The System is About to Upgrade

Bibi Dong did not succeed in her review.

The high-level officials of the Heaven Dou Empire's education department all beat a retreat once they learned that Ye Qiong had a Limit Douluo backing him.

This qualification review not only failed to cause trouble for Omphalos Academy, but instead solidified its official endorsement.

When this news reached the Crown Prince's Mansion, a faint arc curved at the corner of Xue Qinghe's mouth:

"It seems that woman has also set her sights on the fat piece of meat that is Omphalos."

As she spoke, she picked up a cup of fine tea and stirred it slowly:

"It's a pity her methods are too crude. Resource blockades, qualification reviews, soul master challenges... swinging the same three-pronged axe over and over, is that supposed to be interesting?"

After a moment of thought, Xue Qinghe summoned She Long.

"Send people to keep an eye on the Soul Fighting Arena. Don't let anything happen to the people from Omphalos."

"Your subordinate understands."

After receiving the order, She Long Douluo vanished instantly.

Xue Qinghe walked to the window and looked toward the direction of Omphalos Academy in the distance:

"Bibi Dong, you think you can corner others just by having money and power, but there are some people who only grow tougher the more you push them."

By the middle of the second month, battle challenges against Omphalos Academy began to appear one after another at the Heaven Dou Great Soul Fighting Arena.

Those issuing the challenges were between Soul Power Level 40 and 59, all high-ranking soul masters invited by the Spirit Hall branch through various channels; some were retired military instructors, while others were lone experts who had wandered for years.

Ye Qiong observed for two weeks but did not call a halt to it.

Regarding this, he only did one thing: he drew up the match schedule.

He arranged for his students to face the challengers based on their Soul Power Level and combat style.

Those between level 40 and 45 were slightly weaker, so Ye Qiong assigned them to Wang Sheng and the other four students.

Those between level 45 and 55 were assigned to all the Chrysos Heirs except for Phainon.

As for those above level 55, they were handled directly by the strongest among them, Phainon.

Because of this, everyone improved rapidly.

Among them, Wang Sheng's progress was the most obvious.

After constant tempering through soul fighting, he was likely capable of going toe-to-toe with Dai Mubai at this point.

The others also made significant progress.

As for the Chrysos Heirs, their improvement was not very noticeable.

There was no helping it; their strength was simply too far above the curve. Even when facing opponents ten levels higher than themselves, they could still handle them steadily.

Keleradra, in particular, could run her opponents in circles every time, making it look almost too easy.

As for Phainon, the opponents he faced were much stronger than everyone else's, yet he still managed to achieve one astonishing victory after another, relying on his own Martial Soul that grew stronger the longer he fought.

It wasn't until the third week that

Bibi Dong finally reacted.

She sat in the great hall, listening to the report coming back, her expression darkening bit by bit.

"Up to this point, a total of twenty-seven matches have been arranged."

The reporting soul master lowered his head and said cautiously:

"Omphalos... they won them all."

Once these words were spoken, the great hall fell into a deathly silence.

Bibi Dong leaned back in her chair, her gaze fixed on a candle flame in the distance.

After a long while, she sighed and spoke slowly:

"That's enough. Call them back. Tell the Heaven Dou branch to act as if these three months never happened and stop targeting Omphalos Academy."

In the end, the pressure from Spirit Hall was completely withdrawn.

No new battle challenges were sent to the Soul Fighting Arena.

Ye Qiong stood on the steps at the academy entrance and stretched.

A settlement notification popped up on the system panel's task list. He glanced at the number; in the end, the settlement for the defense mission was 7,200 Star Jade (20% district share).

Ye Qiong calculated in his mind.

Three months had already passed.

"Daily training check-ins, 10 Star Jade per person per day. Thirteen students over ninety full days, that should add up to 11,700."

"Plus the rewards for the collective promotion of the students' soul fighting ranks..."

Ye Qiong did the mental math for a moment.

"The entire settlement totals 215,700 Star Jade!"

Ye Qiong immediately opened his system panel in excitement.

He saw that the Star Jade balance displayed exactly that number.

Seeing this figure, Ye Qiong gasped:

"Hiss, I've hit the jackpot!"

Phainon rising from Silver Soul Master to Gold Soul Master, ten thousand.

Keleradra was about the same as Phainon, also ten thousand.

Anaxa and the Castorice sisters (counted as one unit) each jumped from Copper Soul Master to Gold Soul Master, fifteen thousand each.

Mydei, Wang Sheng, Bai Chenxiang, Jiang Zhu, Huang Yuan, and Jing Ling—the six of them rose all the way from Iron Soul Master to Gold Soul Master, sixteen thousand each.

Aglaea, Feng Jin, and Cipher arrived later, so they only rose from Iron Soul Master to Silver Soul Master, six thousand each.

Finally, adding the extra bonus provided by the system for district-level aptitude.

The calculated total was exactly this number.

Looking at the Warp interface, the corners of Ye Qiong's mouth curled upward.

Two hundred and ten thousand Star Jade; that was over two thousand one hundred pulls. Even if he hit the hard pity every time, he could still get over forty gold items.

Previously, he had always spent everything at once.

But with so much Star Jade this time, Ye Qiong decided that pulling too much at once would easily lead to a surplus of resources in the short term.

Therefore, Ye Qiong did not intend to spend it all at once this time.

He set aside fifty thousand Star Jade and tapped for fifty ten-pulls.

Fifty thousand Star Jade were poured in, five hundred pulls.

The golden light shone eleven times.

After the golden light faded, the silhouette of a young girl appeared on the character card.

Seeing her, Ye Qiong's mouth curled up.

"Keleradra, your fish has arrived."

That's right, Ye Qiong had finally pulled Hysilens for Keleradra.

In his past life, in the Honkai Star Rail world.

The entanglement between Hysilens and Keleradra was deeply rooted.

He wanted to see what kind of sparks would fly when these two met again to settle their past grievances.

However, to his surprise, after Hysilens appeared, there were no more characters; the remaining ten gold items were all Soul Bones.

When he flipped through the card pool description, he finally understood.

He had already pulled all the characters from the Chrysos Heirs pool.

Tribbie, Phainon, Keleradra, Anaxa, Castorice, Mydei, Aglaea, Feng Jin, Cipher, and Hysilens.

There were only these ten people in the pool.

Ye Qiong had previously thought that March 7th and Dan Heng would also be in the pool.

But it seemed the system hadn't put them into the Chrysos Heirs pool at all.

Though, come to think of it, those two were still doing just fine on the train.

He just didn't know when he would be able to return to the train himself.

He missed Himeko's coffee a little.

That stuff had such a great sleep-inducing effect.

He remembered that every time he drank it, he slept like a log.

Ye Qiong's thoughts gradually drifted back to his memories.

Suddenly.

[Detected that the host has collected all Chrysos Heirs of the current version and the academy development level has met the requirements. The system is about to enter the upgrade process.]

[The upgrade does not consume Star Jade. Basic functions will operate normally during the upgrade. New modules will be unlocked after the upgrade.]

[Confirm upgrade?]

Ye Qiong stared at the word "Confirm" hovering on the system interface, stunned.

"Of course, upgrade."

As I Wrote, it was time to begin.