Chapter 141: Multiple Divine Character Fusion (2)
Su Yu glanced at Xia Huyou. Those words sounded wrong. It almost felt like he was joining the faction just for the sake of waiting for its inheritance.
Xia Huyou did not care what Su Yu thought. He continued talking, "I'm telling the truth. Many people are trying to join that faction. A lot of them only want to join and wait for Elder Hong to go bankrupt. When he reaches his limit, he would sell his research center or finally allow investors to join. At that time, the members of the faction would all get rich. What a pity. It has been dozens of years but that has yet to happen."
Su Yu asked curiously, "Why didn't he open the research center to investors?"
Su Yu didn't think that it was a big deal. After all, the academy still required their research centers to actually produce results.
"There are many reasons. Firstly, Elder Hong has high requirements. He's not willing to work with just anyone.
"Secondly, it's too expensive. Back then, Elder Hong had asked for no less than dozens of intact corpses of divines or devils from the potential investors. It would be even better if they could offer him a live specimen.
"Thirdly, Elder Hong is also extremely picky. Without forming at least 10 Divine Characters, he wouldn't even accept you into the research character. And I'm talking about those below the Skysoar Realm. Without meeting that requirement, one wouldn't be allowed to participate in the research. Nobody would agree to that.
"And thus, he has never succeeded in finding a good cooperative partner. Nobody can fulfill his requirements."
Understanding dawned on Su Yu. Bai Feng's faction was rich, but not rich in cash. All their wealth had been thrown into the research center. As for how much money they had spent exactly, the amount was probably astronomical. Otherwise, a faction with a Mountainsea, a Cloudbreach, and a Skysoar with only one student would not be so poor.
Xia Huyou had claimed that the research center could be sold for hundreds of thousands of merit points. He might be telling the truth. That was a project a Mountainsea expert had spent decades on. The amount of resources and effort that had been spent on it would definitely be shocking.
Even if the expert had spent all that time doing nothing except forming source qi liquid, he would have earned a large amount of money by now.
Five members… Su Yu was really speechless. That was too small a faction.
He exhaled deeply before asking, "One more question. Is anyone targeting my faction?"
Xia Huyou coughed before saying, "That's hard to say. I'm not too sure about that."
"What's so hard to say about that?" Su Yu solemnly said, "Since you know even some secret information, I don't believe that you don't know about this."
Xia Huyou awkwardly said, "That is a really...difficult topic. If I say it, I would end up offending some people."
"You already said enough. Do you think that I wouldn't be able to find out if you stop now? By acting all secretive in front of me, you would end up offending me instead. Is that worth it?"
Xia Huyou helplessly said, "This information is worth a lot of money. Forget it. You can have it for free this time. The next time you ask me something like this, I'll start charging you.
"This is a conflict of the previous generation. Strictly speaking, this is a conflict that has lasted since the fifth principal's time. Fifty years ago, the conflict reached a boiling point, nearly affecting the entire academy.
"I don't know the exact details as the people from back then have been keeping a lot of things secret. I only know that Instructor Liu wasn't the only one to have been expelled back then. A lot of geniuses and those from the older generation were expelled alongside him.
"Back then, the path of multiple characters was very popular in the academy. It peaked during the fifth principal's time. Meanwhile, Faculty Head Zhou and his people are all from the single character faction. In truth, there are more than one single character faction around. There are actually several single character factions around, but not more than ten.
"I heard that during the fifth principal's time, they were suppressed badly. Or to be precise, it wasn't suppression, but they had merely been starving the single character faction of resources since they believed that the path of single character is worthless. In the end, an incident happened with the multiple character faction and a large number of their geniuses were crippled. That gave the single character faction the chance to rise in power. You understand this well. This is a grudge that has lasted for many years. Would the two sides really be willing to bury the hatchet?"
Su Yu finally understood what was going on. Back then, Faculty Head Zhou and his single character faction were considered worthless. They were subjected to constant suppression and prejudice during the fifth principal's time.
But the multiple character faction ended up falling apart while all their geniuses were crippled. Faculty Zhou Head rose to power, and he naturally wouldn't hold back against the multiple character faction.
"Faculty Head Zhou...Zhou Mingren?"
Su Yu muttered to himself as he connected dot after dot, reaching a certain conclusion. And when he recalled Xia Huyou's words about how they had over a thousand members in their faction while he only had five people in his faction...he was speechless.
How miserable. The so-called multiple character faction was probably doing even worse than the weaponsmithing faction. At the very least, the weaponsmithing faction still had a lot of people.
Fifty years ago…and the expelled geniuses. Su Yu recalled Liu Wenyan, wondering if his teacher was also a genius all those years ago. Was he one of the expelled students? In that case, why did his teacher continue sending students to the academy all these years?
Was he not angry? Or was there more to the story? All that thinking was hurting his head so Su Yu decided to stop thinking about it.
He would let Elder Hong and Bai Feng worry about all that. He was still too weak to participate in their conflicts. He was only worried that he would be implicated and his cultivation would slow down as a result.
But when he recalled how well Bai Feng seemed to be doing, he wasn't as worried anymore. There might be some conflicts between both parties, but if Bai Feng could survive and even become a genius teaching assistant, Su Yu was confident he could do just as well.
...
After Xia Huyou left, Su Yu started resting and bringing himself to peak condition. He was going to prepare to activate an Infinite Strength page in his book. If his book ended up not absorbing the Infinite Strength blood essence after he swallowed it, he would receive serious injuries.
Generally, those in the Great Strength Realm would only be able to consume Great Strength blood essence for their cultivation. And Su Yu wasn't even in the Great Strength Realm yet. He was only in the Source Opening Realm.
If his book decided to not absorb the Infinite Strength blood essence, he would be in trouble. The powerful energy within the blood essence would lash out at his body instead. He wasn't so weak that his body would burst apart, but he was definitely going to suffer some heavy injuries.
When night arrived, Su Yu calmed his heart and looked at the iron-winged bird blood essence in front of him. He sank into thought.? He had five drops of blood essence, and all of them came from early-stage Infinite Strength beasts.
As for whether they came from first-stage or third-stage beasts, that was hard to judge. There was very little difference between the energy undulations of blood essence within the same minor realm. Unless the seller labeled each drop of blood essence, the buyer would generally not be able to differentiate each drop of blood essence with each other.
"Hopefully they came from a first-stage beast..."
The blood essence of a first-stage beast would be much better suited for the current Su Yu. With his current strength, he might not be able to withstand the activation of the page with a stronger blood essence even if his book did end up absorbing the blood essence.
The strength eruption and source qi absorption speed of a third-stage beast was still slightly beyond his capacity. A first-stage beast would be within the acceptable range. While thinking, Su Yu clenched his teeth and poured a drop of blood essence from the bottle before swallowing it.
Boom!
The blood essence erupted the moment it entered his body. A powerful force started rushing through his body. A split second later, he felt like his body was going to burst apart. Drops of bright red blood appeared on the surface of his skin.
Then, the powerful force vanished from his body. In his mind, the golden book flickered. Su Yu's face was flushed red as he gasped for breath. The eruption of Infinite Strength blood essence was still too much for his body.
...
At the same time.
Heart Cultivating Pavilion, inside a room.
Wan Tiansheng was reading when he looked in the direction of the Mental Tempering Garden. With a frown, he muttered, "What kind of power is erupting?"
Still with the book in hand, he flickered and reappeared above the Mental Tempering Garden. He scanned the area and his gaze landed on block 3.
"New student, Su Yu. Cultivating with Infinite Strength blood essence? Unique Divine Character? Did Liu Wenyan...pass that Divine Character on to him?"
Wan Tiansheng muttered doubtfully to himself. He wasn't too sure. The multiple character faction had performed a lot of research on Divine Characters. They were able to perform a lot of mysterious feats with Divine Characters. After the leading figure of that faction, Liu Wenyan, was expelled 50 years ago, that faction had been in decline.
"Su Yu..."
Su Yu was a high-high genius, so Wan Tiansheng was naturally aware of his existence. And after tonight, his weight in Wan Tiansheng's heart had further increased. Liu Wenyan had sent a lot of students into the academy over the years. Nothing much had come out of that all these time.
But tonight, an abnormality appeared. Su Yu, a mere Source Opening cultivator, was consuming Infinite Strength blood essence to cultivate.
The energy undulations that had erupted for a split second earlier weren't the power of blood essence. Rather, it was a different sort of power. It was extremely unique, which was how it had attracted Wan Tiansheng's attention in the first place.
"Is it a unique Divine Character? A product of fusion? Or is it something else?"
Wan Tiansheng sank into thought. But he soon smiled and floated away. The multiple character faction had maintained a low profile for many years. Were they going to finally do something this year?
If that was the case, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. He would be more than happy to see that. They had been silent for too long. If that continued, it would only be a matter of time before they went extinct.
As for Su Yu, he only needed to pay a little bit more attention to that kid in the future. If it really involved that Divine Character and he got involved rashly, Hong Tan would not let that go. Hong Tan, Wu Yuehua, and a few other elders were all paying close attention to Liu Wenyan.
Although Liu Wenyan was no longer in the academy, as a leading figure from back then, many people of that generation were still waiting for his return. Wan Tiansheng was not interested in getting into a conflict with them. They would be Zhou Mingren's problem, not his.