Chapter 347: Expanded Mutual Aid Club (1)
Inside the fragment room, Su Yu was still unaware that his grandteacher was on the way back. He had basically assumed that he had already lost this grandteacher.
Since nobody knew when this grandteacher would be back, he would just pretend that his grandteacher was in seclusion. They had never seen each other so even if they did meet, they wouldn't recognize each other anyway. He was busy cultivating. He was cultivating without rest.
Drop after drop of the five elemental blood essence was used and one aperture after another was opened. However, there wasn't much growth in terms of his willpower. He had already used most of his willpower to temper his apertures, so his willpower had remained at around 70 percent full.
Late on the night of the 7th, Su Yu exhaled deeply. He had finished all his blood essence. The five elemental blood essence he had bought with 3,000 merit points had been used up. It had only been a day and a night.
With 60 drops of blood essence, he had opened 20 apertures. On average, he had opened one aperture with every three drops. The speed was decent, but like what happened when he opened his acupoints, there were a lot of impurities in his apertures, making them look somewhat dim and clogged. He felt like there was a need to purify these apertures.
The clearbright bird blood essence could purify source qi, but it couldn't do so for willpower. Su Yu had no idea what he could do to purify his willpower. He had yet to discover a suitable source or cultural art with such a function. Perhaps he could spend some time going through all the pages he had unlocked to look for one.
The 20 apertures he had opened were still working independently. They had yet to be linked into a single system. However, they were good enough to actively absorb some willpower. Even now, these apertures were slowly growing Su Yu's willpower.
"Things sure feel different with apertures opened."
Su Yu was impressed. With his apertures opened, even his senses were turning sharper. After opening so many acupoints, he was starting to encounter situations where his brain moved slower than the instincts of his physical body.
But with the opening of his apertures, this sense of imbalance had faded considerably. He now felt like he was capable of moving at an even faster speed than before.
And for his Time technique, speed was still its core. To pursue a speed that could give one an illusion of the passage of time. To pursue a speed that could crush Mountainsea cultivators and suppress Sunmoon cultivators.
"Since I'm out of five elemental blood essence, I can only slowly open my other apertures. Maybe I can ask Xia Huyou if he can get me more blood essence..."
The five elemental race was a small race. Generally, killing an Infinite Strength five elemental cultivator would grant one around 10 drops of blood essence. Su Yu had consumed 70 drops of their blood essence in total, which was basically the same as killing seven of their Infinite Strength cultivators.
Of course, Su Yu believed that he had probably caused the deaths of even more mountainbreak bulls. He had probably consumed nearly 1,000 drops of mountainbreak bull blood essence by now. That was basically nearly 100 mountainbreak bulls dying to satisfy his need for blood essence.
At times, he even wondered if the mountainbreak bull race had lost an entire 100-man squad in the Allheaven Battlefield because of him.
"I still need to open more acupoints and cultivate the Soul Devouring Art."
The Soul Devouring Art required 36 acupoints, but many of those acupoints overlapped with what he already opened. Thus, he only needed to open 12 additional acupoints.
...
Prior to meeting Xia Huyou, Su Yu paid a visit to the Prosperous Red Tea House.
Second floor.
This was already a usual meeting place for them.
Hu Zongji was there waiting for Su Yu. The moment the door opened, Hu Zongji smiled, "You have truly turned into a superstar in the academy."
It was already late at night. The tea house was already closed for the day. When Su Yu looked at the stairs curiously, Hu Zongji explained, "I already booked the whole place for us. The shopkeeper is a distant relative of the Hu Family. He looked pretty miserable before this so I found him a job here."
Su Yu nodded, "That's good to hear. I'm not afraid of being recognized, but since too many people know me, you can get implicated easily."
Hu Zongji nodded. He naturally understood that. He wouldn't have gotten the tea house under his control before their meeting otherwise. The two walked into a private room.
Once inside, Su Yu went straight to the point, "Did you find out about something? Is that why you're suddenly asking to meet?"
"Yeah." Hu Zongji nodded, "Yesterday, the single character faction elders were all missing from the academy. Only Faculty Head Zhou is left. Last night, Elder Li returned. He seemed to have sustained some injuries."
"Missing?"
Su Yu was surprised. Missing elders and an injured elder. What was happening? They were not on the battlefield. They were within Great Xia.
Su Yu's face turned solemn as he said, "What do you know? Tell me more."
Hu Zongji whispered, "I don't know the exact details. Not even my second granduncle knows that. But apart from the single character faction elders, some other elders have gone missing as well.
"There are 42 elders in the academy. 36 of them are Mountainsea cultivators. Principal Wan is excluded in that calculation. Eight of these elders are in the Allheaven Battlefield. Including Elder Hong, nine of them are away."
Basically a quarter of the academy elders were in the Allheaven Battlefield. That wasn't a big number.
Hu Zongji continued, "Of the remaining 27 Mountainsea elders, 8 are in seclusion. Only 19 of them are still active in the academy. Including the principal, we have 20 active Mountainsea cultivators in the academy."
Su Yu nodded again. Hu Zongji continued, "Yesterday, at least 6 of the 20 active Mountainsea cultivators departed at the same time. I heard that from my second granduncle. These days, I have been visiting him often. After hearing about something that might be related to you, I decided to stay a while longer when I learned of this."
Six Mountainsea cultivators had left at the same time. Did something major happen? What happened? Was that related to him?
Su Yu shook his head. That was unlikely. How would that be related to him? So many elders were gone. Were they out attacking the Myriad Race Cult?
"Do you know anything else?"
Hu Zongji thought for a bit and said, "I really don't know the exact details, but I know that when they left...no, to be precise, when Elder Li returned injured, my second granduncle heard of it and made one remark, wondering why had that person decided to return and bring chaos..."
"Return?"
Su Yu muttered. Who was returning? Clearly, Hu Youhui knew something and even knew that person. Someone was returning? Who was it?
Hu Zongji said, "This might be related to your faction so I'm letting you know just in case."
Su Yu looked at Hu Zongji with an odd expression. True. If the matter was entirely unrelated to him, there was no need for Hu Zongji to tell him all that.
"It's related to my faction? The multiple character faction?"
"Yeah." Hu Zongji nodded, "I tried to indirectly ask more from my second granduncle. He didn't tell me much, but he did talk about some expelled individuals that are not worth mentioning. When I thought about it, I started suspecting if this is related to the multiple character faction members that were expelled 50 years ago."
Su Yu's face changed. Expelled! That was such a familiar term. Liu Wenyan! Su Yu frowned. Were they talking about Teacher Liu? That shouldn't be the case, right? Teacher Liu had been in Nanyuan. And he didn't recall his Teacher Liu talking about returning. But when he tried calling his Teacher Liu the day before, his call couldn’t connect.
At that thought, Su Yu said, "Give me a moment."
He then took out his communicator and called a number.
It was quite late. After a long wait, someone finally answered with a grumpy tone, "Who is this?"
"Uncle Chen!"
Su Yu was relieved. It was fine as long as the call was connected. He said, "Uncle Chen, it's me. Su Yu."
"It's Yu?" Chen Qinghe was roused awake. He hurriedly asked, "Yu, did anything happen?"
Why was Su Yu calling him in the middle of the night?
"Uncle Chen, I tried calling my teacher but the calls haven't been getting through. Since you're in Nanyuan, do you know if he's fine?"
"Are you talking about Instructor Liu?"
"Yes."
"He's fine. But he hasn't been around for the past two days, I think." Chen Qinghe sounded unsure, "Some of my subordinates even told me yesterday that Principal Wang drove his shitty truck out of the city. Instructor Liu was with him as well. I don't know if both of them had left the city."
"Left the city? Do you know where they're going?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe they went to Tianshui to do some shopping?" Chen Qinghe said, "How about this? I'll ask around for you. I have some friends in the school."
"Thank you very much, Uncle Chen."
"You're welcome."
The call ended. It was late at night, but after thinking about it, Chen Qinghe still decided to make some calls.
...
A few minutes later, Su Yu's communicator rang.
"Yu, I asked around. Both Principal Wang and Instructor Liu have applied for a long leave. All their lessons are being taught by other teachers. Nobody knows what they are doing with the long leave."
"Ok. Got it. Thank you, Uncle Chen. Sorry for the trouble."
After a short chat, Su Yu ended the call. Teacher Liu was no longer in Nanyuan! Su Yu frowned. The single character faction elders had suddenly departed. Someone had even been injured. Clearly, there had been a battle somewhere.
Could it be...that shouldn't be the case, right? Were these people really gutsy enough to make a move inside Great Xia? Teacher Liu was only in the Skysoar Realm. Were these Mountainsea elders going to personally make a move against him? Would they?
Despite all the thoughts running through his mind, Su Yu maintained a calm expression as he said, "Thank you, Zongji. Thank you for this information."
"Don't mention it." Hu Zongji said, "I'm just doing my part. I'm glad the information is helpful for you. Don't be too worried, Su Yu. To speak the truth, with our strength, there's nothing we can do anyway. If something is really happening, it is better for you to stay in the academy. I'm worried that something bad might happen to you if you leave the academy."
With Wan Tiansheng around, Su Yu would be safe as long as he remained in the academy. Outside the academy, things might be fine inside the city. But the moment he left the city, he would only be able to rely on himself.
"I understand." Su Yu nodded, "Help me ask about Di Feng and that Qiu Yi person who is ranked 24th in the ranking."
From the single character faction, there were four students from Zhou Mingren's line in the top 100.
Apart from Huang Qifeng, there were three other students. Di Feng was previously ranked 9th and was the strongest of the bunch. After that was Qiu Yi. Both of them were students of Zhou Pingsheng.
The third person was Hu Wensheng's student and Chen Qi's senior brother. But that person maintained a very low profile and could be hardly seen in the academy.