Jing Hongchen's Considerations

Chapter 21: Jing Hongchen's Considerations

The Mingde Hall's intentions, of course, were Jing Hongchen's intentions.

After Xiao Hongchen had finished looking over the information on Huo Yuhao and the other two, he turned and ran straight to Mingde Hall to find his grandfather.

The work these past few days had been terribly dull, but he hadn't expected to find such promising talents on the very last day. It was like digging through a pile of rocks and finding rare metal suitable for carving a Level 5 Core Array—and finding three pieces at once.

He'd report these three to his grandfather first, then have him take them on as disciples and bring them into the fold. This achievement would surely be credited to Xiao Hongchen.

It wasn't that he had no interest in his work at all. He knew Jing Hongchen cared deeply about Mingde Hall, but Mingde Hall's position in the Sun Moon Empire was a delicate one. It seemed to wield immense power, yet in truth it was walking on thin ice; one misstep could bring it crashing down. If those three really were Soul Master prodigies, then Mingde Hall was in dire need of powerful Soul Master prodigies.

"Grandpa." He didn't knock, but pushed the door open and walked right in.

Jing Hongchen was reading through some documents while sipping tea. With the start of term at the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Academy approaching, the results of Mingde Hall's quarterly assessments had also been delivered to him.

The results weren't much different from previous years. From the outside, training so many Level 5 and Level 6 Soul Engineers seemed like an impressive achievement, but Jing Hongchen still felt a little anxious. He took a sip of tea and commented on his good grandson's barging in:

"Impolite."

"I don't have time to worry about manners!" Xiao Hongchen leaned both hands hard against Jing Hongchen's desk and held up three fingers. "Two top-tier three-ring Martial Souls, and one two-ring Twin Martial Soul user whose primary Martial Soul is spirit-type."

"What?" Jing Hongchen adjusted the glasses that were slipping down his round face.

"Today's transfer students! I just tested all three of them."

Transfer students had to meet a higher standard than students entering normally, but Huo Yuhao and the others had still surpassed that standard by a wide margin.

A glint flashed behind Jing Hongchen's thick lenses. "Xiao, bring me those three children's files. Quickly."

Xiao Hongchen had come prepared. He set the files on Jing Hongchen's desk, then moved aside the list of students who had passed Mingde Hall's assessment. Jing Hongchen didn't stop him. If everything Xiao Hongchen had said was true, then Mingde Hall's assessment results were no longer the priority.

But after reading only a few lines, Jing Hongchen quickly identified the issue. "They're from the Heaven Dou Empire?"

"Ah." Xiao Hongchen froze. He had indeed gotten carried away and forgotten about that.

Or rather, he hadn't paid much attention to it. He still lacked the necessary attentiveness in this area.

Jing Hongchen didn't blame him. If Xiao Hongchen could handle every detail perfectly at his age, Jing Hongchen might as well retire early and spend his remaining years in comfort.

"What did they say about their identities during the interview?" Jing Hongchen asked gently. He couldn't put too much pressure on his grandson.

"They said... they were interested in the development of Soul Tools, but there wasn't an environment for it in the Heaven Dou Empire, so they wanted to study at our academy." Xiao Hongchen tried to remember. Aside from observing their abilities, he'd spent most of the interviews slacking off, so he hadn't listened closely to what each student had said.

But he'd started paying a little attention when Wang Dong showed up, so he remembered some of it.

"Did all three give the same explanation?" Jing Hongchen frowned.

"I don't think so," Xiao Hongchen recalled. "That's what the one called Huo Yuhao said. The one called Wang Dong also seemed to say he couldn't find a school in the Douluo Three Kingdoms. He seemed pretty sincere about it—probably got expelled for having a terrible temper. Chi Qiu didn't say much. She just said she hoped to study here."

"Not bad." Jing Hongchen finally nodded. The biggest problem would have been if the children had all given a unified story. Since each of the three had offered a different explanation, the worst possibility could tentatively be ruled out.

Over the years, the Douluo Three Kingdoms had sent child spies into the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Academy. But at the age required for enrollment, it was difficult for children to keep up a flawless act in every respect. They were usually exposed within a month.

Though the Douluo Three Kingdoms had stopped doing anything so foolish after their spies were discovered, Jing Hongchen still chose to remain cautious.

Besides, the chances that these three children were spies from the Heaven Dou Empire were already very slim. Their Martial Souls and Soul Power Levels alone showed that all three were rare prodigies.

The Heaven Dou Empire wasn't foolish enough to hand children with such extraordinary talents, but no firmly established worldview, over to the Sun Moon Empire.

"What do you think?" Xiao Hongchen's earlier urgency had already faded considerably.

"Let them enroll as normal transfer students, then observe them secretly for a while. Once we're sure there's no problem, we can discuss what to do next," Jing Hongchen said. "But we should still get ahead of things. Xiao, take Meng and handle this. Give them some special consideration."

"Understood." Xiao Hongchen nodded.

And so the scene from not long ago had come about: Xiao Hongchen had taken some of the low-grade rare metals allocated by Mingde Hall and gone to visit Huo Yuhao. At the same time, in the girls' dormitory on the other side, his younger sister Meng Hongchen had knocked on the door of Wang Dong and Chi Qiu's room.

"All right, that completes your new-student ability tests. All three of you have been assigned to Grade One Class One."

The teacher in charge of the tests made a few marks on the class register and nodded at Huo Yuhao and the others.

Huo Yuhao gave one last reluctant look at the Soul Tools used for the tests, then asked, "So we can start classes tomorrow?"

"Mm."

The testing teacher kept a straight face, but inside, the three children's results had shocked him into numbness.

First there was Chi Qiu. Both her physical condition and strength far exceeded what her current Soul Power Level should allow. Her physique was nearly comparable to a Soul Beast's.

Wang Dong was well-balanced in every regard and far above her peers—a perfect all-rounder. She even had an astonishingly high-quality Soul Bone in her left arm.

As for Huo Yuhao... Though his Soul Power Level was the lowest of the three, he not only possessed a Torso Soul Bone that made the instruments report an error, but also had top-tier strength and reflexes.

During the reflex test, few people could last until four bricks lit up at once. Huo Yuhao had lasted until ten lit up at the same time before finally failing. And it seemed the problem hadn't been that he couldn't react fast enough, but that his hands couldn't move quickly enough.

If he grew a little older and his hands got bigger, letting him hit all ten at once, it might not be impossible for him to break the record.

With that thought, the testing teacher mechanically wrote a note beneath each child's name: "Worthy of special cultivation."

He had been given the Grade One Class One register. That meant Huo Yuhao and the others had already been assigned to their class before the test; the teacher had merely been asked to confirm their abilities.

Of course, that had been Jing Hongchen's decision as well.

The Sun Moon Imperial Soul Engineer Academy's teaching philosophy also included the idea of "teaching according to aptitude," so class numbers were linked to the pace and depth of instruction. In every grade, Class One was reserved for the most talented students, those who absorbed knowledge the fastest.

Because the academy used a promotion system based on assessments, the students in Class One were constantly changing. Once a student earned certification as a Soul Engineer at the next level, they moved up to the next grade, and the vacant spot was filled by an outstanding student from another class in the same grade.

Naturally, the teachers assigned to Class One were all highly capable. Though it was only the first grade, Huo Yuhao and the others' homeroom teacher was already a Level 7 Soul Engineer.