Chapter 121: Great Xia Cultural Research Academy (1)
The storm brewing in the academy had yet to reach Su Yu and the others. The convoy continued their journey. With the escort of four experts, the trip proceeded smoothly. The only incident was the appearance of a mad bull that had turned partially demonic. The bull was sent flying by Li Yunfeng's casual attack.
They had traveled through several cities. The number of the students on the bus increased. There were students from Yue, from Ning'an, and so on. With more people, there was also more noise and activity in the bus.
Su Yu did not talk much. Apart from some self-introductions, he had been silently listening to the others as they spoke. These high-tier geniuses were mostly from large families.
To progress quickly in physical cultivation, source qi liquid was required. To advance quickly in willpower cultivation, willpower text was required. Divine Characters also needed to be formed. None of that could be supplied by a poor family.
Thus, there were many low and middle-tier students from ordinary families, but there were very few of them among the high-tier students.
That was why Bureau Head Sun once said during the Nanyuan examination that he wished to see Su Yu break the monopoly of the rich and powerful families and become a high-tier student.
...
"I heard from my elder sister that the foreign students are already in the academy. They're very scary. Many of them have human bodies and beast heads."
"That's normal. Apart from some humanoid races, most races will need to reach above the Mountainsea Realm to take on the human form."
"I don't know what the academy is thinking. Why are they accepting these fellows?"
The students were softly conversing on the bus. A day had passed. It was the 30th of July.
The bus would arrive at the capital that night. After a day together, the students had learned some basic information about each other even though they still didn't know each other well. Everyone was casually chatting while Su Yu was silently listening.
Their group consisted of the students of five different cities. Apart from Nanyuan with Su Yu as the sole student, the other cities varied between three to six students. Including Su Yu, there were twenty of them on the bus.
A majority of them were heading to the war academies while there were only eight heading to the cultural research academies. In other words, from these five cities, there were only eight high-tier cultural research students.
Following this trend, there would probably be around 50 high-tier cultural research students from the 28 cities. The capital itself would probably have more high-tier cultural research students than all the other 28 cities combined.
"So there will be about 100 to 200 high-tier students?" Su Yu guessed.
That wasn't exactly a big number. That was understandable. The cultural research students had all been picked after numerous trials. The cultural research academies would end up receiving less than 2,000 students. Meanwhile, less than one tenth of these students would be high-tier students.
And among the high-tier students, some would also choose to join the Nine Heavens Cultural Research Academy or Daoseeking Cultural Research Academy. Thus, the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy would probably end up with around 100 high-tier students.
Su Yu was thinking while listening to the crowd when a young man beside him suddenly smiled and said, "Su Yu, what are you going to study in the academy?"
That student came from Ning'an, a big city no weaker than Tianshui. His name was Tao Xing.
Su Yu softly said, "I have no idea. I really don't know too much about all this. Tao Xing, can you give me a simple explanation?"
Tao Xing laughed and said, "Sure. I can do that. In truth, someone will tell us all this in the academy, but it won't hurt to learn it in advance.
"Everyone knows that the cultural research academy is in charge of nurturing cultural researchers. But within the academy, there are various factions. Cultural researcher itself is merely a collective term to group them all together.
"I'll start with the biggest faction in the academy, the character faction."
Tao Xing was getting excited as he spoke. Giving this explanation to a high-tier student was an opportunity to showcase himself. If it was a low-tier student instead, he would have much less interest in giving the explanation.
"Within the character faction itself, there are several small splinter factions. I won't touch on that since I don't know too much about it either.
"The second biggest faction is the willpower faction. This faction focuses on strengthening one's willpower. Members of that faction will rarely form Divine Characters. Some would choose to not form even one. These people are very strong as well. Without Divine Characters, their willpower can grow rapidly. Their cultivation levels are generally higher than those in the character faction.
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"As for the third biggest faction, it's the beast taming faction."
Su Yu blanked out for a bit before asking, "Beast taming?"
"Yeap." Tao Xing said with a smile, "These are the cultural researchers who capture and tame demon beasts and also fight with their tamed beasts. We can call them summoners as well since that's what they call themselves.
"Regardless of what we call them, they are very strong. Their path of cultivation mainly involves taming demon beasts. You need to know that of the myriad races, a lot of them are demonic races. And a lot of them are exceptionally powerful. These cultural researchers walk the path where they grow alongside their beasts. The stronger their beasts are, the stronger they are."
Su Yu felt truly enlightened. Nobody had told him that before.
"As you know, some people in the military will ride to the battlefield on beasts. Most of these beasts are provided by the beast tamers. Thus, beast tamers are actually very popular in the military.
"And the fourth biggest faction is the pill making faction. From the name alone, you know what they do. These are cultural researchers specializing in making pills.
"The scientific research academies produce pills as well, but they mostly produce standardized pills. As for our pillmasters, they focus on producing non-standard pills. In the academy, they are also known as the divine pill faction.
"The fifth biggest faction, the weaponsmithing faction.
"The sixth biggest faction, the divine talisman faction. It is actually a small splinter of the divine character faction. With the unique Divine Characters they specialize in, they can create single-use Divine Characters and store them in talismans."
Su Yu felt even more enlightened. Tao Xing had told him a lot of things he didn't know before. Apart from the six commonly seen cultural researchers, there were also some rarer factions.
For example, the transformation faction where the cultural researchers focus on transforming their bodies. These people were very terrifying and often looked very similar to the foreign races. Some of them had modified themselves so much they no longer looked like humans anymore.
It was worth noting that these major factions were also split into many smaller factions. The character faction, for example, was further split into many smaller factions. These factions were split in accordance to the properties of their Divine Characters, the number of their Divine Characters, the ways they approach combat, and so on.
There was also a peaceful faction in the academy. Instead of focusing on their combat strength, they focused on studying the various cultivation methods. Most of them existed within the willpower faction, and each of them possessed a powerful willpower.
Toward the end, Tao Xing asked, "So Su Yu, what's your choice?"
Su Yu hesitated slightly before saying, "I think it'll be the character faction."
After listening to the entire explanation, he still felt like the character and the willpower factions were more suitable for him. But since he had already formed some Divine Characters and had tasted the prowess of Divine Characters, he was unwilling to shift his focus to willpower alone.
Zhao Li, who was seated in front of the bus, raised his brow. So was that kid...really going to join the character faction? Indeed, that was still the more attractive faction. But what was so bad about weaponsmithing? It wasn't like he had to stop cultivating Divine Characters after becoming a weaponsmith.
Although cultural researchers could be classified into different factions, most of them actually cultivated a mix of different paths. Very few would only stick to one path. Many cultural researchers would know at least the basics of the other paths.
Tao Xing laughed heartily and said, "I want to pick the character faction as well. But I'll probably finalize my decision after reaching the academy.
"We're all high-tier students, so we have a lot of options. A lot of the normal students are actually assigned to one instead of being given the freedom to choose."
Some of the new students still had weak willpower and no Divine Character. Thus, it would be the same whichever path they chose in the early stages. To protect some of the smaller factions from extinction, the academy would actually send some students over to them.
Su Yu nodded. Tao Xing was much more reliable than Hu Zongji. Traces of arrogance could still be heard in his voice, but that was more the natural pride of a genius. As a whole, he was not so conceited that Su Yu found it hard to even converse with him.
As for Hu Zongji, Su Yu couldn't bring himself to even talk with that guy. In fact, that fellow was not only so obnoxious when facing Su Yu. He was the same when facing the others as well. Thus, he had invited quite a lot of displeasure in the bus. He only learned to shut his mouth after Researcher Hu sent a couple of glares his way.