Heavy bronze doors slammed shut behind the last row of students inside Classroom #1, sealing the thousand-seat amphitheater in a dome of gaudy, coin-shaped starlight.
The hall did not look like a place of learning. It was built as a full-scale replica of a luxury astral auction house, complete with velvet-draped VIP boxes floating near the ceiling, numbered bidding paddles bolted to every student desk. A twenty-foot golden gavel suspended above the central stage.
Down at the podium stood Professor Ao Man, a Rank 8 Early veteran of the Auction Provocation Department.
He wore silver silk robes embroidered with spinning spirit-stone symbols that chimed like cash registers every time he moved his arms. His chin was tilted forty-five degrees toward the ceiling so that he could look down at the thousand trainees solely through his nostrils.
At the very back of the tiered lecture hall, Gu Changsheng sat comfortably in a wide wooden observer’s chair with his yellow bunny apron smoothed over his knees. Moreover, The golden [Supreme PTA President] badge pinned to his collar.
To his left, Empress Luo Qingxue sat with her frost-white sword resting across her lap, her silver hair tied back with a simple blue ribbon. Meanwhile, She peeled a sweet star-tangerine for ten-year-old Su Nuannuan and toddler Little Fifth. To his right, eleven-year-old Jiang Tuntun munched quietly on roasted pumpkin seeds.
