Su Hao

Today was finally the day to leave for school.

Southern Heaven University was located in the capital of Southern Heaven Province.

To get to school, Huo Ling first had to take a bus from Stone Creek County to Donghe City, then catch a train there to the provincial capital.

On Blue Star today, although the supernatural had emerged in Great Xia, many professionals did not operate on Blue Star, and ordinary people rarely came into contact with the supernatural world.

Over the several centuries since Great Xia was founded, magic within supernatural society had developed rapidly, while mortal technology had advanced very slowly.

After all, Great Xia's ruling class consisted of supernatural professionals, and what they paid closer attention to was naturally matters concerning themselves.

For them, what deserved more effort was figuring out how to obtain more powerful enchanted equipment.

When the ruling class ignored mortals, the bureaucrats naturally followed suit.

Thus, over the past hundred-odd years, Great Xia's ordinary technology had barely progressed, while everything within supernatural society had developed at breakneck speed.

Huo Ling bought a ticket and boarded the train bound for the provincial capital.

As a reserve professional who had successfully undergone Spirit Awakening, his treatment was slightly better than that of ordinary people, and he did not have to remain in a crowded carriage.

Sitting in a comfortable seat, Huo Ling was leaving Donghe for the first time. This was also his first time riding a train in more than a decade.

Even though he had already seen far more wondrous things in the Spirit Realm, and had even become an apprentice-tier mage himself.

Still, as he sat on the train and watched the scenery flash past on either side of the tracks, he could not help feeling a sense of novelty.

The journey took Huo Ling more than four hours. Once the train arrived, he got off carrying his luggage.

Class divisions were everywhere, and this was especially pronounced in Great Xia.

The train had been at the station for quite some time already. The first to disembark were all true professionals.

These professionals had ridden in the more luxurious carriages at the front, whose decorations were even more lavish.

Only after all those official professionals had left was it the turn of apprentice-tier professionals like Huo Ling.

These apprentice-tier professionals were not all students. Some, for instance, were retired soldiers who would never be able to advance to Black Iron throughout their lives.

As Huo Ling walked out through the ticket gate, he saw a table set up in the reception hall, with a conspicuous sign hanging above it.

Southern Heaven University!

"Hello, Senior. I'm a new student this year." Huo Ling walked over, showed his admission notice, and greeted him.

"Hello, Junior. Come with me."

A male student stood up, checked the notice, and led Huo Ling into a lounge.

"Have a seat here for a while, classmate. We'll leave for the university at five."

"Okay, Senior."

Huo Ling sat on a chair in the lounge and looked around.

There were already seven or eight people seated in the lounge. Judging by their youthful faces, they were probably all new students this year.

"Brother, where are you from?" A boy sitting nearby leaned over and asked familiarly.

"Donghe." Stone Creek County belonged to Donghe City. Huo Ling glanced at the boy and answered.

"Let's get acquainted. My name is Su Hao. I'm from White Stone." The boy held out his hand and introduced himself.

White Stone City was also a city under Southern Heaven Province. It was not particularly far from Donghe, where Huo Ling lived.

"Huo Ling." He shook his hand.

"Brother, are you a spellcaster or a martial professional?" Su Hao asked with a smile.

"A spellcaster. What about you?"

"I'm a martial professional..." Su Hao looked at him with envy. He truly had reason to be envious.

Even among professionals, there was a chain of disdain.

Among spellcasters, mages were the strongest, followed by druids, bards, and the like, as well as sorcerers.

Below spellcasters, martial professionals were also divided into ranks. Those who could train as knights were the best, followed by functional martial professionals such as rogues, hunters, and so on.

The most ordinary and basic was probably the warrior. Warriors sat at the very bottom of the professionals' chain of disdain.

There was no other reason. There were simply too many warriors, and once there were too many, their competitiveness shrank.

The two of them then began chatting in the station lounge.

Su Hao's family circumstances were also quite good. His family likewise had professionals; his father was a Silver-tier knight with considerable combat strength.

The faculty Su Hao had applied for at Southern Heaven University was likewise the Knight Academy.

As for Huo Ling, he had naturally applied to the Mage Academy.

"Have you heard?" Su Hao lowered his voice and spoke furtively.

"Heard what?" Huo Ling asked curiously.

Su Hao continued with a mysterious look on his face. "Among this year's freshmen, someone has already broken through to the Black Iron tier."

"What!?"

Huo Ling asked with a shocked expression.

"Hasn't it only been two months since Spirit Awakening? How has someone already broken through to Black Iron?"

"You don't understand this, do you? Not only has someone broken through to Black Iron, there are quite a few of them."

Su Hao chuckled, then continued.

"It's not strange for someone to break through to Black Iron after two months of Spirit Awakening. Some people have good aptitude, and their families provide them with meditation methods or breathing techniques suited to their constitutions. Naturally, they cultivate quickly."

"And there are also quite a few potions that can increase cultivation progress. Drinking those potions at the apprentice tier makes cultivation speed first-rate."

"Besides, ordinary people only begin Spirit Awakening at the end of the term. Some people undergo Spirit Awakening themselves as soon as school starts, and some even earlier. They might have done it at eleven or twelve."

"They were so young. How did they survive in the Spirit Realm? What if they encountered some danger?" Huo Ling did not understand.

"Hehehe, you don't understand this either. Their families have money, so they directly outfit them with a full set of enchanted equipment, then give them some scrolls that even ordinary people can use. Unless they land in a place of certain death, their survival rate is far higher than ours ordinary people."

"I've heard there's also a rather expensive potion. If you drink it after entering the Spirit Realm, it can raise the chance of successfully awakening."

Su Hao said, shaking his head knowingly.

After hearing this, Huo Ling could not help clicking his tongue. On second thought, it was indeed true.

Children whose parents were high-tier professionals already began far ahead of people like him.

Even wealthy ordinary people would rack their brains to get their children better equipment during Spirit Awakening, so they could survive.

Then how could high-tier professionals be willing to let their children live mediocre lives? They could provide far more things.

As Huo Ling continued thinking, perhaps what Su Hao had said was not unusual at all. After all, his family was merely in the lower-middle range among professionals.

Perhaps families of even higher-tier professionals had still better things to offer.

For now, Huo Ling could not guess what those things were. It was like a farmer imagining that the emperor farmed with a golden shoulder pole.

If one had not reached that level, how could one know what it was truly like?

The happiness of the rich was not something Huo Ling and the others could experience—they could not even imagine it.