Several days passed.
Classes continued. Seminars, practical assessments, the gradual accumulation of evaluated work that the academy's grading system converted into the ranking points that determined everything downstream.
Lin Yi attended every session. He completed every assessment. He studied in the evenings, and he did not find partial understanding acceptable. Formation theory in particular had gaps he was closing methodically, working through the foundational literature in the academy's digital library with the same systematic attention he applied to everything.
He also spent the evenings thinking.
Not about the rankings, which had settled into a configuration that was drawing continued attention from other students and had produced several more indirect approaches from sect leaders and individual students looking for affiliation. He had declined all of them.
He was thinking about the sect question, which he had not made yet.
