Zheng Yunhui smiled, "If each elder is promised one slot, do you think we can get some elders to agree? They will be more than happy to stand with us. This grotto does not belong to the single character faction. Strictly speaking, this grotto should belong to your faction instead. Sure, they are paying to open it. But the grotto is not their private property.
"If we need to give those elders one slot each, we will lose around 20 slots. Generally, around 50 people can enter the grotto each time. Thus, there will still be around 30 slots left after that."
Suddenly, Xia Huyou said, "This is actually a good idea."
Just like that, a group of students who weren't even Skysoars yet started talking about how they were going to control a meeting of elders. If an outsider was to hear their conversation, that person would probably roll on the ground laughing.
But Wu Qi, who was walking ahead of them, did not think that there was anything wrong with this. The three kids behind her represented three different powers. As for her little sister...forget about it. She doubted her little sister could even understand what they were talking about.
Xia Huyou smiled, "Zheng Yunhui's idea is actually quite good. Call for a meeting to fight for some benefits for the elders. There is no way those elders will refuse this. The single character faction might be strong, but they still wouldn't dare to offend everyone in the academy. And those elders might even help with the activation, allowing them to keep the grotto open for a much longer time."
"Currently, the single character faction only has Elder Zhou, Sun, Yu, and Li in the academy. Elder Zheng is still injured. Elder Zhao is in seclusion. Elder Ma and Fang are at the Allheaven Battlefield. With these four elders, they won't be able to keep the grotto open for too long. The help of other elders would be much appreciated. Yunhui, which elder can you get to help with this?"
Since Zheng Yunhui had made such a suggestion, he had naturally obtained the support of some elders.
He grinned, "My teacher!"
"..."
Right. Su Yu and Xia Huyou nodded. They had almost forgotten that this fellow was also someone with a teacher. They had only remembered that he was from the Zheng Family and completely forgot that he had an elder as a teacher as well.
Zheng Yunhui said in excitement, "The three of us plus Hu Qiusheng, Zhao Shiji, and the others. We can all get at least one or two elders to help each. We will fight to get at least one slot for each elder. That would please everyone. As for the single character faction, the only way they can refuse this is to cancel the opening. But in truth, if they don't open the grotto and increase the strength of their weak students, the solution is simple. We will just start targeting their students."
Zheng Yunhui laughed heartily, "If they don't let us enter, we will also make it so that they can't open the grotto as well. Next, we will learn from Su Yu and stomp all their students in the top 100. Even if we can't defeat some of their higher ranked students, we can still defeat some of the lower ranked ones."
Yes. This guy was a scumbag as well. Normally, he couldn't be bothered to get involved in the factional struggles. But since this concerned his own interests, he would naturally get involved.
Zheng Yunhui said, "The Willpower Grotto is very beneficial for students below the Skysoar Realm like us. That place is filled with pure willpower. Even without any apertures, just passively absorbing the pure source qi in there would grant us more benefits than reading willpower texts. A day in the grotto is probably better than reading 30 willpower texts. And reading willpower texts is very time consuming and expensive."
And naturally, the grotto would be even more beneficial for those with opened apertures.
Su Yu thought about it and nodded, "I'll talk to my grandteacher. You guys are a lot more connected so try to contact more students and elders about this."
He was definitely interested in the grotto. As for the slots...his senior sister's willpower injury was quite heavy. Pure willpower would be quite helpful in her recovery. What would he do if he could only get one slot?
Then again, they had to first focus on making this happen. He could also notify Zhang Hao from the talisman faction. As for Hu Zongji and Lin Yao, there was no guarantee that they could enter even if they were informed about it. After a short discussion, they reached an agreement.
Wu Qi had remained silent, but inwardly, she was actually quite impressed. The students of this batch were indeed different from the other batches. These were all first year students. Yet every one of them was incredibly gutsy. They had the courage to even manipulate the decision making of the academy's higher ups.
In fact, this seemed to have already happened once before! Su Yu wouldn't have been able to subject the single character faction to such a massive loss by surrendering thousands of times otherwise.
...
While Su Yu and company were on their way back.
Talent Fostering Bureau. Director's residence.
With a deep frown, Hong Tan looked at Bai Feng who looked more like a mass of flesh and solemnly asked, "Your Divine Characters have been destroyed?"
"Yeah."
"Even your main Divine Character?"
"Yeah."
"..."
Bai Feng replied with a weak voice. One could consider him lucky by even being able to stay conscious. Thankfully, Director Ji had helped stabilize his sea of willpower or he would probably remain unconscious even now.
Hong Tan's face turned even more unsightly as he asked, "Xia Yuwen did this?"
"He's probably not feeling very well right now either..." Bai Feng laughed, "Teacher, that fellow has all nine of his acupoints broken by a single strike of my sword. Even a few of his characters were broken. I don't think he's doing much better than me..."
"You..."
Hong Tan frowned. This kid had lost even his main Divine Character. Why was he still being all smug here?
"Xia Yuwen..."
Hong Tan suddenly turned around and asked, "Director Ji, if I remember things right, the vice principal selection is happening at the end of the year, right? I will be participating. I will challenge Xia Changqing."
Not far away, Director Ji was calmly sipping on a cup of tea. He looked up and asked, "You're going to challenge Xia Changqing? He's a member of the Xia Family. He is the Xia Family's representative in the academy."
"Xia Changqing..." Hong Tan smiled, "His grandson had reduced my student into this state. A third-stage Cloudbreach had actually challenged an eighth-stage Skysoar. How shameless. I never bothered standing against him in the past because he is Senior Brother Yunji's elder brother. But does he really believe that I'm afraid of him?"
Hong Tan clenched his teeth, "I won't kill him out of respect for Senior Brother Yunji. But he will definitely suffer the same fate as my student. He will need to lose his main Divine Character."
He was furious.
Very furious.
His student was a talented young man with a bright future. But someone like that had been crippled by Xia Yuwen. Earlier, he still wasn't aware of the extent of his student's injuries. But now, he was filled with rage.
As for the fact that Xia Yuwen himself was nearly crippled as well, that did not matter. A Cloudbreach known to be the strongest among his peers had nearly been killed by a Skysoar. Who else could the Cloudbreach blame but himself? He could only blame his own incompetence. It wasn't like Bai Feng was the one who had picked a fight with Xia Yuwen.
Director Ji said, "If you're sure, go ahead and do it. I don't care."
Hong Tan snorted coldly. He looked at Bai Feng and scolded, "Couldn't you have taken a step back? You have crippled yourself to deal with a mere Xia Yuwen. You're indeed dumb."
Bai Feng merely curled his lips. Why was his teacher still scolding him when he was so badly injured?
"The Xia Family...forget it. I can't afford to scold the entire Xia Family. As for Xia Changqing's line, screw all of them!"
Hong Tan couldn't stop himself from cursing.
"Do you still have any characters left?"
"A few."
"With your heavy willpower injury, I don't even know if you can recover anymore. Even after recovery, your cultivation level would probably drop. In fact, you should be celebrating if you only drop to the third or fourth stage. But without your characters and main Divine Characters, your character technique is probably already crippled..."
He was feeling rather sorrowful. He was basically seeing a repeat of his senior brother in Bai Feng. In fact, Bai Feng was in an even worse situation. From a genius, he had transformed into a weakling that could no longer defeat even ordinary Skysoars. This would be too great of a blow for this genius student of his.
Bai Feng couldn't really say too much here. Although Director Ji had saved him, who knew what this director was thinking? He could only accompany his griefing teacher silently. How pitiful. Yes. He was really very pitiful. He had to spend some time forming so many new characters. What a tough life.
"Teacher, after losing so many characters, I'll probably need to spend more money buying willpower texts in the future. Maybe you should give me some money? I'm currently broke..."
Looking at Bai Feng's miserable appearance, Hong Tan clenched his teeth and said, "Don't worry! I'll provide you with willpower texts. You can get as many as you want. Even if I have to sell the research center, I'll help you recover!"
"Thank you, Teacher. You're the best..."
Inwardly, Bai Feng was rolling his eyes. Apart from the research center, what else could his teacher sell? As a majestic eighth-stage Mountainsea, was this all his teacher could do? Well, at least this proved that like his teacher was really poor instead of pretending to be poor.
It was clear that he could no longer rely on his teacher. But he did have a wonderful student. Tsk tsk, he still remembered seeing dozens of willpower texts in the storeroom. There were too many willpower texts there for his student to finish reading. As the teacher, he naturally had to share the burden of his student and read some of those texts. It would seem like he could only rely on his student.
Director Ji smiled and said, "If he has really been crippled, so be it. For a cultural researcher, combat strength is not everything. Bai Feng, are you interested in joining the Talent Fostering Bureau as the head of our research center? You will be promoted into an intermediate researcher and be given your own research team to lead. You only need to provide the bureau with some research results each year..."
Yes. He was trying to recruit Bai Feng. It did not matter if Bai Feng was already crippled. He still had his brain. That alone was enough to give him an instant promotion into an intermediate researcher at the Talent Fostering Bureau.
Normally, only late-stage Cloudbreach cultivators could receive such a promotion. Even Chen Yong was still an intermediate researcher. Generally, one wouldn't be promoted into a senior researcher before reaching the Mountainsea Realm.
Hong Tan looked at Bai Feng. He believed that Bai Feng was already a cripple. Perhaps...the Talent Fostering Bureau would really be a better choice. There, the single character faction would no longer dare to pick on him. In fact, he would be protected from almost all other factions so long as he joined the Talent Fostering Bureau. After all, the Talent Fostering Bureau only answered to the government of Great Xia.
Apart from the government, they only answered to the Knowledge Seeking Realm. As a Sunmoon, Director Ji Hong could also be considered a big shot in the entirety of Human Realm.
Strictly speaking, even people like Wan Tiansheng and Zheng Ping were under his jurisdiction. Of course, the academies were powerful entities as well so in practice, Ji Hong couldn't control them too much.
But that was before Ji Hong revealed his strength as a Sunmoon. Now that he was officially known as a Sunmoon, he had the strength and the status to actually get involved in the affairs of the academies. Of course, how much he could do would ultimately depend on whether he could prevail over the likes of Wan Tiansheng and Zheng Ping.
Zheng Yunhui smiled, "If each elder is promised one slot, do you think we can get some elders to agree? They will be more than happy to stand with us. This grotto does not belong to the single character faction. Strictly speaking, this grotto should belong to your faction instead. Sure, they are paying to open it. But the grotto is not their private property.
"If we need to give those elders one slot each, we will lose around 20 slots. Generally, around 50 people can enter the grotto each time. Thus, there will still be around 30 slots left after that."
Suddenly, Xia Huyou said, "This is actually a good idea."
Just like that, a group of students who weren't even Skysoars yet started talking about how they were going to control a meeting of elders. If an outsider was to hear their conversation, that person would probably roll on the ground laughing.
But Wu Qi, who was walking ahead of them, did not think that there was anything wrong with this. The three kids behind her represented three different powers. As for her little sister...forget about it. She doubted her little sister could even understand what they were talking about.
Xia Huyou smiled, "Zheng Yunhui's idea is actually quite good. Call for a meeting to fight for some benefits for the elders. There is no way those elders will refuse this. The single character faction might be strong, but they still wouldn't dare to offend everyone in the academy. And those elders might even help with the activation, allowing them to keep the grotto open for a much longer time."
"Currently, the single character faction only has Elder Zhou, Sun, Yu, and Li in the academy. Elder Zheng is still injured. Elder Zhao is in seclusion. Elder Ma and Fang are at the Allheaven Battlefield. With these four elders, they won't be able to keep the grotto open for too long. The help of other elders would be much appreciated. Yunhui, which elder can you get to help with this?"
Since Zheng Yunhui had made such a suggestion, he had naturally obtained the support of some elders.
He grinned, "My teacher!"
"..."
Right. Su Yu and Xia Huyou nodded. They had almost forgotten that this fellow was also someone with a teacher. They had only remembered that he was from the Zheng Family and completely forgot that he had an elder as a teacher as well.
Zheng Yunhui said in excitement, "The three of us plus Hu Qiusheng, Zhao Shiji, and the others. We can all get at least one or two elders to help each. We will fight to get at least one slot for each elder. That would please everyone. As for the single character faction, the only way they can refuse this is to cancel the opening. But in truth, if they don't open the grotto and increase the strength of their weak students, the solution is simple. We will just start targeting their students."
Zheng Yunhui laughed heartily, "If they don't let us enter, we will also make it so that they can't open the grotto as well. Next, we will learn from Su Yu and stomp all their students in the top 100. Even if we can't defeat some of their higher ranked students, we can still defeat some of the lower ranked ones."
Yes. This guy was a scumbag as well. Normally, he couldn't be bothered to get involved in the factional struggles. But since this concerned his own interests, he would naturally get involved.
Zheng Yunhui said, "The Willpower Grotto is very beneficial for students below the Skysoar Realm like us. That place is filled with pure willpower. Even without any apertures, just passively absorbing the pure source qi in there would grant us more benefits than reading willpower texts. A day in the grotto is probably better than reading 30 willpower texts. And reading willpower texts is very time consuming and expensive."
And naturally, the grotto would be even more beneficial for those with opened apertures.
Su Yu thought about it and nodded, "I'll talk to my grandteacher. You guys are a lot more connected so try to contact more students and elders about this."
He was definitely interested in the grotto. As for the slots...his senior sister's willpower injury was quite heavy. Pure willpower would be quite helpful in her recovery. What would he do if he could only get one slot?
Then again, they had to first focus on making this happen. He could also notify Zhang Hao from the talisman faction. As for Hu Zongji and Lin Yao, there was no guarantee that they could enter even if they were informed about it. After a short discussion, they reached an agreement.
Wu Qi had remained silent, but inwardly, she was actually quite impressed. The students of this batch were indeed different from the other batches. These were all first year students. Yet every one of them was incredibly gutsy. They had the courage to even manipulate the decision making of the academy's higher ups.
In fact, this seemed to have already happened once before! Su Yu wouldn't have been able to subject the single character faction to such a massive loss by surrendering thousands of times otherwise.
...
While Su Yu and company were on their way back.
Talent Fostering Bureau. Director's residence.
With a deep frown, Hong Tan looked at Bai Feng who looked more like a mass of flesh and solemnly asked, "Your Divine Characters have been destroyed?"
"Yeah."
"Even your main Divine Character?"
"Yeah."
"..."
Bai Feng replied with a weak voice. One could consider him lucky by even being able to stay conscious. Thankfully, Director Ji had helped stabilize his sea of willpower or he would probably remain unconscious even now.
Hong Tan's face turned even more unsightly as he asked, "Xia Yuwen did this?"
"He's probably not feeling very well right now either..." Bai Feng laughed, "Teacher, that fellow has all nine of his acupoints broken by a single strike of my sword. Even a few of his characters were broken. I don't think he's doing much better than me..."
"You..."
Hong Tan frowned. This kid had lost even his main Divine Character. Why was he still being all smug here?
"Xia Yuwen..."
Hong Tan suddenly turned around and asked, "Director Ji, if I remember things right, the vice principal selection is happening at the end of the year, right? I will be participating. I will challenge Xia Changqing."
Not far away, Director Ji was calmly sipping on a cup of tea. He looked up and asked, "You're going to challenge Xia Changqing? He's a member of the Xia Family. He is the Xia Family's representative in the academy."
"Xia Changqing..." Hong Tan smiled, "His grandson had reduced my student into this state. A third-stage Cloudbreach had actually challenged an eighth-stage Skysoar. How shameless. I never bothered standing against him in the past because he is Senior Brother Yunji's elder brother. But does he really believe that I'm afraid of him?"
Hong Tan clenched his teeth, "I won't kill him out of respect for Senior Brother Yunji. But he will definitely suffer the same fate as my student. He will need to lose his main Divine Character."
He was furious.
Very furious.
His student was a talented young man with a bright future. But someone like that had been crippled by Xia Yuwen. Earlier, he still wasn't aware of the extent of his student's injuries. But now, he was filled with rage.
As for the fact that Xia Yuwen himself was nearly crippled as well, that did not matter. A Cloudbreach known to be the strongest among his peers had nearly been killed by a Skysoar. Who else could the Cloudbreach blame but himself? He could only blame his own incompetence. It wasn't like Bai Feng was the one who had picked a fight with Xia Yuwen.
Director Ji said, "If you're sure, go ahead and do it. I don't care."
Hong Tan snorted coldly. He looked at Bai Feng and scolded, "Couldn't you have taken a step back? You have crippled yourself to deal with a mere Xia Yuwen. You're indeed dumb."
Bai Feng merely curled his lips. Why was his teacher still scolding him when he was so badly injured?
"The Xia Family...forget it. I can't afford to scold the entire Xia Family. As for Xia Changqing's line, screw all of them!"
Hong Tan couldn't stop himself from cursing.
"Do you still have any characters left?"
"A few."
"With your heavy willpower injury, I don't even know if you can recover anymore. Even after recovery, your cultivation level would probably drop. In fact, you should be celebrating if you only drop to the third or fourth stage. But without your characters and main Divine Characters, your character technique is probably already crippled..."
He was feeling rather sorrowful. He was basically seeing a repeat of his senior brother in Bai Feng. In fact, Bai Feng was in an even worse situation. From a genius, he had transformed into a weakling that could no longer defeat even ordinary Skysoars. This would be too great of a blow for this genius student of his.
Bai Feng couldn't really say too much here. Although Director Ji had saved him, who knew what this director was thinking? He could only accompany his griefing teacher silently. How pitiful. Yes. He was really very pitiful. He had to spend some time forming so many new characters. What a tough life.
"Teacher, after losing so many characters, I'll probably need to spend more money buying willpower texts in the future. Maybe you should give me some money? I'm currently broke..."
Looking at Bai Feng's miserable appearance, Hong Tan clenched his teeth and said, "Don't worry! I'll provide you with willpower texts. You can get as many as you want. Even if I have to sell the research center, I'll help you recover!"
"Thank you, Teacher. You're the best..."
Inwardly, Bai Feng was rolling his eyes. Apart from the research center, what else could his teacher sell? As a majestic eighth-stage Mountainsea, was this all his teacher could do? Well, at least this proved that like his teacher was really poor instead of pretending to be poor.
It was clear that he could no longer rely on his teacher. But he did have a wonderful student. Tsk tsk, he still remembered seeing dozens of willpower texts in the storeroom. There were too many willpower texts there for his student to finish reading. As the teacher, he naturally had to share the burden of his student and read some of those texts. It would seem like he could only rely on his student.
Director Ji smiled and said, "If he has really been crippled, so be it. For a cultural researcher, combat strength is not everything. Bai Feng, are you interested in joining the Talent Fostering Bureau as the head of our research center? You will be promoted into an intermediate researcher and be given your own research team to lead. You only need to provide the bureau with some research results each year..."
Yes. He was trying to recruit Bai Feng. It did not matter if Bai Feng was already crippled. He still had his brain. That alone was enough to give him an instant promotion into an intermediate researcher at the Talent Fostering Bureau.
Normally, only late-stage Cloudbreach cultivators could receive such a promotion. Even Chen Yong was still an intermediate researcher. Generally, one wouldn't be promoted into a senior researcher before reaching the Mountainsea Realm.
Hong Tan looked at Bai Feng. He believed that Bai Feng was already a cripple. Perhaps...the Talent Fostering Bureau would really be a better choice. There, the single character faction would no longer dare to pick on him. In fact, he would be protected from almost all other factions so long as he joined the Talent Fostering Bureau. After all, the Talent Fostering Bureau only answered to the government of Great Xia.
Apart from the government, they only answered to the Knowledge Seeking Realm. As a Sunmoon, Director Ji Hong could also be considered a big shot in the entirety of Human Realm.
Strictly speaking, even people like Wan Tiansheng and Zheng Ping were under his jurisdiction. Of course, the academies were powerful entities as well so in practice, Ji Hong couldn't control them too much.
But that was before Ji Hong revealed his strength as a Sunmoon. Now that he was officially known as a Sunmoon, he had the strength and the status to actually get involved in the affairs of the academies. Of course, how much he could do would ultimately depend on whether he could prevail over the likes of Wan Tiansheng and Zheng Ping.
