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The Academic Affairs Office wasn't hard to find. With Xiaopang in tow, Su Wen quickly arrived at the door.
"Hello, teachers. I'm here to complete the work-study admission procedures. How should I proceed?"
…
After a round of paperwork, Su Wen and Xiaopang officially became work-study students.
"Do you need bedding and other daily necessities?" the director asked, noticing their empty hands.
Neither Su Wen nor Xiaopang refused. They each paid a copper soul coin and received a set of bedding.
"Your dormitory is Dorm Seven," the director added with a brief explanation.
Dorm Seven
Arms full of bedding, Su Wen followed the directions and soon stood before Dorm Seven.
He pushed the door open—
A figure lunged straight at him.
Su Wen slid aside with light, precise footwork, letting the attacker stumble past.
"Hm?"
Wang Sheng—now able to see the bedding in Su Wen and Xiaopang's hands—checked himself and did not strike again.
"You two, put your bedding down first and fight me. Whoever wins is the boss of Dorm Seven."
"Huh? Why do we have to fight?" Xiaopang asked, confused.
"We work-study kids get bullied in the academy. We've got to stick together, so the strongest fist leads. The boss protects us from getting picked on."
Su Wen shook his head. "I have no time to play with you. If you want to be boss, be boss—just don't get in my way."
Hugging his bedding, he chose an empty bunk, made the bed swiftly, sat cross-legged, and slipped into meditation.
Wang Sheng and the other work-study students stared at one another.
"Boss… he entered meditation that fast?"
"How are we supposed to fight him if he's already meditating?"
"Forget it. Ignore him. He said he doesn't want the boss spot anyway."
"Hmph. What a freeloader—claims he won't get involved, does nothing, yet will still enjoy the benefits of having Boss Wang Sheng backing him."
That very first day, after dinner, Su Wen asked around among several teachers and finally found the Grandmaster's office. He knocked.
"Enter."
A middle-aged voice came through the door. Su Wen pushed it open and stepped inside.
Seeing it was a child, the Grandmaster frowned, his tone turning impatient. "What do you want from me?"
"Grandmaster, hello. I'm a new work-study student. My martial soul—"
"Level five innate soul power? A Heavenly Tome book martial soul?" The Grandmaster's eyes flickered with a hint of interest. "Release your martial soul."
"A very ordinary book martial soul…"
His interest evaporated at once, impatience creeping into his gaze.
An ordinary book martial soul, without any notable traits—yet it possessed level five innate soul power.
"I don't take disciples."
"Grandmaster, my martial soul is a book. I want to become a scholar—"
"You don't even understand what it means to be a scholar," the Grandmaster cut him off.
Su Wen fell silent.
He did not keep plastering a warm face onto a cold backside. He turned and left the Grandmaster's office.
Sigh…
"So, being a scholar isn't something I can afford… is that it?" Su Wen understood the subtext.
Without a background, one could never become a renowned scholar. And even if you amassed knowledge, who would inherit it?
Worse still, much of the Grandmaster's theorizing—his fame and proclamations—ultimately served to justify himself, to mask his own weakness in cultivation.
Fated never to be celebrated across the continent, he naturally had no interest in Su Wen.
Exiting the office and turning down the corridor, Su Wen's eyes cooled.
If he won't take me, then I won't bow to him.
The reason he'd come had never been the man's theories, let alone his so-called brilliance or training methods.
What mattered most to Su Wen were the materials the Grandmaster had collected.
Beyond that was status and connections.
But the Grandmaster's road was blocked to him; Su Wen began mapping other paths.
"Should I join the Martial Soul Hall?"
If he entered the Hall, he would certainly gain access to some materials; with effort, there'd be ways to reach deeper knowledge.
Only—
"The Martial Soul Hall isn't a fit for me."
If you show no talent, you get nothing. If you show it, you end up under certain people's thumbs—people Su Wen could not stomach.
Nothing is more suffocating than having your enemy as your superior.
"In the end, I still have to rely on myself."
Ordinary Soul Masters meditate by circulating soul power unconsciously, without true order. Over years, a personal style might form—some pattern, but only a habit's pattern.
Yet the circulation of soul power has its own techniques. In these three months of training, Su Wen had discovered plenty, and he planned to codify his insights into a fixed route of circulation—to craft a cultivation method.
The problem was, there are too many meridians in the human body. Mapping a complete circulation circuit would take a great deal of time.
That was why he'd set his sights on the Grandmaster's route of circulation.
Too bad the man hadn't set his sights on him.
"I have my own talent. I can sense the distribution of meridians in my body and the state of my martial soul. My self-control is on a level other Soul Masters can't match."
In both efficiency and safety, his ability to explore new methods far exceeded others.
Su Wen refused to believe he couldn't develop a method on his own.
As for the rest of the knowledge…
"When it comes down to it, I actually grasp most of what the Soul Master world has to offer—it's all framework and setting."
From another angle, aside from data on soul beasts and the common martial souls of the continent, he lacked little that was crucial. And even those gaps could be bridged through his innate perception and experimentation.
The academy's coursework was too simple for him and hardly interfered with cultivation.
Between daily training sessions, Su Wen used his talent—together with what he knew of the world's rules—to think through the path of his book martial soul.
Every ten levels, one soul ring—each ring is a chance for transformation.
"My martial soul is ordinary. But if I fully seize every ten-level opportunity, keep pushing its evolution, it will become a true Heavenly Tome!"
For top-tier martial souls, further evolution is hard. For trash martial souls, transformation is far easier.
"As long as the rings are strong enough, and I make the most of ring absorption—drawing out and refining the ring's power to its limit—then within three rings, the martial soul's quality can make a great leap."
Acquiring good rings was a problem, so Su Wen made multiple contingency plans. Beyond acquisition, he focused on the details within the absorption itself.
"With my gift for fine control, what others can't do or even perceive during ring absorption, I just might."
It goes without saying: absorbing a ring is the process of a powerful ring reshaping the martial soul's origin—a metamorphosis. If one intervenes, even just to maximize the refinement and absorption of ring power, the effect of that metamorphosis will rise dramatically.
Everything proceeded in steady order.
Su Wen's cultivation speed was anything but slow.
While refining his external training and meditative method—while exploring circulation techniques and developing an internal art—he also researched external combat methods.
Combining the two, he rose four levels in his first year at the academy!
Five months later, he completed the breakthrough from level nine to level ten.
At that moment, Su Wen also launched another research project—Martial Soul Foundations.
"A true scholar must not only know, but also apply."
"The Ten Core Competencies of Martial Souls? Grandmaster, I'm sorry—but I intend to understand them better than you."
(End of Chapter)