Chapter 644: Recruitment, Secret Meeting (1)
The storm in Great Xia continued to rage.
At the same time, the various prefectures started distributing the Source Soul Cultural Art inside their borders. At the same time, Great Qin and Great Ming were also distributing the best version of the Double Wu Acupoint Fusion Art, claiming that this was the version capable of completely suppressing the repelling force between acupoints.
This created a new trend in Great Ming. The students in Great Ming were overjoyed when they got their hands on the new cultivation method. The first two versions of the fusion art weren't even available in Great Ming. But now, the best version was made directly available to them. With 36 acupoints, this version would help them skip through the entire Infinite Strength Realm.
For warriors, this was a lot more important than the Source Soul Cultural Art. When selling the cultivation method, Great Ming had even used Great Xia's Zhou Hao as an example. In their promotional materials, they mentioned that Zhou Hao was someone who had cultivated the Thousand Mountain Art. He was supposed to have no hope of entering the Infinite Strength Realm. But less than three months after cultivating the best version of the fusion art, he was able to easily reach the ninth-stage Infinite Strength Realm. That had turned Zhou Hao into a little celebrity in Great Xia.
On the 3rd of February, he had defeated Jiang Mu and took the first place in the top 100. He had only joined the academy for about half a year. The Great Xia War Academy was trying its best to poach him.
Zheng Yunhui's grandfather had even talked about this with Xia Yuwen, telling him to not waste Zhou Hao's potential. If Zhou Hao agreed to join the war academy, he would be the second coming of Huang Teng. Naturally, Xia Yuwen ignored the suggestion.
As for the ones who had cultivated the first two versions of the fusion art, they had started advancing one into another. Thus, a new wave of Infinite Strength cultivators had appeared recently.
In truth, there were a lot of warriors who had cultivated the Thousand Mountain Art for the sake of strength back then. And some of them were starting to cultivate the fusion art as well. Perhaps after some time, humanity would welcome a new group of powerful Infinite Strength cultivators.
As the results of cultivating the fusion art started showing, Su Yu's name spread all over the Human Realm.
Double Wu Acupoint Fusion Art, Source Soul Cultural Art, Source Soul Pure Source Art, Source Soul Soul Devouring Art...All sorts of cultivation methods with the Source Soul label reached the shelves of the various academies.
Su Yu's name spread far and wide. With the increase of his fame, more and more people learned about his conflict with Great Xia. Many people started sneering at Great Xia's single character faction with contempt. Those blind fools insisted on killing Su Yu, forcing such a genius to leave Great Xia for Great Ming.
Just look at how Great Ming was getting all these cultivation methods for barely any money. Meanwhile, Great Xia was forced to purchase these cultivation methods at a high price despite the numerous restrictions imposed upon them.
If Su Yu was still in Great Xia, he would have provided all those cultivation methods to Great Xia at a much lower price. Things wouldn't have been so difficult for Great Xia.
Yuan Qingdong remained silent. He did not apologize, nor did he say anything arrogant. He had been maintaining a low profile. But that was not enough. As Su Yu had banned the three academies from his cultivation methods, the students were getting more and more restless.
Apart from the Source Soul Cultural Art, even the best version of the fusion art was not released to the three academies.
"All outsiders should piss off!"
More and more people were saying the same thing in the three academies. Not even the authorities could stop this sentiment from spreading. All along, the Xia Family remained silent.
***
Great Ming.
Su Yu was getting curious. A few days had passed since his talk with Marquis Xia. Enough time had been given to let the matter simmer. But the Xia Family had not done anything at all. He had agreed that he could remove the terms involving Yuan Qingdong provided the Xia Family reached an agreement with the Yuan Family.
But he had not heard from the Xia Family since his previous meeting with Marquis Xia. But since the Xia Family wasn't looking for him, he couldn't be bothered to worry too much about it. He was busy with recruitment. Today, he was finally going to meet the elderlies he was supposed to recruit.
Intoxicated Star Restaurant.
Top floor.
Su Yu and Wen Zhong arrived together. When they entered the room, four elderlies were already waiting inside. There were three men and one woman. All three of them were old and gray-haired individuals with refined temperaments.
"Junior Brother Jin, Junior Sister Kong..."
Wen Zhong started greeting them. At almost 400 years old, he was older than all of them. These people were all around 300 years old.
In terms of strength, they weren't too impressive. Two were seventh-stage Skysoars, one was eighth-stage Skysoar, and one was ninth-stage Skysoar. In truth, Skysoars weren't supposed to be so long-lived. Warriors at the Skysoar Realm would generally live for about 150 years while cultural researchers could live longer. For warriors, they would live for around 200 years at the Cloudbreach Realm. At the Mountainsea Realm, they could theoretically live for over 300 years.
Due to their weaker willpower, warriors would not be able to survive long after their physical bodies started declining. As for cultural researchers, they were much longer-lived thanks to their stronger willpower. They could live even longer if they did not engage in too many fights.
Even so, Skysoars at over 300 years old were truly impressive. They probably wouldn't be able to live much longer than this. Spots could be seen on the faces of these elderlies. One could even sense a vague aura of death from their bodies. These were signs that they were nearing the end of their lifespans.
Su Yu's emotions turned complicated when he saw them. In fact, his emotions were already complicated when he thought about Wen Zhong. Cloudbreach warriors could only live for about 200 years. Even if Wen Zhong was a ninth-stage Cloudbreach cultural researcher, how many years did he have left?
All these elderlies were already at the end of their lifespans. Even Hu Xiansheng would reach the end of his lifespan soon if he remained at the Mountainsea Realm. These people must not have fought too much. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to live so long.
But Su Yu did not think that there was anything wrong with their choice. He had read a lot. And he knew that fighting was not the only way one could contribute to humanity. The four old Skysoars around him were all individuals who had made great contributions to humanity.
Jin Sheng, a ninth-stage Skysoar, was one of the creators of the first Mark of Culture. Nowadays, there were a lot of methods one could use to preserve the characters of deceased Mountainseas. But back then, forming a Mark of Culture was the sole method available. One could say that the Mark of Culture was the foundation of all the other preservation methods.
Kong Yuxian, an eighth-stage Skysoar, was a specialist in willpower extraction. Some of the pure willpower storage rooms that were still used today were designed by her back then. She was also the first person to discover the usage of the riversand.
Wei Qi, a seventh-stage Skysoar, was the creator of the earth-grade cultivation method, Source Return Art. That cultivation method was still widely practiced even today.
Cao Huang, a seventh-stage Skysoar, was the creator of the Ninestar Body Forging Technique. This was a rather popular body forging technique. It wasn't too powerful, but it was simple to use.
All four of them had contributed to humanity with their respective expertise.
The academy had not been stingy with their treasures. All sorts of treasures had been provided to these four, helping them extend their lifespans. Otherwise, they would have probably died by now. And now, the academy had recommended all four of them to Su Yu, hoping that he could help them break through their bottlenecks, enter the next realm, and extend their lifespans.
A cultural researcher needed third-tier willpower, third-tier character, and at least 37 apertures to enter the Cloudbreach Realm. These four had met all the requirements apart from having third-tier characters.
And the main reason for that was the sheer number of characters each of them had formed. They did not have enough willpower to push their characters to the next tier.
Some cultural researchers of Great Ming had the habit of forming all sorts of random characters after reaching the Skysoar Realm. With the increase in lifespan after reaching the Skysoar Realm, their minds started turning restless, imagining all sorts of possibilities. And to achieve these possibilities, they naturally required countless characters.
As a result, they ended up with more characters than they could support. Most of these characters would be stuck at the first tier. For example, Jin Sheng was said to have formed more than 30 characters.
And he hadn't even bothered to nurture these characters. Some of these characters were completely incompatible with each other. How was he supposed to nurture one of them into the third tier with how messy his sea of willpower was?
"Greetings, Teachers."
Su Yu bowed slightly. They smiled at him. Jin Sheng said, "Don't be too polite. In the pursue of dao, age does not matter. There is no need for you to address us as teachers. We are fellow travelers in the path of dao. Today, we are mostly here to get to know each other better."
Kong Yuxian was probably very pretty when she was younger. At her advanced age, she had a kindly look. With a smile, she said, "Sit down, Little Junior Brother Su. Senior Brother Wen, you look to be in high spirits. Looks like you're very happy with the fusion art."
Wen Zhong grinned, "I'm doing alright. Juniors, all of you look even older than before. Be sure to not tire yourself too much."
Everyone laughed.