshi scrambling to bow back while Avyr just looked on in confusion. “Senior Martial Sister wishes you luck on your endeavors.”

Taken from NovelBin, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Then, so simply, like a mirage lifted from the face of the earth, she was gone, leaving them awkwardly alone.

“I’ll… just go.” Xinshi gingerly stepped away from them, slowly shuffling off to the side— clearly not really knowing what to say. “Good luck I suppose.” Then he was gone too— in a wholly more just walking away sort of way compared to Zhihu’s melodramatic exit.

“I guess…” she waved at the booths— which looked rather similar to the Chongtian-Dragonspine Association of Alchemists, Formation Masters, and Explorers’s layout, actually. “We’ll just go over there and… do whatever they want us to do.” Even as she spoke, she’d already started to make her way over, Avyr following sedately behind her.

The woman manning the desk glanced up as they arrived. “Oh. New students.” She sounded… very enthusiastic, if Lily was wont to tell horrible lies. “And— oh, that’s interesting.” Her gaze settled on Avyr for a long moment before she glanced back at the concerningly thick stacks of forms she’d set on the desk. “Will you be able to handle these forms, or are you going to need assistance?”

Avyr just grabbed a pen and pulled one stack over to him easily enough. “I should be able.”

“Good, that’s good, I was worried for a second… anyways. I’ve got to ask you some questions as you fill out those… name?”

“Lily Ward.” And she had to write it down on her copy of the form, too, which she couldn’t help but think was stupid.

“Affiliation?”

“What?”

“What organization, clan, sect, discipleship, legacy, so on and so forth… obviously you’re an orphan, so… a generic East Saffron affiliation, no?”

“That… works.”

“Alright….” the woman’s pen blurred as she quickly wrote something down in a form that was much larger than Lily’s own copy. “Okay. That’s good… age?”

“Nineteen.”

“Place of birth?”

“East Saffron.” A second past awkwardly— “um, 32nd Precinct? I’m honestly not entirely sure.”

“East saffron suffices… then… most recent residence?”

“The precinct orphanage.”

“Right.”

“That, and that, and…” she scribbled out a few more things, then clicked her pen shut, giving Lily a not entirely kind smile. “Now, the affidavits. Do you solemnly swear to have never knowingly supported the enemies of the East Saffron, the Bloody Saffron Sect, and the Aurelian Alliance of Sects? You’ll need your token for this.”

She pulled out the jade slip, then— following the functionary’s orders, placed her hand atop it. It was doing something with her qi, that was for sure. "I swear.”

“Good. Do you swear to uphold the honor and face of the Bloody Saffron Sect?”

“I swear.”

“Good, that's all—”

She quickly slipped the jade back into her pocket. “What was that? Did it know if I was lying or not? I didn’t know formations could tell that—”

“No, obviously it wasn’t somehow magically determining whether or not you’d lied. That would be absurd. It was registering your qi signature with the academy’s grand formation for identification purposes—”

“Grand formation? Do you know how it works?”

The functionary gave her the sort of looks people gave to particularly slow children. “Of course not. If you want to know how it works, ask the Outer Elder.” Which was very clearly a somewhat euphemistic way of telling her to screw off. Appropriately chastised, she backed away to let Avyr complete his interview.

It was a little annoying that she seemed to be paying much more attention to the cat than she had her. Not entirely surprising, but still annoying. “Name?”

“Ai’er Avyr.”

“Affiliation?”

“East Saffron… Black Rock Refuge, or the Clan of its name, I suppose.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Related to White Rock Refuge?”

“Other than the fact that both are cat settlements, no. So far as I’m aware, there are no other refugees from Black Rock Refuge in East Saffron.”

“State the location of Black Rock Refuge, please.”

“Destroyed.”

She gave Avyr an unamused— unfairly so, she thought— look. “Where was it?”

“Northwestern southern continent, in the forests of Refuge.”

“Right…” she scratched some things down on her document, then flipped through a few drawers filled to the brim with an excessively large amount of paperwork before she found what she needed. “I’m going to need to ask you a few more questions before we move on. Have you ever been affiliated with, assisted, or otherwise interacted with the Empire of Nine Sunlights or any subservient organizations?”

“I ran away from them, once.”

“I see… do you know anyone who is or was part of the Imperial Military?”

“No.”

“How old were you when you last set foot on Imperial territory?”

“Twelve summers of age… but, technically, it was not at that time Imperial territory. I lived in Refuge, which was self-ruled by my kind, and then fled from Fenfeng before it was conquered at the end of the last war.”

“A decent enough point.” She scribbled some more stuff down, paused, then pulled out a sticky note and wrote some more. “Have you ever had sympathies towards the Empire of Nine Sunlights and or do you subscribe to the Imperial philosophical standpoint—”

“You’ll find,” he spoke softly, languid with that accent of his— “that the Empire of Nine Sunlights and I have no love lost.”

“Good enough. Age?”

“Seventeen…” and so on and so forth through the rest of the application process. The moment he put his jade away after he finished swearing his oaths, the functionary collected all their papers… only to put an entire new stack of papers on the table in front of them.

Lily and Avyr shared a grim look, and then set once more to work.

………

Half a tedious hour later, they were finally finished. Mostly. They were done with the invasive personal questions at least, but there was still the actual admittance part of the intake. “Your access tokens have now been keyed to the academy system. They function like a typical University ID, except with a much higher level of authority. If you need anything, they’re what you’ll have to use, whether that be at the cafeteria or anywhere else.” She fixed them with a firm glare. “Do not lose these tokens. Each one was personally worked on by a Core Formation disciple, and losing them is grounds for expulsion. Understood?” Both of them nodded furiously. “Now… housing, and classes. This is a list of all the classes you can take—” she slit over a veritable booklet to each of them— “with the required classes listed at the front. As part of the elite cohort, you can choose from any of the unoccupied housing options on the university campus, and even have the special privilege to pursue off-campus housing if you so desire, though you’ll have to sign a liability waiver and understand that you are still responsible for making your way to class everyday, without fail.”

While Lily was still staring at the list of classes in dread, Avyr was the one to ask the actually important question. “Could you explain the options?” And, as if driven by some cosmic joke, the moment he said that, the functionary dropped the thickest book yet onto her desk with a resounding thund. Sure when she opened it, it turned out to be mostly filled with pictures, but still— she couldn’t help but despair at little just looking at it.

“Most students apply— and intake to— the University of East Saffron after a period of secondary schooling in some private setting, and by and large stay in the dormitories. I’ll presume you want to ignore all the budget options, and merely point out the most prestigious— these ones beside the river were built when the university was founded and are conveniently located…” and on and on… “and this option is a bit further, but often highly sought after by older people with their own families and such. Usually they’re shared by two students and up to eight other people, but they’re a great option for an elite cohort students who wants a lot of space and privacy—”

Then, she had a genius idea. Or at least she thought it was a genius idea and blurted it out before she could think otherwise— “can we room together?”

“…let me check.” A few minutes of flipping through various documents later, she turned back to them. “If you want. Sometimes people will room together for financial reasons, or for familiarity’s sake…”

Lily turned to Avyr pleadingly, and after a second or two the big cat just huffed with amusement and nodded to the functionary. “We’ll share one of the larger houses, if that’s available."

“Elite cohort applications are processed first, so you’ll get it. I’ll… hm, I’ll put you down for the larger twelve-person size. I was aware that some people had already indicated interest in that, but the university system should work in your favor here— as two people rooming together, you’ll hold precedence over an otherwise equal application.”

Lily grinned brightly. “Thank you! Anything else?”

The functionary gave them a dry look. “Of course there is. You actually have to fill out the requisition form before you move in.” Which meant… yup. Lily resisted the urge to groan. More paperwork…

………

It took hours until they were finished but when they were done…

They were officially students of the University of East Saffron.