Master of Nine Stars

In the blink of an eye, more than 20 days had passed.

In the center of the right-hand corridor on the first floor of Student Dormitory Building 10, the infamous "Junior Class" sign still stood, but upperclassmen no longer rushed over.

The dorm matron was an absolute legend!

A single question from her—"Do you want to get expelled?"—was enough to make the troublemakers steer clear of the first-floor’s right-hand corridor.

Of course, another reason was that the first-year students were busy with military training. The military training for Soul Martial Students was nothing like that of ordinary students. The intensity was pushed to the extreme, and it was truly grueling.

While the first-year students were at military training, the Junior Class and sophomores attended classes and trained on campus. The third-years and seniors, however, likely had more off-campus practical courses, so Rong Taotao and the others rarely saw any upperclassmen.

Everything seemed orderly on the surface, but the campus atmosphere was genuinely oppressive.

Because it had gotten dark. Completely dark.

Rong Taotao was experiencing firsthand what it meant to be unable to tell day from night. Now, they could only rely on clocks to distinguish day from night.

It was said that a naturally occurring Extreme Night also happened at the North and South Poles. At the poles themselves, it could even last for six months.

But those were the uninhabited polar regions. And Pine Soul Soul Martial...

It wasn’t just the darkness; the blizzard was also growing more and more intense.

Every time Rong Taotao and the others went to class, the walk from their dormitory to the academic building felt like a grueling migration.

But for Rong Taotao, who had experienced more, other thoughts came to mind.

’This kind of exceptionally harsh weather is probably a cause for celebration for the Poachers...’

Strictly speaking, Rong Taotao had experienced the "darkness" twice. The first time was at Hundred Corps Pass, but the school had brought everyone back just as the sky began to dim.

Who would have thought that today, more than two months later, the frigid night would descend and finally swallow Pine Soul Soul Martial University.

Back at Hundred Corps Pass, during that first dusk, Jiao Tengda had mockingly called their journey "ill-fated."

Their assessment, originally scheduled for seven days, had come to an abrupt halt after just three.

Afterward, the summer program, planned for a month and a half, was cut short after only two days.

With Pine Soul Soul Martial changing its plans so erratically, did it truly not care about its reputation?

Of course not. Rong Taotao, who had been through it all, understood in his heart that this was perhaps just the harsh reality of survival in the Snow Realm.

And now, Pine Soul Soul Martial was eating its words once again.

The top-tier university, which prided itself on its outstanding faculty, was now running short on teachers...

Among the Pine Soul Four Rites, Sugar and Wine were still around, serving as the practical skills instructors for Groups 1 and 3.

However, Rong Taotao’s practical skills instructor, Xia Fangran, had vanished without a trace. After they parted ways at Hundred Corps Pass, he never returned to the university.

Yang Chunxi shouldered the heavy burden. In addition to being the guidance counselor and head teacher for the Soul Class, managing every aspect of their lives and studies, she was also the instructor for all their academic courses.

Moreover, Yang Chunxi had finally gotten what she wanted: she became the practical skills instructor for Group 2 of the Soul Class.

Yang Chunxi wasn’t skilled with the halberd or the saber. But she was proficient with a spear, which was more than enough to teach Li Ziyi and Sun Xingyu.

As for Rong Taotao, he would occasionally seek guidance from Si Huan Nian on his Swordsmanship Skill, but he spent most of his time training diligently in seclusion.

For the prestigious Pine Soul Soul Martial to be unable to find a single instructor who used the Heaven-piercing Halberd... if word got out, it would be a complete joke.

Pine Soul Soul Martial was renowned for its outstanding faculty, so why had things become like this?

This was a very serious question, one that Rong Taotao and Jiao Tengda had discussed in their dorm. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

The only answer they could come up with was: the front lines were in peril!

One mustn’t forget that the instructors at Pine Soul Soul Martial had duties beyond teaching. Most of them were specially assigned here as part of a national directive. In times of crisis, these instructors were expected to take up arms and join the fight.

This sun-blotting blizzard had caused all of this, and it also cast an increasingly oppressive pall over Pine Soul Soul Martial University.

Some first-year students really did drop out.

They had gone through hell and back to get into a top-tier university, only to be unable to withstand a mere twenty days of life on campus.

Perhaps the dark, cold reality of Pine Soul Soul Martial was too stark a contrast to their sunny hometowns, with their blue skies and white clouds.

Some students withdrew voluntarily, while others were forced to leave by their worried parents.

When it came to withdrawals, the university was alarmingly accommodating.

As long as the administration could verify that the withdrawal was a joint decision between the student and their family, the university would not try to retain them once a three-day grace period had passed.

Rong Taotao would have never imagined that the university’s perpetually locked main gates would open, again and again, for the sole purpose of letting out students who were dropping out.

The campus and city lockdowns had their purpose. Those students who withdrew could leave the gates of Pine Soul Soul Martial, but they couldn’t leave Pine Soul Soul City.

They were housed together at a location within the city, forced to wait for military personnel arriving with supply shipments to escort them out of Pine Soul Soul City.

Of course, Rong Taotao was unaware of all this.

For him, dropping out was simply not an option.

He simply stood in the brightly lit Martial Arts Arena, facing the boundless blizzard, drawing his saber and sheathing it, over and over again.

Rong Taotao had already learned all the common-grade Snow Realm Soul Skills he could master on his own. All that remained was to improve his proficiency.

Only when his Soul Technique: Heart of the Snow Realm reached its second stage could he learn more new Soul Skills.

So, during every practical skills class, Yang Chunxi would lead Li Ziyi and Sun Xingyu in their Spear Technique practice. Rong Taotao, meanwhile, spent most of his time training alone, aside from reviewing his Soul Skills.

Undisturbed, Rong Taotao stared at the words "Sword Mastery: One-Star Peak" within his Inner Soul Map, relentlessly competing against himself.