Having a Laugh
The two men were instantly sent into an agitated frenzy, and their once polite smiles and goodwill were tossed out the window.
"Hey Brat, we only called you Brother out of politeness and because our Boss wanted to graciously recruit you! Don't think for a second that you're special and that we won't beat you down right here!" The shorter man threatened as he unleashed his cultivation base.
While Xue Bai could see through their cultivation bases by himself, the two men obviously didn't know this. So they assumed Xue Bai thought they were equals, and by exposing his cultivation, the shorter man wanted to change Xue Bai's mindset while also slightly threatening him.
However, instead of fear, envy, or even any emotion at all, Xue Bai's face still kept the same fake smile that he carried throughout the entire conversation.
'Are his senses shot? Can he not tell that I'm in the Qi Sea realm and can kill him with a wave of my hand?' The short man couldn't understand why Xue Bai was still so calm and started to brainstorm reasons why.
Sadly his companion wasn't so intuitive and instead thought Xue Bai's calmness to be a state of fear paralysis and started laughing.
"Big Brother, look at this idiot! He can't even move a muscle under your cultivation. What would happen if he met the Boss and saw his Dharma Idol? Would he just die in fear?" The taller man laughed loudly, gaining the attention of everyone nearby.
Sadly, not many people shared his opinion, and instead of laughing at Xue Bai, they all just looked at the taller man and shook their heads.
'He can't even see that the purple-haired man doesn't care at all. No wonder only Ling Fu accepted him.'
The shorter man could see the looks his friend was getting, and before his friend made an even bigger fool of himself, he slapped his friend on the head, bringing him back to reality.
"Brat, quickly choose! Will you follow me obediently to my boss, or must I break your legs and take you to him yourself?" The shorter man threatened as he placed his arms behind his back, trying to show dominance and a haughty aura.
Yet once he did the signature poser pose, Xue Bai immediately laughed up a storm.
Staying with Liu Mei for more than a week and being forced to act like an Immortal Realm genius the entire time was tiring.
However, Xue Bai had already ridden the tiger, and he couldn't get off it now, and he was stuck to acting that way until at least Long Tian died.
But now, when such a stupid man was in front of him, acting out the stereotypical role of a braindead side villain, Xue Bai couldn't keep up the persona any longer, and he directly started laughing without care for his image.
And very soon, he started to tear up from his good laugh.
'I had been tense for too long. Not everyone is a side character or a supporting character, or even a villain in this world. Sometimes there are just plain old stupid, arrogant idiots who don't even know how to hold a conversation correctly.'
And luckily enough, I ended up on the only continent chock-full of those people. Since the Child of the Plane here didn't even interact with a single person outside of her sect until the later stages of the home continent's arcs, other than Long San, there isn't a single person noteworthy in this entire province.'
Eventually, Xue Bai realized just how perfect his landing area was.
Xue Bai had always wanted to fight the geniuses of his generation and prove himself to be a genius in his own right beyond his heaven-defying talents.
Since he had transmigrated into this world, it had always been his dream to slay demons, fight against Immortals, and trample his rival geniuses. Yet all of the time he had been in this world, Xue Bai had been either locked up at home by his parents or diligently cultivating at the Soaring Sword Sect.
Now that he was free from both of those restrictions, Xue Bai wanted to finally spread out his wings and prove himself.
And the stupidity that this man just showed told Xue Bai that the Gen Empire was the stepping stone for his rise.
Thinking that far, Xue Bai didn't get angry at the blatant threat and insult and instead just finished his laughter and smiled.
"No need, you fools. Any man to accept you as underlings and even call himself 'Boss' is someone beneath me." Xue Bai eventually regained his composure, and after wiping away a tear from his eye, he waved his hand and spoke bluntly.
Of course, this further aggravated the two men, but before they could do anything violent, Xue Bai disappeared from their line of sight.
"Farewell, fools. I will thank you for the laugh, though. It was well-needed for him. I have had a rather weird few years recently." Xue Bai said as he seemingly teleported to the doorway.
Even though Xue Bai looked like he had teleported, he didn't. Rather than choosing to walk normally, he decided to do so by folding space. And with a pinch of his fingers, the originally 10-meter distance, like a piece of paper, was folded, and Xue Bai crossed it just a step.
In Xue Bai's own opinion, he didn't think that he was fast. He didn't cultivate any movement techniques, nor did he comprehend a law that could help his speed.
But when he used his Dao of Space as a movement ability, Xue Bai was confident that with enough time, he would be one of the fastest beings under the heavens.
Even now, with his low cultivation base and his mediocre progress in the Dao of Space, Xue Bai could still cross distances of tens of meters in just one step. Just imagine how fast he would become once he reached the 5th floor, or maybe the 6th floor of the Dao of Space, and had a matching cultivation base to boot!
Just thinking about such a future where he could cross galaxies with just a step or teleport to wherever he wished with a thought, Xue Bai felt giddy.
Moreover, Xue Bai was one of the very few people that knew about Daos on the Northern Continent, and other than Liu Mei, perhaps the only one who had comprehended one!
And since the Dao of Space was such a high-ranking Dao, and spatial fluctuations were invisible to anyone below the Immortal Great Realm, Xue Bai's reality manipulation was just mistaken for sheer speed.
But his teleportation being mistaken for sheer speed was also extremely good for Xue Bai. This way, he could make people amazed at his talents and skills while also leaving a small layer of mystery in him. This would make sure that the students who saw this would be amazed.
Starting a faction and being its leader, especially in such a dangerous situation, and in order to create a stable one with loyal subordinates, Xue Bai needed people to trust in his skills and potential. And there were two ways to get trust in a world ruled by strength: having a long relationship with someone and having many dealings with them or showing a huge amount of strength and value.
And since Xue Bai didn't have the time for the former, he could only choose the latter.
And while doing such minor acts like this seemed pointless, Xue Bai planned to constantly do them so that he could raise his stock value in the minds of students, and he planned to do this regularly.
This way, he could instill a sense of worship, or at the very least trust, into the many students of the Academy.
Sure, it would take a while, but Xue Bai had time.
'I should go over to my new courtyard now.'
–
Unlike most institutions in a cultivation world, the Gen Empire Academy didn't segregate their disciples by tiers but instead kept them all in one area.
Of course, the Gold-Robed Students were still given priority when it came to better housing and resources, but overall there wasn't much of a difference between a Gold-Robed Student and a Black-Robed Student. Because of this, Xue Bai didn't take very long to reach the dormitories, where he would live for the foreseeable future.
Since Xue Bai wasn't going to the Academy for theoretical knowledge and teaching, he had also thought of continuing to stay in the Imperial Palace and only coming to the Academy whenever he had business to conduct, but this wasn't something good.
Before Xue Bai left, he had noticed that on the walls of the Imperial Palace were dozens if not hundreds of many arrays engraved onto them. But while they were definitely threatening and menacing to a layman, Xue Bai saw through their flaws. And their biggest one was that they weren't even powered up, but rather turned off completely!
Feng Fei was using a tiger's skin to keep up the illusion that her Imperial Palace was still protected and that if someone wanted to break into it, they had to pay a dear price.
However, the hundreds of arrays that helped the Imperial Palace stay intact and adequately defended needed to be charged by something.
Long Tian knew this, and while severing the Feng Imperial Family's resources supply line, he had also taken away their Spirit Stones allocations, making Feng Fei unable to power the many arrays that kept her and her family safe.
And since it was almost impossible to have a person manually power the arrays using their own Spiritual Qi, Feng Fei and her Feng Imperial Family have been walking on eggshells the past few years.
So while the Imperial Palace was the most beautiful and extravagant-looking building in the entire Empire, that was only for people looking on the outside. Once you got inside the building, you would realize that it was almost desolate with Spiritual Qi.
That was why Xue Bai planned to stay in the Academy and cultivate rather than go back to the Imperial Palace.
Moreover, he still had the Soul Sublimation Golden Lotus, so even if Xue Bai were in the Barren Lands of the Northern Continent, he would still have a cultivation environment better than most Empire capitals.
"Head Instructor Li told me that my new courtyard is 201, and while I don't know much about how this school is laid out, surely the first courtyard of the Black-Robed Students must be something extravagant." Xue Bai thought aloud.
"However, there is no way that the old man would generously give me the best courtyard of the entire Black-Robed Students without a catch."
And sure to Xue Bai's guess, as soon as he found his own courtyard, he found the very catch he was talking about.
"Hey, you Brat! Are you the person that got me kicked out of my own home!"