Chapter 132: Reaching an Agreement (2)
"I guess so." Xia Huyou smiled, "I don't know the details. I only know some rumors. In any case, back then, Master Liu had a lot of enemies in the academy. Now, many of those people are occupying high positions in the academy. Think about it. It has been 50 years. A lot of things have changed since then.
"It is rumored that the current Principal Wan and Vice Principal Zhou did not get along well with Master Liu back then."
Su Yu frowned and nodded. He asked, "What about Teacher Zhao Li?"
"Weaponsmithing faction..." Xia Huyou muttered to himself. "To speak the truth, he's pretty suitable for you as well. Teacher Zhao is very protective of his own and the weaponsmithing factions do not lack resources. For middle and low tier students, they can get enough cultivation resources from them. But your future with them might be rather limited.
"Here in the academy, the weaponsmithing faction only has one Mountainsea expert. That expert has been in seclusion for years.
"If you're a middle-tier or even a high-low student, I would recommend that you join Teacher Zhao. But you're a high-high student. I think Assistant Bai Feng is a better choice for you."
Xia Huyou turned serious and said, "Of course, that is only my personal opinion. I only know that much after overhearing some conversations at home. I don't know more than that."
Su Yu nodded and thanked the chubby student for the information.
After a slight hesitation, he said, "There are internal conflicts in the academy. I want to know the level of the conflicts."
"Are you asking if people can get killed in these conflicts?"
"Yes."
Xia Huyou smiled and explained, "Nobody would die in the academy. But outside the academy...things are different. It's really very hard to say. At the very least, nobody had been caught killing outside the academy because of these conflicts yet. But at times, some people will die after leaving the academy. Who knows what happened? It's pointless to ask about this. The only thing you need to do is to watch your back."
"In that case, is it still safe within the academy?"
"Of course." Xia Huyou solemnly said, "This is the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy. Without Prefect Xia, even the capital city itself might be weaker than this academy.
"As an academy that has existed for hundreds of years, if it can't even protect the lives of its students, it should just shut down.
"Here, you can trick others. You can plot and scheme, or you can challenge others head on. But if you try to kill someone stealthily...hehe, just wait to die."
Su Yu was relieved to hear all that. At the very least, his safety was guaranteed.
Xia Huyou asked curiously, "Su Yu, have you decided?"
"I'll see." Su Yu did not answer the question. He asked, "When will the teachers start accepting students?"
"In five days. The students can take a few days to settle down. After that, the teachers will start accepting personal students." Xia Huyou smiled and said, "Don't worry. In the academy, as long as you do well in the monthly, seasonal, and end of semester exams, everything would be fine. Life here is really not that difficult."
"Exams?"
"Yes. Exams." Xia Huyou said, "Don't treat those exams lightly. You're a high-high student. Each month, you will receive three merit points. If you do badly in one exam, it's fine. If you do badly twice in a row, your student tier would be dropped. Three times and you would have your merit points deducted. Four times and you would be expelled..."
"What's the contents of the exams?"
"Languages, Divine Characters, willpower...the usual stuff." Xia Huyou indifferently said, "But the academy has different expectations for students of different tiers. As a high-high student, you will receive additional benefits. In that case, you need to do well in your exams. If not, both you and your personal teacher would be penalized."
"I understand."
…
While speaking, the two arrived at the cafeteria. After paying 1 merit point for the cafeteria credit, he ordered some random dishes and was charged 300 dollars for them. That left him with a credit of 9,700 dollars.
He only had one word for this cafeteria: Scam!
Su Yu was buying the meal this time. He wasn't trying to be generous even when he was poor, but he wanted to ask Xia Huyou more questions. This fellow knew a lot of things. As a member of a large family, he was naturally different from Su Yu.
After eating his fill, Xia Huyou smiled and said, "Su Yu, I won't eat this meal for nothing. I'll give you one piece of advice. To survive in the academy, you need to be ruthless."
"Huh?"
"Don't try to hide your talent. It's pointless." Xia Huyou's face turned grim as he said, "If you keep hiding yourself, who would care if you're only being humble to mislead any potential opponents? Of course, if you don't care about the resources of the academy, the support of the teachers, and some other benefits, then it doesn't matter.
"If you care, you have to show your talent. Don't be afraid of offending someone. What's scary about that? This is the academy. Would they dare to kill you in here?
"They wouldn't. In that case, you should grab every chance you can and grow as fast as possible. The stronger you are, the more support you can get.
"If you are good enough to reach the Skysoar Realm in half a year, even the principal will start paying attention to you. At that time, harming you would be the same as suicide.
"But if you keep a low profile and pretend to be weak, who would care if you got killed?"
"I'll be frank. There are 100,000 people in the academy. How many experts are there in the academy? Why should others care about you? Since you're not a genius, you have no value. They are better off supporting their children or grandchildren. Why would they bother supporting you?
"Therefore, you need to do well in the exams. If someone creates trouble for you, hit back. If it's an opponent you can't defeat, stay silent for a while. The moment you grow strong enough to take revenge, go step on them. Don't wait too long. Nobody would be interested in waiting for you to slowly grow.
"It's fine to be arrogant. Who's not arrogant around here?" Xia Huyou smiled, "In recent years, the most arrogant batch is Bai Feng's batch. Xia Yuwen, Hu Wensheng, Wu Qi, Bai Feng, Liu Hong...all these people are all from the same batch."
"Why are there so many experts from that batch?"
"Conflict." Xia Huyou answered in excitement, "You don't know just how arrogant those people were when they were students. When Xia Yuwen was on the verge of reaching the Skysoar Realm, he fought all the top 10 students on the ranking, challenging them from the second until the tenth place before doing the challenge in reverse. Each of them was beaten up twice by him.
"Toward the end, he challenged all of them together. He suffered heavy injuries from that fight, but he did manage to totally shut their mouths through that fight.
"You know Bai Feng. Back then, he was incredibly arrogant too. He was even more famous in the war academy than our academy. When he was in the Mental Tempering Stage, a genius from the war academy beat him up. After that, he started visiting the war academy every single year.
"One year, that fellow wasn't around. Bai Feng thought that the fellow was hiding from him so he challenged the other students on their Infinite Strength Ranking. From the second place until the hundredth place, he challenged them all. Using three days, he shut the mouths of all the war academy students."
Xia Huyou laughed, "Principal Zheng was furious and cleaned up the entire ranking of weaklings. He would rather let it stay empty than let some garbage students get on it.
"From 100 students, only 25 students were left on the ranking. The ranking was only fully filled up 2 years ago."
Su Yu asked in astonishment, "Something like that happened before?"
In his eyes, Bai Feng was a carefree and calm individual. He did not look like a hot-blooded youth that would get into fights easily. Thus, this story came as a surprise for him.
"Yeah. But it has been quite a while since then. When they were our age, they were very cocky. But if you're not arrogant, who would care about you?
"You must have heard of Wu Qi before, right?" Xia Huyou lowered his voice and said, "She's even crazier than Bai Feng. She is younger than Bai Feng. When she first joined, the others looked down on her and claimed that she only has looks and nothing else. But...hehe, that woman is a monster."
Xia Huyou looked around fearfully before saying, "Do you know Liu Hong? He provoked her once. In front of dozens of teachers, she broke his leg. Even his bones were showing. Since then, Liu Hong has been afraid of her. He would be as obedient as a little boy whenever he saw her.
"That's not all. That woman...tsk tsk. She did not reach the Skysoar Realm in the academy. She did it at the Allheaven Battlefield. There, she encountered a devil who was out to temper himself. The two fought for half a day. I heard...I heard that she bit that devil elite to death. She even drank all his blood. What a fierce woman.
"In fact, she used devil blood to forge her body after her breakthrough. The Wu Family had originally prepared some divine blood for her, but they discovered that there was a lot of devil blood in her body. That was the blood she drank from the devil she killed. As a result, they were forced to give her devil blood for her forging instead.
"I heard from the Martial Dragon Guards that when they found her, she was barely alive. As for the devil, his throat was nearly bitten off."
Su Yu instantly turned solemn. All the previous information didn't really attract too much of his attention. With Wu Lan as an example, he had developed a prejudice toward those from the large clans. He thought that all of them were fools.
But now, even Su Yu was horrified after hearing the story of Wu Qi. Was she that ferocious? She actually bit a devil to death? How vicious must she be to do that? He wasn't even sure if he could do the same himself. There were many ways to kill, but he wasn't able to accept all methods of killing.
"I'm telling you all this because I want you to know that their batch is the real deal," said Xia Huyou. "And you need to know that our batch is even crazier.
"There has never been a single batch with so many freaks before. At best, there would only be around two or three per year. This year, I know of eight of them.
"We have 26 high-high students this year. Last year, we only had 12 of them. That's like more than double the number this year.
"Therefore, I am definitely going to be more cowardly in the academy. As a high-middle student, I could have been just as arrogant if this is any other year. But this year, I'm too afraid to do that."
"Why did you instigate me to do so then?" Su Yu rolled his eyes.
"What are you afraid of? You're a high-high student!
"You're nearly at the Great Strength Realm. Maybe you can break through in a few days. There are very few Great Strength cultivators among the new students. Sure, the Mental Tempering Stage is great and all, but without the right Divine Characters, the Mental Tempering Stage won't really provide you with much combat strength.
"Like me. I'm at the Mental Tempering Stage with a completed Divine Character. But my Divine Character is only good for cleaning. As for fighting...I would probably find myself beaten to death if I had to rely on this Divine Character.
"Your Divine Character should be offensive in nature, right?"
Su Yu smiled and said, "You can say so. But it's not too strong offensively. It's more a supportive Divine Character than an offensive one. I need to cut open the enemy's skin for my Divine Character to start absorbing blood."
"Oh, blood absorption ability..." Xia Huyou noted that down. Su Yu asked in astonishment, "Don't you have my information?"
"I have, but the information provided by Nanyuan is very vague. As for the exam information, it's top secret. Most of what I know are rumors. And I didn't know you before this, so I have no way of knowing about that."
Information was something he needed to gather slowly. And look, he was able to learn that Su Yu had a blood absorption Divine Character ability.
Su Yu said, "Uhm...if I sell my information to you, would it be worth anything?"
"What?"
"I have more than one Divine Character ability, if I sell more to you, would you pay?"
Ruthless!