Chapter 403: Teacher And Student (3)

Chapter 403: Teacher And Student (3)

"Talent Fostering Bureau..." Bai Feng smiled, "Director Ji, what's the pay inside the Talent Fostering Bureau?"

"As an intermediate researcher, you can easily get 1,000 merit points per year."

"..."

Bai Feng curled his lips. That was too little. He might be poor, but if he was only going to be paid 1,000 merit points per year, he might as well return to the academy and continue squeezing money out of Liu Hong. But everyone believed that he was already a cripple. Would Liu Hong still be willing to pay him?

He was only asking out of curiosity. He had no interest in joining. With a smile, he said, "Forget it. Thank you for the kind offer, Director Ji. I prefer living the life of a retiree in the academy. Since I'm already a cripple, so be it. My physical body is still at the Skysoar Realm. Even without my characters, I am still a true Skysoar. I am not completely helpless."

Ji Hong did not try to force the issue. After taking another sip of tea, he calmly asked, "I have a question. Since you can split your character technique, can the nodes forming the technique be freely moved around?"

"What?" Bai Feng said, "How is that possible? The nodes are already fixed in place. How can you even move them? It's impossible."

"Are you sure?" Director Ji frowned and said, "Bai Feng, if you can, try to explore this possibility next. This might be the solution for your crippled technique. If you can move the nodes around as well, you will be able to fill the technique with foundational characters even as a Skysoar. In the past, character techniques have always been fixed after reaching the Skysoar Realm. Since you can split your technique..."

Bai Feng explained, "Strictly speaking, it's not a separation of the technique. Rather, it is a reassembly of the technique. I brought the characters with similar properties together to form a new Dragon Slaying Sword. In essence, the technique is still one sword, not multiple swords. Only the different properties of the sword have been shifted about..."

He explained himself. Naturally, he was making things up. Sure, his explanation sounded logical, but that was definitely not the truth.

There was no point in telling the truth right now. He still didn't know Director Ji's true attitude toward the multiple character faction. For now, he should recover and test his theory first and pass on his discovery to his teacher and student in the event that he was successful. As for those outside their faction, they would only come to learn about this when the multiple character faction was ready to make this discovery public."

"Only a shift of properties?"

Ji Hong was disappointed to learn that. Sure, this was still an incredible find, but it was nothing compared to the ability to move the nodes around.

Bai Feng continued lying without a change in expression, "Yeah. It's incredible. With this discovery, the members of our multiple character faction will be able to start shifting the properties of their character techniques and produce multiple weapons. If they become proficient enough with it, they can basically fight like they have multiple character techniques instead of only one."

Hong Tan rolled his eyes and said, "And have their characters destroyed from exertion like you?"

"..."

Bai Feng was speechless. He couldn't even be bothered to argue. He had a specific reason for destroying his characters. Who told his teacher that one had to destroy their characters to do this?

Hong Tan sank into thought for a short while before saying, "Don't worry too much. Back then, I had researched the properties of Divine Characters as well. After you start forming your new characters, I will try to find a way for you to add them into your character technique to replace the characters you lost as long as they share similar properties. Maybe we can still repair your character technique."

Ji Hong looked at Hong Tan in astonishment and asked, "Can the technique still be repaired?"

"We'll have to see. If he can form characters with similar properties, we can give it a try." Hong Tan said, "We can first strip the character out of its properties and try sending a blank character into a node. That way, the repelling force will be much weaker. After giving the character some time to assimilate with the technique, I will return the properties back to it. This is not completely hopeless."

"..."

Ji Hong looked at the two in surprise. He couldn't help but to acknowledge that this pair of teacher and student was truly good at research. Cultural researchers that were actually good at research were already very rare nowadays.

Back during the early days of the path of cultural research, there were a lot more of such individuals around. But as time passed and humanity's knowledge on cultural research increased, fewer and fewer cultural researchers focused on research. That was because most of the things they could discover were already discovered. As a result, the spirit of exploration was lost as most people opted to walk the path of their predecessors.

At that thought, Ji Hong said, "If Bai Feng can really form new characters, it is better if he doesn't form any non-human characters. That is especially true for divine and devil characters."

Bai Feng looked at Ji Hong in astonishment. What? Had this fellow discovered that something was wrong with divine and devil characters as well?

Hong Tan wasn't as surprised. He sighed and said, "So you noticed it as well? That's not surprising, I guess. You're already a Sunmoon. The repelling force has grown stronger, right?"

"Yeah." Ji Hong said, "Yeah. It has grown a lot stronger. I'm afraid the battle 50 years ago had indeed been a conspiracy. Things hadn't always been like this. But now, the divine and devil characters are emanating this powerful repelling force. Because of this repelling force, I nearly failed my breakthrough. Fortunately, during the crucial moment before my breakthrough, I crushed several non-human characters. Only then did I manage to break through."

Blinking his eyes, Bai Feng couldn't help but to ask ,"What are you talking about?"

Hong Tan shook his head, "You won't understand. Whatever, I guess it won't harm you to know more. We have been suspecting that something has been done to all the willpower texts humanity have obtained over the past few decades. The non-human characters formed during the past 50 years, especially the divine and devil characters, will emit a powerful repelling force that greatly increases the difficulty of entering the Sunmoon Realm."

Bai Feng blanked out. Decades? That was wrong! According to his theory, this wasn't something that had only been happening for decades. Rather, this disadvantage of using the divine and devil characters had always existed. But from what they were saying, the repelling force had actually intensified during the past few decades?

"Is this a smokescreen?"

That was Bai Feng's thought. With the trap set 50 years ago, the human race was made to believe that the problem had only started 50 years ago, neglecting the fact that the repelling force had already existed prior to that.

With this ploy, the Sunmoons and Invincibles would not consider the possibility that the characters they had formed before that might also be problematic.

"But...wouldn't this ploy make it even clearer to humanity the disadvantages of using non-human characters? No, wait..."

Bai Feng suddenly realized something. With this ploy, the older generation would fail to step into the Invincible Realm while the newer generation would stop forming divine and devil characters that were stronger than the characters of the other races. That way, they would stop the progress of the older generation and weaken the strength of the newer generation. Was this...a ploy meant to sever humanity's path of cultural research?

"Is this a ploy by the divines and the devils? They have intentionally exposed the fact that there is a ploy against the human race, encouraging all humans to stop using divine and devil characters. That will greatly weaken the strength of humanity's new generation. And the only answer to this is the character technique of the multiple character faction.

"With character techniques, human cultural researchers would still be able to display a powerful combat strength even without the more powerful divine and devil characters. But what a coincidence that the multiple character faction had lost countless experts during that incident. And now, this faction is already on the verge of extinction..."

Suddenly, a new thought appeared in Bai Feng's mind. The suppression of the multiple character faction was not definitely masterminded by the Great Zhou alone. The humans involved might not have done this because of personal grudge alone. The myriad races had probably been working in the shadows to push for the suppression as well.

At that thought, Bai Feng said, "Director Ji, can I ask you a question?"

"Go ahead."

"How many people does the multiple character faction still have?"

"Those at the Skysoar Realm and above?"

"Yeah."

Those below the Skysoar Realm couldn't be considered true multiple character faction members.

Director Ji thought for a bit before answering, "About 500 of them in the entire Human Realm. I don't have the exact number."

"What about 50 years ago?"

"Back then..."

Before Director Ji could answer, Hong Tan said, "Of the 162 cultural research academies in the Human Realm, many of them focused on the path of multiple characters. Excluding those below the Skysoar Realm, we have almost 10,000 members."

Bai Feng's tone turned heavy, "Ten thousand members. We have lost almost all of them."

They had lost a large majority of their members.

Hong Tan nodded, "During the battle back then, too many of our experts had perished. We were weakened too much to rebuild the faction from that. Over the years, some of our members had died from old age, some had been killed at the battlefield, some had been crippled, some had gone crazy, and so on. Thus, our numbers have never stopped dwindling."

Bai Feng frowned, "Is it even possible for so many of them to die over 50 years? These are all experts at the Skysoar Realm and above. Isn't the death rate a tad bit too high?"

Director Ji also frowned, "The Allheaven Battlefield is never a peaceful place. Over the past decades, the various human prefectures had fought over 1,000 battles. And the total death count of warriors is more than 100 times higher than what your faction has suffered. Even when compared against only the cultural researchers, the deaths of your faction members only occupy a small portion of the total number."

"But the rate is too high in proportion to the number of our members."

Yes, 9,500 deaths over a period of 50 years weren't that much. Exactly, that wasn't much. That was basically less than 200 deaths per year. Split among the 36 human prefectures, each prefecture would only suffer around 6 or 7 deaths per year. Was that really a lot? No!

The issue was the rate of it in comparison with their actual numbers. Each year, Great Xia would lose more than 10,000 combatants in the battlefield. And a lot of these dead combatants were cultural researchers. Losing hundreds of cultural researchers per year was perfectly normal.

Just the Great Xia Cultural Research Academy alone would supply dozens of new cultural researchers to the military. And with the addition of the other cultural research academies, they had been able to keep replenishing the numbers. As one of the most warlike human prefectures, one could say that Great Xia was actually coping with their casualties very well.

And when one looked at the numbers of casualties as a whole, the losses of the multiple character faction was completely insignificant. But Bai Feng believed that their faction was definitely being deliberately targeted. He couldn't let this slide. He had to start investigating this matter after this. Perhaps he could really discover something.

For example, in what battles had these people perished? Which Invincibles were in charge of the battlefield during those battles? Perhaps he might even be able to deduce the identity of that human traitor from this. Bai Feng stopped talking. He did not dare to say more.

Director Ji looked at Bai Feng with a frown, but he said nothing else. Hong Tan had a pensive look on his face. Yes, the death rate was really too high. Previously, he had not thought too much about it. After all, they had only lost a few cultivators each year per prefecture. He had not suspected anything.

He had only blamed their dwindling numbers on their failure in passing on their teachings. If they had been able to recruit a large number of new members each year, then these deaths would look even more inconspicuous. But with Bai Feng's words, he was also starting to grow suspicious.

Moving on from the topic, Hong Tan asked, "Are you coming back with me or are you staying here to heal up?"

"I'm going back."

Bai Feng replied unhesitatingly. He naturally had to leave. Away from his own people, it was simply too hard to know who was the friend and who was the enemy. He was starting to understand why his teacher and senior brother had been keeping silent about their suspicions.

Even Bai Feng himself was starting to look at everyone around him with suspicion. He couldn't even be sure if this Ji Hong was also an underling of that mysterious Invincible. If he was reacting this way, what if everyone else knew about it? At that point, humanity would no longer be able to trust each other. It was human nature to be mistrustful.

And what if the Invincibles started suspecting each other? That would bring even more troubles. It was no wonder that so many people were turning a blind eye despite having their suspicions. Without solid evidence to capture the culprit, there was really no need to spread the news about this. It would only serve to create chaos among fellow humans.

Hong Tan lifted Bai Feng up and looked at Ji Hong, "Thank you for this, Director Ji."

Ji Hong waved his hand indifferently. Hong Tan did not tarry and left with Bai Feng.

After the two left, Director Ji muttered to himself, "Is the rate too high?"

Yes, it was high. But the actual number of deaths wasn't that high. They had lost over 9,000 members over a period of 50 years. And this included those who had died of old age, died from cultivation deviation, and so on.

When compared with the total number of dead human cultural researchers over the same period of time, the deaths of the multiple character members were too insignificant. And the multiple character faction was only so small due to the loss of their legacy after the battle 50 years ago.

Previously, Director Ji had not even thought about this. Everyone had instinctively believed that with a severed inheritance, it was natural for their numbers to dwindle down. While rapping on his desk, Director Ji sank into thought. He decided to not report it for now. He would perform some investigations himself first.

He might really be able to discover something pursuing this line of investigation.