Chương 18: The Parade of the Young Masters

September 2026 The first day of sophomore year at Phillips Exeter Dao Academy had nothing to do with classes. Everyone knew it. The teachers knew it. The administration knew it. Even the groundskeepers, who spent the morning setting up velvet ropes along the main drive, knew it. This was the Parade of the Young Masters, when the scions of the richest families and corporations flaunted their wealth and displayed their status. The student body of Exeter split neatly into two halves.

The first were the talented upper-middle-class strivers, kids who had clawed their way in through entrance exams and scholarship applications, whose parents spent weekends working overtime to pay for tuition. They were the backbone of the academy, the ones who would graduate and become doctors, lawyers, and officers. The second half were the young masters. The nepo babies of this world. They skipped the entrance exam. They skipped the application. They simply noted the cultivation of their parents and grandparents.

Most of them skipped first year entirely, since mortal-level coursework held no relevance for those who intended to study the cultivation arts. They showed up in second semester, when the real curriculum began. And they showed up in style. The entire academy had gathered along the main drive, pressing against the velvet ropes like spectators at a fashion show. The girls had dolled themselves up in short sundresses and carefully applied makeup. The boys wore their sharpest suits, fresh haircuts gleaming with pomade.

There was no shame in the display. Everyone understood that money translated directly to cultivation. Spirit vein access required fees, fees that multiplied by ten with every realm. If you could catch the eye of a young master, if you could charm your way into a courtship, secure an engagement, lock down a wedding, have a child... the alimony alone would cover Gold Core spirit vein fees for the rest of your natural life. Two hundred and forty years of lifespan. Centuries of youth, of health, of living.

Longevity was just a ring away. Vehicle after vehicle descended from the eastern sky. A Lamborghini Immortale touched down first, its sleek black hull trimmed with gold formation lines, emanating the unmistakable pressure of a Tier Three treasure. Gold Core level. The crowd erupted into cheers as it landed on the drive, its gull-wing doors rising like the wings of a predatory bird. The young master who stepped out was handsome in that generic, wealthy way.

Sharp jawline, clear skin, the kind of physique that came from personal trainers and premium spiritual makeup. He waved to the crowd with practiced nonchalance, accepting their adulation as his due.

"Young Master Park!" someone shouted.

"Over here!" He smiled, tossed a wink toward a cluster of girls in matching sundresses, and strolled toward the academy gates. More vehicles followed. A Ferrari Celestiale in cherry red. A Maserati Spiritus in midnight blue. A Porsche Ascendant that hummed with spiritual energy. Each one touched down, disembarked its young master or young mistress, and glided off to the designated parking space. The Tier Three treasures drew appreciative cheers. But everyone was waiting for the real prizes.

The first Tier Four vehicle descended like an immortal stepping down from heaven. A Bugatti Eternis, pearl white with formation lines that glowed soft gold, radiating Nascent Soul-level pressure that made the crowd instinctively bow their heads. The spiritual weight of it pressed against their chests, a physical reminder of their inferiority. The young master who emerged was the young master of AT&T. He simply walked, and the crowd parted before him like water. No wave. No smile.

A Pagani Transcendence followed, then another Bugatti. The Tier Four vehicles were fewer, perhaps a dozen in total, but each one commanded absolute attention. These were treasures worth more than most people would earn in their extended lifetimes. Flying fortunes given form and function. The crowd cheered. Girls in the stands played with their hair and adjusted their dresses. The boys straightened their postures and flipped their hair.

The young masters and mistresses acknowledged their worship with varying degrees of graciousness. And then something unexpected happened. A streak of Ferrari red blazed across the sky. It wove between the descending luxury vehicles with reckless precision, banking and rolling, leaving a trail of disturbed air in its wake. The crowd gasped, partly at the audacity, partly at the spiritual pressure radiating from the cultivator. Gold Core level.

Unlike the flying treasure cars, which could only line up one by one, waiting their turn, this cultivator flew freely, dancing through the air with wild abandon. The red streak dove toward the academy gates, pulling up at the last possible second, bleeding speed with impossible grace. It touched down at the very front of the drive, ahead of the Bugattis, ahead of the Paganis, ahead of every young master who had been patiently waiting to make their entrance.

"We greet the Gold Core Superior!" The words erupted from the crowd instinctively, a reflexive acknowledgment of respect. Hundreds of students bowed their heads, a common courtesy instinctively trained since birth. The flying sword's glow faded, revealing its form: a La Ferrari Eclipse flying treasure sword, its lines impossibly sleek, its surface gleaming like liquid ruby. And standing atop it, one hand casually in his pocket, was Leo Chen. He was grinning. Leo drank it in.

Every bowed head, every wide eye, every stunned face in the crowd. Six months ago, he walked these same grounds as a mortal. Now the entire student body greeted him like a Gold Core.

"You're mistaken," he called out, his voice carrying easily across the silent crowd.

"I'm just a second-year. Same as the rest of you." The silence stretched. Then the murmurs exploded. Leo Chen? The quiet kid? The one who stopped coming to class? Wasn't he a waste? How does he have a lifebound flying sword? How does he have Gold Core pressure? He's fifteen! Leo hopped off his Eclipse, which shrank and disappeared into his Dantian. He stretched, rolled his shoulders, and surveyed the crowd with obvious satisfaction. He looked different. The change was subtle.

He was still the same lean, unremarkable teenager he'd been at the start of first semester. But something had shifted in the way he held himself. A confidence that had been absent before. The posture of a protagonist. A path opened in the crowd as students scrambled to get out of his way. Leo strolled through it, still grinning, enjoying every second of the attention. He caught fragments of whispered conversations as he passed. Disbelief, envy, awe. All of it delicious.

He was almost to the gates when a voice stopped him.

"You." Leo turned. She walked toward him with the unhurried grace of someone who had never heard the word 'no'. Tall, immaculately dressed in a designer dress that probably cost more than his own sword, her black hair falling in perfect waves around her shoulders. Her face was beautiful in that sharp, polished way that spoke of generations of wealth and privilege. Kim Yuna. Young mistress of the Samsung family. The real deal. Leo's stomach tightened. He recognized her immediately.

Everyone at Exeter had been talking about Kim Yuna transferring in for sophomore year. Samsung practically owned South Korea, and their young princess certainly looked the part. The kind of effortless beauty that made the girls behind the velvet ropes look like they were trying too hard. She stopped in front of Leo, studying him with open curiosity.

Her spiritual sense brushed against his, a casual probe, the kind of thing that would be considered rude between equals but was simply expected from someone of her status. Her eyes widened slightly.

"Your Si," she said.

"What is it?" Leo's grin widened.

"About 3, 000, last I checked." The crowd heard. The crowd reacted. Three thousand? That's impossible! What a monster! And he's clearly only fifteen! The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Kim Yuna's expression shifted. The aristocratic detachment cracked, replaced by something far more interested. She held out her hand, palm up.

"Your phone." Leo raised an eyebrow but fished his phone from his pocket and handed it over. Kim Yuna's fingers danced across the screen, unlocking it, navigating to his contacts, inputting her number. Then she held the phone at arm's length, tilted her head, and snapped a selfie. She looked at the result, nodded in satisfaction, and handed the phone back. She mimed the universal "call me" gesture and then turned and walked away without another word.

The crowd parted for her automatically, still too stunned to do anything but stare. Leo looked down at his phone. The contact photo showed Kim Yuna smiling with a flirty wink. The name she'd entered was simply "Yuna 💕." He laughed. Sophomore year was off to a good start.

Leo walked straight to the Flying Aces clubhouse. Today was the day he started his journey as a Flying Aces athlete. He slowed as he approached the practice fields. A dozen students flew above the arena, if you could call it flying. They stood on circular platforms glowing with formation light, drifting through the air in loose patterns. One of them overcorrected on a turn and nearly collided with a teammate. Another wobbled so badly that the formation array flickered, compensating for his poor balance.

Leo watched them run through a basic drill. Attack formation. Defensive shell. Peel and engage. They were clumsy. Slow. Nothing like what he remembered from the Giants vs Cowboys game he watched last year with Tom. Sharma threading between two defenders at speeds that required Foundation Establishment just to track. Deluca cutting through five Soldiers in under four seconds. These students weren't doing that. They couldn't. Leo leaned against the fence and thought about the rules.

In Flying Aces, each team fielded five Flyers mounted on lifebound swords, supported by seven Defenders who held ground positions. The Defenders stayed confined to their team's fort, two Gunners operating spiritual flak cannons from fortified bunkers while five Soldiers provided close-range protection. Each player eliminated during a quarter counted as a point. If a team eliminated all seven Defenders, they scored a touchdown, and the opposing Flyers were eliminated as well.

In the NFL, players wore Tier Four armor that protected them from actual harm while tracking simulated damage. After every quarter, teams could respawn their defeated players and make substitutions. The sport existed to simulate real combat. Its tactics drew from the battles of the Second World Cultivator War, and the strategies remained relevant for small-scale engagements even today. At the professional and collegiate levels, all Flyers were Foundation Establishment cultivators.

The league prohibited Gold Core cultivators for audience safety. If they were allowed, wealthy teams would inevitably engrave T5 forbidden formations onto T4 spiritual material, and no stadium shielding could reliably contain that kind of power. High school competition was different. Qi Refining cultivators couldn't form lifebonds with flying swords. The spiritual connection required Foundation Establishment at minimum.

So high school arenas compensated with massive formation arrays that covered the entire playing field. Leo watched another student wobble through a turn. Formation pivots. That's what they were standing on. Specialized platforms that simulated the effect of a Tier Two lifebound sword. The arena did the heavy lifting. The formations read their movements and translated them into flight. It worked. Barely. Leo pushed off the fence and kept walking toward the clubhouse.

A question was forming in his mind, sharper with every step. Could he learn to fly like the pros here? Or was high school Flying Aces just playing pretend?

Coach Tracy leapt out of his chair when Leo came in. He was a compact man with the energy of someone who had spent twenty years screaming at teenagers and loved every second of it.

"Chen!" He grabbed Leo's arm and dragged him into the office, kicking the door shut behind them.

"I heard rumors, but three thousand? Three thousand?" Leo let himself be pulled along.

"That's right, Coach."

"Do you understand what that means?" Tracy paced behind his desk, hands clasped behind his back.

"Our playoff chances this year just went from 'maybe quarterfinals' to 'guaranteed national championship.' You're a cheat code. You're the cheat code." Leo nodded slowly. Mike and Kevin had explained how important divine sense was for Flying Aces. Hearing a coach confirm it with this much excitement sent a thrill through his chest. But the question that had formed outside was still burning.

"Coach," Leo said.

"The flyers I saw in the NFL. The way they moved. Can I learn to do that here?"

"Here?" Tracy let out a short laugh.

"You saw the team practicing on your way in?"

"I did."

"And what did you think?" Leo hesitated. He didn't want to insult his future teammates. Tracy waved a hand.

"Be honest. I've been coaching these kids for three years. I know what they look like."

"Slow," Leo said.

"The formation pivots have too much latency. They can't execute real maneuvers."

"Exactly." Tracy dropped into his chair.

"High school Flying Aces is a different sport. The kids are learning positioning, teamwork, basic tactics. The actual flying?" He shrugged.

"They're fighting the equipment as much as each other."

"But I have the La Ferrari Eclipse."

"You have the La Ferrari Eclipse." Tracy grinned.

"You could walk onto that field right now and stunt on every single one of them. You wouldn't even need to practice. Just show up, and by the third quarter you'd have learned enough to be unstoppable. Your divine sense would let you read their movements before they made them. Your sword would respond instantly. You'd be playing a different game." Leo's face fell. That wasn't what he wanted to hear. He didn't want to dominate children. He wanted to learn. Tracy watched him for a moment. Then he laughed.

"That's the face." He slapped his desk.

"That's the face I was hoping for. You don't want easy. You want to get better." Leo said nothing.

"Good news, Chen. I already thought of a solution." Tracy leaned back in his chair.

"I saw the video of you flying in. And the first thing I thought was: this kid doesn't belong here." Leo blinked.

"Not an insult," Tracy said quickly.

"A compliment. You're too good for high school. So I'm going to call Coach Williams."

"Coach Williams?"

"Yale Bulldogs. CFL. Collegiate Flying Aces League." Tracy's grin widened.

"The highest level of competition before you go pro." Leo stared at him.

"Coach," he said slowly.

"Collegiate Flying Aces is Foundation Establishment. I'm Qi Refining." Tracy shook his head.

"Chen, let me explain something to you. The CFL doesn't care about your cultivation base. They care about one thing." He held up a finger.

"Equipment." Leo waited.

"The reason Foundation Establishment is the minimum for collegiate play isn't because of some arbitrary rule. It's because Foundation Establishment is when you can lifebond to a flying sword. Qi Refining cultivators can't form the spiritual connection. They're stuck on formation pivots." He pointed at Leo.

"The equipment requirement is the barrier," Tracy continued.

"Not the cultivation requirement. If you can bond with the sword, you can play. You can bond with the sword. Which means you qualify for the CFL." Tracy stood up.

"I'll make the calls. Exeter will sponsor your training with the Yale Bulldogs. Travel, equipment, whatever you need. In exchange, you help us with playoff runs. Show up for the games that matter. Be our secret weapon." Leo smiled. This was exactly what he needed.

"There's one more thing," Tracy said.

"We're keeping you hidden until playoffs. The moment you make your debut, someone's going to file a complaint."

"A complaint?"

"They'll claim you're Foundation Establishment. Demand a cultivation audit. And even when you pass, they'll push to ban you as an unfair anomaly." Tracy shrugged.

"Better to save you for when it actually matters. Let them scramble to adjust after we've already won." Leo let out a short laugh.

"You think they'd really try to ban me?" Tracy gave him a flat look.

"Chen, I've coached high school Flying Aces for twenty-two years. I once watched a kid get banned because he could cast Foundation Establishment tier spell arts and the opposing coach cried about it for three hours." He leaned back in his chair.

"You have Foundation Establishment tier divine sense in a fifteen-year-old Qi Refining body. The rulebook doesn't have a page for you. You can bet that next year there's going to be a new page titled 'The Leo Chen Rule.'" The Leo Chen Rule. Leo grinned. He liked the sound of that.

"I'll win you that title, Coach."

Leo walked out of the clubhouse with his mind racing. Ever since they'd discovered lifebound equipment could cross between worlds, the group had been reworking their plans. The possibilities were enormous. Weapons, armor, cultivation resources forged with Earth's superior techniques. But there was one limitation they couldn't get around. Storage rings couldn't be lifebound. No way to transport materials between worlds. Which meant they needed to be strategic about what they lifebonded with.

And nothing was more strategic than a Nascent Soul tier flying sword. Leo thought about Sharma. Her blade trailing fire as she threaded between two defenders. The speed, the precision, the raw power behind every movement. NFL teams equipped their stars with Gold Core level weapons bearing Tier Five formations. Nascent Soul combat power in the hands of Foundation Establishment cultivators. Sharma could probably solo the Pond Glazing Sect.

The group's plan had simplified into a single goal: build up Leo's Si until he qualified for the NFL. The draft alone would pay millions. But the real prize was the equipment. Once Leo had access to Nascent Soul tier weapons, they could run amok in the Azure Profound World. No more scheming. No more careful cultivation. Just overwhelming force. And he had an edge no other prospect could match. Currently he used the Divine Sense Press every fifteen hours. That was the most efficient way to increase his divine sense.

But he could slow it down. Stretch the cycle to twenty-four hours. Less efficient for Si growth, but those extra nine hours? He could spend them in the Azure Profound World. Training. Fighting. Practicing combat techniques while his body rested. Leo would look like a combat genius, when really he was just putting in more hours than anyone thought possible. His phone buzzed. A text from Tracy. Williams wants to meet. 10am tomorrow. His office. Leo stared at the message. That was fast.

Tracy must have called the moment he walked out. He pocketed the phone and kept walking. Tomorrow he'd meet the coach of the Yale Bulldogs. A man who trained Foundation Establishment cultivators for the CFL. A man who could teach him to fly like the pros he'd watched carve through the sky at MetLife Stadium.