Chapter 608: Super Rich (1)
Right after joining Great Ming, Su Yu found his entire worldview challenged. Everything seemed fine here. At the very least, the multiple character faction wasn't suppressed. Right?
But these people had also been busy lending money to Faculty Head Hu, resulting in a loss of over a million merit points. In his desperation, Faculty Head Hu had sold and pawned off everything he could. Su Yu couldn't help but wonder if these people had deliberately instigated Faculty Head Hu to do all that.
His faculty had been pawned off. His fund allocation for the next semester had been pawned off as well. Su Yu wasn't sure if Faculty Head Hu had even pawned off the future fund allocations as well. The faculty head was so desperate that he was starting to hide himself to avoid his numerous creditors.
With Zhu Tiandao's help, Su Yu was introduced to many of the upper echelons of Great Ming.
Director Hou of the Talent Fostering Bureau, Principal He of the Great Ming War Academy, Vice Principal Wang of the Great Ming Cultural Research Academy, and so on had been introduced to Su Yu.
The principal of the Great Ming Cultural Research Academy, Niu Baidao, wasn't present. According to Zhu Tiandao, he was out on a tour.
After a short conversation, Zhu Tiandao smiled and said, "I know you're not used to spending time with geezers like us. I only called you over today to introduce you to everyone. Hongliang, come in. Take Su Yu to the Natural Dao Garden. Su Yu, after so many days of travel, take a good rest. If you need anything done, let Hongliang handle it for you."
Su Yu thanked the prefect again. The prefect had assigned his own grandson as the guide. He had to admit that the prefect was indeed treating him very well. And a rest was what he needed. He would need some time to digest the information he had learned.
As a newcomer, it wouldn't be beneficial to him to remain ignorant of the affairs of Great Ming.
After Su Yu left, Zhu Tiandao grumbled, "Why did all of you say all that to scare him?"Look at how shocked the kid was!
"Old Hu isn't that bad. The Great Spatial Transportation Formation is a feasible project. If he succeeds, his contribution will reach a level you can't catch up to even if you spend hundreds of years trying."
An old man rolled his eyes and said, "Bullshit. One can only start touching upon the domain of space at the Invincible Realm. Even the Knowledge Seeking Realm is researching something similar. Great Ming King himself is involved in the research. Even after so many years, they have only produced a simple Transportation Talisman. A stable large-scale teleportation formation is not something you can create so easily."
"That's right. We did all that for Su Yu's sake. Old Hu might even try to fool Su Yu into joining his hopeless project upon seeing how talented Su Yu is. Great Ming did not recruit Su Yu over so to waste his youth on that project."
"..."
They denied the accusation vehemently. They were definitely not trying to scare Su Yu. They had merely reminded the kid to not fall for Old Hu's deception. That project was not only expensive, but it was also very unlikely to succeed.
Zhu Tiandao sighed and said, "I know that as well, but I am also hopeful. Sure, we all claim that Great Ming is a place where numerous schools of thought are allowed to bloom. But...you all know the situation we're in. None of what we've produced actually matters in the grand scheme of things. Very few of our creations are actually meaningful for the human race."
In truth, the Zhu Family had also invested a lot into Faculty Head Hu's project. In fact, the Zhu Family had paid for at least half of what Faculty Head Hu had spent on the project thus far. Alas, all that had been for nothing. It was very unlikely that Faculty Head Hu would be able to produce anything useful.
Great Ming's cultural researchers might be impressive, but they had not been able to produce something truly incredible. Sure, they had created a lot of things that were widely used among the masses, but these creations were not helpful in improving the overall circumstances of the human race.
One of the old men disagreed. He said, "What are you saying, Prefect? How are our creations not meaningful? For example, the sky devouring ant we created..."
At the mention of that, Zhu Tiandao's face turned unsightly.
"Are you talking about the ants that nearly devoured tens of thousands of our own soldiers?"
Fuck that!
Those bugs would attack indiscriminately, including their own! They had no way of controlling those bugs.
The old man looked quite awkward, but he hurriedly explained himself, "Those bugs aren't too useful for major battles, but they are excellent when it comes to sneak attacks! Just send a lone soldier into our enemy's camp with a nest of these bugs and release them. Our entire enemy camp will sink into chaos! Those bugs can be very useful!"
Zhu Tiandao was starting to have a headache. He said, "Think of a way to recycle or control those bugs before thinking about using them further. Otherwise, they will only bring us trouble. The previous time we used these bugs, we offended many Invincibles. These bugs are capable of devouring everything indiscriminately. If we release too many of these bugs and accidentally eliminate a few minor races, it will be hard for us to explain ourselves."
"Fine. We'll try to think of something."
In truth, Zhu Tiandao was very fond of these bugs as well, but they were too troublesome to use since they couldn't be controlled.
***
Meanwhile, Su Yu was following Zhu Hongliang to the back garden of the palace. While walking, he asked, "Is the Natural Dao Garden within the palace itself?"
"Yeah." Zhu Hongliang grinned and said, "That's a good place. Generally, only visiting Sunmoons will be allowed to stay there."
"I am overwhelmed by this favor."
Su Yu started studying his surroundings. Compared to Great Xia, Great Ming was much more relaxed in atmosphere. Apart from the people here, even the architecture here seemed much gentler than Great Xia's.
In truth, these fancy and meticulously decorated buildings were very rare in other prefectures. The buildings in Great Xia were more spartan in nature. However, Su Yu had passed by numerous elegant pavilions, small decorative rivers, and colorful gardens during his travel in Great Ming.
One could say that Great Ming embodied the elegance the south was known for, unlike the north that was known for being coarse and rugged.
Zhu Hongliang smiled and asked, "Su Yu, are you joining the Great Ming Cultural Research Academy?"
"I think so."
"Your Faculty Head Hu has a bad reputation."
"How so?"
"He owes too much money. And he's a shameless old man."
Su Yu smiled and said, "That has nothing to do with me."
"But everyone is saying that you're a multiple character faction genius. He will definitely not let you go since you're already here."
Su Yu calmly said, "We're not together just because we're from the same faction. The multiple character faction has so many people. Are all of them together?"
Zhu Hongliang nodded and stopped talking about Faculty Head Hu. Before long, they arrived at the Heavenly Dao Garden.
Su Yu had thought that he would be brought to a small villa or a regular apartment. But when he reached the Heavenly Dao Garden, he realized that he had underestimated Great Ming. He had actually been brought to a massive garden.
Guards were stationed outside the garden. And inside the garden, numerous palace maids and guards were also busy going about their daily business. Inside the garden, numerous elegant buildings, small rivers, and a large lake could be seen.
Zhu Hongliang introduced, "There are thirty-six buildings here in the Heavenly Dao Garden and hundreds of rooms available. You can pick a place you like. At the moment, we don't have any guests in the Heavenly Dao Garden."
He waved his hand and called a smiling old man over.
"This is Manager Xia of the Natural Dao Garden. Let him know if you need anything."
"Greetings, Prince. Greetings, Mister Su."
Manager Xie said, "If you need anything, feel free to call me over. I am available at all times."
Su Yu nodded and said nothing.
After spending some time walking in the garden, he said, "Just find me a room I can sleep in. Also, please provide some food for me. These little beasts are getting hungry."
Su Yu gave the nearby suanni a kick as he said that. When Manager Xie saw that, the look in his eyes changed slightly as he said, "Alright. I'll get it done immediately."
That was a suanni, a top 100 race. He had nearly neglected that fact. A ninth-stage Skysoar from a top 100 race was definitely not weak at all. In fact, the suanni was comparable to a human genius of the same cultivation level, capable of killing even some of the weaker Cloudbreaches.
"Thank you for this, Prince. If you have something to do, you don't have to waste more time here..."
Zhu Hongliang was somewhat speechless. He was very free! But forget it. This fellow did not seem too friendly with him. It was time for him to leave. Thus, Zhu Hongliang did not hesitate and took his leave.
***
A few minutes later, Su Yu entered a small building.
This was a three-story building with a classical design. Nevertheless, all the modern amenities one could ask for were also present in the building. After sending Manager Xie away, Su Yu sat down on the couch and sank into thought.
Great Ming was an unfamiliar place.
Unfamiliar environment and unfamiliar people.
Everything here was unfamiliar.
Back then, Great Xia City was also an unfamiliar place. But at the very least, he knew that Bai Feng was waiting for him there. Here, he didn't know what his future path was. He had a very good impression of Zhu Tiandao. This prefect was very supportive of him. But the support did not come free.
"Strength..."
Strength was the root of everything. Without strength, even if Zhu Tiandao was attaching a lot of importance to him now, he would lose the support if he failed to produce any meaningful research results in the future.
"Great Ming's multiple character faction is a trap..."
Should he step into this trap? If he didn't, he would be completely alone. If he entered, he might be able to get a seventh-stage Mountainsea to stand in front of him. But he did not intend to make this Mountainsea fight for him. He only needed the voice of this Mountainsea.
The people of Great Ming might be unambitious slackers, but internal struggles for benefits were still present here. Not everyone could be a saint and disregard their personal benefits. They would only remain slackers so long as their personal benefits were not affected.
After inhaling deeply, Su Yu tossed the matter to the back of his mind.
Instead, he took out several merit cards. His eyes flickered as he looked at his spoils of wars. He could take out the money from these cards, but he needed the passwords to do so. Also, his merit card was set up in Great Xia. Would they freeze his card? They were unlikely to go that far.
But he was unsure if the other merit cards could still be used. Firstly, he didn't know the passwords. Secondly, he didn't know if these cards had been frozen since their previous owners had all been exposed as criminals.
He had looted quite a lot of cards after the battle. Even the cards of the deceased students like Xia Qing were in his possession. These were all students of considerable status among their races. Thus, there were probably quite a lot of money in these cards.
And money was something that would be useful everywhere. Even in Great Ming, it was still something Su Yu needed. He couldn't rely on the Zhu Family for everything. He couldn't allow himself to owe them too much lest he found himself overwhelmed by what he owed them.
"Password..."
As he played with the pile of cards in front of him, his gaze landed on Jin Yuhui's merit card. This was the card of a Sunmoon expert. How much money could he find in this card? How should he crack the password?