The new semester was about to start. Due to the large number of courses, there were also a lot of things that needed to be prepared. However, the courses themselves would not be delayed because of that. The classes started just the day after everyone had borrowed the related books from the library.
Xiao Lin did not immediately pick a support course. He wanted to quickly get into the Bronze rank because Miracle and Ruin were special states that caused him to be more reliant on attributes than others.
If the last semester could be considered homogenous in its classes, then after the changes in the curriculum, there was a much larger variety of classes. Other than the support classes, even the main courses had gone through large changes. For example, Basic Swordsmanship had now advanced to Novice Swordsmanship, and the courses were separated into Novice Elemental Sword Aura and Novice Internal Sword Aura.
Basic Meditation had advanced to Novice Meditation. There was no differentiation of internal and external sword auras there, but other than meditation, Basic Flame, Water, Wind, Earth, Support, and even the combined elements all had their own classes.
That gave quite a few students a lot of excitement. A lot of them had complained about the stale and dry courses on the forums last semester. The last semester was akin to teaching them basic pronunciation before letting them see the words. Now that they had mastered that part, the academy was finally allowing them to walk on the true path of growth.
There were also other added classes such as Novice Physical Resistance, Novice Spell Resistance, Novice Perception, and Novice Dodging classes; they were all advanced versions of the prior basic classes.
With the increase in the volume of classes, the number of students attending each course decreased correspondingly. There were no longer classes that had over a hundred students. Some classes were also meant for second-years, so there was even a possibility that they would attend those classes with the second-years.
Other than all those optional classes, there was also one compulsory class: Novice Battle Training. It was a course that every student was forced to attend, but there was only one class a week, and it was arranged on Saturdays, which was originally a holiday.
Even though choosing optional courses was headache-inducing to some, from the student union’s informational materials, truly picking their courses was not completely dependent on interest. Each person’s physical attributes or elemental affinities also needed to be taken into account, so there was actually only a narrow list of options.
Monday was focused on the physical courses as usual, such as various sword arts. Xiao Lin had chosen elemental sword aura as his main direction that semester. After waking up early that morning, he had followed the timetable to the classroom area. The first-year’s classrooms were not that different, and remained around Area A and Area B, but the classes for elemental sword aura took place in Area C.
Xiao Lin was quite curious. He knew that Area C onward were the classrooms of the upper-years, but thinking about it, the changes in the curriculum could have caused some of the courses to be merged with the second- or even the third-years.
Using his card to enter the training hall, he noticed that the spacious hall was quite empty. Only around twenty students were there, and all of them were strangers. Xiao Lin was not surprised. There were only very few first-years that had chosen to take up elemental swordsmanship. Even if some of them had the intention, the course had prior requirements, which was that their Basic Meditation needed to be at least LV4. That requirement was enough to scare away practically everyone.
Xiao Lin’s appearance attracted a lot of gazes, and a woman quickly walked up with a passionate yet curious greeting, “Hello, I’m Cheng Xiaolin. You are?”
“I’m called Xiao Lin, I registered for this course this semester.” The other party could be his senior, so Xiao Lin responded politely.
“Xiao Lin?” Cheng Xiaolin muttered to herself before her eyes widened, “A first-year?”
“Oh, you know about me?”
“Yes, do you not know that you have a bit of a reputation now?”
Once Xiao Lin’s name was heard, even those who were originally not paying attention cast their inquisitive gazes over. Some even walked over to greet him. In the entire first year, only Xiao Lin’s name regularly appeared on the upper-year forums. After a few times, his name had naturally been remembered.
“So am I the only new student here?” After a few greetings, Xiao Lin asked them this. Everyone there seemed to be familiar with each other, so they did not seem like new students.
Cheng Xiaolin was quite friendly. She smiled and said, “The course originally considered the Basic Meditation Requirement and made it a second-year class. In truth, a lot of students have to wait until their third year before being able to enter it. However, the academy was really bold this time to have opened the course to new students.”
“Speaking of which, don’t all new students choose the internal sword aura course?”
“I’ve heard of you. You’re the only student from your year that’s practicing both physical and magical courses. How admirable. I never had the time back then. I had to wait until my third year before having the free time to do it.”
The rest continued lamenting. Xiao Lin could tell that most of the ones in front of him were third- and fourth-year students. To put it in another way, the course was basically a combined third- and fourth-year course, which caused him to feel a mountain of pressure.
“Is elemental sword aura really that unpopular?” Xiao Lin looked at the empty training hall. It was a little too quiet.
Cheng Xiaolin laughed as she explained, “It’s actually not too bad. Our academy might not encourage dual-cultivation, but it does not forbid it. The lower-years have too little free time to do so, but once you get to the upper-years, a lot of us do try it out. It’s just that we have these changes in curriculum this semester, so the fourth-year graduates are all busy with practical work. Even us third-years have started to do it, so the number of students is lower this time. There are also constant drop-outs from semester to semester, so all that’s left is us.”
She was a friendly senior. She had a short ponytail, and was wearing a tight white training outfit. Her entire person exuded a young and energetic aura.
As they talked, there were an additional dozen or so students who entered. However, as the class started, there were only about thirty students. To the newcomer Xiao Lin, everyone treated him kindly. As upper-year seniors, they would naturally take care of a harmless junior that suddenly appeared. Some of them were even worried that Xiao Lin would not be suited for the course, especially since it was a course that used to be meant for upper-year students.