Chapter 455: I Understand! (1)
Wan Tiansheng moved on from the topic.
He said, "You are very cautious. It has been a long time since my invitation. You have waited until Hong Tan is back before seeing me because you're afraid that I would harm you?"
"Of course not!" Su Yu flashed a simple and honest smile as he said, "You misunderstand me, Principal. I have merely been afraid of troubling you. I was worried that a meeting between us would cause the single character faction to misunderstand you, Principal! I don't want them to think that you're siding with me!"
Wan Tiansheng laughed. He stood up slowly. Suddenly, Su Yu's vision blurred. Before he knew it, Wan Tiansheng was already standing right in front of him.
"Su Yu, do you know why I have invited you here?"
"No."
Su Yu answered with his head lowered. This geezer-cough, cough. This mighty and great principal was too strong. Too powerful.
Wan Tiansheng smiled, "I wish to perform a little experiment. And you are the perfect test subject."
Su Yu's heart chilled.
"Scared?"
"Not at all! The principal is wise and mighty..."
Wan Tiansheng smiled, "Wise and mighty? You must have scolded me a lot in your mind, right?"
"I wouldn't dare."
"You wouldn't dare, but you would love to, right?"
"Nope!"
Su Yu's head was hurting. Why was the principal pursuing this line of conversation?
Once again, Wan Tiansheng laughed. But when Su Yu heard the laugh, his heart became even colder. Just what was the principal planning to do?
"It is something beneficial to you." Wan Tiansheng said, "You have formed a lot of characters. You must have like seven characters already, right?"
Su Yu was slightly alarmed that the principal knew so much. He nodded, "Yes."
"Are all of them human characters?"
"Yes..."
"So you are only capable of forming human characters?"
"Well...you see....I..."
"You don't need to explain yourself." Wan Tiansheng said, "You have your own fortuitous encounters. Like what you told Zhou Pingsheng previously, each expert has their own fortuitous encounters. I am not interested in your fortuitous encounters."
Wan Tiansheng then smiled, "That's good to hear. Even without hearing this from me, you are probably going to be stuck with human characters. But it's better for you to know this. It will be much better to continue forming only human characters. Hong Tan is someone near the Sunmoon Realm. He must have mentioned that the non-human characters are making it hard for him to advance, right?"
Su Yu nodded. Hong Tan wasn't the one who had told him that. Even prior to Hong Tan's return, Bai Feng had already reached such a conclusion. But there was no need for him to mention that to the principal.
Wan Tiansheng said, "The non-human characters might be problematic. I even suspect that there are some issues with human characters. But I still think it's worth trying to form only human characters and see what happens."
See what happens?
Su Yu couldn't resist asking, "Principal, you mean..."
"Did you know that up until now, not a single human Sunmoon has reached that realm with a human character as their main Divine Character?"
Su Yu nodded.
He was aware of that.
There was no Eternal human character in existence. To be more precise, these so-called Eternal characters were not at the Eternal Realm. Rather, they were at the Sunmoon Realm. And not a single human had advanced into the Sunmoon Realm relying on human characters.
It was said that the fifth principal had several human characters at the Sunmoon Realm. But none of those characters was his main Divine Character. Instead, he had made his advancement by growing his entire character technique instead of any single character.
Wan Tiansheng said, "I am wondering if a human character will become extremely strong upon reaching the Eternal Realm."
Su Yu asked with hesitation, "Principal...not even you have an Eternal human character?"
There was no doubt that Wan Tiansheng was very strong.
Wan Tiansheng said, "The Eternal I'm talking about is not the Eternal you're thinking about. I'm talking about the true Eternal Realm. What you know as Eternal characters should be termed Sunmoon characters instead."
Su Yu remained silent.
Did that mean that Wan Tiansheng actually had Sunmoon human characters?
So the principal was really at the Sunmoon Realm or beyond. And the principal's main Divine Character was probably not a human character. Even with the limitations of having non-human characters, he had still been able to reach the Sunmoon Realm. Was this another fifth principal in making?
How terrifying. As far as he knew, the fifth principal was the only person known to have grown his human characters into the Sunmoon Realm.
"Principal, you mean..."
"Cultivate hard." Wan Tiansheng had a profound look in his eyes as he said, "You're very outstanding. Your character technique has a lot of foundational characters. I am curious about one thing. When dozens of human characters are brought together, will they be able to break through a certain limitation?"
Su Yu's heart thumped. He maintained a calm expression as he said, "Principal, my character technique might have a lot of characters, but I can't compare with the fifth principal..."
"Oh?" Wan Tiansheng said, "Then I must have sensed wrongly. Well, in that case, you're not worth nurturing. You may leave now."
Su Yu turned around without any hesitation.
Sure principal. Goodbye.
He had zero interest in spending more time with the principal. He simply felt like he had no secrets in front of this principal. This was too terrifying.
Wan Tiansheng: "..."
He felt like he had been slapped in the face. The kid was definitely aware of what he was going to say next. He was going to say that only someone with a character technique with a high number of foundational characters would be worth investing in.
He had simply left those words unsaid. Was the kid really leaving? This was the very first time a student had done something like this to him.
Su Yu walked silently, but shortly after, he was stunned. Despite how he walked, Wan Tiansheng remained in front of him. In fact, he was walking nearer and nearer to the geezer-cough, cough, to the principal.
Su Yu swallowed and took a step back nervously. He awkwardly said, "Principal...you...I...uhm..."
Wan Tiansheng stared at Su Yu silently. After a while, he smiled, "Don't be nervous. Su Yu, I only want to see the true potential of the human race. Sure, I can look for someone else. But since you're such a suitable person, I won't bother."
"Principal..." Su Yu calmed himself and laughed dryly before asking, "What should I do, then?"
"Form your characters as fast as possible and complete your character technique." Wan Tiansheng said, "Don't waste your time bickering with these people. The Great Xia Cultural Research Academy is only a small part of the Myriad Realms. Across the Myriad Realms, there are countless experts and geniuses in existence. It is pointless to spend all your time and effort competing against the single character faction.
"I have already planned everything out for you and the other genius students. If you want to compete and kill, there is no need to do so in the academy. The Myriad God House of the divine race, the Allheaven Purgatory of the devil race, all these are the places you guys should be fighting at. Those are the true places for you to showcase your strength."
"I've got no money..."
Those words had just left Su Yu's mouth when Wan Tiansheng smirked, "No money? Do you want me to confiscate the dozens of willpower texts you have collected?"
"..."
Su Yu wanted to curse in his mind...but he quickly gave up on that thought.
Just what was this principal trying to do here? The principal was basically telling him to cultivate and don't get involved in all the internal struggles without giving him any benefits. Just what was wrong with this principal?
Leaving the academy on missions to earn money was not possible for him. If he had to stop taking actions against the single character faction as well, was he supposed to starve to death?
Without resources, he wouldn't be able to do anything. Was he supposed to sit around and wait for death to come knocking?
Wan Tiansheng smiled, "It's not wise to be too greedy. Digest what you already have before asking for more. If you really want to leave the academy on missions, just do it. You can go anywhere you want in the Human Realm. Just don't go to the Allheaven Battlefield."
"But..." Su Yu said worriedly, "What can I do if people come after me right after I leave the city? My teacher is going to leave soon. My grandteacher is entering seclusion. My martial uncle can't leave..."
"If just leaving the academy is enough to kill you, that simply means that you are fated to die either way."
Su Yu was speechless. He was also slightly furious. He knew that he was facing Wan Tiansheng, someone suspected of being a high-stage Sunmoon, he couldn't resist questioning with a furious tone, "Principal, are you telling me that I should stop my quarrel with the single character faction and obediently wait for death?"
He felt like Wan Tiansheng had called him over just to make things difficult for him. He couldn't understand why a super expert like that was going through the trouble of making a puny Mental Tempering Stage student's life hard.
He was not allowed to participate in internal struggles, he was not given any benefits, and he was expected to rely on himself for cultivation resources...Did the principal think that he was a Mountainsea or a Sunmoon?
Wan Tiansheng smiled, "You're getting angry? Youngsters like you are indeed impatient."
Su Yu said nothing. But inwardly, he felt like he was already being really patient.
"I'm not saying that you should stop competing entirely. Competition is the driver of growth. I am only reminding you to not forget your true pursuit: strength.
"As long as you're a cultivator, your ultimate goal would be strength. It doesn't matter if you're a cultural researcher or a warrior. It's the same. It's fine if you want to spend your time studying cultivation methods or deciphering foreign cultures. But I also hope that you don't get overly obsessed with all that. As for leaving the academy on missions, that is actually a way to temper yourself.
"How about this? I can give you a personal guarantee that those at the Mountainsea Realm and above won't lay a hand on you."
"..."
Su Yu rolled his eyes. Don't joke around! He was only at the Mental Tempering Stage. Did people even need to send a Mountainsea over if they wanted him dead? A skysoar was enough to take his little life!
Wan Tiansheng smiled, "Don't you have a couple of beasts in your research center? Hong Tan has already registered them as mounts. Why don't you take them out for a stroll? Reach the Skysoar Realm earlier. Don't let these pointless affairs delay your cultivation. We don't have that much time left..."
What?
Su Yu suddenly caught on to something important.
He focused on Wan Tiansheng.
But the principal ignored him. Wan Tiansheng walked to the window and looked outside before sighing, "In truth, things are still quite peaceful here in the Human Realm. As for the battle with the myriad races, people have been saying that humanity is declining. But we are actually not weak. Our darkest moment was that period of time over 300 years ago when the myriad races invaded us. That was a true crisis. At that time, the entire human race was united. One Invincible after another rose up.
"We reached the peak of our power over 300 years ago when we pushed the invaders out of the Human Realm. Alas, humanity has been in a constant decline since then."
"Decline?" Su Yu asked doubtfully, "Are we declining?"
"What do you know?" Wan Tiansheng said, "Back then, dozens of Invincible experts had appeared in a short frame of time. But after over 300 years, very few new Invincibles had appeared from the human race. And during this period of time, a lot of human Invincibles had perished. We have not been able to replenish the numbers of our Invincibles."
"And that's also the case for our Sunmoons. This trend has been continuing for a very long time. Everyone is not stupid. A lot of people have noticed this. That was why the various prefectures started competing against each other to unify the Human Realm under a new order. Perhaps with unity achieved, we can produce more Invincibles than before..."
Su Yu scratched his head. All that was too far from him. It was pointless to tell him all that.
Wan Tiansheng smiled, "It isn't pointless. Listen to me. Some human experts intend to change our current situation. But some human experts disagree. There are multiple popular opinions. One of these opinions is very interesting..."
"What is it?"
"They suggested that the human race should stop producing new Invincibles."
Su Yu blanked out. What?