"Teacher, I haven't asked how I should address you."
The middle-aged man slowly turned around, a faint smile on his face.
"My name is Sun Buyu. I'm a Heavenly Supreme Level teacher at Heaven Dou Academy and a level fifty-one Battle Soul King."
"Then can I join your class, Teacher Sun?" Fang Lin put on a sincere expression. He remembered that Sun Buyu had just deliberately emphasized that admission wasn't based solely on Soul Power Level.
Sun Buyu shook his head. Fang Lin thought he was out of luck, but then the man spoke again with a smile.
"You've just enrolled, so the Heavenly Minor Class is a better place for you to learn the basics. Come find me when you reach level twenty. Heavenly Supreme Level students have a privilege: they can choose a Soul Ring of a suitable age from the royal family's Soul Hunting Forest."
Unlike the Soul Hunting Forest near Suotuo City, the royal family's forest had Hundred-Year Soul Beasts with high-grade bloodlines, and even thousand-year Soul Beasts.
Dad hadn't lied to him. Only by taking the initiative could a story begin.
Fang Lin bowed to Sun Buyu. "Thank you, Teacher Sun."
"Go on. Reach Soul Grandmaster as soon as you can." Sun Buyu nodded in satisfaction.
Fang Lin moved into the dormitory and quickly put his things in order.
He went out and asked a few people for directions, then headed straight for his destination-the Mimicry Training Ground.
The Tool Soul Master Mimicry Training Ground stood halfway up the mountain. From the outside, it was an arched building, with a number of enclosed, orderly spaces inside.
The moment he entered, a heavy scent of metal and iron washed over him.
The four walls were cast from heavy iron and stone, covered in marks from slashes, thrusts, and hammer blows. Knives, spears, cudgels, staffs, axes, hammers, hooks, and forks rested on wooden racks.
Fang Lin sat cross-legged, cast aside distracting thoughts, and entered a meditative state.
Only when hunger stirred in his stomach did he wake from meditation. "My cultivation speed increased by about ten percent compared to usual. It doesn't look like much, but it'll become more noticeable at higher levels. For this place alone, the tuition was worth it."
After that remark, Fang Lin left the Mimicry Training Ground and asked around until he found the student affairs office.
It was a single-story building with gleaming glazed tiles on the roof and its main doors standing open.
Inside the hall, a middle-aged Soul Master sat in a corner with his eyes closed, resting. Three round stone tables stood in the center, each holding a palm-sized octagonal disc: one gold and two silver.
According to the written descriptions on the tables, all three were Soul Tools for storing information. One could see their contents by channeling Soul Power into them.
Fang Lin picked up a silver octagonal disc and channeled Soul Power into it. As though his mind had immersed itself in the perspective of a Storage Soul Tool, he saw a list of information before him.
Blood Spirit Body-Tempering Medicinal Bath: 8 credits per portion, or 10 Gold Soul Coins per portion.
One-cubic-meter Storage Soul Tool: 800 credits.
Refined iron: 8 credits per 10 kilograms, or 1 Gold Soul Coin per kilogram.
Credits for a Soul Ring from a 500-700-year-old Soul Beast with a top-tier bloodline.
Most of the items could only be exchanged for credits. Even Soul Rings from Soul Beasts with top-tier bloodlines were available, though the prices were enough to make one click one's tongue.
Fang Lin picked up the gold octagonal disc:
Escort 100,000 jin of grain to the Balak Kingdom. Reward: 100 credits. Failure penalty: deduction of 150 credits. Time limit: half a month.
Guard the city gates of Qie'er City against possible Soul Beast attacks. Reward: 200 credits. Duration: one month. No penalty for failure. (A party of five Soul Grandmasters above level twenty-five is recommended.)
Just as Sun Buyu had said, the tasks took time and effort, held up cultivation, and could even be dangerous.
Not worth it.
Fang Lin glanced at the 100 Gold Soul Coins in his pocket and finally bought two portions of the Body-Tempering Medicinal Bath.
At Shrek Academy, Yu Xiaogang had once given Tang San and the others medicinal baths, which let them achieve twice the result with half the effort when strengthening their bodies and cultivating Soul Power. Fang Lin didn't know whether it was the same kind.
"Wait at least three days between medicinal baths. Before using one, you must thoroughly train your muscles and bones, or it'll actually harm your body. Also, once sold, medicinal baths cannot be returned or exchanged." Seeing that Fang Lin was a new student, the middle-aged Soul Master made a point of warning him.
Few at Heaven Dou Academy could endure the hardship of body training, so he assumed Fang Lin was acting on a passing whim.
One bath every three days came to over 100 portions a year, costing at least 1,000 Gold Soul Coins.
Fang Lin did a quick calculation and clicked his tongue. No wonder Yu Xiaogang had drained Flender's savings in less than half a year.
After touring the academy, Fang Lin discovered that the only thing that cost nothing was the food in the cafeteria.
All normal food was free, and Soul Beast meat was supplied in limited quantities once a week.
Fang Lin arrived just in time for it. He sampled it and was startled to find that it tasted every bit as good as his father's cooking. He couldn't help wondering whether the two shared the same approach to cooking.
Two days later, classes officially began.
Heavenly Minor Level students were the most numerous at the academy, accounting for four-fifths of the total enrollment. But there were fewer than thirty teachers, so students at this level were mostly left to their own devices.
With so much freedom, Fang Lin was able to maintain the same routine as before: two hours of exercise in the morning, one to two hours of Soul Master classes in between, and meditation and cultivation for the rest of the day.
Day after day, it was simple and dull.
Spring passed and autumn came; cold and heat alternated.
One summer that year, the night was black as ink.
In a Mimicry Training Room, a black-haired youth sat quietly in meditation. He was over 1.7 meters tall, with a solid build and sharply defined features.
It was Fang Lin, now grown older.
Soul Power surged from his dantian through his meridians, compressing and condensing as it slammed against an invisible bottleneck again and again.
After a long while, a sudden, unimpeded feeling of relief swept through his body. The barrier that had blocked him broke open, and the Soul Power in his meridians grew denser.
Level twenty-eight!
Five years and four months had passed since Fang Lin enrolled.
Leaving aside the one level I gained from absorbing a Soul Ring, I basically advanced one level every five months before level twenty-five. But it took six months to go from twenty-five to twenty-six, seven months from twenty-six to twenty-seven, and then eight months. Cultivation gets harder the further I go. At this rate, it'll take about another year and a half to reach Soul Elder.
Fang Lin made a rough estimate and was reasonably satisfied with the result.
Heaven Dou Academy's graduation requirement was to reach Soul Elder before the age of twenty-five. Anyone who exceeded the age limit without reaching the required level would be forced to leave. Those who reached it early could choose to stay and continue studying or complete their studies.
Fang Lin was not yet fourteen. By the time he broke through level thirty, he would be no older than sixteen, and could stay on as a Heaven Dou Grade student. Not only would his tuition be waived, he would also receive a Gold Soul Coin allowance.
It was still dark, and Fang Lin wasn't sleepy at all. He went straight to the training ground.
He took a pair of black bracers from his Soul Tool. Their main body was made of some kind of beast hide, with four iron bars embedded along the top and bottom. Each bar was about ten centimeters long and two centimeters thick. All were made of tempered refined iron, and each weighed five jin.
Besides the bracers, there were also leg guards. The leg guards weighed half as much as the bracers and used ordinary iron bars. The whole set weighed nearly thirty kilograms.
Fang Lin put on the equipment piece by piece and jogged three laps around the training ground. Sweat seeped from his body, and then he began practicing with his saber.
Two hours passed. Fang Lin had not a shred of strength left, and sweat poured down his face like rain.
Dragging his heavy feet, Fang Lin returned to the dormitory and fetched a large bucket of hot water from the washroom. Then he took a brown paper packet from his Soul Tool.
He untied the string. Inside were all sorts of medicinal herbs and beast bones, giving off a pungent smell and a thick scent of blood.
Blood Spirit Body-Tempering Medicinal Bath.
Over four years, Fang Lin had used more than a hundred portions, nearly one every two weeks.
He leaped into the bath, sending water spilling over the rim. A scalding, achingly sharp sensation bored through his pores and into his bones, as though ants were crawling through the gaps in them.
Even after using it so many times, Fang Lin couldn't help letting out a couple of grunts.
By the end of the morning, the water in the tub had changed from brown to pale yellow, most of its medicinal power spent.
Fang Lin opened his eyes and stood up, water splashing around him.
At the same time, a clang rang out. The door was pushed open, and an enthusiastic voice reached him first.
"Senior, hello! I'm Yu Feng, a new student..."
The voice stopped abruptly. A blond youth stood in the doorway, a coarse cloth bundle half his height slung over his back.
"Ahhh?"