Time flashed by, and soon four months had passed.
At Heaven Dou Intermediate Soul Master Academy, the morning theory classes had just ended, and students headed toward the cafeteria or their dormitories in twos and threes.
Lin Mo stood alone in the corridor outside the classroom, leaning against the railing and gazing at several upper-year students sparring on the distant training field. His brows were slightly furrowed, and a trace of helplessness showed on his face.
Only a few days remained before this semester's final assessment-the Soul Power test.
According to academy rules, only students who passed the academy's test and were confirmed to have reached the level-twenty Soul Power bottleneck qualified to join the Soul Hunting expedition organized by the academy at the end of the semester, traveling with the main group to the Soul Hunting Forest to obtain Soul Rings.
But... he had only recently broken through his bottleneck and raised his Soul Power to level nineteen.
With only these few days left, no matter how many extra hours he put into cultivating with all his might, he could not possibly raise his Soul Power to level twenty in such a short time.
This time, I'm definitely going to miss the end-of-semester Soul Hunting trip.
"I can only wait until next semester..." Lin Mo sighed softly.
Missing this opportunity meant he would have to wait at least another half a year before he could obtain his second Soul Ring.
That would undoubtedly slow his cultivation progress.
After all, once Soul Power reached a bottleneck, his Soul Power level could not rise without obtaining a Soul Ring.
Granted, the Soul Power gained through daily cultivation would continue to accumulate, until it surged forth upon obtaining a Soul Ring.
Still, the cultivation efficiency of a level-twenty prospective Soul Grandmaster ultimately could not compare with that of a Soul Grandmaster who had completed the breakthrough. He would lose half a year's worth of cultivation efficiency this way.
However, Lin Mo also knew that cultivation could not be rushed.
He soon adjusted his mindset and put this small regret behind him.
His days had been exceptionally full lately-busy, even.
He usually attended classes at the academy in the morning, taking advantage of his free time to cultivate Soul Power.
In the afternoon, come rain or shine, he set aside two to four hours to head to the Ye family clinic and complete his apprentice duties.
Fortunately, the clinic was not too far from the academy, so traveling back and forth could hardly be called too arduous.
His studies at the clinic during this time had yielded a rich harvest. Not only had he kept up with his cultivation, but he had also learned many practical things there.
As early as two months ago, Lin Mo had stopped going to the academy library.
He had shifted all the time he used to spend immersed in the library to the Ye Family Medical Hall.
His apprenticeship assessment had not needed three months at all.
In fact, before the first month had even ended, he had already passed old Ye Linyuan's test without trouble.
Elder Ye was very satisfied with his learning ability and his capacity to settle down and focus, and formally accepted him as an apprentice.
What surprised Elder Ye most was that Lin Mo himself seemed to possess some very basic, rudimentary medical knowledge, which meant he would not need to teach him from scratch.
That had come as a relief to him.
Thus, Lin Mo became one of only three Soul Master apprentices currently at the Ye Family Medical Hall.
The other two were Elder Ye's granddaughter, Ye Lingling, and Li He, the boy Lin Mo had seen on his first day at the clinic, who always had his head buried in an illustrated medicinal herb reference book.
However, judging by Li He's recent state, he probably would not stay here much longer.
Through their interactions and casual conversations during this time, Lin Mo had also come to understand a little about Li He.
He had originally come to the clinic as an apprentice more at his family's wishes.
His own attitude toward medicine had always been rather ambiguous, something along the lines of, "My family wants me to learn, so I'll give it a try."
Recently, that "give it a try" mindset of his had clearly tilted toward "this isn't working."
According to what Li He had revealed during a casual conversation with him a while ago, he would probably choose to leave the clinic soon.
Lin Mo was not surprised by this.
In fact, cases like Li He's were quite common among the Soul Master apprentices recruited by the Ye Family Medical Hall.
Soul Master apprentices who successfully passed the test and persevered until they achieved something were not unheard of, but they were exceedingly few.
Most gave up halfway, just like Li He.
The reason was simple, too.
Studying medicine was an extremely long and tedious process.
It required memorizing vast amounts of knowledge about medicinal herbs, the human body's meridians, and the characteristics of illnesses, as well as extensive practice to accumulate experience.
For Soul Masters who devoted most of their efforts to raising their Soul Power, this process offered little obvious benefit in the short term, while taking up considerable precious cultivation time.
That was also why old Ye Linyuan set such high standards for temperament when recruiting apprentices.
He hoped to find promising students who were genuinely interested in medicine, could endure solitude, and could settle down to study.
Even so, someone like Li He, who persisted for almost a year before considering giving up, was already quite rare and commendable among the Soul Master apprentices of the past.
Old Ye Linyuan seemed long accustomed to apprentices coming and going.
He occasionally shared a few reflections with Lin Mo, his words carrying a measure of open-minded acceptance.
In his words, it would naturally be ideal if he could find a suitable successor to inherit his medical skills.
If they truly could not be passed down, that was fine too. It could not be forced; everything would follow the course of fate.
After all, for the vast majority of Soul Masters, raising their Soul Power level was both the most important and the most practical matter.
Studying medicine was more often regarded merely as a possible fallback for making a living, or a relatively unimportant hobby.
That was precisely why Li He had made up his mind to leave this time.
His Soul Power level had already met the graduation requirements of an intermediate Soul Master academy, and next he needed to devote himself wholeheartedly to preparing for the entrance examination for an advanced Soul Master academy.
Between cultivation and studying medicine, he had ultimately chosen the former.
As for Lin Mo himself, his circumstances were more unusual.
On the one hand, he feared death. On the other, the more important reason was that he needed to make use of the uniquely favorable environment here to research cultivation methods for his Body Martial Soul and self-created Soul Skills.
Moreover, with Charmander by his side, cultivating here would not hold him back; on the contrary, it would be much faster than cultivating in the academy library.
Apart from him and Li He, the other apprentice, Ye Lingling, had rather unusual circumstances.
Ye Lingling had grown up beside Ye Linyuan from childhood, and through constant exposure to the old man's work, she had naturally inherited considerable medical knowledge and skill.
Yet Ye Lingling herself did not seem particularly interested in delving deeply into medicine.
The talent she had inherited and displayed manifested more in her family's hereditary Martial Soul-the Nine Heart Begonia.
Its uniquely gifted healing ability seemed to be an innate instinct, far surpassing the results attainable through medical skills acquired by study.
Thus, Ye Lingling's attitude toward medicine could be described as offering little worth mentioning.
However, compared with Ye Lingling's talents in medicine and her Martial Soul, what worried old Ye Linyuan more was the temperament of this eldest granddaughter of his.