Chapter 302: Five Elemental Cultural Art (2)
Xia Huyou was surprised that Su Yu could stay in the grotto for so long. He was also looking forward to Su Yu's appearance. Tomorrow, the first new student to challenge the Top 100 Ranking this year would appear. Many people were waiting to enjoy the show that would unfold. It would be a pity if Su Yu still remained in seclusion when that happened.
"That fellow is probably already at the seventh-stage Great Strength Realm."
Xia Huyou reckoned that Su Yu might even be stronger than that. And Su Yu probably has more than three or four Divine Characters.
In terms of strength, Wan Mingze was probably the only one stronger than Su Yu. Not even Hu Qiusheng could be Su Yu's match. As for Jia Mingzhen...Xia Huyou cursed at the thought of that person.
He couldn't find any information about that fellow. He had been able to gather information about the other people in Jia Mingzhen's group. But the information seemed wrong. According to the information he had, they were not supposed to be that strong and mysterious.
"Their appearance might be Principal Wan's handiwork."
Xia Huyou decided to forget about them. Those fellows felt too mysterious. Thus, he had never considered them as proper new students. As far as Xia Huyou was concerned, the strongest proper new student was Wan Mingze. That fellow was talented, strong, and good at concealing his trump cards.
The second strongest used to be Hu Qiusheng. Old Hu was someone who had grown in power by relying on schemes. This grandson was probably quite good at that as well. Xia Huyou suspected that Hu Qiusheng had probably hidden a lot of his strength as well.
As for Zheng Yunhui, he had previously defeated Su Yu, but that was an extremely difficult victory. It was hard to say if Zheng Yunhui was still the stronger one.
Su Yu had purchased resources worth nearly 20,000 merit points from him. Xia Huyou did not believe that Su Yu would not grow stronger after such a massive purchase.
20,000 merit points.
Just the blood essence Su Yu had bought was worth over 10,000 merit points.
"Wan Mingze, Su Yu, Hu Qiusheng, Zheng Yunhui, Xia Chan, Zheng Yunhui, Zhao Shiji..."
Xia Huyou listed one name after another, ranking them accordingly. As for Zheng Hao, Xia Huyou guessed that he was probably as strong as Zhao Shiji. Including Xia Huyou himself, their batch was really capable of snatching the bottom 10 positions of the ranking.
One ought to know that the Top 100 Ranking did not contain only students of a single year. Students between 18 to 30 could all enter that ranking. Thus, 12 batches of students could compete in the ranking.
Apart from those who had managed to enter the Skysoar Realm, the strongest of the students were all in the ranking. In the past, having the bottom 10 positions completely occupied by new students in their first year was impossible.
"Great Xia War Academy, Martial Dragon War Academy, Nine Heavens Cultural Research Academy...all these academies have also accepted quite a lot of geniuses this year. That is especially true for the Great Xia War Academy. They have a super freak this year..."
According to the information Xia Huyou had gathered, a lot of freaks had appeared this year. But the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy still had the highest number of freaks.
"When the martial academy visited in the past, the cultural research academy would be the one to suffer. This year, however...The results would probably drive Principal Zheng crazy."
People like Zheng Yunhui from Old Zheng's family and Zhao Shiji from the Zhao Family should have entered the war academy according to past conventions. People like Wan Mingze should have entered the Knowledge Seeking Realm.
As Xia Huyou thought about all that, he suddenly thought of Su Yu again. That fellow had no background yet was extremely talented. This was a good target to rope into his side.
"Cousin Yuwen is returning soon. I need to start fighting for it as well."
Not fighting for what he wanted was the same as giving up. And he did not see himself doing something like that. After all, that position had been passed down from his grandfather to his father. Sure, Cousin Yuwen was also from the Xia Family, but Xia Huyou was still unwilling to see the position being passed to Xia Yuwen without even trying to get it himself.
"Su Yu, Bai Feng..."
Thinking about all that, Xia Huyou slowly drifted into sleep. While he was sleeping, his willpower started rippling. All around him, numerous discarded willpower texts were emitting waves of willpower.
He was the grandson of an Invincible expert. He was the son of the prefect. How could someone like him not have ample cultivation resources?
Others might not have cultural arts that could be cultivated in the Great Strength and Infinite Strength Realms, but the Xia Family had one such art. Of course, this art did not have a lot of acupoints. It only required 18 acupoints. If this was a source art, then it would be a completely useless cultivation method. But since it was a cultural art that could be practiced in the Great Strength Realm, it was a treasure.
Not even Xia Chan was allowed to cultivate that art. It was only taught to the children of the direct branch. Or to be precise, it was only taught to the future prefect. This art was meant to help the future prefect grow beyond his peers, granting him the ability to stand above all in his generation.
While Xia Huyou was sleeping soundly, his willpower continued growing. His willpower was even showing signs of overflowing.
Bai Feng once told Su Yu that the sea of willpower was akin to a glass of water. The moment one's willpower overflowed, one would step into the Skysoar Realm.
Some people would be stuck below the Skysoar Realm their whole life.
Some people could reach the Skysoar Realm after only six months in an academy.
Everyone knew that the Zhou Family of Great Zhou was filled with experts. But was that family truly comparable to Great Xia's Xia Family?
Perhaps after Xia Longwu left his current seclusion, the Xia Family would welcome their second Invincible. Apart from his grandfather and father, the Xia Family also had a Sunmoon expert that the public was not aware of. Not many people knew just how strong his second granduncle was.
While Xia Huyou was sleeping, someone appeared high in the sky. Wan Tiansheng was here to find Su Yu. But he found that the kid was not in the Mental Tempering Garden. And the kid wasn't in the research center either. In that case, the kid was probably in a grotto. Those grottos were the only places in the academy his senses couldn't reach.
"Xia Huyou..." Wan Tiansheng looked at a certain building beneath him and smiled, "You don't resemble your father, but you sure do resemble that fatty."
He shook his head and forgot about Xia Huyou. For some reason, the people from the Xia Family tended to develop to the extremes in one direction. The dumb ones were incredibly dumb. The shameless ones were also incredibly shameless.
Since Su Yu wasn't around, he had no reason to stay here any longer. His body flickered and vanished.
On the 3rd. Around 3 AM in the morning.
Su Yu stood before the exit of the grotto.
He now had 153 opened acupoints in total. During this seclusion session, he had activated over 30 new pages. All in all, he had activated over 80 pages in the book. However, he did not spare too much attention on some of those pages. It wasn't a good idea to bite more than he could chew.
He was still not wealthy enough to try every single cultivation method and racial ability in his book. After all, he had to pay for each activation. He should know when to stop.
With a ninth-stage Great Strength Realm cultivation, a powerful physical body, and a middle-tier heaven-grade martial technique, Su Yu was confident that he could probably enter even the Infinite Strength Ranking of the war academy relying on his physical cultivation alone.
"Top 100 Ranking..." Su Yu muttered as he withdrew his source qi and stepped through the exit.
Inside the small building.
As usual, Old Huang volunteered his help to Su Yu, "Let me help you seal—"
He suddenly stopped talking. Damn it! Why was the kid's source qi not leaking this time?
He looked at Su Yu. Su Yu looked at him. Su Yu smiled.
Am I amazing? I can now use my deceit character to seal my own acupoints. What else can you say, old man? Trying to pull the same trick on me again aren’t you, old man?
Old Huang's face turned stiff. Shortly after, he recovered and smiled, "Is the martial technique in the Mountainsea Peace Seeking Stratagem capable of hiding your source qi as well? That is quite a good effect. Truly worthy of being a heaven-grade technique. Not even I can see through it..."
Su Yu was alarmed.
His expression changed slightly as he said, "What are you talking about, teacher? I don't understand..."
Old Huang calmly said, "What else could it be? Many years ago, when Hong Tan first wrote that Mountainsea peaceseeking Stratagem, I already discovered the hidden martial technique. I couldn't be bothered to ask for the book from Hong Tan. Otherwise, I would have obtained the technique long ago. How would you have the chance to cultivate it today?"
Old Huang smiled, "People from our generation care a lot more about freedom and letting things happen naturally. We won't waste our time trying to take things that do not belong to us. It's only a heaven-grade technique. Heh. Do you think I don't have something like that?"
"..."
Su Yu was dumbstruck. Holy shit! Was this old man really aware of that technique? How magnanimous! He didn't even have an interest in heaven-grade techniques?
"Is...my grandteacher aware of it?"
"That guy?" Old Huang said with disdain, "Of course he's clueless. He might be stronger than me, but his power of observation is far inferior to me. By the way, what is the tier of this technique?"
"Middle-tier. The best of the middle-tier with 132 acupoints."
Su Yu answered honestly. Since this old man was already aware of it, there was no need for him to hide anything. He had previously thought that apart from himself, the suanni was the only person aware of this secret.
What a generous old man. Su Yu's respect for Old Huang had increased to a whole new level. Old Huang could remain indifferent even when facing something left behind by an Invincible expert. What an incredible person.
Old Huang was stroking his beard when he heard Su Yu's reply and accidentally pulled a few strands off. But he maintained a completely calm expression as he blew the strands off indifferently.
Inwardly, he was cursing.
Holy fuck!
Middle-tier heaven-grade technique!
That was incredibly valuable.
If he had really noticed it many years ago, he would have taken it for himself! There would definitely be nothing left for this kid.
Beside him, Old Nie resisted the urge to laugh. That would only embarrass Old Huang more. And things would be awkward between them. After all, they were fellow colleagues.
Old Huang forced himself to stay calm as he said, "Not bad. But I need to warn you that you can't bring everything into the grotto. You can easily cause accidents doing that. Be very careful with Eternal characters. The moment you bring one in, the grotto and the character might end up repelling each other. If you end up destroying the grotto doing so, not even your grandteacher would be able to pay for the losses."
Su Yu's face turned awkward. He had done no such thing! Wait, he might really have a true Eternal character in his sea of willpower...no, that wasn't right. If humanity did not have a true Eternal cultural researcher and true human Eternal character, what was the book in his head, then? He was starting to get confused.
But since Old Huang had learned enough to give him this advice, he could only stay silent with an awkward expression.
Old Huang smiled and said, "So did you manage to learn that technique?"
"Yeah. I finished learning the first move."
"Not bad." Old Huang nodded calmly. Yes. This time, he was really calm. It was not surprising for Su Yu to finish learning the technique after staying in the grotto for more than one day.
"Go back. Because of you, the grotto has been closed for more than a day. You are not allowed to visit anymore this month."
Realization hit Su Yu. He had been wondering why he hadn't seen anyone after more than one day in the grotto. So the grotto had been closed?
"Thank you, Teachers."
Su Yu was very grateful. For the very first time, he felt like the academy was truly a place of learning. The teachers here have the grace a teacher should have. For him, these two were much more reliable than the teachers from the single character faction. In fact, they felt even more reliable than his actual teacher, Bai Feng.
Before leaving, he asked, "Teacher, how many acupoints does the Myriad Text Sutra have?"
"There is no acupoint involved." Old Huang replied, "That is a cultivation method for cultural researchers. The cultivation of cultural researchers is different. Instead of acupoints, we open soul apertures for our cultivation. For your level, you can understand it as something similar to acupoints. But in truth, it is a lot more complicated than that. The soul apertures are related to the sea of willpower. You will understand in the future."
Su Yu nodded. He curiously asked, "Then are these willpower cultivation methods separated into different grades as well?"
"Of course. And the classifications are similar. And like cultural weapons that are 10 times the price of martial weapons of the same level, willpower cultivation methods are also very valuable. For example, yellow-grade source cultivation methods are probably worthless for most warriors, but a yellow-grade willpower cultivation method is extremely valuable for cultural researchers.
"The Myriad Text Sutra requires 72 soul apertures. Strictly speaking, it is only a top-tier profound-grade cultivation method. But it is much more valuable than the War God Art. After all, willpower cultivation methods are rare."
Su Yu nodded. Inwardly, he was alarmed.
A single cultivation method of the five elemental race was not as good as the Myriad Text Sutra. But all five of them...no, just two of them would already be equal to the Myriad Text Sutra.
If he could combine all five of them into one, then the resulting cultivation method would be extremely valuable! He might really end up cultivating this cultivation method instead of the Myriad Text Sutra that everyone else seemed to be cultivating.
"Is the water guy aware of the way to combine all five methods? Would the five elementals cultivate the cultivation method of a different element?"
Su Yu was unsure. He decided to ask the water guy when he had the time. Perhaps the five elementals could not cultivate the method of a different element. According to what the water guy told him previously, they didn't even know what acupoints they opened when cultivating. Instead, they felt like their bodies were made of countless acupoints and they were able to innately use these acupoints.
Su Yu decided to stop thinking about all that. Just as he was about to leave, Old Huang said, "It's the 3rd today. The Top 100 Ranking has been refreshed. Some people might challenge it. You can go take a look."
"Got it. Thanks, Teacher."
Su Yu was tempted. Since it was already the 3rd, he could consider taking a look at the challenge matches.