CHAPTER 106: ACADEMY’S ANNOUNCEMENT

Chapter 106: Academy’s Announcement

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The negotiations went much smoother from then on, both sides signed the contract and officially went into business together.

Now what he had to do was find the right place to move his activities, and by coincidence, the pavilion owned a few properties in the city.

In the end, he bought one from them, at market price, a recently renovated place that had enough space inside for him to restructure and turn it into a shop of decent size for their business.

This shop would basically serve as their sales point as well as a reference point for any matter related to their activities.

The first floor would be the sales area, the second was where the various production workshops would be located.

The third floor, instead, was where Zhu Rong’s office was, as well as a few other rooms for which he was still deciding their use.

The workshop on the second floor was mainly for the alchemists and talisman engravers, while for the blacksmiths it was decided to create another large underground space where the whole production chain would be set up.

Production chain, so to speak, since a good part of the work was done manually, especially when it came to objects or weapons of grade 2 or higher of the mortal rank.

This would ensure the quality of each item, but this was the initial plan, for now, they had to set up the place first.

Since the pavilion had said they would help speed up the process, Master Huì Chéng hired several workers and made sure everything would be ready in less than a week, while in the meantime they could continue at the pavilion as usual.

Zhu Rong decided to use this period to improve everyone’s skills, so day after day he went through the different departments, measuring their current abilities and helping them improve wherever he could.

Meanwhile, at the academy, news quickly spread that a high level secret realm had been discovered, and that the academy had indeed decided to send some of the students to explore it.

It had been found out that the secret realm didn’t allow cultivators above the Mortal Realm to enter, so Spirit realm cultivators were already out of the equation.

And if that wasn’t enough, it seemed the realm also allowed only a certain number of people to enter.

Zhu Rong was sure there would be a heated fight over who would get those spots, and in the end, it was decided the academy would get 10 of them, the rest, nobody knew.

The academy had several instructors and elders in the Mortal Realm, both fourth and fifth stage, so there was no shortage of people.

But what really surprised the students was that the principal decided to assign 5 of those spots to the students.

Apparently, he wanted to give the most promising students the chance to gain new experience.

And to decide who would get those spots, it was decided that a competition would be held in a week, as the expedition to the secret realm was scheduled for the end of the month, just over two weeks away.

Needless to say, the mere news of a secret realm created a huge stir, not to mention the fact that there was actually a chance to enter it.

Everyone was excited, but some couldn’t help but ask themselves a few questions about the situation.

One of them was none other than Zhu Rong.

’Hmm, looks like this discovery has stirred many people up,’ he thought, already forming an idea of the different factions moving in the shadows.

The academy, or rather, the headmaster, had managed to secure a share of the spots; the rest was probably divided among the other powers of the capital, and maybe even a few from outside.

He was certain the empire wouldn’t back off either and would probably send someone, but given the restriction of the secret realm, whoever they sent had to be within an acceptable level for his current strength.

He was sure that if the secret realm hadn’t had restrictions on cultivation, the academy would never have let those spots go to waste in this way, and the same could probably be said for the other powers of Qiyan.

He didn’t know about the others, but he had already decided he would get one of those spots reserved for students.

He couldn’t sneak in like he had at the mine, not only because that would be impossible given the surveillance that was surely already guarding the entrance, but also because with the chosen timing for departure, it was likely the entrance wasn’t even fully open yet.

Zhu Rong waited for the registration day for the tournament, which opened the very next day after the announcement, and he signed up.

He wondered if the tournament would be only among students of the same year or also include those from other years.

He was almost certain at least 2 spots would go to third year students, but he wasn’t sure about the other 3.

Well, it didn’t matter much, he would definitely get one of them, no matter what.

’I wonder what she will do...’

He was certain that given Liang Yuexin’s talent, her family would surely reserve her a spot, so she didn’t have to rely on the academy for this.

He only hoped that if they met inside, they wouldn’t treat each other as enemies.

It was obvious, that the others from different factions wouldn’t show any mercy once inside.

The secret realm was a place where whatever happened inside stayed inside, far from the eyes of others. Needless to say, many used this advantage to secure more benefits within the realm.

Of course, there were exceptions, but they were exceptions for a reason, the weak in there would gain little against others who wouldn’t think twice about eliminating them.

Zhu Rong, who was in the academy’s training room, stopped worrying about all this and focused more on his cultivation, which in the past week had advanced by leaps and bounds, reaching the peak of the third stage.

If anyone else had seen his cultivation speed, they might have slapped themselves to check if they were still dreaming.

And that was just his cultivation base, if they knew that in his dantian there were at least 5 cores, each of them having also reached the peak of the third stage, they would surely have spat out several liters of blood on the spot.

At the moment, Zhu Rong had the strength of five peak third stage cultivators inside his body, strength even further enhanced by the fact he had already set up the first basic formation among the cores, harmonizing them all and reaching power equal to that of a fifth stage Mortal Realm cultivator.

It was known that the difference in power between stages was very large, and the higher the stage, the greater the difference.

For example, ten people at the peak of the fourth stage would struggle against a single fifth stage cultivator in the initial phase.

This was simply because their golden core was fully formed, giving them a surge of energy many times greater than cultivators of the previous stage, and this was further amplified by the fact they had already begun to form their spiritual soul within the core, greatly increasing its efficiency.

The power of their attacks, as well as the amount of energy their cores could store and unleash, was many times superior to that of the previous stage.

And Zhu Rong at this moment had reached a level of strength similar to such beings, while still at the peak of the third stage, and was now about to finally take a step forward into the fourth stage.

He let out a light breath as he began circulating the overflowing Qi in his dantian through his body.

This process might have seemed pointless, since the main goal of the fourth stage was to consolidate a golden core in one’s dantian using the Qi present within it. But at this moment, the Qi was being drained from the dantian into his body.

Zhu Rong knew that, because of his numerous elemental cores, he would have to take a different approach from the usual.

He couldn’t condense a single golden core inside his dantian because of the other cores already present.

It would be difficult, and even if he managed, it would only compromise the future progression of the elemental cores, essentially throwing away the huge advantage they gave him.

He had to proceed step by step, and take care of each elemental core one at a time before creating a single shell that contained them all, forming a kind of spiritual bond among them so they wouldn’t obstruct each other.

To do this, he had to draw upon the Qi of each elemental core. And at this moment, by evacuating part of the Qi from his dantian, he had left only the cores and the red mist behind.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure if the presence of the mist would cause problems, but since the enormous quantity of Qi had been extracted from the mist itself, he thought it would integrate well with the rest and wouldn’t cause trouble.