"These students barely enrolled a few days ago. They haven't even laid the most basic foundation yet, so what exactly is there to test?" Xena's voice carried a blade of its own as she swept her gaze over Professor Shepard, and there was no mistaking the flicker of revulsion behind her eyes.
Simon Shepard's reputation preceded him in every hall of the High Council of Ten. Everyone knew about his appetites, the way his eyes lingered where they shouldn't. The only reason he wore the title of Elder at all was a thread of shared blood with the Lexicon Order's Sect Leader and a Cultivation Base that had, by some miracle, scraped into the first tier of the Ascendant realm. Neither qualification earned him any respect from the people who actually deserved theirs.
"I was only playing around with
