After washing up in the residential area, cutting his hair short, and shaving off the hair above his lip, Jiang Hai took a bath and left the Illustrious Virtue Hall.
Dazzling sunlight shone straight down, making Jiang Hai instinctively squint after spending so long underground. Over the past year, he could count his trips to the surface on his fingers. Few people at the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy had seen much of him that year, including the exchange students he had brought from the Second Academy. Now that a year had passed, all those exchange students, including Xue Linglong, had earned the right to study in the Illustrious Virtue Hall. Whenever he had a spare moment between his research, Jiang Hai would answer their questions, giving something back to the Second Academy.
After getting his bearings, Jiang Hai went straight to Lin Jiayi's office.
Lin Jiayi froze for a moment when he saw Jiang Hai. After all, Jiang Hai had kept an exceptionally low profile over the past year. Still, that was perfectly normal. The Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy had no shortage of soul engineers like Jiang Hai, who devoted themselves to research and paid no attention to worldly affairs. They were also the sort Lin Jiayi liked best. Such people poured all their energy into researching soul tools, leaving them far less inclined to fight over shifts in power in the outside world. They could focus more fully on soul tools and produce more outstanding creations. Every soul engineer like that was a treasure: little trouble, little worry, and always capable of delivering an unexpected surprise. That was why Lin Jiayi rarely disturbed Jiang Hai's research.
But now that Jiang Hai had finally emerged from seclusion, Lin Jiayi's eyes lit up as though something had