Regarding Xuanxi’s attributes, some were shocked, some curious, and some began to re-evaluate that “no bloodline” tag. But before all that, there was one thing everyone was eagerly waiting for: the class assignment results.
On the morning of the fifth day after the assessment, the academy’s bulletin board was crowded with new students wanting to know the results.
Xuanxi was once again shaken awake by Elsa’s communication stone. The cold, hard stone was bouncing wildly on the bedside table, like a cat that had its tail stepped on. She fumbled for it and tapped it open. Elsa’s messages filled the screen—
“It’s out!!! The class assignment results are out!!! Come see!!!”
“Guess which class you’re in!!!”
“Never mind, don’t guess, I’ll tell you!!!”
“You’re in Class A!! Class A!! The best class!!!”
“Hildegrifa is in Class A too!!! You’re in the same class!!!”
“And me too!!! I’m in Class A as well!!! Reggie is here too!!!”
“We’re all together!!! Hurry up!!!”
Xuanxi stared at the screen and slowly sat up. Class A. The best class. She blinked, thinking she hadn’t woken up yet, and stared at the screen for a few more seconds.
Messages were still pouring in. Elsa’s excitement was practically spilling out of the communication slate.
From behind the folding screen came the sound of pages turning—Hildegrifa was already awake.
“The class assignment results are out,” Xuanxi said.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“I saw them when I passed the bulletin board this morning.” Hildegrifa’s tone was very flat.
Xuanxi opened her mouth. “You saw them and didn’t tell me?”
“You were sleeping.”
“You could have sent me a message on the way.”
Hildegrifa was silent for a moment. “I don’t have your contact info yet.”
Xuanxi froze, then suddenly realized—they had been roommates, teammates, and training partners for so long. Every night they talked across the folding screen, pinkies linked, palms touching.
But she had never asked for Hildegrifa’s communication stone number, because she didn’t have one.
No, she did have one. Her foster father had bought it for her—the cheapest kind, only capable of sending and receiving messages and calls. No forum function, no extra applications.
Even the screen was black and white. So she almost never used it. No one sent her messages, except Elsa, who was the first person to message her. Before that, the stone’s only use was as an alarm clock.
“Then let me add you now.” Xuanxi pulled out her old black-and-white communication stone, opened the add-contact interface, raised the stone above the folding screen, and shook it toward the other side.
There was a moment of silence from the other side of the screen, and then a hand reached over. Between long, slender fingers was an ice-blue communication stone—completely different from Xuanxi’s.
It was the latest model, with a screen as big as an open book and bezels so thin they were nearly invisible. Two hands, separated by a folding screen, tapped the communication stones together. A crisp ding rang out.
Contact added successfully. Xuanxi glanced at her black-and-white screen. The contact list now had three names: her foster father Helasi, Elsa, and the newly added one—Hildegrifa.
No avatar, no personal signature. Just a name and a string of numbers.
“Alright, now you can send me messages,” she said.
Hildegrifa withdrew her hand. “Mm.”
Xuanxi waited a few seconds. “Then send me one.”
“Send what?”
“‘The class assignment results are out. You’re in Class A.’ Something like that.”
There was a long silence from behind the screen.
The communication stone didn’t light up.
Xuanxi waited and waited. The stone remained dark. She was just wondering if her black-and-white screen couldn’t receive some new message format when the stone finally vibrated. She opened it—”The class assignment results are out. You’re in Class A.”
No extra words, no emojis, not even any punctuation besides a period. So concise it was almost emotionless. But Xuanxi stared at those words for several seconds and felt her heartbeat speed up just a little.
She saved the message. When she walked out of the dormitory building, Xuanxi felt that the whole world seemed different.
It wasn’t that the world had changed—it was that the person looking at it had changed. The students coming toward her no longer deliberately avoided her gaze. Some even nodded at her, with a subtle, re-evaluated respect.
Water attribute. Class A. Those two labels were stuck to her like two brand-new badges, gleaming on her chest.
Most of the crowd in front of the bulletin board had already dispersed, but a few students were still taking photos.
Xuanxi walked over and found her name on the class assignment list—Xuanxi Herras, Class A. Written on the same line as hers was another name, with the same class column: Class A, Hildegrifa von Edelstein.
Looking further down, Elsa Ash, Class A. Reginald Gangzong, Class A. Valeris Frostmark, Class A.
She paused when she saw the last name. Valeris Frostmark—the girl with light golden hair who had sat next to her on the first day of school, polite and distant. Xuanxi’s gaze lingered on that name for a moment, then she turned and left.
***
The next morning, Xuanxi and Hildegrifa walked into the Class A classroom together.
The Class A classroom was on the highest floor of the main building. The windows faced the edge of the floating peak, and from here, you could see clouds churning beneath your feet.
As Xuanxi entered the classroom, her eyes swept over the faces. Some she recognized, like Elsa and Reggie, who were sitting in the middle-back rows and waving at her.
There were also many unfamiliar faces in the classroom. She had been in the mixed class before, with classmates from various bloodlines and family backgrounds.
But Class A was different. Class A was the advanced class. Everyone sitting here was among the top-performing dragon descendants in the assessment.
The moment those unfamiliar faces saw her, their expressions shifted subtly. That brief silence fell again, but this time it was different from before. It wasn’t hostility—it was assessment and scrutiny.
She found a seat by the window and sat down, opening her notebook.
Soon after, someone sat down next to her. Not Hildegrifa—the studious one naturally sat farther forward, her silver-white hair especially conspicuous in the front row by the window.
The person sitting next to Xuanxi was Valeris Frostmark. Her light golden hair was braided into a fishtail that hung over her left shoulder, revealing the elegant curve of her neck on the right. When she sat down, her movements were as graceful as a swan folding its wings.
“Congratulations on entering Class A.” Valeris opened her own notebook. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was just enough for Xuanxi to hear.
“You too,” Xuanxi said.
Valeris turned her head and glanced at her. A faint, appraising smile lingered in her pale blue eyes.
“I’ve always been in Class A. Since enrollment, my grades have been in the top five of the year, just like your good partner.” She paused. “But you came from nothing. That’s a bit different from us.”
Xuanxi didn’t know how to respond. “Thanks for the compliment” felt too light, and “Getting into Class A was easy” didn’t seem right either. So she chose to stay silent.
“It means you’re one of the fifty strongest in this cohort.” Valeris seemed to be talking to herself as she focused on her notebook. “It also means that from today onward, you’ll face not just the rumors at the academy, but also everyone’s expectations.”
Valeris’s words were still echoing in her ears when the bell rang.
The teacher who walked into the classroom was no longer Professor Ao’erdusi—it seemed the theory class instructor had changed.
Standing at the podium was a dragon who looked much younger than Ao’erdusi. In human form, she appeared to be a woman in her early thirties, with short black hair and eyes as sharp as blades.
“I am Cecilia, your theory class mentor for Class A.” Her voice wasn’t loud, but it was very clear, each word driving into everyone’s ears like a nail.
“I’ve seen all your assessment results. You are currently the top fifty students in this cohort, but I want to remind you: Class A’s elimination rate is thirty percent. That means the bottom thirty percent of dragons in the final assessment will be demoted to Class B.”
The classroom fell silent instantly. Thirty percent meant that out of fifty people, fifteen would be eliminated.
Cecilia’s gaze swept across every corner of the classroom, finally pausing for a moment on Xuanxi.
“Xuanxi Herras.”
Xuanxi looked up.
“Your assessment rated you with SSS-level potential. But that doesn’t mean your strength is SSS-level. Potential is potential, strength is strength. The former requires time to realize, and the latter requires effort to earn.” Her tone was devoid of emotion, like she was stating a fact.
“Water element has no established cultivation path within the western dragon combat system. The road you have to walk is harder than anyone else’s.”
Xuanxi met those sharp black eyes and gave a slight nod. “I know, Mentor Cecilia.”
Cecilia withdrew her gaze. “Alright. Let’s begin class. Today we’ll cover the history of the eastern dragons—based on the latest documents we’ve obtained from the Eastern Dragon Domain.”
Xuanxi’s pen paused on the paper. The history of the eastern dragons.
She opened her notebook and wrote two words at the top of a blank page: “The East.” Her gaze drifted past the edge of the paper, landing on that silver-white silhouette in the front row.
Hildegrifa sat in the front row by the window, her silver-white hair gleaming with a cold luster in the sunlight. Her back was straight, attentively listening to the lecture.
But if you looked closely, you’d notice that the fingers holding her pen weren’t moving—she was listening to Cecilia, but her ears weren’t tilted toward the podium. They were tilted slightly backward, toward where Xuanxi was sitting.
Oh this is going to be so racist