Orthodox Academy

The Orthodox Academy is the abandoned capital school that Chen Changsheng revives by enrolling through a legal status others have forgotten to close. It begins as an answer to exclusion: political pressure prevents him from entering the capital's functioning academies, but the ruined school remains formally eligible. Luoluo, Xuanyuan Po, and Tang Thirty-Six join him not because the school offers prestige or resources, but because its small household gives them treatment, instruction, friendship, and the freedom to refuse decisions made by stronger institutions. (Chapters 16–53 and 65–104)

The academy's importance grows far beyond education. Its victories at the Ivy Festival and Grand Examination restore a politically dangerous name; Chen's appointment as principal and designation as a papal successor turn its grounds into a contest over the future of the Orthodoxy; and Tang's administration converts four companions into a school with teachers, students, businesses, traditions, and hidden defensive resources. During later struggles, holding or abandoning the academy becomes a declaration about loyalty to Chen, the Li Palace succession, and the principle that people should not be arranged as expendable pieces. (Chapters 54–103, 430–503, 601–739, and 1042–1120)

Structure and operating principles

Principal and instructional lineage

Chen Changsheng becomes the academy's principal after returning from the Garden of Zhou and his journey with Su Li. His office formalizes what began when he treated Luoluo's meridians and Xuanyuan Po's ruined arm: the school's authority rests on learning, medicine, and precise understanding rather than age, inherited rank, or cultivation realm alone. Chen can teach techniques he cannot yet execute, diagnose structures that established physicians dismiss, and help students choose methods suited to their actual bodies. (Chapters 16–53, 430–470, and 463–501)

This lineage is personal without becoming private property. Luoluo acknowledges Chen as teacher before the academy has public standing; Xuanyuan enters the register under the same teaching relationship; and Tang becomes Chen's friend and fellow student rather than disciple. Later cohorts expand beyond that household. The academy recruits students and teachers, participates in examinations, and produces experts who fight in the northern war, but the original relationships remain its ethical center. People are expected to cultivate seriously, protect companions, and accept tactical limits without surrendering dignity. (Chapters 49–104, 435–503, 553, and 1139–1180)

Superintendent, administration, and daily life

Tang Thirty-Six serves as superintendent and handles the work Chen dislikes or is poorly suited to perform. He manages recruitment, public disputes, finances, reputation, food, external relations, and confrontations requiring someone willing to offend the powerful. His Wenshui resources help, but his institutional achievement is not simply spending money. He creates a dependable structure around a principal whose attention is divided among cultivation, medicine, papal duties, and political danger. (Chapters 433–503)

Su Moyu supplies procedural discipline and routine administration. His orderly temperament complements Tang's provocation and improvisation. Together they allow the academy to become a functioning school rather than a permanent gathering of four exceptional youths. Tang turns Clear Lake Restaurant into a cafeteria and establishes businesses across from Hundred Flowers Lane; these ventures improve the school and attract attention, though their popularity also creates disciplinary problems. The academy's social life therefore grows through ordinary meals, accounts, lessons, and quarrels as much as through famous duels. (Chapters 480–503)

Xuanyuan Po's cooking and maintenance similarly matter. Before his arm is restored, he cooks, trains beside the lake, and protects the grounds. His work is never treated as evidence that he belongs less than the prodigies. Years later, after becoming a renowned demi-human general, the abandoned kitchen and familiar trees still define what the academy means to him. The institution's household character lets service, healing, and combat occupy the same space without reducing one to the other. (Chapters 49–50, 88–113, 279–303, and 1167–1183)

Gate, grounds, and embedded defenses

The academy gate becomes a political boundary. Jin Yulu, an ancient demi-human general, accepts the humble title of gatekeeper and insists that guarding one threshold is no less a duty than guarding a national border. He defeats intruders, rejects commands that conflict with Luoluo's wishes, and creates enough deterrence that enemies cannot treat the ruined school as defenseless. The gate's repeated breaking and repair make visible the larger question of whether officials, clans, and academies recognize the school's autonomy. (Chapters 69–102)

The grounds later become a cultivated defensive environment. Tang hides swords recovered from the Garden of Zhou throughout the academy so that future students may find them in need. During Chen's confrontation with Shang Xingzhou, the master removes the Vault Sheath and appears to strip Chen of his familiar sword advantage; the blades concealed around the school answer one after another. The defense does not belong to one artifact or one person. It is the stored consequence of Tang's foresight, Chen's sword inheritance, and a community's occupation of the grounds. (Chapters 480–503 and 1091–1118)

Relationship with the Orthodoxy

The academy is aligned with the Orthodoxy and Li Palace but is not interchangeable with the whole church. Its revival becomes politically important because the old Pope identifies Chen as a potential successor. Clerics such as Mao Qiuyu protect that succession, while opponents treat the school as a rival center through which religious legitimacy, young talent, and popular loyalty can gather. Chen's coronation as Pope strengthens the connection, but his exile and later return prove that the institution can carry the succession even when control of the capital and Li Palace is contested. (Chapters 184–250, 430–499, and 601–750)

The academy repeatedly resists the idea that Orthodoxy means obedience to whoever controls an office. During the Divine Empress's fall, the old Pope and senior clerics choose Chen's succession despite Shang Xingzhou's broader political design. Later, teachers and students who abandon the school during its siege cannot simply reclaim their roles once danger passes. Tang expels them and explains the decision publicly, treating membership as a responsibility demonstrated under pressure rather than a credential that survives every betrayal. (Chapters 601–739 and 1049–1053)

History

Ruin as a legal opening

Chen arrives in the capital expecting to settle his engagement and search for a cure to the meridian condition predicted to kill him before twenty. The Divine General's Estate attempts to coerce him into surrendering the marriage agreement; when he refuses humiliation, connected powers obstruct his applications. He finds that the Orthodox Academy is abandoned but has never lost formal eligibility. Enrolling there lets him enter the capital's educational system without asking hostile institutions to acknowledge his worth first. (Chapters 1–16)

The physical ruin initially mirrors the school's political absence. Chen lives largely alone until Luoluo seeks instruction for a demi-human meridian obstruction other teachers cannot solve. She becomes his student because his command of the Daoist Canon provides a practical answer. Xuanyuan Po joins after Tianhai Ya'er destroys his arm and Star Seizer Academy cannot treat him; Chen proves sensation remains and offers a long recovery. The academy begins by receiving people whom established institutions misunderstand, reject, or cannot help. (Chapters 16–53)

Tang joins differently. He is already a celebrated Heavenly Dao Academy prodigy, but that school confines him, accommodates political fear, and resents his refusal to submit. At the Ivy Festival he publicly leaves and accepts Chen's invitation. The move costs him expert instruction and prestige, giving the revived academy its clearest voluntary defection from an institution that is functional but morally compromised. The original four thus arrive through different routes—exclusion, discipleship, injury, and rejection of complicity—but become one household. (Chapters 65–104)

Ivy Festival recognition

The Ivy Festival is the academy's first public restoration. Chen refuses demands that he surrender the engagement, Tang faces Mount Li's Qi Jian, and Chen's live corrections help Tang link sword moves into a victory. Luoluo reveals her identity as the demi-human princess and defeats those using clan protection to impose cruelty. Jin Yulu's intervention prevents stronger seniors from erasing the youths' success through force. (Chapters 54–103)

These confrontations do not make the academy dominant; they make it impossible to dismiss. Its students win by combining knowledge, talent, mutual instruction, and the protection of relationships that cross human and demi-human institutions. The school becomes a public sign that the capital's established hierarchy can be challenged through its own rules. That visibility attracts supporters and enemies in equal measure. (Chapters 65–103)

Grand Examination as a collective campaign

Chen enters the Grand Examination to gain access to Lingyan Pavilion and search for a cure. The academy treats that private goal as a shared campaign. Tang supplies tactical judgment and the Wenshui Sword, Luoluo spends strength clearing obstacles, Xuanyuan follows a simple plan that lets his physical force decide his first match, and Zhexiu is recruited through a paid arrangement that grows into lasting friendship. Chen prepares medicines and techniques for others even while his own life is at stake. (Chapters 104–183)

Chen takes first place after forcing Gou Hanshi to choose between yielding and mutual destruction. Tang and other qualifying students enter the Heavenly Tome Mausoleum, where study produces further cultivation. The result raises the academy from a surprising festival participant to a school whose students have achieved at the highest public examination. Yet the victories do not produce immediate stability: Chen's designation as a papal successor and entry into the Garden of Zhou increase the political pressure surrounding the institution. (Chapters 138–250)

Rebuilding around an absent and returning principal

After the Garden of Zhou and the journey escorting Su Li, Chen returns to find the academy used as a stage for continuous challenges. He accepts the office of principal and fights a Star Condensation expert while still in Ethereal Opening, using observation and sword knowledge to survive the realm difference. Tang, returning from the mausoleum, takes charge of the conflicts Chen cannot solve through a duel. He humiliates provocateurs, exploits rules and reputation, and then redirects his energy toward recruiting students and teachers. (Chapters 430–499)

The new cohort changes the meaning of defense. Students such as Chu Wenbin, formerly disengaged at Heavenly Dao Academy, stand on the steps for their new school and later place on examination banners. Su Moyu provides order; Tang builds daily infrastructure; Zhexiu returns through the school's network of trust; and the original students continue to treat its grounds as home even when missions or family obligations pull them away. The academy is now reproducing its values through people beyond the founders. (Chapters 480–553)

Coup, succession, and dispersal

The Divine Empress's fall exposes the academy to the contest between Chen, the old Pope, Shang Xingzhou, and the restored imperial order. Chen is revealed as a person raised within a succession trap rather than the Crown Prince others believed him to be. The Empress cures him and dies; Shang's preferred political order gains control; and the old Pope preserves Chen as his successor. The academy becomes one of the few places where Chen's life is understood through chosen relationships rather than the purpose for which his master designed him. (Chapters 601–713)

The old Pope's death and Chen's coronation join the academy directly to papal legitimacy. Political exile sends Chen away from the capital, while Tang is confined in Wenshui and Xuanyuan Po travels to White Emperor City seeking help. The original household disperses, but its bonds remain operational: Chen uses his office across the continent, Tang preserves the academy's interests through his clan crisis, Xuanyuan watches over Luoluo, and former students continue to identify with the school. Physical absence does not return it to the dead institution Chen first entered. (Chapters 714–870 and 919–1041)

Reclamation and the duel with Shang Xingzhou

Chen eventually returns and reclaims the academy. Tang expels those who deserted it during danger, resumes the superintendency, and restores a community based on demonstrated loyalty rather than opportunistic affiliation. The larger confrontation with Shang Xingzhou then comes to the school itself. Shang believes Chen's political presence threatens the unified human order he has constructed and tries to defeat the disciple whose opportunities he once arranged. (Chapters 1042–1114)

The duel reveals the academy's accumulated independence. Shang takes away the Vault Sheath and the swords it contains, but cannot take the blades Tang hid across the grounds. Chen survives through a succession of weapons and witnesses rather than superior cultivation. Shang ultimately refuses the final action that would expose his willingness to kill Chen before the world. The academy's victory is therefore institutional and moral: a master who treats nations and lives as pieces discovers that a community built from choices cannot be fully recovered as his instrument. (Chapters 1091–1120)

War and the defended home

Academy teachers and students join the northern war as experts, logisticians, healers, and officers. Tang serves under Jin Yulu in supply command, Chen acts as Pope and physician, and graduates such as Chu Wenbin fight at the front. The school is part of the human war effort without becoming merely a military academy; its influence travels through the varied duties its members can perform. (Chapters 1136–1180)

The capital faces another succession assault while leading figures are believed absent. Prince Chen Liu attacks the Orthodox Academy as a rival center of sovereignty. Xuanyuan Po, now a famed demi-human general, has concealed himself in the North-Pacifying Army and returns at the decisive moment. He calls lightning before the gate, carries the Mountain Sea Sword, and defeats the upper Star Condensation prince by using the terrain and initiative of the home he knows. (Chapters 1167–1170)

After the war, veteran founders return to grounds populated by students who know them partly as legends. Xuanyuan walks through the unused kitchen and by the lakeside trees before choosing to serve as Luoluo's guard. The closing state is neither the intimate household of four nor an empty political monument: the academy remains a living school whose new community occupies a place preserved by the choices of its first one. (Chapters 1180–1183)

Principal members and offices

Educational and political significance

The academy's educational method is not stated as one formal curriculum. Its consistent practice is individualized instruction: Chen chooses methods suited to Luoluo's meridians and Xuanyuan's body, studies opponents before examinations, and teaches through textual precision; Tang supplies tactical adaptation and institutional experience; senior companions contribute medicine, sword knowledge, food, administration, and protection. Students are expected to understand their actual limits rather than imitate prestige. (Chapters 16–53, 99–183, and 430–503)

Politically, the academy provides a place where several worlds meet without being flattened into one hierarchy. A human youth teaches a demi-human princess; an injured Bear cultivator becomes a founder; a Wenshui heir leaves an elite academy; Orthodox clerics protect a successor opposed by imperial strategists; southern, northern, human, and demi-human relationships converge around the grounds. This breadth makes it powerful, but also explains why princes and court factions repeatedly see it as more than a school. (Chapters 49–103, 601–739, and 919–1170)

Major relationships

Li Palace and the Orthodoxy

The old Pope's support gives Chen's school protection and makes its future part of the papal succession. Senior clerics defend Chen and later serve under him, while the academy offers the succession an independent human community outside church bureaucracy. The relationship remains reciprocal: Li Palace authority protects the school, and the school's survival gives that authority credibility when control of the palace is contested. (Chapters 184–250, 512–739, and 1042–1120)

Capital academies and clans

Heavenly Dao and Star Seizer provide both former students and contrasts. Tang leaves Heavenly Dao after its leaders accept political intimidation; Xuanyuan leaves Star Seizer when his injury makes him a burden the institution cannot cure; later transfers arrive after the Orthodox Academy proves it can offer serious cultivation and belonging. The school does not destroy the older academies, but exposes their compromises and creates a route for students to choose another institutional loyalty. (Chapters 43–72 and 430–553)

Imperial power

Imperial factions alternately protect, tolerate, occupy, or attack the academy according to what they believe it represents. Under Tianhai rule it is a dangerous revived name; under Shang Xingzhou's order it becomes the base of an unwanted papal successor; during Prince Chen Liu's rebellion it is a competing sovereign center. The academy's response is not a claim to the throne. It preserves a community whose political authority comes from education, religious succession, and chosen loyalty rather than dynastic descent. (Chapters 54–103, 601–739, 1042–1120, and 1167–1170)

Legacy

The Orthodox Academy changes because its members refuse to let ruin define legitimacy. Chen uses a forgotten legal status to enter; Luoluo makes the empty school a lineage; Xuanyuan makes it a household; Tang makes it an institution; later students make it reproducible. Its swords, kitchen, gate, lake, classrooms, businesses, and examination results all matter because they store different kinds of collective labor. (Chapters 16–104, 430–503, and 1049–1118)

By the end, the academy has survived the Empress's death, a papal succession, exile, occupation, civil conflict, and war. Its founders do not all remain resident, and their later offices extend far beyond education. Yet when the capital is threatened, Xuanyuan returns to its gate; when Chen fights his master, Tang's hidden swords answer from its soil; and when the war ends, new students still fill the grounds. The academy's lasting achievement is to turn four young people's refusal of imposed choices into a community capable of teaching the same freedom to others. (Chapters 1091–1120 and 1167–1183)