Chapter 157: I'm Not That Amazing! (2)
Downstairs.
After a short silence, Bai Feng said, "You were supposed to have plenty of time to slowly cultivate. Of course, you still have a lot of time to cultivate, but the pressure on you might be heavier than before now."
Su Yu had no idea what Bai Feng was talking about.
Bai Feng continued, "You have a martial uncle. He's my senior brother. He is a ninth-stage Cloudbreach cultivator and holds an important position in the academy as the head manager of the books depository."
Su Yu blinked in confusion. Was that position important?
Bai Feng knew what Su Yu was thinking about and said, "It's very important. Our faction is called the multiple character faction. We have a lot of Divine Characters. How do we get so many Divine Characters? To form a single Divine Character, one needs to read at least a dozen willpower texts. Don’t look at me like that! You're an exception!"
Bai Feng's face twitched. With a cough, he continued, "Even someone like you need to read willpower texts as well. We need a lot of willpower texts. Our faction has been suppressed for many years, so we have exhausted almost all our wealth. We can't get much from the academy, so we have to take matters into our own hands.
"Your martial uncle runs the books depository and has the ability to stealthily give us some benefits. For example, we can read some willpower texts for free. Of course, strictly speaking, that is an act of stealing from the academy."
Bai Feng spoke bluntly, "But we have no choice. Everyone only has that much energy and time. We need to research, cultivate, and perform many other tasks. We don't have enough merit points and the academy is not willing to allocate any resources to us.
"Furthermore, the higher ups of the books depository have always been able to let their people read some of the willpower texts for free. That has always been an unwritten rule, so we're not the only ones doing so.
"Since everyone is doing it, there is a tacit agreement that this is acceptable behavior. There is no need for us to feel guilty doing that. But now, or to be precise, in the future, we might no longer be able to do so.
"When I promised you the 10 willpower texts previously, I intended to get them from the depository. But now, some people have their eyes set on your martial uncle. They intend to push us completely out of the academy. They are not going to let us keep anything."
Bai Feng sneered, "The moment your martial uncle loses that position, we will have difficulty even entering the books depository. And we can forget about reading anything there for free. Willpower texts are crucial for cultural researchers. Without willpower texts, all the talent in the world won't help you."
Su Yu frowned and said, "Teacher, even if we can't enter the books depository, can't we join the public classes? There, we have researchers publicly writing willpower texts..."
"It's different." Bai Feng waved his hand, "Most cultural researchers get their Divine Characters from the original texts of the myriad races. The willpower texts written by humans can also be used to form Divine Characters, but at a much lower rate. Furthermore, most researchers opening these public classes are quite weak. Their willpower texts will naturally be weaker. For example, if I go and read the willpower text of a Skysoar cultivator, I can probably destroy the text with a single willpower clash."
Bai Feng sighed, "Unfortunately, willpower texts are also very important for our faction. We can only cultivate with a large supply of willpower texts. The moment we lose our source of willpower texts, things will be even more difficult for us."
"Teacher, can't you earn enough merit points for your cultivation?"
Bai Feng rolled his eyes and said, "Of course I can earn enough to support my cultivation. But I need to also support the research center. Most of our income has been used on the research center. We also need merit points to train newbies."
He glanced at Su Yu and said, "When you reach the Great Strength Realm, do I need to prepare some blood essence for your body forging? When you reach the Skysoar Realm, do I need to prepare more blood essence for you to forge your body? As for your Divine Characters, are you really going to rely entirely on the public classes?
"You might also require source qi liquid, blood essence, and cultural weapons in the future. None of that is free. Do you think it's fun to accept a student? It's a money sink, do you understand? But we have no choice but to accept students! If we don't, our line will go extinct when all of us die in a few more decades.
"Therefore, after 10 or 20 years when you're finally strong, you will have no choice but to accept a student even if you don't want to. We have to protect our line from extinction. Without new blood, we can't be considered a proper faction. We might as well call ourselves unaffiliated cultivators. All our teachings will die alongside us."
Su Yu scratched his head. He stayed silent because he did not know what to say.
Bai Feng said, "I know what they're going to do. Your martial uncle has a disciple. She is a top 100 student. They will probably make their first move on her. Secondly, your martial uncle has secretly given some original texts to the research center. Nominally, we were borrowing the texts, but in truth...all those texts are now in the fragment room."
Su Yu was stunned. So that was the origin of that huge pile of broken texts?
Bai Feng exhaled and said, "Therefore, we will have to replace what we took moving forward. The original texts we took were worth over ten thousand merit points. To tell you the truth, I had prepared some stuff for you. The mountainbreak bull blood essence is merely an additional surprise. But I'm afraid I'll have to sell the blood essence I had originally prepared for you...
"The low-tier profound-grade cultural weapon I had prepared for you will be sold as well. All the willpower texts I saved for you will be sold as well. I am here to tell you that to plug the hole in the depository, we will use everything we have.
"Apart from the research center, we won't have anything left. No willpower texts, no blood essence, no merit points, and you will no longer be getting the five merit points per month I promised."
Su Yu sank into silence.
Bai Feng calmly said, "You can choose to leave us. I know that Zhao Li has been trying to recruit you as his student. You can change your major to weaponsmithing. He won't reject you. I had not expected them to suddenly intensify their attacks on us. Part of that is my fault, so there is no need for you to be implicated by our struggles."
The previous struggles could be considered a form of tempering. But now, they were trying to take his senior brother's position. They were moving in for the kill. Things would be much more difficult than Bai Feng had imagined.
If Su Yu remained with them, he would probably face more than Liu Hong moving forward. Liu Hong was actually not that terrifying an opponent. The others in his faction were the truly terrifying ones.
].
Su Yu felt his lips turning dry. He was about to say something when Bai Feng's communicator rang.
Bai Feng frowned and answered the call. After listening to the caller for a bit, he coldly said, "Very good. Their attack has actually arrived this fast. Senior Brother, I am the reason all this happened. I will think of a way to solve this. Since they're making their move so fast, they can't blame me for what I'm going to do next..."
Su Yu could hear the caller advising against what Bai Feng wanted to do. Bai Feng could only clench his teeth in anger and said, "In that case, I'll go to the Allheaven Battlefield and find Teacher."
"No! Teacher's whereabouts are unknown. If you go, you will only be the second missing person of our faction."
...
The conversation was brief. Before long, the call ended.
He looked at Su Yu again and smiled forcefully, "Your senior sister...was challenged for her top 100 position earlier today. She was defeated and seriously injured. She will require at least three months to recover from her injuries. She has dropped out of the Top 100 Ranking."
Su Yu frowned, "Teacher, will that affect Martial Uncle and you?"
"Slightly." Bai Feng took a deep breath and said, "If she can't get back into the Top 100 Ranking by the end of the year, your martial uncle's evaluation will drop. At that time, the academy will perform a second review on his performance. When that happens, he will be audited and all the benefits he gave us in his capacity as the head manager of the books depository would be exposed. At that time, it won't matter if we replace what we took. Everything will be revealed by the strict audit."
Su Yu said, "Since everyone is doing this, if they expose us, we will expose everyone else!"
"Childish." Bai Feng said, "The Character Faculty is like their own backyard. They can easily take out a few faculty head command tokens to justify what they did. The rules allow the faculty head to withdraw some books in the depository. We don't have a faculty head at our side. Nothing will happen to them. Without your grandteacher, we don't even have anyone that can speak for us."
Su Yu started scratching his hair in a jittery manner. Why were bad things happening one after another? Something bad happened to him, something bad happened to his martial uncle, and something bad happened to that senior sister he had yet to meet as well.
"Teacher, is there anything I can do?"
"You..."
Bai Feng had a deep smile as he asked, "Are you not going to minor in the Character Faculty?"
"I like Divine Characters." Su Yu shook his head.
He loved the fragment room. He loved the filter room. He was definitely not leaving. There was no way in hell he was going to leave.
"There is indeed really something you can do."
Bai Feng narrowed his eyes and said, "Get into the Top 100 Ranking by the end of the year. Keep challenging those above you and seriously injure all the students of our opponents, allowing your senior sister to pick an easy opponent and get back into the top 100."
"Would that really work?" Su Yu was surprised.
"Of course not. You're not strong enough. Are you not afraid that someone else would challenge and seriously injure you instead? But if you can really do that and have your senior sister pick an easy opponent, the others won't rashly get between us and will let us fight it out instead. That would be the opportunity for us."
"By the end of the year..." Su Yu started calculating.
It was the 5th of August today. Basically, he had less than five months to get into the top 100. Could he do it?
Bai Feng smiled, "So are you confident you can do it? If you are, we can give it a try. If not, I'll need to head to the Allheaven Battlefield as soon as possible and find your grandteacher."
Su Yu scratched his head and said, "There are less than five months. Even the weakest student in the top 100 has the combat prowess of an Infinite Strength cultivator. Can I use external power during the challenge?"
"External power?"
Bai Feng frowned, "What do you mean?"
"Well..." Su Yu hesitated. "My blood character. It can absorb blood, right? After absorbing blood, it will allow me to temporarily unleash more than my usual strength."
Why did that ability sound so familiar? Temporarily unleash more than his usual strength? That ability sounded so familiar that Bai Feng's scalp was going numb.
"What...do you mean by that?"
Su Yu hesitated again. He knew that he couldn't keep this a secret forever unless he decided to not use it in front of others for life.
"After absorbing blood essence, the blood character will provide me with a burst of strength. The strength will be related to the quality of the blood essence. I can unleash the strength of a cultivator at the blood essence's realm. Of course, the realm must be within my body's limit too."
Bai Feng was dumbstruck. He swallowed and asked, "The strength you gain...is it an ordinary power...or is...is it a special ability?"
Su Yu blinked. How did his teacher know about that? Woah, so he was not the only one with this ability? So that wasn't as rare of an ability after all? But it must still be quite rare. Just look at how nervous Bai Feng looked right now.
Su Yu nodded and said, "Yeah. It comes with unique abilities. For example, when I swallowed a drop of iron-winged bird blood essence previously, I can use a ripping ability. Some temporary acupoints will open in my arms, allowing me to use that ability."
"Holy shit!"
...
Bai Feng cursed, causing Su Yu to jump in shock.
Little did he know, Bai Feng was completely dumbfounded.
Holy shit! Holy shit! What was going on? What happened? What was Su Yu talking about? Wasn't that...the racial ability they had researched for many years? Impossible! That was absolutely impossible.
If a single Divine Character could do that, what was the point of all their effort and investment into the research? No way! That kid was definitely lying to him! He refused to believe it!
Bai Feng was in complete disbelief. Impossible! Was his research leaked? Or did such a Divine Character really exist? In that case, what was the point of the research? He was better off trying to form the Divine Character instead.
"Blood character..."
Bai Feng muttered. Was that the same blood character from the willpower text he wrote?
Impossible!
Since when was his willpower text so amazing?
Was he dreaming?