Beatrice flopped on her dorm bed while rubbing her eyes. It was time to rest, tomorrow was her big day. She and the other students would be taking various aptitude quests with their summons. This was something everyone was preparing for years during basic classes so she wasn’t the only person that was nervous.

A lot depended on this aptitude test. The biggest reason a person wanted to get a good result was status and power. By being rated higher a student would get access to better books, better teachers and would be prioritized.

Even though Beatrice didn’t want to stand out she wanted all those things. Power was something she very much strived for only with that would she be able to avenge her late grandfather.

“So you want me to help you get better results? Didn’t you promise your parents that you wouldn’t stand out?”

Beatrice was now juggling three balls around while balancing on a log. This was inside the soul world that Zhang Dong created. The scenery had changed from a sunny beach to a river in a forest. The log the girl was balancing on was wiggling around in the stream while she practiced her concentration.

“Yes I understand but…”

“But you want to get stronger and to get stronger you require your academy's knowledge?”

Zhang Dong that was sitting on a large branch answered before flinging a pebble towards the log that Beatrice was standing on. This tiny rock traveled as fast as a bullet and caused the large log to shake around violently. What followed was a drenched Beatrice that landed in the shallow stream below, the balls that she was juggling landing on her head.

“You’ll never get stronger if you lose your concentration like that…”

He looked at the wet girl that was shivering in the cold water. Normally he would be all for the slow approach. It was best to keep a low profile while slowly building up the power base. The girl wasn’t really in a position where she could stand out too much. Even less with that crazy main house of hers looking over their shoulders. But he didn’t have much time on his side, he needed to get back to his own family.

But still, he wasn’t sure if risking the child's life would be such a great idea. If he was her summoned spirit, he could probably defend her from everything, but he didn’t plan on staying that long. He had made some plans towards that, all this mana that this young girl was building wouldn’t be just for show. Even if he left her she would easily be able to form a proper contract with another spirit or be a regular mage.

Due to this, he was on the fence on how to continue, the girl was probably willing to get herself in harm's way if it was necessary. It was still only an academy for kids, it shouldn’t be that dangerous if she stood out a bit.

“Everything will be fine great spirit… if I make it to the special class, I’ll be able to visit the higher levels of the library… you’ll be able to get more books…”

Zhang Dong listened closely, apparently, a higher tier student had more privileges. The locked away library building would hand him the knowledge that he needed. What he now wanted was the location of a cube, with it his chances of getting back home would skyrocket.

‘I guess it should be fine…’

In the end, the feelings for his own family won over. If this girl was willing to put herself in harm's way, then he wouldn’t stop her. At least she had him if something happened. The girl was already 15 years old, in his world, this was already the age of an adult. Most all the disciples in his sect were already battling ferocious beasts and putting themselves in danger. This all in the pursuit of power and prestige.

“Trying to barter with this Lightning Emperor are you?”

Beatrice shook her head in fright a bit but instead of rage, she could see a somewhat grin on Zhang Dong’s face.

“Good, I will help you but only if you can perform this next task!”

He wiggled his finger and the log that the girl was standing on started spinning in one direction. Beatrice was tasked to balance on it while he randomly pelted her with small rocks.

On the dawn of the next day, Beatrice felt tired. Not physically but mentally, the small dream training sessions did put a tiny strain on her spirit. With the increase of her soul energy though the effect was minimized.

Zhang Dong started thinking of how to get his eager summoner through these tests without making the other kids look bad. Even now Beatrice’s mana pool had risen tremendously, she was already surpassing most of the kids her age. The only ones that were still ahead of her would be the young master types that he loved so much. He hoped that those types of people wouldn’t get as easily offended as the ones from his old world.

“We have gathered here to perform the annual aptitude test for all you young summoners, please remember to…”

Beatrice had now moved to the gathering place with everyone that had passed the test. She was standing to the side with all the other black-uniformed youths. They were still segregated by status here. Zhang Dong had a feeling that even if those lower status youths were elevated by their test results, the original ones in power wouldn’t take kindly to it.

‘I hope this goes well… don’t really want Beatrice to be involved in the good old step ladder of generic baddies.’

In a cultivation world what would mostly happen in this situation was one thing. A young master would not take kindly to an upstart getting similar or better results. He or she would then begin hazing and making trouble for this individual which would then result in this prideful person getting defeated in some way. Then the real problem would begin, probably starting with the young master’s older cousin or uncle.

‘Okay, let’s go over it again. We will be aiming to get you into the top class but you must place lower than the top students.’

Zhang Dong spoke out from his soul dimension. He had decided to help the girl get a better placement in the test but that didn’t mean that he wanted her to smoke the competition either. He wanted to have her place below the current top students like the prince or Isabella Hohenberg of Dragonridge.

Isabella posed the biggest danger as she was from the main house that Beatrice wanted to go against. It would be a direct slap to Isabella’s prestige if someone like Beatrice did better at an aptitude test. It would probably bring various problems with it, he knew how those passionate youths operated.

‘I understand great spirit…’

‘Also you can stop calling me great spirit, it was funny at first...just call me Leigong.’

‘But great spiri…’

Beatrice was a bit surprised by the sudden request to drop the honorifics. This was a world based on strength, so being respectful to a strong summoned spirit like she had was a must.

‘It’s fine, we are partners and partners need to be on a first-name basis!’

‘I could never be foolish enough to refer to a heroic spirit in such a way…’

‘Well, you will have to. Otherwise, I’m not going to answer your calls.’

This revelation caused Beatrice to sweat slightly. If her summon refused to be called during the test then she would end up in the lower class for sure. It could be even worse and they could call her even being a spirit summoner in question.

Beatrice had to begrudgingly accept Zhang Dong’s request.

‘Great Leigong… Mr. Leigong?’

Though it appeared that it would take some time for her to drop some of those honorifics. The place the test would be taking place was a large hall. With them were about two hundred other students. If Zhang Dong compared it to his previous world the numbers were quite small. When it came to sect testing the disciple number was always in the thousands of people.

The teacher continued the long-winded explanation of the tests that they would be going through. The first one was quite identical to what his own sect was doing just on a lesser scale. They would bring out some kind of measuring device that would show them how much mana each student had.

After that, they would test the elemental affinities of the spirit by having the summoner channel their energies into another device. The user of the spirit would have their mana be altered depending on their summon. Beatrice here would probably be shown as a lightning user.

The first ones that took the test were the students in white robes with the prince being first. It was clear that they didn’t want the high nobles to be stuck standing around and waiting for others. The device that was measuring the mana pool looked like a regular round crystal ball. It was placed in the center of some kind of magic circle and a number would light up above it. This number was the person’s level of mana.

Zhang Dong looked through Beatrice’s eyes as a green-haired youth walked over to take the first test. He even noticed the shouts of praise from the noble ladies at the side, this guy was clearly the biggest young master here. The hand was placed and after a moment a number appeared above it.

“489 points for prince Ludwig…”

The people from the side started cheering out, in Zhang Dong’s eyes this youth wasn’t really anything special. After training Beatrice for a few days her mana pool had reached a certain threshold that wasn’t that far off from this so called prodigy.

‘She’ll probably surpass him in a month or two… for now it's fine for her to be slightly weaker…’

The people started going through the test and he took note. It was important for Beatrice to be slightly below the top students. It would be best if she made it in at the last spot but that would be a big gamble.

This green-haired prince was somehow able to keep the top spot, the person from the main family that Beatrice was cautious of achieved a result of 411 and she was the third-best from the bunch. There was another youth from a ducal house that received 443 points.

Most of the students in white uniforms had results between a 100 and 300 with the top reaching slightly over that. From his discussion with Beatrice, they would need to get from 150 to 200 to be sure. A person of lower status had to show more talent than a family that could buy their way in.

The students in the black robes mostly hovered below the one hundred mark with a handful going beyond it. In time Beatrice was in front of the measuring device by Zhang Dong’s calculations if he didn’t interfere she would get slightly more than a 100 points. There was a way to boost that result with the help of a certain technique he developed thanks to the books. The problem with this was that he didn’t have much time to test it out and this would cause the first blunder to occur.

“Beatrice Hohenberg.... 7…. 798 points…”

The whole chamber got quiet after seeing the number above the device. No one could believe that a lowly daughter of a baron had more mana than a member of the royal family or from a ducal hose.

On the inside of this here blond girl, there was a certain Patriarch scratching his head, not sure about what went wrong.

‘Well… uh if you do bad at the other test your rating should go down… probably…’

He called out while shrugging, Beatrice on the other hand dropped her head down as she was feeling too many gazes on her face. She clearly didn’t expect her super glorious summon to make a mistake like this.