Shang looked at the four people plus Stars with an even expression. He had seen this situation coming from a mile away.
'Fucking kids. Every time something doesn't go their way, they have to try to change something instead of realizing that, sometimes, the best way is to simply accept their current situation,' Shang thought with annoyance.
Shang sighed and walked toward the building, which meant that he was effectively walking toward the group.
Shang had seen how the group had let others pass through without any issues, but sure enough, as soon as Shang arrived near them, they stopped before him.
Instead of looking at the group of goons, Shang looked at Stars with a bored expression. "Is this what you decided to be the best course of action?" he asked.
Stars definitely didn't like Shang's lack of fear or respect. Didn't that guy know that he was surrounded by four students of the Warrior's Academy? Every single student had great potential, and there were no weak ones. Being surrounded by four warriors outside might not be that bad, but in this school, it was bad.
None of these four students was weak.
"This wasn't my choice, but yours," Stars said with a helpless sigh. "If you hadn't tried to disrespect me, I would have simply let you go, you know?"
"Do you not realize where we are?" Stars asked helplessly as he slowly shook his head. "This is the Warrior's Academy. You can't afford to be disrespectful to others, or you will find yourself at the end of a blade. If you want to make it here, you have to defend your honor if someone disrespects you."
"You gave me no other choice."
It wasn't hard for Shang to see through that bullshit.
One had to defend one's honor?
No?
It wasn't hard to just walk away. As long as someone didn't physically attack someone else, it wasn't necessary to start a fight. They couldn't even fight with their weapons, which meant that they wouldn't even get any fighting experience with their weapon.
On top of that, Contribution Points couldn't even be transferred between students. That rule existed to stop the top few students from cannibalizing the bottom 90%. Sure, the academy didn't have anything against students fighting against each other, but they didn't want 90% of the students to be essentially crippled.
In short, there was literally no point in them fighting. No one would benefit.
pᴀɴdᴀ nᴏveʟ It was simply kids doing kids' stuff.
Shang looked away from Stars and looked at the four people who had surrounded him by now.
If this were Earth, Shang would have long fled. Fighting four trained fighters was impossible, even for the best fighter on Earth. A human only had a limited number of arms, and they didn't have eyes on the back of their heads.
In movies, it was normal for one guy to beat up like ten people, but in real life, it didn't work like that. If one looked closely, one would always notice that the actor in the movie never got attacked by every enemy at once. They always came in small waves.
In real life, it didn't work that way. On Earth, Shang could have punched away maybe one or two guys if he was faster and more powerful than them, but while punching the first two away, the other two would have already hit Shang on the back of his head.
Then what?
His consciousness would be shaken, and the four would throw him to the ground and kick him.
At that point, it would already be over.
However, this wasn't Earth.
In this world, Shang didn't need to fear numbers as long as they didn't reach ridiculous heights.
The four students around Shang were 14 or 15, except for one person, who looked slightly older. Shang guessed that the last guy was probably 17 or 18.
So, at what Stage were the students surrounding Shang?
Three were at the Early Soldier Stage, and the older one was at the Middle Soldier Stage.
Shang was at the Peak Soldier Stage.
This was a gigantic difference.
There were five levels in each Realm.
Initial, Early, Middle, Late, Peak.
So, if described with levels and numbers, Shang's opponents would be level two, two, two, and three, while Shang was level five.
What did that mean in terms of fighting capability?
This meant that Shang outclassed every single one of his opponents by a factor of three, at least.
If put into perspective, it was like an adult male being besieged by four ten-year-olds.
Because of that, Shang wasn't even nervous. He simply waited for them to make their move.
When Stars saw that Shang didn't answer, he became annoyed.
"This is the one?" the oldest of the group asked Stars. Surprisingly, his voice didn't sound too happy.
Shang looked at the oldest of the group when he spoke, and the oldest looked back. However, Shang noticed a subtle reaction.
He was afraid.
'Sure enough, he noticed my power,' Shang thought. 'Based on what I've heard, the latest entrance exams have been like two or three months ago, and these guys are definitely amongst the youngest. That means that they most likely joined the Warrior's Academy with the latest batch.'
'But the older guy has been here for at least two additional years, probably more. It would be unforgivable if a student that had been in the Warrior's Academy for so long didn't have the ability to roughly estimate an opponent's power.'
"Yes, this is the one," Stars said with a polite smile. When he talked to Shang, he acted like a sneaky serpent, but when he talked to his underlings, he was polite.
"And you want us to beat him up," the oldest of the group asked for confirmation.
"Sadly, I have no other choice," Stars said with a sigh. "If we want our group to grow, we have to show that nobody can mess with us."
When the oldest of the group heard that, he grimaced.
Then, he looked at Shang, who looked back neutrally.
The oldest gritted his teeth. It was like he was making a very important decision.
The others were waiting for the oldest student's signal. He was their squad leader, and he had to give the order first.
The oldest student took off one of his rings with anger.
SHING!
Several different items appeared in front of the older student, as well as a ton of gold.
Stars and everyone around him looked with surprise at the oldest student. What was he doing?
The student took a huge sack of gold, put it in the Space Ring, and then…
Clink!
He threw it at the ground in front of Stars. Space Rings were very durable as long as someone didn't put the wrong stuff into them. After all, they had to hold even in fights.
Stars looked with shock at the Space Ring in front of his feet.
"Take your gold and your Space Ring back," the oldest student said. "I'm leaving."
Stars and his lackeys only looked with shock at the student.
Meanwhile, the student grabbed his belongings and looked at Shang with a serious expression. "I'm sorry for standing in your way," he said solemnly.
Shang nodded. "It's fine. We all make mistakes. At least you managed to rectify yours before it became too late."
The student nodded and smiled a bit. "Thank you."
Then, the student looked at his former members. "If I were you, I would quickly leave," he said.
Lastly, the student quickly packed his stuff and entered the building. He probably wanted to put his stuff away first before doing anything else.
Shang threw a glance after the student and looked at the Space Ring in Stars' hand. 'A Space Ring and a huge sack of gold. Even I'm interested.'
'Sadly, it's forbidden to steal inside the academy.'