Chapter 376 : Water of Heaven's Spring (2)
"I had flipped through those books, but a pity I do not possess a plant ring spirit and was unable to put it to good use. Since they had fallen into your hands, it must mean they are fated to be yours." Yan Bu Gui said as he stroked at his beard.
"You should not stay here in the Phoenix Academy. You should go out and do what you want to do."
Jun Wu Xie lowered her head and looked at the Heaven's Flask in her hand. The one thing that she had previously seeked endlessly, and exhausted all ways to get, had now been delivered right into her hands by Yan Bu Gui.
With the Heaven's Flask, she would be able to return to the Lin Palace with peace of mind and need not be afraid of persecution from the Palace of the Flame Demons.
But.....
Was that what she want?
Spending her life in hiding and depending on the Water of Heaven's Spring to escape persecution? And watch her enemies willfully live on, while she huddled in concealment holding on tightly to the Heaven's Flask?
"Master." Jun Wu Xie suddenly raised her head. "The Dark Emperor's tomb, is the place I must go to."
She gripped the Heaven's Flask in her hands and Jun Wu Xie's eyes flashed with unfaltering determination. Living a life of compromise was not what she wanted. Since there were people who wanted her life, she would smite down her enemies to nip the problem in the bud!
Yan Bu Gui was stunned as he stared at Jun Wu Xie in astonishment.
"The day will come that I will annihilate the Palace of Flame Demons." Jun Wu Xie exclaimed coldly.
Yan Bu Gui was speechless for a moment before he laughed out loud suddenly.
"Good, good, good. You might be small in size, but your ambitions are commendable! No wonder you're..... Cough, since you have chosen your path, I will not hold you back. Keep the Heaven's Flask and the cosmos bag well and remember! You must never expose the Heaven's Flask to anyone. That thing will draw the people of the Twelve Palaces to come rushing at you even if you do not possess a plant ring spirit, and you will not be spared."
Jun Wu Xie narrowed her eyes. The origins of the Heaven's Flask must be a lot more complicated than what Yan Bu Gui was letting on.
In fact, Jun Wu Xie had been a little suspicious all along. Little Lotus had previously said that the Soul Calming Jade was one of the Seven Treasures of the Spirit World but it had suddenly disappeared one day. On top of that, Yan Bu Gui and his fellow disciples had said that all the magical items of the Middle Realm had been buried deep in the Dark Emperor's tomb, and that should also include the Soul Calming Jade.
But if the Soul Calming Jade was supposed to be in the Dark Emperor's tomb, how did it come into the hands of others?
And why would the Heaven's Flask incur persecution from the Twelve Palaces?
"Thank you, Master." Jun Wu Xie did not think any further into it. No matter what the reason was, the fact that she wanted the Palace of Flame Demons annihilated would not change.
"The fact that you addressed me as your Master is more than enough thanks." Yan Bu Gui walked out of the room, laughing loudly to himself.
Jun Wu Xie suddenly picked up the cup that contained Water of Heaven's Spring and swallowed it all in one gulp!
From here on, she would not constrain herself to the tiny Phoenix Academy!
The Heavens seemed to have sensed Jun Wu Xie's murderous intent as barely two weeks later, Fei Yan came to them with a piece of news.
He had found a clue for another portion of the human skin maps.
And that human skin map was actually hidden in another academy!
Zephyr Academy!
It was one of the top three academies, their fame spreading to all ends of the world!
Qiao Chu and the others packed and readied themselves. This mission, would not just involve Qiao Chu and Hua Yao, but would include Fei Yan and Rong Ruo as well. Before they set out, they were greatly shocked by another piece of news!
Jun Xie, would be going with them!
"Little Xie, you..... really would come with us?" Qiao Chu asked cautiously as he gulped loudly.
Jun Wu Xie gave Qiao Chu a chilling stare.
"Without me, you would not be able to even enter the Zephyr Academy."
The Zephyr Academy set extremely high standards for their disciples' enrollment and their fees were also eye poppingly exorbitant!
With that statement from Jun Wu Xie, she effectively shut out any further objections from Qiao Chu and the others immediately.
If the money did not go, they would not even be able to afford the fees!
The next moment, Qiao Chu was slumped by Jun Wu Xie's feet crying out in gratitude: "Little Xie! You've been too kind to us already!"
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Chapter 377 : Zephyr Academy (1)
The Zephyr Academy was situated in the northern side of the Da Du Country, its terrain flat and it sat upon vast tracts of land.
It was rumoured that if you stood at the doors of the Zephyr Academy, you would not be able to see the end of it.
Being among one of the top three academies, whenever the Zephyr Academy opened their doors for enrollment in September, people from all across the lands thronged its gates and the sea of people always made for a magnificent sight.
Horse drawn carriages carrying whole families rolled in endlessly and girls and boys of suitable age were accompanied by their families from all directions, travelling thousands of miles to the Zephyr Academy. Every year, in the period between mid August to early September, not only the Zephyr Academy's headquarters, but the surrounding towns' inns and restaurants would be filled, overflowing with the endless rush of people coming in.
There were almost as many academies as there were stars in the skies, but only three stood at the top of the pyramid. Among the three, Zephyr took up one spot.
The top institutions had always set a very strict criteria for their enrollment. They would only accept youths between fourteen to sixteen years of age and any applicants who did not fall within this category were turned away without exception.
The Zephyr Academy was separated into the main division and the branch division. The main division only admitted disciples with elite ring spirits and disciples who showed exceptional growth in their spiritual powers. Anyone who possessed average talents could only dream of gaining entry into the main division.
The criteria for the branch division was a little more relaxed. Basically anyone who could afford the fees would gain the chance to study under the branch division. If anyone in the branch division displayed great aptitude and excelled in the branch division, they would be promoted into the main division immediately. While those who remain average, would stay and finish their studies for the rest of the one year given to them. If they do not get into the main division before the year is up, at the spring the next semester, they would all be thrown out of the academy.
When the youths are enrolled into the school, they would be expected to pay upfront the full fees for three years, and even if they were to be dismissed early due to their lack of talent, there would be no refund of the money paid up.
Basically, among all the first years enrolled into the academy, only tens of them would be accepted into the main division and the remaining disciples usually numbering more than a thousand, would be thrown into the branch division.
Only at fourteen, would a person's ring spirit awake and the Zephyr Academy capped the age of the disciples who were eligible to apply at sixteen. That would also mean that for anyone who would attempt to make use of that two year gap to train vigorously to enhance their powers gunning for a spot in the main division, the short time frame would not be sufficient for them to make any significant difference in assessing their talent.
For those youths directly accepted into the main division, almost all of them had gotten in due to their unusual ring spirits.
The reason that the Zephyr Academy was able to secure a spot among the highly competitive top three academy rankings was due to the robust portfolios of their teachers, and more importantly, it was their unique, one of a kind field of development, the Spirit Healer!
The academy was split into three faculties that pursued three different fields. The beast spirit, weapon spirit and lastly the spirit healers.
The beast spirit faculty accepted only disciples with beast ring spirits, the weapons spirit faculty only disciples with weapon ring spirits. The spirit healer faculty did not discriminate against the type of ring spirits their disciples possessed nor the might of the ring spirits. They picked disciples who were more inclined towards development towards the healing of the spirit.
The ring spirits and their human master's soul were joined as one and although ring spirits did not bleed, prolonged battles or accidental damage could bring about trauma or injuries to the ring spirits. It might not result in their death but it might bring about a drastic decrease in their power during battles. And the group of spirit healers existed here for this very reason.
Spirit healers was just becoming a fast rising star as an highly desired occupation and the Zephyr Academy was the only academy that knew how to groom a spirit healer.
It was common knowledge everywhere that spirit healers were now more sought after than elixir producing healers!
There were many who were able to cultivate elixirs but very few people possessed knowledge in the healing of ring spirits, and the importance people placed on their ring spirits were undeniable and irreplaceable.
To be a spirit healer, it was not a necessity to possess strong spiritual powers, but rather it needed the person's spiritual powers to be able to fuse well with ring spirits. In a nutshell, a spirit healer used his own spiritual powers to restore a ring spirit's deficiency to their original power.
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Chapter 378 : Zephyr Academy (2)
Fusing your spiritual powers with a ring spirit by itself was already an incredible notion and had never been tried before. Needless to say, no one else knew how to carry it out. That was the reason why the Zephyr Academy was the one and only place under the skies that one could learn to become a spirit healer.
Even if only a single person in the family successfully becomes a spirit healer, their entire family would be able to live a life of luxury.
Among all the hopeful youths that had come to the Zephyr Academy, at least eight or nine out of ten of them targeted to become a spirit healer.
A wide sea of young youths were currently crowded before the gates of the Zephyr Academy.
They were all craning their necks, huddled in small groups, whispering among themselves. You could see the smiling faces, all eager with anticipation.
A tiny figure darted quickly through the huge crowd, squeezing past several groups of people and finally stopped under a tree that was less crowded. Under that tree, four other figures were waiting patiently.
Qiao Chu held a piece of paper in his hand, his face was gloomy as he walked up to his companions. "Is this an institution of learning or is this place a money grabbing slaughterhouse? They are slaughtering people without batting an eyelid!"
"What is it?" Fei Yan asked, looking at Qiao Chu, her eyes blinking in incomprehension.
Qiao Chu shoved the piece of paper over to them and Fei Yan looked at the it with his other companions.
Their faces all turned dark at the same time.
"The fees for three years..... Three hundred thousand..... And lodging and meals not included!? This..... this is outright robbery!!" Fei Yan stared at the piece of paper, his eyes wide with incredulity.
To this motley gang who needed to even split one tael carefully between themselves to spend, three hundred thousand taels was a figure that was impossible for them to grasp.....
They wouldn't be able to raise that amount even if you sold all of them.
At that moment, all their eyes turned to the smallest figure among them all, looking at Jun Wu Xie, the only one among them with any money!
"Little Xie..... the money....." Qiao Chu eyes was almost going to tear.
For all five of them, it would come up to a staggering one and a half million taels. And that was just to be enrolled into the academy and they had not included the fees for food and lodging. Looking at the astronomical sum the academy was asking, they estimated that they would need at least two whole million taels or they should not even think about it.
Jun Wu Xie raised her head amongst the expectant looks thrown at her and she replied in a calm voice: "Not enough."
"........"
The other four were thunderstruck. Such an imaginable sum, even the Mr. Moneybags among them did not have enough.
When Jun Wu Xie set out from the Qi Kingdom, she had a little bit more than a million taels on her. She had splurged most of her money while in the Phoenix Academy and she had only eight hundred thousand on her now, which was less than half of the amount they needed for the enrollment for five of them.
"How beastly!? Such a ridiculous amount for their fees and the place is still so packed! Do they all just dredge up the money from the sea?" Qiao Chu stared at the wall to wall sea of people and his heart started to bleed as he counted the unimaginable sum involved here with more than a thousand applicants before him. Out of those, only less than ten percent of them would be selected to to be admitted into the main division. The other ninety percent of them would just be throwing good money into the sea.
Three hundred thousand taels. Enough to allow a well to do family to live a life without worries. Gambling such a large amount of money betting on a kid's potential almost broke Qiao Chu's fragile glass heart.
"If their fees were not set that high, I think even if the Zephyr Academy's campus were to be ten times bigger, they still would not have enough space for the wave of disciples that would come here." Hua Yao reasoned with a soft voice.
The only place that provides a cradle for aspiring spirit healers. That point alone was enough for hordes of people to fight for a spot in the academy.
"But..... we still do not have that much money....." Qiao Chu's shoulders slumped immediately.
Jun Wu Xie's eyes narrowed and she asked suddenly: "Is there an auction house anywhere near here?"
Qiao Chu was startled by Jun Wu Xie's question.
"Little Xie, why would you want to go to an auction house? We do not have anything valuable on us to put up for sale." The most expensive things they had on them were those clothes from the Moon Weavers Pavilion they were wearing and even if they sold them, it would not contribute the least bit to the amount they needed.
"Just tell me." Jun Wu Xie insisted.
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Chapter 379 : Zephyr Academy (3)
"There is one around here somewhere, but we've never been there before." Qiao Chu replied, scratching at his head. They've been to the pawnshop often enough, but the auction house..... They've no experience with it.
It was more than a million taels and it was not easy to raise such a sum. They had rushed to make it here by September and the Zephyr Academy was open for enrollment only three days. If they missed it, they would have to wait till next year.
Many of the people in the Zephyr Academy were highly skilled that made even Qiao Chu and the others hesitate to just rush in recklessly.
While the five of them were huddled together discussing how they were going to raise the enough money, several youths who were walking past the tree heard them and exclaimed in loud voices dripping with scorn.
"If you do not have the money, you shouldn't even come here to the Zephyr Academy. You can't even afford to pay such a pittance for the fees and need the auction house to tide you through!? You guys are such country bumpkins! Let me set you straight here. Even if you were to get to the auction house, it will be of no use! There is only one auction house around here and they will start their next auction three days later, so it will not help you even if you get there now." The youth wore clothes fully adorned with gold and jade accessories and the several other youths tagging along behind him snickered loudly as the gaudily dressed youth spoke.
Anyone who came to the Zephyr Academy for its yearly enrolment had already *kaxsun interferes* so I couldn't find the rest of the sentence, go bonkers :3
"Poor penniless people should just pluck theirs heads out of those clouds of daydream as the Zephyr Academy isn't the place for any lost stray cats and dogs." The gaudily dressed youth turned and walked off after that.
Qiao Chu's face darkened at that moment and Hua Yao held him back by his shoulders and shook his head.
"His words might be hard to stomach but he has nevertheless saved us a wasted trip and we now know the auction house is also no longer an option." Rong Ruo said as she sighed in resignation. Compared to the Zephyr Academy, it was now painfully obvious to them how poverty stricken the Phoenix Academy really was.
"What do we do now then?" Fei Yan asked.
Jun Wu Xie's eyes narrowed again as she fell deep in thought and suddenly asked of Fei Yan: "Where has Mu Chen been all this while?"
After the Qing Yun Clan was obliterated, she had stayed at the Phoenix Academy and had not paid much attention to what was going on outside. Over the past month, Jun Wu Xie had noticed that Qiao Chu and the others all got their news from Fei Yan.
Fei Yan thought a moment and replied: "Mu Chen announced that the Qing Yun Clan was disbanded about two weeks ago and that had stirred up quite a commotion. He dismissed the disciples of the Outer House and only brought the disciples of the Cloud Treading Peak with him when he left, and no one knows of his whereabouts now."
Jun Wu Xie's eyes flashed, and she gestured to Hua Yao to come over. Jun Wu Xie whispered into his ear and Hua Yao's face appeared greatly shocked which gradually turned into a smile.
"The idea itself is really good, but if no one here had ever met Mu Chen, then it might not work." Hua Yao pondered on Jun Xie's proposal and was just being cautious.
Jun Wu Xie handed a piece of ornamental jade carved into the chinese character for "cloud". Hua Yao was stunned a moment as he was rather familiar with jade pieces carved in such a manner. That was a piece of jade that only people who belonged to the Qing Yun Clan would come to possess.
"Little Xie, how did you come to have one of those?"Qiao Chu looked at Jun Wu Xie in surprise. When they were in the Hidden Cloud Peak, they had each kept a piece of the jade, but as they were leaving the Cloudy Peaks, Qiao Chu had not brought his back.
"I forgot to throw it out." Jun Wu Xie replied with a shrug of her shoulders. Everything had happened all of a sudden and she did not have time to do much else then. When she awoke, she was already in the Phoenix Academy and the piece of jade had just remained together with her other belongings.
She did not expect to be able to put it to good use today.
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Chapter 380 : The Elder Appears (1)
The bright sun was at its zenith and the place was crowded with people. It was the first day for the Zephyr Academy's enrollment of new disciples and everyone was rushing towards the gates to secure a spot for themselves. The scalding sun blasted his rays down and the heat rose, and the overly pampered young youths from wealthy and loaded families were soon moaning and groaning as sweat ran down their bodies. But in order to maintain some semblance of their dignified status, they braved the overwhelming heat through myriad ways. Especially for those in the back of the queue, they knew it would be a long wait but were unwilling to give up their spot. Their retainers soon reacted, umbrellas and parasols mushroomed, men stood under the heat fanning their little masters and mistresses. There were even some who had ice stored within their carriages and several retainers were running to and from while they prepared ice cold pickled plum drinks.
September might not be the hottest month of the year, but the midafternoon sun nevertheless was scorching enough to make one dizzy with its heat.
There were several young girls who suffered from a weaker constitution, fainted on the spot, and were carried into their horse carriages to escape the heat.
The heatwaves soon drove the excited crowd into silence. Those youths who were chattering away were overwhelmed by the heat and the only sounds they made were only orders for their retainers to keep fanning, quickly losing the mood for any useless chatter.
It was in that silence that a loud and excited exclamation sounded, turning all eyes towards the source of the shouting.
Everyone was agitated by the blazing heat but they still raised their heads, turning to look with frowns on their faces at two figures under a large tree. A tall dignified figure dressed in white was standing with his hands behind his back under that tree and a extremely excited youth stood before him with his hands clasped over his own mouth. The excited shout seemed to have come from the youth.
The youths in the queue before the academy were all looking to see what had caused the commotion and what the excited youth said after that made them all prick up their ears and gave all their attention to what was happening under that tree.
"Mu Chen! Aren't you Mu Chen, the Elder of the Qing Yun Clan!? I've found you here at last, Elder Mu! I beg you to sell me another one of that elixir from before. After my elder brother took it, the speed of his spiritual power development increased by leaps and bounds! I beg you! Sell me another one of that!" The excited youth pleaded loudly at the man dressed in white.
The other youths before the academy blinked their eyes as they stared in disbelief at what they had just heard from that exchange under the tree.
Their minds had exploded when they heard the three words "Qing Yun Clan" and those three words had sounded clear as thunder in their ears!
Who had not heard of the Qing Yun Clan, the top clan under the skies? And something had happened to that top clan just recently! The Elder of the Cloud Treading Peak, Mu Chen, had suddenly announced the disbandment of the Qing Yun Clan and the Sovereign and Elders of the other peaks has left. Mu Chen was the only Elder who had stayed behind and after the announcement, Mu Chen had disappeared as well and no one knew of his whereabouts.
The topmost clan had suddenly announced its disbandment and the news had stirred the entire world. Speculations had been rife but no one knew the real reason behind it.
The Qing Yun Clan's disbandment had driven many people still waiting for treatment to tears throughout the world. And on top of that, the people of the lands seeked not just treatment from the Qing Yun Clan, but also for their rare elixirs!
Did that youth just call the man in white "Mu Chen"!?
Wasn't that the name of the Elder of the Cloud Treading Peak who had been the last one to leave the Qing Yun Clan?
When they realised that that man in white under the tree could be the Elder from the Qing Yun Clan, all their eyes were fixated on the scene under that tree.
The Cloud Treading Peak had been specialised in the nurturing and development of veins and arteries and not many people had seen Mu Chen in person. Many of them were in doubt at what they were seeing till they spotted the jade ornament hanging from hip of the man in white. All their suspicions evaporated right at that point!
That was the jade badge carved into the "cloud" character, which was symbolic of the Qing Yun Clan!
Such badges were only carried by the Sovereign, the Elders, and disciples of the Inner House exclusively and even the disciples of the Outer House could only dream of possessing one.
The Sovereign and the various Elders had seemingly evaporated into thin air overnight and only people from the Cloud Treading Peak were ever spotted!