Chapter 53: Storm Is Coming (2)
"The prefect is really humorous!" Wan Tiansheng remained completely calm as he said, "I was only practicing earlier! I can't let Marquis Xia and the others see through my performance during the ceremony! Zhou Potian? That’s a crafty old fox! I am unwilling to associate myself with the likes of him!"
"Heh." Xia Longwu sneered. "Let Zhou Potian know what he said."
He looked at the old man to the left. The old man laughed. Looking at Zheng Ping, he said, "Principal Zheng, take charge of that. Do not miss a single word of what Principal Wan said about Prefect Zhou."
Zheng Ping had a dark expression. He remained silent.
Xia Longwu ignored them and started walking away as he said, "It's settled, then. The Martial Dragon Guards will withdraw. The divine skywing race will pay a price for that. I'll enter seclusion. The day I leave seclusion is the day I use the divine skywing race to test my blade."
The others voiced their agreement. Nobody objected.
Wan Tiansheng's face was brimming with a smile. Before leaving, he glanced at Zheng Ping and sighed, "It truly is a waste of time to talk strategy with a brute."
Zheng Ping had a dark expression as he said, "Old fart, during this year's academy exchange, I’ll make sure to fill your academy with mournful wails."
Wan Tiansheng did not seem to mind. Instead, he happily laughed, "I'm waiting for you. Go for it. Don't hold back. In the past, the people from your war academy were too weak. I almost wonder if you were starving them.
"How about this? I'll provide you with ten thousand kilograms of meat for free. Feed your people well so that they have more strength. If your people can scare half our students away, I'll give you a velvet flag of honor as a gift. The cultural research academy is too crowded. What's the point of keeping so many people with us?"
Wan Tiansheng shook his head, "A bunch of mediocre fools. I've been meaning to cut down on manpower. If it wasn't for those old farts getting in my way, I would have reduced our yearly intake into only a thousand students.
"Old Zheng, I'll be relying on you. Work hard and kick at least a thousand of those students away. If you can do so, I'll personally visit your academy with a velvet banner of honor to thank you."
Zheng Ping's face turned even more unsightly. He had never won a verbal spar against this old bastard.
Wan Tiansheng laughed happily and strolled out of the room while lamenting, "The Great Xia War Academy...has declined. Sigh. The Martial Dragon War Academy, on the other hand, looks promising. As for your Great Xia War Academy...if you can't kick at least a thousand of our students out this year, I'll really start looking down on you."
Wan Tiansheng then vanished into thin air.
Only then did Zheng Ping helplessly mutter, "These old bastards are getting more and more difficult to deal with. Prefect, are we really going to stop?"
Beside him, Xia Longwu, who had left earlier, suddenly appeared.
Looking at the direction Wan Tiansheng had left, Xia Longwu remained silent for a while before softly saying, "We're not stopping. We're waiting. Waiting until we recover. Wan Tiansheng has been waiting so many years for this. Finally, the prefecture is weakened, allowing him to successfully push his agenda."
Zheng Ping sighed and said, "I'm slightly afraid."
"Of what?"
"I'm afraid that our people will lose their will to fight, their confidence, and their morale."
Zheng Ping looked at Xia Longwu with a complicated expression and continued, "I'm afraid that this withdrawal will also change the heart of Great Xia."
"What will happen, will happen." Xia Longwu calmly said, "We can't keep fighting until even our retired veterans are forced to return to the battlefield. Rest is required. It is better to rest now than to rest when we're no longer capable of putting up a fight.
"Old Zheng, the war academy has suffered great losses over the years. It’s time to take a rest."
Xia Longwu then stopped talking and stood there bleakly. He had been unyielding for his entire life. Finally, he was forced to stop. He might have claimed that he looked down on Zhu Tiandao and Zhou Potian, but in truth, he actually admired and envied them somewhat.
"At the very least, much fewer of their warriors have perished compared to Great Xia..."
Xia Longwu muttered to himself with a bitter look in his eyes. He wanted to keep fighting, but reality forbade him from doing so. He had been too aggressive before. As a result, Great Xia was akin to a slab of meat in a boiling pot. It might look great, but danger surrounded it from all sides.
"Wan Tiansheng, we have been competing against each other for so many years. Let me see just what you can accomplish now that you're getting what you want."
Xia Longwu was also curious to see just what Wan Tiansheng could accomplish.
"Cultural research academy...hopefully things won't go wrong at the next step. Teacher, can you really keep everything under control?"
Xia Longwu smiled to himself. The person he called teacher was his first teacher. However, it had been so many years since they last met that he had almost forgotten that such a person existed.
…
Nanyuan Secondary School.
Afternoon.
General office.
Apart from Su Yu and Liu Wenyan, there were many other people in the office. All the students with the potential to get into the cultural research academy were there. Including Su Yu, there were twelve of them.
Previously, Liu Wenyan had forced Bai Feng to teach two of his students. He couldn't send more students to Bai Feng because Bai Feng wasn't a part of the secondary school and he wasn't sure if Bai Feng would teach them anything about Divine Characters.
Today, he was going to personally write a willpower text. That was different. Even if he was biased toward Su Yu, this was still a rare opportunity for the other students. Thus, he had gathered all the students for the writing session.
Liu Wenyan and the principal were standing side by side. A large desk stood before them. There was no paper on the desk. Instead, there was only a beast hide unfurled on it. The hide was massive.
There was also a basin of red liquid on the desk. The red liquid was going to serve as the ink for the writing session today. Currently, Liu Wenyan was grinding the red liquid, preparing it for writing. The principal's heart was still aching from what he had spent. Everything on the desk had been purchased with a large number of merit points.
He had spent over a hundred points for this. The secondary school had truly paid a large price for this writing session.
"Everyone, stay focused when it starts. This is a rare opportunity. If you find yourself reaching your limit, shut your eyes and rest. Do not force yourself to keep going."
The principal reminded all the students sternly. In truth, it was still too early for most of these students to start studying willpower texts. Even the academy would not open any Divine Character lessons to students below twenty percent willpower.
Most students also wouldn't bother trying to study Divine Characters before then. That was basically a waste of time and money. After all, in the academy, reading a single willpower text, especially when it was being written live, was not something one could do for free.
In the academy, a single willpower text lesson would cost one at least five merit points. And that was only the cheapest lesson where it was conducted in a large group, with the price being a discounted price since they were the students of the academy.
It would cost an outsider far more to attend one of such classes. The cultural researcher's mood would also decide whether these outsiders could attend the lesson. After all, writing one such text would exhaust a large amount of willpower, so each lesson was invaluable.
"Today, Instructor Liu will be writing the Lightning Source Blade, a low-tier profound-grade martial technique. Try to see as much as you can," reminded the principal again.
After Liu Wenyan's willpower materialization, the people of Nanyuan had learned a lot more about cultural researchers than before. In the past, decades would pass before Nanyuan could see a single cultural researcher. People like Su Yu practically knew nothing about cultural researchers.
After all, nobody would talk much about something that had not appeared in their life before. With Liu Wenyan’s advancement, things were no longer the same in Nanyuan. The students in the office appeared incredibly excited.
Willpower text!
A Skysoar cultivator was going to personally write the text for them, kickstarting their path of Divine Character cultivation. Beside Su Yu, Liu Yue's eyes were also brightly lit. She couldn't help but to glance at Su Yu. She knew that Su Yu was most likely the intended recipient of this session.
That was because apart from Su Yu, everyone else would not be able to gain much from this session. In fact, it would be quite wasteful for them to learn this at their current stage of cultivation.
As someone who had studied willpower texts before, she knew how valuable and expensive each text was. Disregarding the materials used, even a hundred merit points might not be enough to hire a cultural researcher to write a willpower text. After all, they could earn as much just by killing a Skysoar Realm enemy.
"His willpower is only ten percent full..."
Liu Yue was envious of Su Yu. She couldn't understand why Liu Wenyan looked so highly upon Su Yu. After all, her willpower was already fifteen percent full during their previous lesson with Bai Feng. And after her recent hard work, she was already starting to study incomplete original texts.
That signified that she was nearing or had reached twenty percent willpower. Even so, Su Yu was the one Liu Wenyan had chosen to bring around for the past month. She was never in his mind. She was envious, and she could only sigh. Perhaps Instructor Liu had never truly viewed her as his student.
But in truth, she was wrong. Liu Wenyan only believed that the other students wouldn't be able to learn what he had been teaching Su Yu. Killing Great Strength cultivators as a Source Opening cultivator? Staying a week in a warehouse filled to the brim with corpses? Learn more languages?
These students hadn't even finished mastering their existing lessons. And for lessons everyone could attend such as this writing lesson, he did not exclude anyone even if he believed that the others wouldn't be able to gain as much as Su Yu from it. But there was no helping that since willpower text was not something everyone was capable of studying.
If this was the cultural research academy, he could have charged them five merit points each just for this one lesson. No, not even five merit points would be enough. That was merely the payment for the most basic of lessons. Since he was writing a profound-grade technique, he could charge even ten or twenty merit points and the academy students would still not hesitate to attend the class.