Saint Freya Academy

The founding of Saint Freya Academy brought hope to commoners who could not even afford the cost of awakening their martial souls.

During the era of the Peerless Tang Sect, commoners who wished to awaken their martial souls had to pay a certain fee. After all, setting up the awakening array and hiring soul masters to oversee the awakening both required money.

Looking back ten thousand years, Spirit Hall had once helped commoners awaken their martial souls on a massive scale free of charge, thereby drawing in more than half of Douluo Continent's commoner soul masters.

At the time, Spirit Hall had so many soul masters that its numbers even surpassed the combined totals of the Heaven Dou Empire and the Star Luo Empire.

Yet as time passed into the present, ten thousand years later, although the total number of soul masters had increased dramatically and the great empires were far stronger than they had been ten thousand years ago, the paths for commoners to rise through the ranks had only grown narrower.

For some ordinary families living in poverty, the cost of a single martial soul awakening was enough to bankrupt them.

Take Shrek Academy, now hailed as the continent's foremost academy. Its requirements for admission were exceedingly harsh.

Not only did students need exceptional talent, they also had to obtain letters of recommendation from the city lords of the major empires' principal cities before they were even qualified to apply.

For commoners, merely awakening their martial souls was already fraught with difficulty, let alone getting to know a City Lord and obtaining a letter of recommendation.

Even if a commoner child displayed extraordinary talent, those powerful City Lords were often more inclined to take them under their wing for their own use rather than recommend them to Shrek Academy.

After all, for a City Lord, controlling a genius from an ordinary commoner background was no difficult matter, provided the City Lord was not incompetent and foolish.

In today's Douluo Continent, students who could enter Shrek Academy generally had some sort of background. Those truly born into purely commoner families were few and far between.

The students of prominent status flocked to Shrek Academy for two main reasons.

First, naturally, was Shrek Academy's thunderous reputation. After ten thousand years of accumulated prestige, Shrek Academy had established immense authority within the soul master world. Its quality of education and the outstanding talents it had produced had made it a holy land in the hearts of countless soul masters.

Second, they went there to build connections. Shrek Academy's admissions standards were exceptionally strict. Even its outer academy students were elites among elites; pick any one of them at random, and they either came from a wealthy family or a powerful and influential clan.

As a result, Shrek Academy's outer academy had naturally formed a vast, high-end social circle among the upper class.

Thinking about it carefully, could those students who went to study at Shrek Academy truly learn anything substantial from teachers at the Soul Emperor and Soul Sage levels?

One had to know that martial souls were inherited through bloodlines. For these highborn students, their families' research into their own martial souls had often spanned hundreds or even thousands of years.

Over the course of that long exploration, their families had long since developed unique and comprehensive training systems.

Thus, acquiring knowledge was not their primary purpose in attending Shrek Academy. More than anything, they sought to expand their connections, make like-minded friends, and pave the way for their future development.

Of course, if they were fortunate enough to join Shrek Academy's inner academy and truly become part of its core, that would naturally be even better.

Establishing close ties with Shrek Academy brought nothing but benefits to the family powers behind them.

After all, Shrek Academy possessed deep foundations and numerous Titled Douluo. That was undoubtedly a formidable force.

However, in such a vast Shrek Academy, how many students could truly enter the inner academy?

That was precisely why Lu Jingming had never intended to send Zhang Lexuan to Shrek Academy to study.

In his view, there was no need for it. He did not need to deliberately cultivate those so-called connections, especially when Zhang Lexuan had an exceptionally powerful expert like Jing Liu personally guiding her.

How could Jing Liu's strength and experience possibly be compared to those ordinary Soul Emperors and Soul Sages at Shrek Academy?

Lu Jingming himself likewise had no intention of studying at any other academy. Leaving aside Jing Liu, Chang Li, and The Great Black Tower, all three of them were extraordinarily capable. Which one of them was not qualified to be his teacher?

Furthermore, when it came to connections, with The Great Black Tower and the others around, people of insight would sooner or later come to befriend him of their own accord, given their abilities. There was no need for him to exhaust himself trying to curry favor with others.

Spirit Hall's past experience had shown Lu Jingming that the commoner population held immense potential.

With such an enormous population base, there would always be a few exceptionally gifted geniuses.

As long as he could discover such talents and they were not ungrateful people, then everything he invested would not be in vain.

Moreover, thanks to the Soul Tools created by The Great Black Tower, Lu Jingming was quite well-off financially.

For him, helping the commoners of Haiyuan City awaken their martial souls for free, then hiring a few teachers to impart soul master-related knowledge to them without charge, was not difficult to accomplish.

Take Jing Liu, for instance. Although she was usually busy with her duties, she would still set aside time during her free hours to teach Saint Freya Academy's students a few swordsmanship techniques.

One had to know that Jing Liu was a genuine Titled Douluo. Being able to receive her guidance meant that these students enjoyed treatment no less favorable than Shrek Academy's students.

According to Jing Liu, as long as someone wished to learn her swordsmanship, she was willing to teach them everything she knew. She did not care whether her students were talented or not.

Because of this, nearly all of Saint Freya Academy's students had studied swordsmanship under Jing Liu.

However, it had to be admitted that these students' talents were indeed limited. Whether in martial soul talent or swordsmanship talent, they were far too mediocre. Not one of them could compare with Zhang Lexuan.

Saint Freya Academy possessed a distinctive architectural style. White was its dominant color, complemented by modern glass curtain walls and metal structures, giving it a fashionable yet grand appearance.

This style was completely different from the traditional architecture of the Star Luo Empire, and was instead rather similar to that of the Sun Moon Empire across the sea.

Although the academy had only recently been completed, its facilities were fully equipped. Its teaching buildings were spacious and bright, providing students with an excellent learning environment.

The dormitory area was warm and comfortable, allowing students to rest fully after their studies. The training grounds were comprehensively equipped to meet their daily training needs, while the simulated cultivation chambers were one of the academy's greatest highlights—top-tier cultivation facilities only high-level academies would possess.

The cafeteria offered a rich variety of food to meet the students' dietary needs, while the picturesque scenic area gave them a wonderful place to relax amid their demanding academic lives.