NOVGO.NET Chapter 1087 - 1087: Challenge?!
With their points tallied, the servant lady handed a jade key to Kent. “This grants residence. A full pavilion on the eastern terrace, overlooking the central peak.”
Fatty Ben snatched it eagerly. “At last! Beds, food, walls—civilization!” He waddled ahead like a man escaping death itself.
Their pavilion was no ordinary lodging. It sprawled across terraces of jade stone, carved into three levels. The first floor held vast gardens of luminous flowers, their scent easing fatigue. The second level contained endless chambers with soft beds and flowing streams of warm water for bathing. The topmost level bore a grand hall of redwood pillars and carved beams, vast enough for a banquet.
As they stepped inside, even the proud Amelia’s eyes softened. Sophia smiled-faintly. Bai Qi, still clinging shyly to Kent’s sleeve, whispered, “This… is more luxurious than the estates of entire clans.”
Fatty Ben threw himself on a couch and groaned with joy. “I will die here. And I will die happy.”
Kent only walked to the balcony, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the seven peaks glowed faintly in the moonlight. He said nothing more that night.
By dawn, the academy erupted.
On the slopes of Glacial River Mountain, disciples shouted, their voices echoing down the crystal rivers.
“What?! More than ten thousand pupae stolen overnight?!”
“Impossible! The silkworm river was cleaned bare!”
“Even elders can’t gather so much in one night. Who did it?!”
The uproar spread like wildfire. Disciples who had spent weeks gathering barely a few hundred now stood with jaws open. Rumors clashed in the air.
“It was the new Golden Heir Kent King! I saw his name on the contribution board—ten thousand points in a single night!”
“No way! One man cannot do it!”
“Not one man… one monster. The monster they call Kent King.”
The mountain shook with rage and envy. Some disciples cursed, some laughed bitterly, others swore they would challenge him. Elders of the river peak gathered in silence, faces dark, realizing their mountain’s greatest resource had been swept in a single evening.
At the Central Pavilion, the wooden board still glowed. Kent King’s name burned at 10th place, brighter than dozens of sect scions, shocking every passerby.
The eastern terraces of the Academy were already a storm of voices when the first banners of Glacial River Mountain appeared at the edge of Kent’s pavilion. Blue-white robes poured down the stairs like a river of frost, disciples fanning out in ranks.
A hush rippled forward as three senior disciples stepped from the crowd. Their robes were rimmed in frost-silver, belts marked with wave-knots denoting rank. The one in the middle—tall, hawk-nosed, a cold gleam in his eyes—lifted his hand. Water in the garden streams stilled, as if listening.
“Kent King!” his voice cracked like ice splitting stone. “Golden Heir you may be, but last night you shamed Glacial River Mountain. Ten thousand silkworm pupae in a single sweep? Do you take us for blind fishes?”
Laughter—bitter, eager—shivered through his ranks.
A second senior stepped forward, shorter and broad-shouldered, frost dusting his hair like early snow. “Skill is proven under the sun, not stolen in the dark.”
The third let his palm fall to the flagstones. Frost raced outward in a lacework of crystal. “If you claim mastery, prove it! A duel—not blades, not spells. Silkworm pupae, here and now. Before the Academy’s eyes.”
Bai Qi caught Kent’s sleeve without thinking. “They want to humiliate you.”
“Let them try,” Lily said, a hard light in her gaze.
The Dragon Twin Sisters leaned together, amused. “They forget he walks on rivers as others walk on stairs.”
Down below, younger disciples began to jeer.
“Golden Heir! Show us how you ‘gather’ without hiding behind night!”
“Or admit you bled our river like a thief!”
“Bring him down. Make him earn even one point in daylight!”
A ring of water rose from the ornamental stream, hovering as a flat mirror of liquid between the two sides. It rippled once—then stilled—an impromptu arena. The hawk-nosed senior smirked.
“Within this basin we release fresh pupae,” he called. “You, us, equal numbers, equal time. First to a thousand wins. If you lose, you kneel and apologize to Glacial River Mountain.”
Fatty Ben choked. “A thousand?! In a bowl the size of my bath?”
His wife elbowed him. “You’ve never bathed in a bowl that small.”
Tata Lan danced from foot to foot. “Master, say yes! I want to see fish freeze when you step!”
Kent had not moved. He stood a step back from the balcony’s line, hands loose, gaze lowered as if weighing rain.
Amelia’s voice was low. “You owe them nothing.”
Lucy’s eyes were already doing sums. “If he humiliates them, we’ll buy a decade’s peace across their trade lanes. If he loses—”
“He won’t,” Thea said softly, not looking away from Kent’s profile.
The broad-shouldered senior cupped his hands to his mouth. “What’s wrong, Golden Heir? Ten thousand at night, but tongue-tied by dawn?”
The blue ranks laughed again, louder now, crowd-sure. Two disciples kicked a bamboo ladder from the terrace garden into the stream, where it froze upright like a tooth. Another traced characters in frost on the paving stones: RIVER OWNS THE SEA.
A low, clean sound—porcelain touching wood—cut through the noise. Kent set his teacup down and stepped forward into the light.
His voice was even, unhurried, but it rolled clear to the furthest row. “Your pride is loud. Your measure is small.”
A visible ripple passed through the Glacial River crowd—anger, then the collective bracing that follows anger when prey turns predator.
The hawk-nosed senior’s smile thinned. “Arrogance is cheap. Skill is precious. Will you take the basin, or hide in your pavilion?”
Kent cast his gaze once over the improvised arena. The hovering disk of water reflected the sky; beneath, the stream’s current trembled, eager to obey someone. Anyone. He looked back down, not at the seniors, but at the apprentices flanking them—dozens of faces flushed from a night of lost work, the humiliation of empty nets, the raw ache of being made small.
He lifted a hand, palm outward. “Very well.”