Chapter 529: Changes in the Academy (2)
Among the crowd.
Wan Mingze and a few students were standing together with complicated expressions.
Looking at Hu Qiusheng, Wan Mingze said, "He has advanced with the Thousand Mountain Art. This is already a ferocious cultivation method. Coupled with his viciousness, nobody below the ninth-stage Infinite Strength Realm can put up a fight against him."
Hu Qiusheng merely smiled. Wan Mingze asked, "So have you learned Su Yu's fusion method?"
"Yeah."
"How is it?"
"Not bad."
Hu Qiusheng asked, "How about you? Mingze, some of the things you want to do require reputation and followers. It's pointless for you to keep hiding yourself. If you continue this way, do you think you will be able to gain followers and supporters who will walk alongside you when you try to achieve that unattainable goal?"
"When I first entered the academy, I thought that our batch would probably produce only a few top 100 students. But...it seems like this batch is going to flip the sky itself over."
This batch was too crazy. A lot of them were actually capable of entering the top 100 already. Some were merely still concealing themselves. For example, he had no idea how strong Xia Huyou was exactly.
If Wan Mingze continued acting like this, he would not be able to gain the support he required. Regardless of whether it was a war academy or a cultural research academy, the students and teachers would only support and follow the strong. Sure, one's family would be helpful, but it honestly wasn't that useful either.
If family alone could decide everything, all the students would have fallen under Xia Chan's influence by now. After all, the Xia Family was stronger than the Wan Family.
At that thought, Hu Qiusheng's eyes flickered as he said, "Xia Chan is probably going to enter the Infinite Strength Realm soon."
Xia Chan had been at the ninth-stage Great Strength Realm for quite a while. And she had disappeared since a few days ago. She had probably obtained the best version of the acupoint fusion method. According to the Xia Family's agreement with Su Yu, those from the main branch were allowed to learn this method.
Hu Qiusheng looked at Wan Mingze and said, "Mingze, previously, everyone believed in you because of your strength. But you have not been showcasing more of your strength. If this continues, even those who have been believing in you might start wavering."
Wan Mingze was ranked 86th in the top 100. It wasn't a low rank, but it wasn't high either. In the previous years, this would be sufficient. After all, very few new students could even enter the top 100.
But this was clearly not enough for the new students of the latest batch. The opening of the Willpower Grotto had also benefited some new students. People like Su Meng, Wu Lan, Zhang Hao, and Lin Yao had all entered the grotto. Even someone like Lin Yao was growing rapidly after entering the grotto.
The new students were growing stronger and stronger. Hu Qiusheng suspected that during the next month, dozens of new students would probably enter the top 100 as well.
As for the older students, those in the top 100 weren't weak, but some of them had already advanced into the Skysoar Realm while the ones who were stuck weren't really too talented compared to the super geniuses.
Those that were truly strong like Zhan Hai had slowly advanced and departed the ranking one after another. As for Jiang Mu, he had only remained below the Skysoar Realm because he aimed to make his advancement after fusing the maximum number of acupoints he could.
Wan Mingze nodded, "I have underestimated the various geniuses of the world. Qiusheng, are you not planning to take a step further as well?"
Hu Qiusheng smiled, "You want to see my real strength? Sure. I'll do this for you. Mingze, if you want to fight for something, you should stop hiding. Further concealment will really delay your plans..."
He then stepped into the ring. Without hiding anything, he released the aura of a peak Mental Tempering Stage and first-stage Infinite Strength cultivator. Once again, the crowd was alarmed.
It was yet another new student.
...
The challenge matches continued. For some reason, the challenge matches today were much more intense than before.
One top 100 student after another arrived.
At the end of November, the new students were finally showing their true strength.
They were finally climbing the ranking. This included those who had never challenged the ranking before. Even Jia Mingzhen and company had followed the trend and challenged the ranking.
This forced the House of Hundred to prepare additional rings to accommodate the students.
Surprisingly, Xia Huyou was there as well. After reaching the Infinite Strength Realm, he finally decided to challenge the top 100. Everyone realized that these young geniuses would enter a period of abrupt growth starting today.
If they couldn't establish themselves right now, the ranking would be harder to climb in the future. If they couldn't showcase their talent now, it would be much harder to distinguish themselves in the future.
Jia Mingzhen's group, Hu Qiusheng, Wan Mingze, Zhang Hao, Su Meng, Zhao Shiji, Zheng Yunhui, Xia Chan, Xia Huyou...
At the end of the day, 23 new names had entered the top 100.
This shocked the entire academy.
Even Wu Lan had arrived at the last minute to challenge the ranking. Her opponent was Lin Qing, who had painstakingly remained in the 99th position. After a long battle, Wu Lan suffered a minor defeat after nearly kicking Lin Qing out of the ring.
Lin Qing was not weak. But Wu Lan had grown a lot in the Willpower Grotto. However, her physical cultivation was quite shallow. She might know the acupoint fusion method, but it still wasn't too useful for her right now. If she was able to enter the Infinite Strength Realm, with the best version of the fusion method, she would be able to grow at an incredible speed as well.
One new student after another opted to reveal their strength. Wan Mingze stopped holding back, fighting all the way to the 32nd place before stopping. The new students had swept through the ranking.
But the strongest among them was Su Yu, who was ranked 30th. He had been absent from the challenge matches for quite a while.
Directly below him were Zhou Hao and Wan Mingze, followed by Hu Qiusheng at the 44th place.
Several new students had entered the top 50. The older students were feeling more and more pressured.
Jia Mingzhen's group was not the only ones taking advantage of the chaos to challenge the ranking. Some foreign students had also challenged the ranking. And seven of them were able to enter the ranking.
Including the human new students, a total of 30 new students had entered the ranking.
Wu Qi's student, Lin Qing, had worked very hard and fought in numerous matches. After half a year of hard work, she had only reached the 99th place from the 100th place. And it wasn't like she hadn't grown at all. She had been growing steadily, but even after dozens of matches, she was still unable to go higher than that. It didn't matter how strong she grew. There was always somebody stronger above her.
As for the original top 100 students, the ones who were previously ranked at the bottom had all been kicked out. None of them were able to return to the ranking.
...
Late at night.
The day of challenges came to an end.
Heart Cultivating Pavilion.
35th floor, Wan Tiansheng's residence.
After sneaking in, Jia Mingzhen sighed and said, "Old Wan, I don't think there is a need for us to pretend to be new students anymore. Apart from Su Yu, a few other vicious new students have emerged. We didn't even get the chance to do anything to motivate the students before the new students started running crazy."
Were they still needed to motivate the students?
Nope.
Those students were already motivated enough. Just look at all the challenges today. Over 20 new students had entered the ranking in the span of a single day. This was too terrifying. Something like this had never happened before.
"Old Wan, are you sure those brutes from the war academy would still dare to challenge us this year? Our new students this year are really quite vicious. I'm worried that those warriors would lose all confidence in cultivation from the beating they would receive during the exchange."
According to the agreement, the war academy students were supposed to come during the next month. And they were only a few days away from the next month.
Would they still dare to come?
Were they not afraid of being stomped on?
Wan Tiansheng's eyes did not leave his book as he indifferently said, "Do you think there are only freaks in our academy? The war academy has also accepted a few impressive individuals. They even have a few students at the seventh and eighth-stage Infinite Strength Realm. I heard there might even be a new student at the ninth-stage Infinite Strength Realm. That student cultivates an 108-acupoint method, but he's not weak at all. Even Zhou Hao might not be able to defeat him."
"That's hard to say. Don't forget about people like Su Yu. Would any of these students be his match?"
"Old Wan, do we still need to continue pretending to be students? It's really quite pointless. By the way, we did manage to get in touch with some cultists as you asked. After selling some stuff, the cultists contacted me. But most of them are low-level members. Some of these people don't even know they are working for the cult."
These low-level members were basically common thugs meant to run errands for the high-level members. These people wouldn't be able to provide much information upon capture.
"That can only mean that you're incompetent."
"..."
Jia Mingzhen was speechless. "How am I incompetent? If you're so competent, why don't you go catch some cultists yourself?"
"Do you think I can't find any?"
"In that case, why did you tell us to go undercover?"
"I'm not interested in those nobodies." Wan Tiansheng nonchalantly said, "There is at least one Cloudbreach in our academy who is a cultist. Or maybe there's a Mountainsea cultist."
"Hmm?" Jia Mingzhen's face turned solemn, "Really? Has their influence spread this far?"
"Yeah." Wan Tiansheng smiled, "But that's not surprising. We have a lot of Mountainsea and Cloudbreach cultivators in the academy so I'm busy investigating them.
"I have been suspecting this for quite a while. The attack on Nanyuan had happened at such a perfect timing when Hong Tan and the others were occupied. How could a regular person know the whereabouts of Mountainseas like Hong Tan?
"As for the recent attack on Su Yu...Zhang Wu had confessed before his death that they had received information from someone in the academy. Sure Su Yu's departure wasn't a big secret. But someone capable of contacting five Skysoars is definitely not a nobody."
Jia Mingzhen hesitated slightly before saying, "Is it possible that there was an information hub outside? Perhaps a cult expert had transmitted the message to them after being notified by the hub."
"That's unlikely. Any information regarding geniuses like Su Yu would not go through a hub. Of course, there is no denying that anything is possible."
With a soft voice, Wan Tiansheng continued, "Old Jia, it has been so many years. I have allowed outsiders to spread their influence into the academy and turned a blind eye to the unceasing internal conflicts. There are advantages and disadvantages to this approach. It is still not the time to evaluate these actions of mine. Those from the future generation will naturally do that for us.
"For now, I intend to clean the academy of all filth. Get ready for war. We need to be prepared to enter the Allheaven Battlefield at a moment's notice."
Jia Mingzhen frowned. What was the meaning of those words?
Wan Tiansheng did not look at Jia Mingzhen. He continued muttering, "War is near. I can feel that a war will erupt soon. The human race has been getting too comfortable over the past few decades. They forgot themselves and spent too much time enjoying life and scheming against each other. But now, more and more people are seeing this."
"The War Shrine and Knowledge Seeking Realm are allowing these people to continue their internal struggles, but they are also trying to reach a consensus. For example, the time to unify humanity might have arrived.
"We might be able to unify our front line in our current state, but the various prefectures are not able to truly fight as one."
If humanity was able to unify, their strength would grow. After cleansing all their internal filth, humanity might even be strong enough to withstand the joint attack of the divines and devils. They would suffer disastrous losses even if they could ultimately defeat humanity.
Jia Mingzhen frowned and said, "You mean..."
Wan Tiansheng smiled, "I only told you guys to pretend to be students to test the water. But you guys are somewhat disappointing. I wanted you guys to join the cult and perhaps gain enough influence to make the cult yours. The death of the Blood Fire Sect master was the perfect chance.
"Just look at what happened after the destruction of the Divine Skywing Sect. Xue'e, a mere Cloudbreach, has the guts to start recruiting people for a new cult. Why hadn't you guys done the same?"
"Is Xue'e not dead?" Jia Mingzhen was shocked. That Xue'e was someone who was being hunted by Mountainseas. How was he still alive?
"Yeah." Wan Tiansheng smiled, "He's very good at hiding. Nobody knows where he's hiding. Great Xia is big. How are we supposed to find him?"
Jia Mingzhen nodded, "So you want us to found our own sects..."
"Do as you wish."
Jia Mingzhen was speechless. What did that even mean?
He moved on from the topic and said, "By the way, the conflict between the single and multiple character factions seem to have calmed down. But I feel like this is merely a calm before the storm. Old Wan, if this continues, they might not stop until one side is fully exterminated. Are you really going to ignore them?"
With a dark tone, Wan Tiansheng said, "Let them be. They are free to fight until one side remains. The victor shall unify all character cultivators. Otherwise, with the current split of humanity, how can they focus on resisting the myriad races? Losing one side might seem like a great loss, but our overall strength might grow instead."
A smaller but united human race could very well be stronger than a bigger but split human race. This was Wan Tiansheng's belief.
Jia Mingzhen couldn't help but say, "We should have stopped them long ago. It's now too late..."
"Yeah. It's too late. The hatred between them is too deep."
Wan Tiansheng smiled, "Even if we had acted earlier to suppress the fight, it would be pointless. The hatred would simmer and grow like a tumor. Let the chaos erupt. That way, the human race would understand the price of internal strife. After learning that, there would naturally be fewer internal conflicts in the future.
"Also, the external pressure on humanity is not strong enough. The myriad races are too crafty. They are deliberately reducing the pressure on us and have us slowly exhaust our own strength internally."
This was basically the same as slowly boiling a frog alive. The human race had always been able to unify when the outside pressure was large enough. That had happened over 300 years ago.
Since then, there had not been any large-scale invasions. The long period of peace had caused a lot of people to forget that humanity was still in a war, a war that had persisted for over 300 years.
The divines and devils had not given up on taking over the Human Realm.
Jia Mingzhen helplessly said, "It's easy to say that...but...I honestly have no faith that humanity can truly unite. The divines and devils are no fools. They are more than happy to see us killing each other. Why would they do anything to wake us up?
"Just look at the Myriad Race Cult. That's one of the schemes of the myriad races. Without lifting a finger, they can get us to fight among ourselves. After a few hundred years, the people are starting to hate the cult more than the myriad races themselves."
The myriad races would always take a harsh stance against humans with iron-blooded policy. Meanwhile, they had been leaving the more tolerant humans alone. For example, Great Zhou's armies would rarely encounter any large-scale battles in the Allheaven Battlefield while Great Xia's armies would get into large-scale battles frequently.
Wan Tiansheng was not interested in continuing the topic. He said, "Su Yu might leave the academy in the near future. Keep a close watch on him. The others might not be able to move undetected, but you guys have been hidden for so long. You should be able to follow him in the dark. With the appearance of the fusion method, his value has increased sharply. They might even send Mountainseas against him."
That was actually very likely. There was no doubt that Su Yu's value had increased yet again for the cult. There were advantages and disadvantages to releasing the fusion method.
Jia Mingzhen nodded, "Sure. I'll take note."
He then left as noiselessly as he had when he arrived.