Entering the City

He had already begun planning what to do after arriving in Heaven Dou City.

He needed to fuse his second Soul Ring.

The closest place to Heaven Dou City was undoubtedly Sunset Forest.

Fortunately, Sunset Forest was unlike Hunting Forest. It was not a captive hunting ground, so no permit was required, nor did he need to report to Spirit Hall.

Otherwise, he could only have entered by sneaking across.

However, once he broke through to Great Spirit Master, he probably would not be able to claim the ten Gold Soul Coins the Heaven Dou Empire granted as a subsidy to Great Spirit Masters.

He would also need to hide his rank a little. But as long as he did not casually reveal his strength, no one would suspect an ordinary nobody like him, who had taken six years just to break through to Soul Master. He could safely focus on growing stronger.

This bit of money was not much to him, actually.

In order to move from remote Nuoding City to Heaven Dou City, the imperial capital of the Heaven Dou Empire, his father had sold off all their mineral holdings in exchange for nearly ten thousand Gold Soul Coins.

Ten thousand Gold Soul Coins might barely make a splash in prosperous Heaven Dou City, but to ordinary people, it was an enormous sum.

It was enough for them to establish themselves in Heaven Dou City.

Of course, with such a huge sum of money on them, they had naturally hired guards for the move.

As long as one had enough money, one could hire Soul Masters from Spirit Hall to escort them.

Such escort missions were usually officially registered, so there was no risk of being robbed by the escorts themselves. They were very safe.

They had hired two Spirit Kings in their fifties. An escort mission cost only a few hundred Gold Soul Coins, which was quite worthwhile. There was no need to scrimp on this money.

In the blink of an eye, several days passed, and Li Ming finally arrived in Heaven Dou City. Compared to remote Nuoding City, which was more like a small town, Heaven Dou City looked exceptionally luxurious.

Neither its scale nor its architecture could compare to Nuoding City.

Though it lacked technological elements, it had the power of Soul Masters, making this imperial city grand and magnificent, comparable to certain cities from his previous life.

Li Ming's family lined up to enter the city. The population here was dense, and everyone had to be inspected at the city gates. Only those with a Soul Master credential could use the priority passage and enter without inspection.

However, he had heard that only Spirit Ancestors and above could pass through there.

After entering the city, his father, Li Yuan, continued onward with the family in their carriage.

Along the way, Li Yuan excitedly introduced Heaven Dou City to them. Before this, they had never imagined that their entire family would one day move to the imperial capital. It truly felt surreal.

Heaven Dou City had three areas: the Outer City, the Inner City, and the imperial palace.

The Outer City housed countless commoners, while the Inner City was where nobles and Soul Masters lived. The imperial palace was naturally where the royal family resided.

Li Ming's family's destination was an area of the Outer City near the Inner City.

Without noble status or a high Soul Master rank, one could not even rent a house or establish a household in the Inner City.

In this district where the powerful and influential held sway, everything depended on rank.

The Inner City had a better natural environment, greater security, and superior education, but Li Ming could not solve that problem yet.

However, the Outer City was also divided into districts: the commoner district and the wealthy district.

The area near the Inner City was the wealthy district. Housing there was more expensive to rent, but it was closer to the Inner City.

Compared to the chaotic mix of people brought by the huge population in the commoner district, the wealthy district was clearly safer.

Before long, they arrived at their new home: a standalone three-story house. It did not look particularly large. In Nuoding City, a house of this size would only be standard for a family with slightly better means.

But in Heaven Dou City, the annual rent for such a building was over a thousand Gold Soul Coins.

That was no small amount.

Even a Spirit Elder in their thirties, receiving the Heaven Dou Empire's monthly subsidy of one hundred Gold Coins, would need ten months to save up over a thousand Gold Coins.

Even considering their family's current assets, it was not a small expense.

However, Li Ming had already discussed it with his father before coming and told him not to worry. He had his own ways of making money.

Over the past six years, his parents had come to regard him as a prodigy. After seeing him bring immense wealth to the family, they had almost become completely obedient to him.

Of course, the main reason was that neither of his parents was a Soul Master. Deep down, they held an instinctive reverence for Soul Masters.

He could make the decisions for many matters in the family.

After settling down here, Li Yuan took Li Ming into the Inner City the next day.

This time, they had come to enroll Li Ming in an Intermediate Spirit Master Academy.

Nearly all the better Intermediate Spirit Master Academies in Heaven Dou City were located in the Inner City. These academies also had many commoner students, but they did not live there and had to travel between the Inner and Outer Cities every day. There were dormitories, but the lodging fees were substantial and beyond what commoners could afford.

As the imperial capital, Heaven Dou City gathered a population of several million, so it had no shortage of Intermediate Spirit Master Academies.

For example, there was Heaven Dou Royal Intermediate Soul Master Academy, the intermediate Soul Master academies affiliated with the Five Element Academies, Spirit Temple Direct Intermediate Soul Master Academy, and so on.

It seemed like there were many choices, but they were not so easy to enter.

The royal academy was a noble academy. Being the descendant of a noble was a basic requirement.

There were five Five Element Academies, all of them selecting reserve students for higher academies, so they naturally had sufficiently high requirements for talent.

They not only assessed innate Soul Power, but also had requirements for one's Martial Soul.

A seemingly messy, failed Mutated Martial Soul like Li Ming's simply could not get in.

Spirit Temple Academy only recruited reserve students who were Soul Masters of Spirit Hall. To study there, one had to join Spirit Hall. Of course, becoming a reserve student of Spirit Hall was already a form of selection.

In the end, Li Ming arrived at the Blue Tyrant Academy Intermediate Soul Master Branch.

It was a branch academy under Blue Tyrant Academy, founded by Liu Erlong, and it stood right next to Blue Tyrant Academy.

Of course, Blue Tyrant Academy, like the other academies, also looked at talent. Nearly all academies in the Inner City did.

And Blue Tyrant Academy specialized in admitting commoner students.

However, supporting such an academy required a considerable number of Gold Soul Coins. Blue Tyrant Academy not only admitted talented commoner students, but even paid subsidies to them.

This made life even more difficult for the already poorly funded Blue Tyrant Academy.

After all, this was the Inner City, where land was worth every inch of gold. Teacher salaries and various other expenses alone required a great many Gold Soul Coins every year. A little tuition from commoner students was not enough.

Of course, it also received some support from the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan. Otherwise, opening an academy in the Inner City would not have been so simple.

The Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's emblem was even displayed on Blue Tyrant Academy's signboard. It was not something just anyone could use.

But even so, Liu Erlong did not have much funding.

Thus, Blue Tyrant Academy had another special feature: as long as one paid a certain sponsorship fee, even students whose talent was insufficient could enter Blue Tyrant Intermediate Academy to study.

Under this system, Li Yuan paid several hundred Gold Soul Coins to enroll Li Ming successfully.

Now, they only needed to wait for the school term to begin.

But before that, he needed to settle his second Soul Ring first.

He had long since formed a plan for his Soul Rings.

After all, he had not spent the past six years doing nothing.

So, he activated his Satellite Map, gazed at Sunset Forest, and a sharp gleam flashed in his eyes.