The Young master Goes To School

Blood Lotus world, Taiji sect, Han Hao's classroom

"… We live as you all know in our sect's secret realm, giving us safety beyond what is available to sects that have bases in the blood lotus world, but isolating ourselves weakens our ability to influence our home world severely not only that our ability to trade weakens as well, my question to you is, are the benefits of isolating ourselves in this secret realm enough that it outweighs the negatives?" the teacher asked while pacing back and forth on his platform.

Han Jiaying raised her hand and the teacher nodded at her, so she responded "Teacher before I answer, can you tell me how are secret realms different from pocket dimensions? can't those easily be accessed by spatial techniques? if so shouldn't any attacking force easily enter this realm? and then the battle would come down to any defensive formations we have inside this secret realm, making the realms secret location the only thing that stands between an enemy and us, and that can easily be circumvented by finding out the spatial coordinates with scrying and divination"

"Good questions, remember students never answer a question or tackle an issue without at least understanding the basics of the subject that the question or the issue is based on, otherwise you will suffer setbacks" the elder said while laughing, as Han Hao sighed as he already knew the answer thanks to his father, 'I relentlessly asked him about the subject of our secret world when I was younger'.

"You see, pocket dimensions are different from secret realms or artificial worlds, in that their world laws are incomplete, for example the spatial rings that you kids have are pocket dimensions of the lowest order, you only need minor knowledge of spatial techniques to make them, of course this could be used as a feature, for example due to the lack or more appropriately the weak influence of time laws in the ring's space it could be used as a near timeless storage facility, though be warned shoddy craftsmanship could cause many problems for example: lower ranked spatial rings would shatter and throw your belonging into the void in a mere hundred or even tens of years!, more importantly something that you should be more wary of are mass produced spatial rings, they can easily have the effect of eroding what you stored inside bit by bit due to ether rushing in making the ring or even having juniors craft the ring itself and attaching a pocket dimension to it to it to, remember you should always let an elder check before buying spatial rings from the outside world, always be wary of suspiciously under-priced products, be wary of these thing specially in lower worlds" The elder sighed, as if he fell for one of those schemes in the past

Han Hao listened intently, he never really bothered to look up spatial rings in the library, 'it seems that the art of scamming is truly universal, even the esteemed elder has suffered from it, I feel your pain martial uncle, this young master too has been scammed in the past'

"It seems I have gone of topic, even if the world laws are semi complete and living beings can live in the world, it's still not qualified to be called a secret realm, a real secret realm is a world with a will of its own, artificial or otherwise these worlds are on the cusp of integrating into the heavily dao or in much rarer cases becoming their own heavenly dao, this will is the essence of why we choose to live in such secret realms" the elder stopped as if waiting for someone to question him.

"..........."

".........."

Silence followed as nobody asked the elder anything.

"Cough*cough*, brats you should ask questions if you have any, youngsters always asking questions about cool martial arts, but never about history or geography, are you lacking curiosity, how are you going to ascend beyond the first step? stinky brats, always thinking about how to look cool, sigh" the elder said as he stroked his beard furiously.

'Old man, aren't you putting too much expectations on children who are still 12 years old, even if people like Han Heng or Han Jiaying are hanging on every word, the rest are still only half listening, and it's not like those would want to make you go on another unrelated tangent because of their questions.'

"This nascent will is usually ether bargained with or made to submit via force, the best method is of course to bargain with it, after all using force could result in damaging the nascent will or completely eradicating it, and even if you succeed in completely suppressing it, the world's will will hold resentment against your sect or clan, which is an all-around loss, however bargaining with it is an option that most sects don't have due to lacking the resources to get anything that would please the will or is useful to it, take note if attacking an enemy who got their secret world this way, you can use the resentment of the world to use the world itself against them, by freeing it from their method of control and letting it kill the enemy, or if that option isn't available you can just destabilize the will itself, after all if the will is bound and suppressed it will not be able to defend its world efficiently, you can use the gap in defenses created by the method of control as a guide on where to attack " the elder said, as if he was talking from experience.

'Did our sect attack a secret world in the last epotch?'

"We of course bargained with it, we used our wealth to get items that it would covet, this method has a lot benefits, first it would of course stabilize the world and strengthen it, any material that the nascent will would want would help it get stronger, thereby making it a better defender for our sect, also it would strengthen the relationship with the world's will making betrayal less likely, the advantage of the world's will fighting on your side could not be understate, it could easily teleport the non-combatants away in case of a sneak attack, detect spatial techniques and spies, suppress the cultivator's of our enemies down a major realm, restrict their spatial and time technique, just the mere knowledge of a sect being in a secret realm is enough to scare anyone from attacking our home base" The elder continued.

Of course the elder deliberately didn't mention the power of the secret world, such information was restricted to the higher ups.

"After all I have told you, do you think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?" Han Huizhong looked around waiting for someone to speak up.

'Of course they do, safety is the most important thing in such a world after all, without having a safety blanket like the secret realm I wouldn't have been able sleep soundly at night.'

"it depends." Han Heng said.

Han Hao quirked his eyebrow at the answer, 'let see what's this sly fellow has to say'

"Do explain yourself "the teacher said his eyes and expression not revealing any of his thoughts.

"It depends on the sect's interests, if the sect wants to heavily expand our influence in our home world and if we want to be able to affect the happenings of the blood lotus world, then being in a secret realm directly goes against that, projecting power is much harder when most of your power is concentrated elsewhere, on the other hand if the sect want's to not interfere in the world, and consolidate our power with taking part in the power struggles, then our current position is optimal" Han Heng said, he appeared serious unlike his usual demeanor.

'12 years old are truly scary in the cultivation world, those talented bustards, I believed that reincarnation would at least let me outperform children, but I had to work my butt of just to keep my top ten position in most subjects.' of course to Han Hao spending time on a subject he doesn't like and is necessary for his survival is agony, so his definition of working his but of may be a skewed.

"And what do you think the sect's current interests are, disciple" our teacher said, his eyes gleaming 'So young yet already so thoughtful'

"Currently we are in unprecedented prosperity after our epoch long slump, our current sect master and his generation managed to bring our sect back from decline and surpass our previous peak" Han Heng stopped as if to consider his next words carefully

"And?" the elder said urging him to continue.

"From what I gathered, our current stance is to lower our head, lay low, not to provoke anybody strong or weak, and most importantly to never interfere or even actively run away with our tail between our leg when one of "heaven's chosen" appear, it can be summed up with pride is only for the strong or idiots who think they are strong" Han Heng said while having a completely serious face.

Some of the students in the class gasped, while Han Hao and Han Guang started laughing out loud.

'Even though what he said was true, I never heard it put that way before, this junior of mine truly understands this cultivation world.'

"hahahhaha" the elder started laughing, "Good. Good at least we don't have to educate all of the younger generation about our principles "the elder said with mirth lacing his tone.

Some students looked toward the elder surprised and offended.

"You are still young children, we usually don't begin teaching our principles for survival until you are a bit older, don't think about it too much, in a couple of years you would understand" the elder said while sighing.

The elder took out a stack of notebooks from his ring, each of the notebooks had a student's name recorded on them, then each note book flew towards it's designated owner.

"Your annual break is upon us; I hope after one month you would come back at least slightly improved" he said while laughing as he vanished from our senses.

As everyone existed the class and were heading towards the teleportation array Han Hao asked "Hey Han Heng, Han Guang do you want to come to my house to study and hang out for the month?" then he sighed, 'Those two idiots are better than bitter cultivation and studying, perhaps suffering through it together would at least make the experience a bit better….. who am I kidding I just want to see them suffering with me, seeing others experiencing the same troubles and hardships as us always makes humans feel better even though their hardship didn't change, humans are truly strange creatures'.

"Is the young master finally warming up to us poor commoners" said mister smug face.

"sigh, you do realize that Han Guang has almost as high as position as I do, right? or is your brain only good for studying and insulting people" Han Hao said while pointing at Han Guang.

Who happily nodded at Han Hao in agreement.

"Han Guang acts more like a hot blooded challenge seeking warrior than a young mistress, while you act as a young master through and through" Han Heng said, then he smugly laughed.

Han Guang looked puzzled for a second before again nodding in agreement, she then looked at Han Hao as if asking "bro, do you have anything to say to that?" with her gaze.

My eyes started twitching, "Do you want to come or not?"

"Would we spar?" asked Han Guang.

Of course you would ask that, are you a shonen protagonist junior sister? No, the question should be as you sun wukong's reincarnation?

"Of course"

"Then yes" wukong's reincarnation replied while smiling so widely it was almost creepy.

I looked at Han Heng.

"Why would I pass the opportunity to free load? does your brain work properly, you live on a floating island of course I am coming" Han Heng said, and looked at me as if he was questioning my intelligence.

'Calm down Han Hao, you will get the opportunity to beat him up for an entire month soon'

As Han Hao thought about beating up Han Heng up a serene smile appeared on him face, his mind cleared up and he felt as though he was close to enlightenment, 'Truly beating up your annoyingly smug juniors is the best stress reliever, just thinking about it could bring me inner peace.'

"You are thinking about beating me up, aren't you?" asked Han Heng while looking slightly worried.

"One shouldn't ask if the sun comes out from the east and sets in the west, that would make others question your intelligence junior brother" Han Hao said as they were closing in on the teleportation array.

Han guang laughed at Han Heng's misfortune, while Han Heng currently looked as if he was questioning whether getting beating up daily is worth visiting a floating immortal island.

"see you tomorrow " Han Hao waved at them still maintaining a serene smile as he teleported away.

Han Hao appeared on the platform in his room, and walked to set at the table, he took out his token and sent two permissions runes for both Han Heng and Han Guang, then he took out the book about herbs and began reading it.

Pill refining is the main aspect which most cultivators specialize in the Taiji flame sect, and the aspect of cultivation which Han Hao liked and enjoyed the most, in fact Han Hao spent most of his free time not cultivating on studying pill refining and herbs.

This resulted on him working on the skills necessary skills for pill refining way more than fighting, runes or arrays, being able to use qi outside his body and controlling qi without being connected to it were such skills, of course they had utility for combat but they were the most useful for refining.

As he took out a drink, he relaxed and started immersing himself in the book, unconsciously smiling when thinking about spending time with his two friends.