Chapter 115: I'm Rich And Strong! (1)
Su Yu hurriedly took off his city guard uniform and walked out from behind a truck. He softly scolded, "Shut up!"
Chen Hao was relieved when he saw Su Yu. He rushed over and asked in astonishment, "Yu, why are you so scared? Did you piss yourself?"
Su Yu was wet, but he was wet with sweat, not piss. His face was also pale. When he heard Chen Hao's question, he felt like beating this fellow to death.
Su Yu glared at Chen Hao and berated, "Shut up! If you don't know what to say, don't talk!"
Chen Hao felt somewhat awkward. He softly asked, "Did you kill someone?"
Previously, he had helped Su Yu kill two Great Strength cultivators. He concluded that Su Yu was definitely not hiding in fear. He must have killed some cult members earlier. In his opinion, Su Yu was a very brave person!
He looked at Su Yu's saber and sure enough, there was some blood on the blade. He complained, "You should have called me earlier. I can help you lure some cult members over..."
"Scram!"
Su Yu couldn't even be bothered to entertain that remark. There were enemies everywhere. Did he still need bait? Chen Hao could have lured dozens of cult members to him instead. At that time, it would be too late for regret.
The old man suddenly said, "Clear the battlefield. The remains of the soldiers and students will be sent to Tianshui. They will send the remains back to Nanyuan.
"We need to head to Tianshui immediately and link up with the convoy there. Keep an eye out for more cult members."
Xia Bing said, "Students, get into the trucks. Abandon the damaged trucks. The Martial Dragon Guards and city guards will be traveling on foot."
"Yes, sir!"
The military order was given for the soldiers to empty their trucks for the students.
Some students were embarrassed and refused the offer. When Xia Bing saw that, he berated, "Do not disobey orders on the battlefield. If you really want to help, make sure to kill more enemies in the future. That's better than wasting everyone's time being all hesitant here. You're a bunch of Source Opening cultivators. Can you even keep up with us on foot? You'll only slow us down!
"On the battlefield, don't bother trying to help the experts in their fights. Do your job properly. That is the biggest help you can give.
"If you're ordered to retreat, obey. Follow your orders. Do not let your feelings dictate how you act.
"Do not waste any time with drama on the battlefield. If your loved ones are dead, retreat immediately so that you can avenge them in the future, not staying like fools to be killed and become one of the casualties.
"You genius students are indeed quite talented, but each year, many soldiers would die on the battlefield because of your recklessness.
"Some of you are too arrogant. Some do whatever they want. Some are too confident. Ultimately, the soldiers will be forced to save you. Each year, more than a thousand soldiers will die because of genius students like you.
"People like you should really be put through more suffering!"
"Squad Leader Xia..." The old man coughed. This should be enough. If Xia Bing continued, these students would probably lose all their confidence.
Xia Bing did not mind and started shooting orders to the soldiers instead.
...
A short while later, the convoy resumed their journey.
They did not search the area. The soldiers from Tianshui would be doing that. Their mission was to protect these students, not suppressing the cult. With the old man around, their remaining journey would be much safer.
At the rear of the convoy.
Xia Bing and the soldiers were traveling on foot. As the trucks weren't moving too fast, they were able to keep up.
The old man was also traveling on foot. He suddenly asked, "Was that student Su Yu?"
"Yes."
"Is the battle report ready?"
Xia Bing shot the old man a glance and said, "This is a report for the military. There is no need for me to share it with you."
"Xia Bing, I'm only asking. I didn't intend for what happened earlier to happen either," said the old man helplessly. "Our mission is to find out if there are any large movements on the cult's part. The cult members who had attacked earlier did not have a lot of people. They weren't too strong either. They have even created some confusion to obscure their presence..."
Xia Bing cut him off, "I don't have the right to criticize your performance. I bear some responsibility for the attack as well. But since there are supposed to be two of you, why is the other person not here? Tianshui has their own forces, so there is no need for either of you to leave. You have failed in your duty.
"I'll be sure to report this. The other person will bear the responsibility. If it turns out that he has a relationship with someone in Tianshui and has left his position in an active mission for his relative, I want to see just how the academy is going to answer for this."
The old man was getting a headache. He felt very helpless. Because Xia Bing was actually right.
That colleague of his was really related to someone in Tianshui. His grand nephew was in the Tianshui convoy. Thus, when he heard that the Tianshui convoy had encountered some problem, he rushed over immediately. This would be very troublesome to deal with.
Of course, the old man only felt a little bit of pity toward his colleague. In truth, the matter would not affect him much. He said, "He will definitely take the responsibility for this. There is no doubt about that. Can you tell me about Su Yu instead? The more attention on him, the more opportunity he will get. Am I right?"
Xia Bing sank into a short silence before saying, "I checked. About 20 enemies had been killed after showing signs of confusion. We are still unsure of the exact circumstances of those deaths. As for those he had personally killed, based on the corpses I checked, there should be four of them."
One would receive merit points by killing enemies. No soldier would say no to more merit points, but they wouldn't steal someone else's claim either.
And there were four kills that had yet to be claimed. When Xia Bing checked, he concluded that these were probably Su Yu's kills. Traces of lightning could still be seen on those corpses. They were most likely killed by the Lightning Source Blade.
"Killing four and interrupting over twenty enemies..." The old man muttered, "He's only a ninth-stage Source Opening cultivator. Even with Divine Characters, it is still very surprising that he could kill four of them. I checked his records before. He shouldn't be this strong..."
Xia Bing wanted to say something but he hesitated. He had actually noticed something. Su Yu had unleashed an offensive strength that was beyond the Source Opening Realm. He had killed the four cult members in a very straightforward manner. The kills had been very clean.
That wasn't something a normal Source Opening cultivator could do. After a short hesitation, he decided to keep that to himself. That might be Su Yu's trump card. There was no need for him to expose someone's trump card for no reason.
It was never a bad thing for someone to have more trump cards to defend themselves. After all, who could be sure that this old man wasn't an enemy either?
"He has the blood and lightning characters as his Divine Characters. So is illusion creation an attribute of the lightning character or the blood character?"
Xia Bing frowned, "How am I supposed to know that? I'm not a cultural researcher."
"Two Divine Characters..." The old man wasn't paying any attention to Xia Bing. He muttered to himself, "Illusion creation...that attribute is not too special as a lot of Divine Characters have the same attribute. But if he can use it so many times before even reaching the Mental Tempering Stage, that means his Divine Character has very low willpower requirements...
"This Divine Character will be very strong during the early stages!"
That was the conclusion the old man reached. As for how strong the Divine Character would be at the Skysoar Realm and beyond, it was too early to talk about that. At the very least, he was sure that this Divine Character was very strong at Su Yu's current level.
This Divine Character was at least strong enough to render the Great Strength cultivators completely helpless. But this illusion might be less powerful against those in the Infinite Strength and Skysoar Realms.
Furthermore, this ability was only suitable for clueless opponents. It would be considerably less effective against opponents that were already aware of its existence.
"His willpower isn't strong yet he has two Divine Characters..." The old man sank into thought. Suddenly, he asked, "Is he Liu Wenyan's student?"
Xia Bing nodded.
"Then that's understandable. Back then, Liu Wenyan specialized in Divine Characters and is a genius character master..."
Xia Bing said doubtfully, "Instructor Liu still wasn't a cultural researcher back then."
Character master was not a term to be used lightly. And Liu Wenyan had only reached the Skysoar Realm recently. Someone like him shouldn't be a genius character master back then.
The old man laughed and said, "You don't understand. That fellow...sigh. He has a junior brother. You should be aware of that, right?"
"Yeah. Master Hong Tan."
"Since you know that Master Hong Tan is his junior brother, aren't you curious why he sank so low?"
Xia Bing said, "I'm not interested. Knowing too much won't benefit me."
"You people..." The old man burst out laughing. "The people from the Martial Dragon Guards are all blockheads. Liu Wenyan has indeed delayed his willpower materialization. But he was already at the Mental Tempering Stage many years ago. He was at the peak of that stage.
"Fifty years ago, he had already formed over twenty Divine Characters. At that time, he was the most promising student among those walking the path of Divine Characters. Among his peers, he has the highest potential to reach the Mountainsea Realm and beyond."
Xia Bing was listening attentively but the old man suddenly stopped talking. Xia Bing stayed patient and did not ask anything.
The old man couldn't help but to laugh and ask, "Aren't you curious?"
"Say it if you want."
"Liu Wenyan is actually someone with a background. He was the student of the previous principal. When the previous principal passed away 50 years ago, he left a Divine Character behind..."
"Shut up!" Xia Bing suddenly said, "I've heard about that before. You can stop talking. If you keep talking, I'm worried it will bring some troubles to me."
He was starting to understand. And he was unwilling to learn more.
Fifty years ago, an internal conflict nearly broke out in the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy. Ultimately, the crisis ended with Wan Tiansheng expelling a bunch of people from the academy.
Those expelled were all geniuses. Many of them were related to the deceased fifth principal. That incident was known as the incident where Wan Tiansheng cleared the academy of the fifth principal's influence.
He had thought that Liu Wenyan was merely an ordinary member among those expelled. But he had not expected that Liu Wenyan was actually one of the main characters of the incident. He was actually a student of the fifth principal.
He never knew that. People had stopped talking about Hong Tan's teacher. Thus, not many people knew about that. Now, he finally learned that both Hong Tan and Liu Wenyan were the students of the fifth principal.
In that case, Liu Wenyan's delay in willpower materialization might be related to the internal conflict among the higher ups of the cultural researchers involving people at the level of Wan Tiansheng. That was not something he could get involved with.
"Principal Wan, Instructor Liu, and Researcher Hong..."
Xia Bing's gaze landed on one of the trucks. Since Su Yu was Liu Wenyan's student, would he be implicated?
Back then, Liu Wenyan was kicked out by Wan Tiansheng. If Su Yu was untalented, he would be fine. However, he was actually a genius. Would he be implicated?
The old man was also looking at the same truck. He smiled and said, "Don't worry. He should be fine. Back then, Principal Wan was forced to do what he did. It was either that or have the academy fall apart. It has been so many years. If they are still holding a grudge, people like Bai Feng wouldn't have been able to do so well in the academy."
Xia Bing moved on from the topic. "Since you're asking about Su Yu, are you trying to take him as your student?"
"We'll see. Bai Feng is not doing very well recently. He is very busy dealing with his troubles. Su Yu has a decent talent. He shouldn't be affected by that."
The old man narrowed his eyes and said, "No matter what, I'm an intermediate researcher. Am I not a better choice than Bai Feng?"
Xia Bing had no interest in getting himself involved in that. He nonchalantly said, "That does not concern me. My mission is to escort them to the academy safely."
The old man nodded and said, "Then I'll have to trouble you. Can you help arrange a meeting between me and him?"