I’m An All Stars System - Chapter 13 1.12 Star Dancer

Tian He and her friends finally arrived backstage where other new students were seated according to their entrance exam’s ranking. Since Tian He was still a student in training, her seat was located in the back.

After bidding Yu Yan and Liu Wei good luck on their performances, she casually sat down on a seat that was second to last from the back row.

Staring at the other performers in the room with her, she saw many relaxed, excited, nervous, and stressed faces, unfortunately, most of nervous and stressed ones were mostly from the students that sat around her. She also saw some of the students who sat in the front area glanced back at them in disdain and schadenfreude, angering and scaring some of the students who sat near the back.

Admonishing silently for the students who became scared so easily, since this was a competition, losing one’s calm and acting on emotions will only further affect the performances they had to do later on.

Ignoring the scene going on in front of her, she focused on relaxing her mind and waiting patiently for her name to be called.

This new student’s competition will start off with single participants before moving on to group performances. The academy was slightly hinting at the new students that as artists, they will need to work in a group in the future to maximize their performances by developing good synchronizations skills with their fellow artists.

Tian He and her friends had long mastered this skill and was only itching for the chance to show it.

Rankings for the actual students were based off of how strong one’s evocation of sacred powers were and how many real manifestations of sacred powers one could do, but as long as one evoked one real manifestation, the judges would automatically pass them.

While rankings for the students in training were a bit harsher since most of these students were not as talented or didn’t possess as much potential as actual ones. They needed to score in the Top 50 of their group to have their status changed to an actual student’s.

Although the competition’s rules for them might be a bit cruel, the most famous artist academy in the capital will only accept the best.

When the competition had finally begun, several students in the front row began standing up to get ready to go on stage, apparently, the single performances would only take a few seconds each, all they had to do was evoke their sacred powers and prove to the judges that they didn’t slack off from the time of their entrance exams. Not surprisingly, they all received passes. She nodded confidently to Yu Yan and Liu Wei when they came by before she saw them leave the seating area to wait for her elsewhere.

Judging from their smiling faces, they must have scored within the Top 50 and if it wasn’t because there was a rule that the students who finished must move to another area to wait, then she guaranteed that Yu Yan would be hugging her screaming by now. Since they got into the Top 50, of course she couldn’t let down her friends, judges you haven’t seen anything yet.

According to previous year’s Top 3 results, the new students evoked at least 25 real manifestations of their sacred powers, so if she wanted to secure that first place, she needed to evoke at least 30 real manifestations, too easy, she could do way over that. Smiling confidentally to herself, Tian He very relaxingly watched all the other students walk off towards the other waiting area.

Finally, the bell rang and signaled the ending of the actual student’s performance, it was the students in training’s turn to take up the stage.

Sadly, when Tian He stood in line behind the other student’s in training, waiting for her turn, she saw that there were a few students who fled to the backstage in tears because they received a ‘fail’ on their performances. Without any real sacred power’s manifestations, they had no hope in staying at the academy.

Tian He calmly accepted all this, as an Imperial Princess, there was no escape from competitions and the rules of survival, only harsh environments can train the best.

Finally, it was Tian He’s turn to go on stage, but after seeing the large crowd, she couldn’t help but take a breath to calm herself, “You can do this, Tian He.”

She had never performed in front of a large audience before, so it couldn’t help that she was a bit nervous. After a moment of regaining herself, she started to make her way up the stage.

When Tian He mounted the stage and saluted politely while announcing her name towards the judges, they briefly glanced at her golden silk face mask before resuming to look at the details of her on their desk. Tian He looked around the VIP booths to see if she could find Chen Su Su, but to her disappointment, she couldn’t see who sat behind the screens of the booths, it looks like she’ll have to lead them out with her performance.

When they were ready, music began playing, and Tian He naturally started to dance. Since she was aiming to be number one in both student’s in training and actual student’s group, she was going to display the best dancing skills she had so far, as for singing, she would wait until the group performances before awing the audience.

The melody was the same one that they used during the entrance’s exam, except the tempo of the beats were much faster, this just goes to show that the academy was also testing the student’s adaption and learning skills. For her single performance, she was going to make use of her wide flowy sleeves and skirt to help showcase her dancing skills.

When the beat first started, Tian He moved her hands in front of her, one arm moving up and the other moving down, gliding her wide flowy sleeves as they slid across her face, then as the tempo increased, she flung her hands to her sides and backed up slowly with her legs, her light red flowy sleeves created an illusion that small fires were chasing after her.

After two steps, she lifted her right leg slightly to her right and started spinning across the stage, her flowy skirt twirling around her, and since she was wearing a red-orange skirt, it looked like flames were erupting with each twirl.

Particles of golden light have already started to gather around herself, forming into a few lotus blossoms, they followed her spins, making their golden glow illuminate her white jade skin, which complimented beautifully with her golden silk mask. The colors on stage were filled with golden reds, giving her a dreamy but fiery look.

After her spins, Tian He proceeded to leap into the air, displaying a split for a brief moment before mounting her feet on the ground and slowly gathered her arms in front of her and forming patterns with her fingers, the whole time her light red flowy wide sleeves moved with her, forming into small blooming flowers with each move.

When the music was nearing the end, she finished with a slow lift of her right leg, it didn’t stop until it touched the side of her face, then her hands that were by her waist also began to follow as she slowly raised it above her head and her chin also began lifting up until she could only see the ceiling.

Then with the last beat, she dropped her legs at a fast pace towards the ground, landing in a perfect split. Her red flowy skirt and sleeves that flew with her had obscured the judge’s sight for a second, their rapid movement created a semblance to dancing golden flames, and finally when they regain their vision of Tian He, her head was facing them with her hands underneath her chin, her eyes sparkling with fascination as she looked directly at the judges with a slight smile on her face.

The golden lotus blossoms that moved with her had sensed her finishing move and burst into particles of golden lights at the very second that she formed a split on the ground, creating a combination of gold and red. They planted themselves on the ground, growing into gorgeous real lotus blossoms, they surrounded Tian He as they grew non-stop until it looked like she was a sparkling red jewel in a sea of golden lights.

The judges were too astounded to speak, but Tian He didn’t forget to look around to see how many manifestations she evoked and counted about 50 lotus blossoms, smiling in satisfaction to herself, she began to get up.

After she calmly returned to her standing position to wait for the judges to announce her pass, she didn’t hear anything for a while and decided to look up, and saw that the judges were just staring at her with wide eyes and dropped jaws.

If they opened it any larger, an egg might actually be able to fit inside of it. She thought amusingly to herself.

When she turned her attention to the students behind the judges, all of them were standing up in their seats, some of them were covering their mouths in shock, while others grabbing their cheeks, or their partner’s cheeks, she couldn’t help but giggle slightly for their funny expressions. However, Tian He had forgot that since the whole competition area was silent, her giggles echoed through the whole area, when she noticed her mistake, she quickly shut her mouth.

But her giggles have already been heard by everyone, her face couldn’t help but turn red in embarrassment, oh no, she was aiming to look calm and collected until the end, but before she could speak up, she heard shouts and screams from the audience, almost drowning her in the noise. The whole area looked like it was vibrating because of the huge volume of their excited voices and claps, even the judges were standing up in applause for her.

“You’re awesome!”

“That was too amazing!”

“We need an encore!”

Hearing and seeing the acknowledgments from the audiences and judges, she couldn’t help but feel a bit moved, she even felt a bit emotional, the proud and excited faces displayed for her was making her eyes turn a bit moist. This was the first time she performed in front of a large crowd and unexpectedly, she received so many great praises.

After the judges placated the crowd behind them, they turned to look at Tian He and announced her passing, obviously if she could form 50 manifestations while the other actual students could only form about 25 to 35 manifestations, she was guaranteed a passing mark.

Even after bowing slightly to them for their acknowledgments and dismounting the stage, she could still hear their excitement continue from behind the stage. A small smile couldn’t help but form on her covered up face as she happily walked towards the waiting area to meet up with her friends.

When she arrived at the waiting area, she saw that some of the student’s in training were looking at her with stupefied expressions, it looks like the students who were lined up behind her saw how many manifestations she could evoke. The unlucky ones that had to perform after her couldn’t help but curse their bad luck in their minds.

After the judges on the platform saw Tian He disappear backstage, they quickly marked her name as pass, for the next couple of rounds, they were hoping to see another dark horse like Tian He appear, but unfortunately, all the other students’ in training didn’t even surpass 20 manifestations.

Luckily, they found one of the other students in training that was able to evoke about 25, however; after seeing Tian He’s performance, their excitement has already been used up and didn’t show any astounded facial expressions.

When Tian He spotted her friends in the waiting area, she couldn’t help but laugh happily out loud as she rushed towards them.

“Haha, Yu Yan! Liu Wei! I did it!” Tian He hugged them while she spoke happily.

“Tian He, we knew that you could do it!” Yu Yan hugged her friend while smiling and jumping excitedly for her friend’s success.

“Tian He, was there any doubt?” Liu Wei patted her arms warmly in a small gesture of a work well done.

The other students around them just watched them jump with excitement and voice their happiness for their successes, some looked on in envy, while others displayed jealousy by looking at them with a piercing gaze and clenched fists. Only quite a few of them were actually sharing their happiness for them by showing a small smile of encouragement on their faces, it looks like these people understood the happiness that hard work and diligence could bring.

After they separated their hugs and finished congratulating each other, they went to get refreshments and snacks to eat at the waiting area, but what they didn’t know was that because of Tian He’s performance, the judges that consisted of the academy’s principal, vice-principal, and an Elder, was facing a crowd of famous artist companies’ presidents who tried to outdo one another with their offers to try to recruit Tian He into their companies.

Finally, a scholarly gentleman walked up from the crowd, seeing this person, the crowd of other presidents quickly gave way, who were they kidding, it was the black president that always won the best rewards for training new recruits with his ‘special means’, creating the best artist’s bands in the country, no one wanted to mess with such a huge influence with this ‘special’ president as its leader, their forces could even rival that of the imperial family’s. They lowered their heads in hopes that their earlier loud voices didn’t annoy this black sheep.

When the principal saw this man, he couldn’t help but be polite towards him and called him using his court title, “Official Li, what brings your esteem self here?”

Cracks a joke, with his status he only needed to contact him privately after all the other companies leave, and he will immediately summon Tian He to see him, why was he deliberately showing his face here in public? Is it because their academy wasn’t noisy enough?

Looking at all the other presidents’ faces, his eyelids couldn’t but twitch when he saw them looking at him with a bit of wariness in their eyes, whenever this president recruited talents, many artist companies would rush to compete against that talent, turning the whole capital upside down trying to follow his ‘special’ training regime.

The judges didn’t reveal their nervous and helpless thoughts on their faces, after all, they had developed some skills after maintaining their current positions for so long.

Official Li didn’t pay attention to their nervousness and spoke, “Principal Liu, we meet again. Today, I just coincidentally came by and saw such amazing performances, I am honestly astounded by the talented artists you were able to enroll in your academy. It makes me sincerely look forwards to watching the group performances.”

Hearing his words, the crowd woke up from their thoughts, Principal Liu was also surprised, it looks like this Official Li didn’t want to make his decision until he saw Tian He’s group performance. Contemplating his words, he also agreed that without proper synchronization skills with other artists, the artist wouldn’t be able to improve much.

Looking back at Official Li in front of him, indeed, he wasn’t able to train such great artists without this eyesight and thinking ability. Nodding in compliance with him, Official Li finally left the area satisfied under the other artist’s companies’ watchful eyes.

When Official Li finally arrived outside the competition area, he couldn’t help but smile slyly to himself.

“Fools, I have never failed in recruiting a talent, once the group performances are over, Tian He will already be safely recruited under my banner.”

Walking calmly towards one of the tall buildings, he thought to himself, now he just had to wait for his friends, Vice-General Yong and Merchant Xin to make their move.

Laughing for his future success, he suddenly jumped on top of that tall building, his figure could be seen rapidly disappearing from the area, and all one could see from his speedy maneuver was the gusts of wind that amazingly lifted some of the small leaves off the ground.

..

2nd Imperial Prince had already started to confront Dai family’s forces inside their main residence. His men had successfully wiped out a majority of them and was now waiting in front the main hall for Minister Dai to surrender himself.

Minister Dai looked at the remaining faction leaders around him, most of them carried grievous injuries, obviously they couldn’t fight any more, only him and Minister Wu were still uninjured, however; Minister Wu was only responsible for coming up with tactics and strategies, so he couldn’t help him fight either.

Only he was left.

He grinded his teeth in enormous anger, and clenched his fists until veins were popping up, even though he had already killed several of these imbeciles, it was inevitable that his body would give way, his fast breathing and shaking body perfectly displayed the evidence of his overexertion.

All the power and forces he accumulated for years, gone just like that!

He was unwilling!

His despair was quickly covered up by the anger he felt, and his fierce bloodshot eyes directed their gaze at 2nd Imperial Prince, he ignored the other guards that surrounded them and shakily lifted up his sword and pointed it at him.

He at least had to take down this bastard with him.

His despair, anger, and unwillingness were already clouding his judgement.

2nd Imperial Prince saw his movements, the last of his desperate struggles were like ant trying to fiercely struggle against a huge beast, it was pointless to watch.

This was wasting his time, his adversary needed to go. He quickly lifted his arm to his men on the side and brought it down, soon they charged towards Minister Dai’s tired body inside the hall.

After subduing Minister Dai, they pushed his knees towards the ground, the loud sounds of bones breaking signified that from now, Minister Dai was a cripple.

Looking down at the disheveled mess in front of him, 2nd Imperial Prince didn’t have any triumph feelings, on the contrary, he felt empty, the joy of bringing down his most powerful enemy for these years didn’t elicit any feelings from him at all. His calm eyes without any ripples just stared at the man kneeling in front of him.

“Minister Dai, from the orders of His Majesty, you and your men are to be placed in court jail to await your sentences.”

After candidly announcing the ending of his long adversary, he began leaving the main hall, but before he could exit the doors, he heard a hoarse shout behind him.

“Li Qiong, you bastard! Just you wait, Consort Dai will avenge me! You won’t be laughing for long!” His bloodshot eyes that wished it could kill stared menacingly at 2nd Imperial Prince.

Hearing this, 2nd Imperial Prince’s calm face turned around and suddenly, he started to walk towards Minister Dai. After he lowered his mouth towards his ears, he softly said some words into it before calmly leaving the ruined courtyard full of dead bodies behind him.

A moment later, Minister Dai awoke from hearing those words and started shouting towards the skies.

“No, it can’t be! Lies! Lies! All lies! Ah!” He clutched his head as his roaring sounds of unwillingness and shock vibrated throughout the residence.

It wasn’t until Minister Dai was finally locked inside a rundown cell that he stopped his shouts, but after a moment of silence, he started mumbling towards himself and grabbing his hair, almost pulling it out of its roots.

“How could this be? After all we’ve done, how could it be for nothing? That bastard wasn’t even the biological son of that old bastard Emperor. That’s impossibleimpossible.”

His soft mumbles started to increase in volume and before long, crazy laughter mixed in with the sounds of cries could be heard echoing in the hallways of the empty court prison.
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