Imperial Capital Magic Academy

Mo Fan was a man of simple pleasures. Since he'd made it to the Imperial Capital, any famous tourist site worth visiting simply had to be visited.

As the old saying goes — you're no hero until you've climbed the Great Wall. Mo Fan and the group stood atop the imposing mountain ridge, looking out along the magnificent fortification that followed the mountain spine, drinking in the sweeping grandeur of ridge after ridge rolling into the distance. After reciting a poem or two, he felt his own cultural standing had risen by more than one notch.

"The Great Wall was built by Qin Shi Huang. Originally it was constructed to defend against Demon-Beast incursions, but as China's territory expanded, this formidable defensive line gradually became a relic — something to be admired and visited by tourists. Even so, the Great Wall has a long and storied history, and no shortage of ancient magical tales are woven into its stones..." The group's leading scholar, old Professor Qiu Yuhua, found himself unable to resist launching into an enthusiastic lecture on the magnificent history of magic for his students.

The others all looked half-asleep, with little interest in listening.

Mo Fan, on the other hand, wore a strange expression as a flood of questions surged through his mind. Unable to resist, he teased the old history professor: "Was magic less developed back then? Otherwise, how come something that any powerful Earth Element Mage today could throw together without much effort apparently required so much manual labor and brute manpower back then?"

"What do you know, you little brat? Qin Shi Huang was not only a great monarch, statesman, and strategist — he was the most remarkable Earth Element Mage in all of recorded history. The Epang Magic Palace and this Great Wall he built have endured for all eternity. No matter how the wheels of history have turned, they still stand. Do you honestly think the stones of the Great Wall are just ordinary rocks? At your current level of cultivation, you could pound away at this wall for ten solid days and you still wouldn't manage to crack it, let alone leave a mark!" Old Professor Qiu Yuhua declared, his voice carrying absolute conviction.

Mo Fan was lost for words. If he actually threw a Blazing Fist at the Great Wall, he'd be arrested for destroying a cultural heritage site before he even tried — not to mention however much he'd have to pay in damages afterward.

"Alright, alright — Qin Shi Huang was the founding patriarch of Earth Element Mages..." Mo Fan could only laugh helplessly.

"Hmph. To this day, none of us can set foot inside Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum. Do you think a construction project that vast was actually built by a bunch of useless laborers? If it were, the Undead Heaven wouldn't exist!" the old professor said.

The Undead Heaven — that had to be referring to the vast burial grounds outside the Ancient Capital of Xi'an, where countless hunters had sought out the Magic Weapons and Enchanted Gear left behind by people of old, only to be stopped dead in their tracks by the endless tide of Undead Creatures.

"Tomorrow we visit the Forbidden City Magic Palace — far more historical treasures are housed there, and they remain deeply significant to this day," Qiu Yuhua said.

Every outing with the old professor led to an ancient cultural landmark, a museum, or an old palace. The students had essentially zero interest in any of these places, but required coursework was required coursework. A Mage should be a Mage with knowledge — running around fighting all day long was simply no way to live.

In any era, science has its civilization and magic has its own. The highest ideal both proclaim, at its core, comes down to that single word: civilization.

After working their way through a handful of the Imperial Capital's major cultural sites, Mo Fan half-expected the old professor to have them write a reflective essay.

Fortunately, the one thing the old professor wanted everyone to understand was this: the civilization of human magic had not come cheaply. It had been built upon a wall of corpses laid down by countless powerful Mages to protect humanity. Their descendants needed to train ever harder and strengthen themselves so they could hold back the Demon-Beasts, whose numbers exceeded humanity's by a hundredfold or more.

After the disaster in Bo City, Mo Fan's sense of humanity's place in the world had already been turned upside down. He'd gone back and studied history, discovering that the world he had come from was defined by humans slaughtering one another, igniting war after endless war. Here, though, humans mostly stood watch over each other. Wars rarely broke out between people — the true, constant war was between humanity and the Demon-Beasts.

The histories were nearly identical. The technology aligned perfectly. The march of civilization had not fallen out of step. The only difference was the structure of the world itself.

The war between humanity and the Demon-Beasts had never once paused throughout the long river of human history. The construction of the Great Wall two thousand years ago, during the Qin Dynasty, had been a critical magical line of defense protecting humanity's living space.

School — in the end, it was a sacred thing.

It would never stop instilling in new Mages the understanding of their calling.

The other students might not have truly grasped what it meant to be a Mage. But Mo Fan, who had lived through the disaster in Bo City, who had watched with his own eyes as Demon-Beasts overran a human city and treated people as penned livestock — he understood it in his bones.

Throughout the long river of history, there had surely been wars between humanity and the Demon-Beasts far more terrifying than what happened in Bo City.

In due course, after visiting several of the sacred sites of Chinese magical civilization, they finally made their way into the Imperial Capital Magic Academy.

There were simply too many superlatives one could reach for to describe the Imperial Capital Magic Academy, and every single one would feel inadequate. The simplest comparison in Mo Fan's head was "Tsinghua and Peking University" — and that was close enough.

China's top magical institution. Perpetually revered. Never surpassed.

Exchange students from magical high schools making study visits here was nothing unusual. Pearl Academy, as Magic City's premier institution and one of the top-ranked schools in the country, could normally walk tall at any other school — not quite sideways, but carrying a bit of well-earned pride was hardly out of line.

Except that Gu Han — their perpetually hapless exchange coordinator — had managed to draw, from nearly forty universities in the national 985 Project, the single worst possible outcome: the first-ranked Imperial Capital Magic Academy itself. When the school administration heard, they nearly choked with fury.

Pearl Academy was genuinely elite on the national scale, but put up against the brilliant, centuries-deep legacy of the Imperial Capital Magic Academy, the gap was undeniable. The main difference? Those people had history on their side.

Over there, even children of Noble Clans carried themselves like ordinary students. Their prodigies came in bulk — grab a handful and you'd come up with a fistful. If you weren't born under skies blazing with auspicious colors while divine beasts circled overhead, you'd be embarrassed to tell anyone you attended the Imperial Capital Magic Academy.

The Pearl Academy administration genuinely felt the weight of it. But as Magic City's top school, they certainly weren't about to roll over for the Imperial Capital Magic Academy. So the administration handpicked the most outstanding newcomers from the Main Campus intake, determined to raise Pearl Academy's banner high on this trip.

The list was to be drawn up by Dean Xiao, and the very first name Dean Xiao wrote down was Mo Fan.

That Mo Fan — the man who had dared to hunt down and crush members of the Black Church. If even the Black Church couldn't push him around, surely the Imperial Capital Magic Academy couldn't be any worse. Send this guy in, and he wouldn't be coming back shortchanged.

After that, Dean Xiao added several more names — people Mo Fan had mostly met before.

First was Zhao Manyan — his roommate.

Then Mu Nujiao — also a roommate.

Then Song Xia — future roommate... well, that girl was way too violent. Better think twice.

Zheng Bingxiao, a classmate of the same element.

Luo Song, the chubby one who had claimed the Shadow Demon-Beast corpse, and the two-faced charmer Shen Mingxiao.

Bai Tingting from the Healing Element.

And one more student by the name of Peng Liang.

Since the selection was drawn entirely from newcomers, the older Blue District students who had already entered the Main Campus weren't on the list. So the standouts Mo Fan would be traveling with were almost all familiar faces.

Including Mo Fan, the exchange delegation numbered nine students in total.

Gu Han, their perpetually unlucky teacher, was leading the group, with old Professor Qiu Yuhua along to lecture along the way.

All told, aside from the student named Peng Liang whom Mo Fan had never encountered, everyone else was a familiar face. Well — assuming "familiar" covered people he had grievances with too.