The announcement traveled through the Celestial Academy the way significant things travel through institutions — not through any single channel, but through all of them simultaneously, finding its way into every conversation before the conversation had decided to be about it.
By the time the first sunset crossed the floating mountains, it had reached every training ground, every library corridor, every dormitory and dining hall on every floating island the academy occupied. Students who had been present in the Sky Plaza had already told students who hadn't, and those students had told others, and the chain of transmission had moved fast enough that the official notice board posting, when it appeared, was confirmation rather than news.
People gathered in front of it anyway.
They read the academy seal — the specific seal that meant the announcement had cleared every level of institutional authority the Celestial Academy possessed and was not subject to revision. They read the title.
