(Second update)
Time was a peculiar thing. It could change a person, and it could change a situation.
Two years earlier, at the Continental Advanced Soul Master Academy Elite Tournament, Yang Ming and his companions had turned Spirit City upside down, causing Spirit Hall to lose face spectacularly. Afterward, Spirit Hall had mobilized all its connections in the Heaven Dou Empire to suppress Shrek Academy with a vengeance.
At the time, Dean Flender, Vice Dean Liu Erlong, and Grandmaster had not even dared to return to Shrek Academy. They could only leave the reins to others, handing their considerable establishment over to the teachers to manage themselves, afraid that returning to Heaven Dou City would expose them to Spirit Hall's frenzied retaliation.
But once the Sky-Blasting Gang rose to prominence, climbing over Spirit Hall's corpse to become a towering power within the Heaven Dou Empire, everyone who had once suppressed Shrek Academy vanished without a trace. None of them dared show their faces.
To curry favor with Yang Ming, Prince Xue Xing had even persuaded Emperor Xue Ye to invite Flender and the other two back to Shrek Academy with unprecedented honors. Moreover, to show that he and the Sky-Blasting Gang were one happy family, Emperor Xue Ye had specially granted all three the title of marquis.
The noble rank of marquis was not to be underestimated.
Within the Heaven Dou Empire, the noble ranks, from lowest to highest, were roughly divided into baron, viscount, earl, marquis, duke, and prince.
Generally speaking, once a Spirit Master advanced to become a rank-thirty Soul Elder, they had a chance of being granted a barony. The price, however, was signing a harsh agreement obliging them to serve the empire for the next ten to twenty years.
After becoming a baron, advancing to viscount