Chapter 757: Tempering and Smelting

The person who had walked in appeared to be about fifty years old. Although the traces of advancing life were visible, he bore his age well. His steps were slow, but his speed was extremely fast, as if every step he took propelled his body forward. Furthermore, with each step, the soles of his feet would leave a faint space halation on the ground. It was similar to the legend of leaving lotus flowers on the ground with each step¹.

“Now that you know, it’s set.” Great Teacher Kenso did not have the intention to explain himself at all, and the atmosphere grew a little stiff. “Which one of you is Wang Zhong?”

Carlo and the others grew even more surprised. What the hell, he did not even know Wang Zhong, and yet he came to cause trouble?

Wang Zhong stood up and looked at Kenso in confusion. Frankly speaking, this may not be a good thing for him. It was simply attracting more hatred from the others. He had originally planned to be low-key, but now it seemed like his plan was ruined.

Kenso glanced at him and remained expressionless. He even seemed to despise him a little. He then turned to leave, as though he had just wasted his time.

Carlo and the others could not go against his wishes, because… it could bring endless trouble for them. Although it was against the rules, it was not out of the question.

Great Teacher Kenso was a troublesome person, even for them!

As long as one stayed in the Holy Land for more than a few days, it was next to impossible not to hear that name.

He was a superb alchemist with unparalleled talents. Many of the commonly used items in the Holy Land were his alchemic inventions. He even named numerous related products after himself, such as the Kenso Conductor, Kenso Crystal, Keshun Fluid, etc. His name eventually became a label. Everything from the Kenso Alchemy Hut was original in terms of creation and production. As long as this label was applied, the price of the same alchemy product in the Holy City could be doubled immediately!

At the same time, he was also currently one of the leaders of the Tyrants. Although he was only a 3-star Great Teacher, his influence was incomparable. Obviously, Carlo and the other two were unwilling to offend him over such a small matter. After all, as a Great Teacher, their need for alchemy would only be greater.

In the Holy Land, it was said that you could offend an 8-star Great Teacher, but you should never offend Kenso.

How could such a person actually appear in the freshmen selection site? It was even more unbelievable that he especially came to speak up for Wang Zhong.

The freshmen below the stage were naturally stunned. As for the three Great Teachers on the stage, they were even more surprised, to the extent that they grew speechless. What was happening exactly?

Carlo coughed a few times and continued on. “Wang Zhong is now included in the second-class observation list, but all of you must remember that what you are getting now is nothing. Only people who can last all the way will be winners. I hope all of you will seize the chance to work hard in the next six months. It’s typical for one’s destiny to change in a flash.”

Wang Zhong rubbed his nose in confusion. What the hell was going on? It was rather obvious that the other three Great Teachers were not very satisfied with him, and the one who spoke for him just now also did not appear to like him. He felt that he had been rather low-key for a long time; thus, he did not understand how he messed up this time.

As for the freshmen, it was needless to say that Wang Zhong had just become a live target. It was perfectly justified if one had great power or potential to be included in the upper class, but for someone like Wang Zhong, there would definitely be a long queue of people waiting to challenge him after six months.

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For no good reason, he became a second-class apprentice and received a hundred Holy Coins. Although he had doubts, he decided to take things as they came. He was not a fool who would reject free money.

Even Wang Zhong could not figure out what was going on, let alone the others. He was just a good-for-nothing with a Flaming Spirit King as his Dharma Idol and a wastrel who got beaten up on the first day for not following the rules. How could such a person become a second-class apprentice?

Over the next two days, people had come up with countless reasons to try to explain what had happened. Some said that when Wang Zhong was exiled to the cursed lands, he met a certain big shot who happened to be a Great Teacher in the Holy Land. Otherwise, how could he have escaped from the cursed lands? Many people believed in this statement at the beginning, but there were many problems with this reasoning. If so, why did no one speak up for him when he got beaten up, and why was he not designated a Great Teacher after being included in the observation list? It was also said that he must have been helped by the Potter Clan, but Molton immediately rejected the rumor. It was not a matter of fear, but his clan indeed did not want to get involved in the matter.

In the end, the explanation that everyone decided on was that this was a reward for the number one expert in the CHF. After all, the CHF had always been supported by the Holy Land, and it had its own purpose. For the previous years, the number one experts of the CHF had always enjoyed rather special privileges; it was just that this year was different. It was due to the new classification system; therefore, Wang Zhong was rewarded with being added to the observation list. Also, because it was just a one-time reward, he was added to the observation list even though no Great Teacher had taken a fancy to him. In this way, this matter was justified by the others.

This was by far the most believable statement. As a result, Wang Zhong was considered to be a lucky dog and successfully made countless people jealous as 100 Holy Coins per month was a very amazing income for freshmen.

Wang Zhong totally could not be bothered to deal with those ridiculous rumors as he had entered the Holy Land to become more powerful. Previously, during the two or three days of trying to understand and get to the bottom of things, he could already feel the extraordinariness of the various ideas here; and when he officially joined the Tyrants, this particular feeling became more and more intense. He was instantly obsessed with the various new theories and concepts, as well as all kinds of knowledge, as if he was hungry and thirsty for them.

“The path of cultivation, no matter what your ultimate pursuit is, is like sailing in a sea of bitterness. The soul is a passenger, and the body is the boat which will eventually take you to where you want to be. There may be rough seas at any time. There are many ways to avoid capsizing in this sea. Some pursue the strength of the soul. Even if the boat capsizes, the passenger can swim directly to the end. But for us Tyrants, we value the rigidity of the boat and focus on strengthening the body. We pursue the limit of the limits. No matter how strong the waves are, they will not be able to rock us even an inch.”

The teacher on the stage was Luo Ba, who focused on teaching the outline of cultivation. His role was to impart rudimentary knowledge to the freshmen. He was extremely slender, blond, and looked really young. This was also the general situation for teachers in the Holy Land when it came to their age.

These were all outstanding Holy Disciples or Holy Disciples with special accomplishments in certain aspects. Today, he was talking about the general outline of cultivation. The saying about cultivation being like a boat trip was passed down by Sacred Teachers of the past. Other than the Tyrants, the Mystic Sect and the Sparta Clan would also have similar explanations. The difference between them was that the three parties had different ways of sailing the sea of bitterness.

“The pursuit of the body’s limit is what the Tyrants believe in. For freshmen, we mainly have two cultivation directions for you to choose from.”

“First, we have the Tempering Method, which focuses on strengthening the human body and stimulating your potential. For example, you can rely on practicing various scriptures, rely on some special medicaments, or practice Metamorphosis Techniques; in general, these keep your own body intact, without involving excessive transformation. In the beginning, us Tyrants relied on this to make a name for ourselves. When it comes to tempering the body, no one is stronger or knows more than us. At present, it is considered relatively conservative.”

“The other direction is the Smelting Method. This focuses on replacing parts of the body with foreign objects and transforming them with alchemical materials, or integrating dimensional elements by making full use of the Dimensional World’s materials and ultimately achieving the purpose of strengthening the body. This method is currently the mainstream method of refining the body. As long as you can become more powerful, the body is considered merely a vessel. The research on the transformation of the body by the Smelting Method began about two hundred years ago. Today, we are quite mature in terms of the knowledge about it. The method works faster than the Tempering Method, and the effect it can achieve is also unparalleled. There are many options to choose from as well. We can become stronger and gain power at a faster rate so that there is extra time for more research to be carried out. This is why us Tyrants will always be at the forefront of the three supreme forces when it comes to actual combat and alchemy technology…”

As Luo Ba spoke, no one dared to make a sound below. The lectures conducted by a teacher in the Holy Land were completely different from the so-called academies of the Federation back on Earth. The teacher would often come in and leave immediately after their lecture. Questions and interruptions were not allowed. Most lectures were merely rough guides, and there was no specific way of cultivation. In the Holy Land, knowledge was also wealth. If one wished to obtain it, he had to do it via exchanging. Knowledge or Holy Coins could be used as bargaining chips during such exchanges. The only exception was if one was a Successor Disciple of a Great Teacher. As for the others, it would be a pipe dream if they wanted to rely on teachers handing over knowledge on a silver platter. Being a teacher was just a profession, and there was no stable relationship between a teacher and an apprentice; therefore, no teacher would be willing to share knowledge without holding back. If a teacher was to do so, he would not have any extra gain, other than wasting his own time and energy. Only a fool would do it.

This practice of teachers was also acquiesced to by the Holy Land and had become a tradition. There were already sufficient conditions and ample methods here for the students to improve by themselves. The library had a huge collection of books, and within their practice level, there were basically no restrictions on borrowing. The only price one had to pay was Holy Coins. Acquiring knowledge was also a test. If one could not even pay for the books, there was a cruel but highly appropriate saying in the Holy Land, ‘the weak can die.’ No one would pity them.

Tempering and Smelting were the two major directions of the Tyrants. Although the Tempering faculty was the orthodoxy and origin of the Tyrants, over the years, it had already begun to decline. The Smelting Method was faster and stronger than the Tempering Method, as well as higher in terms of moldability. This was an indisputable fact. Students of the Smelting Faculty had claimed that only sissies who dared not transform their body would choose the Tempering Faculty.

Wang Zhong, of course, chose the Tempering Faculty. In fact, only four or five people chose that in this year’s batch of students. Two of them were dimensional girls, and they were the only two females who had joined the Tyrants this year. Most people who chose to join the Tyrants would usually have already accepted the idea of their physical transformation; thus, they would not be troubled by this.

Still, with 200 Holy Coins, Wang Zhong felt that life these days were rather good. Food and clothing could be obtained with Federation Credits while his Holy Coins were basically spent in the library. His plan was to hunt for scriptures on the Tempering Method, but he eventually found out that the Tempering Faculty seemed to have cheated the feelings of freshmen.

It was mainly because the threshold of the Tempering Method was actually relatively high. Compared with the Smelting Method where one could obtain strength by changing one’s body ‘parts,’ tempering was more about one’s own talents and potential. It was also particular about the importance of practicing scriptures. As the Tyrants was known for body refinement and had once built their name by the Tempering Method, they naturally had many scriptures about the skills in this area. However, the problem was that the Holy Coin needed for one to enter the library was merely the entrance fee. To read the books placed here, one would have to pay extra, and one could only read in the library instead of borrowing it home.