Chapter 5: Reaching Level Ten
Completely unaware that he was being "disliked," Lin Yang formally began his academy life.
As a Soul Master, cultivation was naturally the foundation, but various courses were not lacking either.
Of the two classes every morning, one was bound to be basic quality education, covering history, geography, humanities, and other related content.
In addition, there were advanced courses such as Martial Soul research, Spirit Beast identification, and combat training.
Although most of the content was simple, it was more than enough for a group of little kids who had just stepped into the Soul Master field.
The afternoon was free time; Work-Study Students could take this time to complete their assigned duties, while self-funded students could go cultivate.
Of course, if one's playful nature took over, no one would care.
Anyway, the academy's graduation requirement was simple: obtain a first spirit ring during the study period.
If you didn't get a first spirit ring within the six years at school, then sorry, you'd have to drop out.
The path of a Soul Master is one where being a step slow means being slow at every step.
If you have no talent and aren't willing to work hard, you might as well go home and sell sweet potatoes.
The Work-Study Students all understood this truth, so they were the most hardworking group in the academy.
Lin Yang's life also gradually fell into a routine as time passed.
After finishing his classes every day, he would quickly complete the tasks assigned to him by the school.
Half of the remaining time would be spent in the library, learning about various Martial Souls and Spirit Beasts to prepare for his first spirit ring.
The other half of his time was spent training his physique desperately, practicing his Breathing Technique and Sword Form.
Returning to the dormitory at night, he would continue to meditate and cultivate Soul Power.
From the first day of school, Lin Yang had already obtained the Basic Meditation Method.
However, this meditation method was even cruder than he had imagined, and it wasn't even as efficient as his own meditation cultivation.
He had privately made indirect inquiries to Zhao Bufan and other students.
He found that when they cultivated, they didn't have the experience of "seeing" the free-floating Heaven and Earth Origin Qi.
They could only perceive it like blind men touching an elephant, so their efficiency naturally couldn't be high.
This situation should be related to the Transparent World.
However, Lin Yang did not become complacent because of this.
Instead, using these three months, he constantly studied and deduced, combining his own characteristics and those of the Breathing Technique to perfect a meditation method that suited him as much as possible.
If someone could enter Lin Yang's Sea of Spirit at this moment, they would discover...
In the sky above the Sea of Spirit, there was an illusory yet blazing great sun.
This was the result of Lin Yang's full four months since enrollment: the Great Sun Meditation Method.
The Great Sun Meditation Method was perfectly compatible with Lin Yang himself.
That great sun was the manifestation of his massive mental force, the hub for mobilizing mental force and refining Soul Power.
Under deep meditation, the speed at which it absorbed Heaven and Earth Origin Qi would be three times the original, and the Soul Power conversion efficiency also increased by more than double.
Previously, twenty wisps of Heaven and Earth Origin Qi were converted into one wisp of Soul Power; now, only ten wisps were needed, and the Soul Power was pure.
Even when not in a meditative state, the great sun would passively absorb Heaven and Earth Origin Qi; though the efficiency was low, it excelled in persistence.
Driven by the Great Sun Meditation Method, the originally attribute-less Soul Power also began to take on a scorching attribute.
This made Lin Yang's Sword Form power increase greatly; with every move and style, waves of fire surged, possessing extreme power.
If combined further with Sun Breathing, the Demon Slayer Mark, and the Transparent World...
Lin Yang guessed that Soul Masters at or below three rings would not be his match.
Of course, a guess was just a guess; he wasn't so arrogant as to find a three-ring Spirit Elder to test his skills.
With the support of the Great Sun Meditation Method that suited him best, Lin Yang's cultivation progressed by leaps and bounds.
In the fourth month of enrollment, his Soul Power officially broke through to level ten.
"Bo... Boss, you said you broke through too?"
Wang Sheng looked at Lin Yang, his jaw nearly hitting the floor, his shock beyond words.
The other roommates of Dormitory Seven also had faces full of shock and envy.
How long has it been since school started?
Counting strictly, it's only been four months, and he cultivated all the way from level seven Soul Power to the current level ten?
An average of one level per month?
With this kind of exaggerated cultivation speed, even the legendary Innate Full Spirit Power would be nothing more than this.
Was such a genius really the boss of them Work-Study Students?
And the one with the most complex expression among them was Zhao Bufan.
He was the oldest in Dormitory Seven and also the one with the highest cultivation.
He had also only recently broken through to the level ten Soul Master realm.
Before this, he had stayed at the bottleneck from level nine to level ten for over a year, only breaking through by relying on slow, painstaking effort.
Yet Lin Yang had reached the same realm as him in just a few months.
He had thought that by breaking through to level ten, he could use it to pull away from Lin Yang,
But he found that not only had he not pulled away, the gap had instead narrowed to the same starting line.
From now on, he might be the one left far behind.
This huge disparity made him feel a sense of loss and frustration.
However, looking at Lin Yang who was surrounded in the middle, Zhao Bufan was silent for a good while, finally appearing to have made some kind of decision.
The news of Lin Yang breaking through to level ten quickly spread, and the substitute class teacher even praised Lin Yang heavily in front of the whole class.
He told the others to take Lin Yang as an example and cultivate well.
Unsurprisingly, Lin Yang once again gathered a circle of envious, jealous, and hateful gazes.
Lin Yang ignored all the complex looks; besides his routine classes and cultivation,
In his remaining time, he also had to prepare for hunting his first spirit ring.
What type of Spirit Beast to hunt, what age was most suitable, and which environments were easier to encounter them—all of these required a large amount of data to verify.
To obtain a Soul Ring that suited him as much as possible, these preparatory tasks were indispensable.
That's right, Lin Yang did not plan to participate in the Spirit Hunting Operation organized by the school at the end of every year; instead, he planned to go hunting on his own.
The reason was also simple: the Spirit Hunting Operation organized by the academy prioritized student safety above all else.
In a Junior Spirit Master Academy, both the teaching strength and high-end combat power were extremely limited; that is, the principal Su Hong only had the strength of a four-ring Spirit Ancestor.
As the principal, it was impossible for him to take students out for Martial Soul hunting.
Most Spirit Hunting Operations were led by two or three Spirit Grandmaster or Spirit Elder teachers, taking a group of students who had just reached level ten and had almost no self-defense capabilities to hunt Spirit Beasts.
The leading teachers already had to bear huge risks, so they certainly wouldn't risk their lives going deep into the Soul Hunting Forest to find Soul Rings over a hundred years old.
The choice of Soul Rings was also very much left to chance; they would kill a Spirit Beast and give it to whichever student it suited.
What Spirit Ability they would obtain depended entirely on fate.
They didn't seek merit, only to avoid mistakes.
Under these circumstances, it resulted in the vast majority of students' first spirit rings being White Spirit Rings.
Students whose first spirit ring was a yellow hundred-year spirit ring were few and far between.
So from the beginning, Lin Yang hadn't planned to rely on the school for his Soul Ring, but instead planned to go hunting himself.
Tang San could kill a four-hundred-year Datura Snake by relying on Hidden Weapons; were his own methods any worse?
After comparing various aspects, Lin Yang finally narrowed down a few preliminary targets.
Coming out of the library, the sky was already getting late, and Lin Yang rubbed his stomach, preparing to go to the cafeteria for a meal.
Before he had gone two steps, a figure flashed out from the side, blocking his path just by chance.
Lin Yang didn't think much of it and shifted his body slightly, preparing to go around.
However, that figure followed him like a piece of dog-skin plaster, sticking close.
Lin Yang's brow furrowed slightly as he looked up at the figure, suddenly feeling surprised.
This familiar buzz cut and zombie face, along with the lingering aura of decadence around him—who else could it be but Yu Xiaogang?
"Master?"