The rest of the week passed very much the same as it had these past couple days, nothing extremely notable happening during the handful of hours I worked in the morning, a good afternoon or so of studying, and some silly “trading pointers” between me and Zhonglei. Work issues only really included the occasional mistake in filling out a form, a little bit of passive aggressiveness from one of the young Leads who caught on to my disapproval of him, and very rarely, the instances where a slightly larger workload and extra form issues force me to stay a bit later to deal with it. As far as my afternoon of studying, I had gotten through a third of my books, and a good chunk of my scrolls, well on track to finish things up.

As far as the evening of fun with Zhonglei? It was actually becoming a bit of an open secret about it, and occasionally a young master, or just a daring Zhou Clan member around my age would ask to actually trade pointers with me. At first, the people understood it was just a bit of childish fun, recalling their attempt at trading pointers, even if some left the option open ended, still wanting one, but made it clear it was due to their own curiosity. This was all until one of the young masters who worked in administration, albeit my “department” got fed up, and thought we were lying to him. He thought I was getting too much attention from their “holy Young Master” and being a young master from a different branch, shouldn’t deserve all the benefits I was receiving. I thought this was weird, as one of the few things they should know about me was my status as a Young Master of the Main Branch, status wise I was well above his, but even excluding the social hierarchy part of the equation, I was getting an hour or so of time with Zhonglei. When the guy finally attempted to force the challenge I hit back with a solid insult, followed by switching it to my terms.

“Are you that jealous of someone besides you having a friendship with Zhou Zhonglei? Are you his sad little fling that he threw away? Or are you mad that I have cuckholded you with our friendship?” I say, each question making him angrier and angrier. This caused him to throw out a [Let’s Trade Pointers] with him naming a formations fight. Not caring to fight by his rules, I throw out my own set of Techniques, [Let’s Trade Pointers] and [Young Master’s Right] in quick succession. Apparently I was higher ranked than he was as a young master, as my breaking of his Technique with my own sent him into shock and knocked him to the floor. Standing over him I proclaimed “ Why would two people who primarily follow the Path of the Scholar, who work in their Clan’s administration, trade pointers in formations?”, afterwards I tell the whole crowd, in the coming days we will have a speed round of the Zucai exam. Giving a rough idea of having an abridged version of the Zucai exam placed in front of both me and this stupid guy, last one finishing being the loser. With this, everyone emptied out of the room, leaving only the embarrassed Young Master, still sitting in a now dark room. Late that Friday night, word got out about the challenge, the subsequent Technique beat down, and then the formal challenge in return.

Back at my room Duanlu, Zhonglei, and his father Youhao were sitting around talking to me. They were asking why I made the challenge, even after I effectively shut the challenge down, and when they know of my disdain for these immature young masters. I told them it was simple, with three main reasons why I did it. “ You see, me and Zhonglei’s friendly fights had become well known, it was already becoming problematic with both of our refusals to do pointer trading over it. While most people were okay with it, the longer we let the problem boil, the worse it would get, and my outright denial of that challenge would have quickened it. It would have potentially made it into an actual issue. Additionally, I’m needing the practice, not the actual pointer trading, but the exam. I need to reinforce my foundations and ensure I don’t need to worry about old knowledge while all this new knowledge is being poured in. Lastly, as you probably heard, the stuff about me being an ‘outsider’, that needs to be stopped before it goes too far”. My arguments seem to make enough sense to them all, and they give me the go ahead to continue on with it.

The following morning, on the Saturday morning, word is spread of the event being organized for the Sunday afternoon. It is explained the event will happen in the inner courtyard, where some Clan proctors for past exams will administer the challenge used small sections from various different Zucai exams from the past. But I did not care about all the rumors spreading, all the gossip, I just had a extra long bit of rest that night, content with not having any work over the weekend, so I would be able to have extra time to study without having to deal with the small work issues. It also helped that weeks gains, combined with this new “Young Master beat down” as I was hearing it be called netted some good gains for me when I woke up that morning.

[Path of the Young Master rank 10]

[Technique: Double Time obtained]

[Path of Formations rank 7]

[Path of Formations rank 8]

[Technique: Double Cast obtained]

I was quite happy that I could “double down” with these Techniques. I was pretty sure my formations Technique would allow me to channel two formations at once. My Young Master Technique seemed like it had two functions, I could either double by own speed while performing a task, or double the speed of someone who was working under me, allowing it to beneficial to either me or those who I commanded.