Jiang Xia thought little of Gu Yue's complaints.
He was digesting his gains from this trip.
He had fallen halfway short of his goal.
In the end, his two Soul Spirits had gained only 1,500 years in total.
He had already swept through as much of the beginner Spirit Ascension Platform as he could.
This was very likely the beginner Spirit Ascension Platform's limit.
Of course, it was also possible that too much had gone to Gu Yue and the others. After all, Gu Yue had genuinely shouldered the pressure, and the others had also contributed by hunting soul beasts.
Jiang Xia's wide-ranging spiritual probing was itself too draining, so he had contributed less in combat.
With that distribution, he had actually taken the lion's share, absorbing sixty percent of all the spiritual power. Gu Yue had absorbed twenty percent, leaving the remaining twenty percent for the other three.
Even so, the other three had all filled their bowls to overflowing.
The increase in the age of Gu Yue's Soul Spirit was also measured in thousands of years.
She stopped pretending and laid her cards on the table, revealing two thousand-year Soul Rings outright.
Jiang Xia was simply too unrestrained. Three thousand-year Soul Rings were one thing, but he was still frantically raising their ages.
Gu Yue felt she needed to raise the ceiling of the genius persona she had crafted for herself just a tiny bit more.
Both my Soul Spirits have now reached 6,000 years.
As Jiang Xia calculated his Soul Spirits' cultivation, he also quietly assessed his physical attributes.
As his body developed, his physical attributes were rising across the board.
Every level of improvement in Soul Power would feed back into his physical attributes.
On top of that, he supplemented himself with various treasures of heaven and earth. He also used Broken Dream to cultivate Blood Essence Power, mastering blood essence circulation techniques in dreams before using those sophisticated techniques to assist his blood essence circulation in reality.
With all these advantages, his physical attributes could barely keep up.
But they could only keep up with his current three Soul Rings.
If he had to bear the pressure of an additional 6,000-year fourth Soul Ring, Jiang Xia's body would not hold up.
But none of this was a problem for him anymore.
As for his Soul Spirits' cultivation, Jiang Xia could use an illusory space to increase his capacity to bear it.
As for the pressure the Soul Rings exerted on his body, Jiang Xia now had a new solution as well.
Gu Yue can help me construct the formation for opening a virtual space. Naturally, Teacher can also help me set up the formation for turning illusion into reality.
Teacher and I tried it before. Only with at least three layers of Dream Overlapping would I have enough control to withstand the pressure of operating the complete formation corresponding to the technique for turning illusion into reality!
Turning illusion into reality was meant to bring the methods he used in his dreams into reality.
Thus, Jiang Xia could not do it within the Spirit Ascension Platform.
Without that illusory space, just two layers of Dream Overlapping could not withstand the pressure.
Gu Yue, however, could help Jiang Xia open an illusory space out of nothing and use it as a medium.
That would give Jiang Xia a chance to achieve three layers of Dream Overlapping even under normal circumstances.
By the same reasoning, it would also work if Han Tianyi helped.
As long as he learned this technique, he could routinely achieve three layers of Dream Overlapping.
At the same time, Han Tianyi could try helping Jiang Xia complete the setup for the technique to turn illusion into reality.
And as long as his dreams could descend into reality, Jiang Xia's physical attributes could undergo explosive growth for a short time.
Then, during that period of growth, he would fuse with his fourth Soul Ring.
He would first raise his capacity to bear it, then use the feedback after completing the fusion with his fourth Soul Ring to improve his physical attributes.
At that point, even after removing the temporary increase in his capacity, his remaining physical attributes would instead be sufficient to bear four Soul Rings.
This was using first and paying later.
But the prerequisite for all this was that Jiang Xia himself had to master the technique for opening an illusory space.
Or Han Tianyi could do it.
But Han Tianyi was at a critical stage in his cultivation lately, and Jiang Xia had no reason to make him learn a technique of no use to him for nothing.
Having him help build the model for turning illusion into reality was already something Jiang Xia had been left with no choice but to do.
On this trip to the Spirit Ascension Platform, I've comprehensively studied the formation for opening an illusory space over and over.
Mastering and reproducing it before level 40 shouldn't be a problem.
Jiang Xia silently set his goal.
After this semester's riot-period Spirit Ascension Platform session ended, Wu Zhangkong directly gave Jiang Xia, Gu Yue, Tang Wulin, and Xie Xie their final grades.
Xu Xiaoyan, meanwhile, took part in the next assessment: the Hall of Heroes.
Xu Xiaoyan did not last very long.
Wu Zhangkong offered her some encouragement and said this was perfectly normal; being unable to last very long was the norm.
Then he invited Xu Xiaoyan to join the Tang Sect.
Only then did he learn that Xu Xiaoyan had already joined the Spirit Pagoda.
Wu Zhangkong was utterly stunned.
"When did you join the Spirit Pagoda?"
Wu Zhangkong remembered that, according to his earlier investigation, Xu Xiaoyan had not joined any faction.
"The month before last," Xu Xiaoyan said.
Xu Xiaoyan did not bring up anything about joining the Spirit Pagoda because of Jiang Xia.
She simply answered Wu Zhangkong's question, then asked whether she had passed her final assessment.
He was also worried that not joining them would affect Wu Zhangkong's judgment of them.
Fortunately, however, Wu Zhangkong did no such thing.
Xu Xiaoyan's final results were graded normally as well.
Class Zero.
"The academy has issued a last-minute notice. Our Class Zero must participate in the Skysea Alliance Tournament and produce results. Otherwise, the academy will find it difficult to keep investing so much in maintaining Class Zero's instruction."
A trip to the Spirit Ascension Platform once a week-such treatment was truly far too generous.
Countless factions throughout Eastsea City scrambled to get ahead of one another, yet could only secure one or two Spirit Ascension Platform slots a year for their families' outstanding juniors.
Even somewhat larger families could only obtain one or two admission tickets for the riot-period Spirit Ascension Platform if they were lucky.
Yet Class Zero could enter the Spirit Ascension Platform once a week, and even used the riot-period Spirit Ascension Platform as its examination venue at the end of every semester.
What extraordinary treatment!
If Eastsea Academy's educational achievements had not concerned the reputation of all Eastsea City, allowing it to negotiate with the Spirit Pagoda in the city's name, it could never have secured so many slots.
Likewise, precisely because it had used Eastsea City's name, Eastsea Academy was also under tremendous pressure.
Those above had already pressed them many times, demanding results.
Without results, they still wanted to keep burning money like this for three or four years?
Impossible.
Wu Zhangkong stated the academy administration's demands and glanced at the five students in the classroom.
Not one of the five showed the slightest worry.
Even Xu Xiaoyan, usually so timid, looked surprised rather than worried at this moment.
"Teacher, I've already signed up for the forging competition in the Skysea Alliance Tournament. Will that be affected?" Tang Wulin raised his hand and asked.
Wu Zhangkong said, "In this tournament, the schedules for many of the different competition formats are independent of one another. The forging competition doesn't clash with the three-person team competition we'll be entering."
Tang Wulin breathed a sigh of relief.
Wu Zhangkong glanced at Jiang Xia.
No response came from Jiang Xia.
Jiang Xia had never signed up for these competitions in the first place.
There was no need.
Rather than spending time showing off at a competition, he would be better off studying how to open an illusory space and how to construct those formations.