Chapter 60: The Start of the School Term
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Although the Tian Xing Advanced Soul Master Academy was newly established, its popularity was no less than that of long-standing prestigious academies.
The first category of soul masters recruited during the enrollment process totaled 413 students—a number that equaled the combined total of several grades in other advanced academies.
Among these students were both nobles and commoners, but without exception, all had reached Level 20 in cultivation.
However, most of these nobles belonged to lower-ranking noble families. The truly powerful noble families already possessed training environments comparable to some of the best advanced academies.
As for the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda Sect and the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Sect, owing to the favors they owed Ye Wen, they couldn't afford to appear ungrateful. Thus, they sent a few lesser-valued members of their extended family to enroll.
Fortunately, these students still inherited the family's ancestral martial souls, so their participation didn't seem entirely perfunctory.
The Spirit Hall, possessing the continent's most advanced academy, naturally didn't send any students to study at Tian Xing.
As for the Angel Family—the core of the Spirit Hall—they were far beyond Ye Wen's reach to cultivate. However, they did present a generous gift of 1 million gold soul coins as a congratulatory gesture for the academy's opening.
The two empires were equally competitive. After all, money was just a number to them, and 1 million gold soul coins was a sum they could easily afford.
Though it seemed their original gifts weren't this lavish—it appeared they were afraid of being outdone by the Spirit Hall.
While the 3 million gold soul coins alleviated the academy's immediate financial strain, Ye Wen felt somewhat disappointed. He had hoped these major powers would be bold enough to gift ten-thousand-year soul bones instead.
After all, even the lowest-grade ten-thousand-year soul bones could fetch millions of gold soul coins in auctions.
Although Ye Wen himself had no use for such items, they would have been excellent for enhancing the foundations of his less talented disciples.
To be honest, Ye Wen had already discovered a stable path to wealth. While commoners had little money individually, collectively, their contributions could accumulate significantly.
With the targeted treatments provided by his specialized medicines, most civilian medical issues could be resolved without requiring advanced medical skills.
Though sales required substantial manpower and resources, Ye Wen's friendly faction, the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda Sect, was undoubtedly the leader in this field.
By contributing his knowledge as a form of technical equity, Ye Wen allowed the sect to handle production and sales. Though he only received 10% of the profits, it was more than sufficient.
Ye Wen calculated that this 10% would yield around 600,000 to 700,000 gold soul coins annually.
A soul master academy clearly didn't require such vast funds. Thus, the 3 million gold soul coins gifted by the three major powers, while solving an immediate problem, became something of a white elephant—useless to discard but bland to keep. These funds could only be allocated for purchasing rare metals to serve as backup materials for researching soul-guiding tools.
As for the possibility of the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda Sect exploiting Ye Wen's formulas for profit—
Hmph, the biggest difference between feudal and capitalist eras was that in feudal times, as long as you held status, others would honor their commitments. In this era, one's reputation was everything—if it was tarnished, no one would collaborate with you.
The Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda Sect, known for its auxiliary martial soul, was especially strict in this regard. Exploiting customers or breaking promises was something they would never do.
In contrast, capitalist societies emphasized laws, leaving loopholes for opportunistic capitalists to exploit. Naturally, integrity and morality deteriorated.
In Ye Wen's previous life, shortly after the founding of his nation, many old traditional Chinese medicine practitioners were swindled out of their formulas by capitalists, leaving them destitute. Some were even falsely accused and imprisoned, while others were murdered to silence them.
Later, patent laws were manipulated by foreign nations to absurd extremes.
China, the birthplace of traditional Chinese medicine, saw many of its ancient prescriptions registered by South Korea and Japan. Chinese practitioners using their own heritage formulas were forced to pay patent fees—a disgraceful act of capitalism.
As for the second category of students, it wasn't that no one was recruited—three students were admitted, each with peculiar martial souls and innate soul power meeting the requirements.
- Fang Qiaoqiao, 7 years old, martial soul: Black Shadow, innate soul power: Level 6, current soul power: Level 10.
- Bi Si Te, 15 years old, martial soul: Mist Demon, innate soul power: Level 6, current soul power: Level 25.
- Kong Hua, 8 years old, martial soul: Scroll, innate soul power: Level 5, current soul power: Level 10.
All three were children from families near the Tian Xing Academy who enrolled after hearing of Ye Wen's fame.
Of the three, Bi Si Te came from a wealthy background and had attached two hundred-year soul rings to his martial soul. However, due to the nature of his martial soul, his cultivation hadn't amounted to much, prompting him to seek his luck at Ye Wen's academy.
The other two children came from ordinary families and, due to the peculiarity of their martial souls, had no idea how to utilize them.
Thus, the direction of their soul ring selection remained a mystery. However, their families, unwilling to attach random soul rings to their promising children, had delayed the process until now.
What seemed like insurmountable challenges to ordinary soul masters was simple for Ye Wen—his knowledge far surpassed that of this era.
Martial soul mutations were rare, and some mutations directly evolved into higher-tier spirit beasts of the same type. As for malignant mutations, they rarely possessed significant innate soul power, though there were cases similar to Yu Xiaogang's situation.
Ye Wen stated that he currently had no time to address these issues. Even if he did, the upper limit of their potential cultivation would likely remain low unless vast resources were invested—and Ye Wen had no intention of making such a loss-inducing investment for unrelated individuals.
Additionally, in this era, most commoners were illiterate and likely hadn't even seen Ye Wen's recruitment notice. Combined with other factors, only these three students with mutated martial souls were admitted.
Of the younger two, if their martial souls were developed properly, they might not be inferior to Ye Wen's direct disciples.
As for Bi Si Te, he was mediocre—an average student at a high-level soul master academy.
His soul hunting choices had been misguided. Although the first two soul skills might prove useful later, given his innate soul power of Level 6, he would at most reach the level of a Soul Sage in his lifetime. Unless he encountered extraordinary opportunities, reaching Soul Douluo was out of the question.
Moreover, starting with Level 6 innate soul power at age 15 and only reaching Level 25 in soul power now indicated laziness. His potential rating thus dropped further. After all, this age range was the prime period for soul power cultivation.
Though these three were categorized as second-tier students, they attended classes alongside regular students.
Their sole special privilege was that Ye Wen would personally guide them in their cultivation directions.
The reason Ye Wen recruited such students wasn't to conduct research on martial soul mutations but to see if he could discover an undiscovered prodigy.
After all, examples of hidden gems obscured by dust were not uncommon.
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