Chapter 145: Disciples of the Upper House (2)
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Even the three upper-house disciples on the main seats looked over.
“This must be Junior Brother Lin,” Xie Jingsheng suddenly said with a smile.
Lin Shen cupped his hands calmly and said, “Greetings, Senior Brother Xie!”
“No need for formalities.”
Xie Jingsheng smiled and waved his hand with a warm expression.
“Junior Brother Lin is unbelievably talented. Even the Master praises you. We have to hang out more often in the future.”
Lin Shen was stunned. “Senior Brother Xie’s Master is…”
Mu Chuanhua suddenly chimed in, “Junior Brother Lin, you don’t know, right? Senior Brother Xie is studying under Master Si, who promoted you to a Black-rank disciple!”
Lin Shen was enlightened and a little surprised.
The academy didn’t prohibit the house masters from taking in disciples, but such examples had always been extremely rare.
It was because the housemaster was a high-ranking member of the academy’s upper echelons. If they took in a disciple of the academy, there was a hidden worry of favoritism and unfairness. It was easy to attract criticism, so very few housemasters would do this.
That was why Lin Shen hadn’t thought of this at first.
Not many people knew about this. At least, he didn’t hear about it when he asked around.
“Thank you for clearing my doubts, Senior Brother Mu!”
After thanking Mu Chuanhua, Lin Shen cupped his hands at Xie Jingsheng.
“I’m looking forward to it, Senior Brother Xie!”
Seeing that Lin Shen didn’t resist his friendship, Xie Jingsheng smiled.
He expressed his friendship with Lin Shen only because of his master’s promotion of Lin Shen, but also because Lin Shen was from a commoner family like him.
In a place like the Nine Yang Academy, where the disciples of influential families were predominant, it was naturally easier for commoner disciples to get close to each other.
Seeing the friendly exchange between Xie Jingsheng and Lin Shen, many disciples couldn’t help but look envious or jealous.
Xie Jingsheng was a disciple of the upper house and Si Yuanpei’s disciple. If Lin Shen built a relationship with him, he would undoubtedly have a big tree to rely on in the academy in the future.
Seeing that everyone was already seated, Xie Jingsheng didn’t delay any longer. He took out a restriction token and injected spiritual essence to activate it.
In the next second, the pagoda rumbled and shook. Clouds gathered at the bottom of the pagoda, carrying the huge pagoda as it slowly rose. In a short while, it reached a thousand feet in the sky. Then, it broke through the clouds and flew towards the Dragon Abyss Mountain Range.
There was an array formation around the pagoda. Once it was activated, even Enlightening Stage spiritual beasts would be about to do anything. The disciples sat in the middle and could attack or retreat at will. They could come and go as they pleased.
The pagoda was extremely fast. As it flew, the wind howled incessantly. However, the people inside weren’t affected by the wind at all.
In just a moment, the rolling majestic mountains appeared in his vision.
Xie Jingsheng waved his hand, and a disciple immediately carried out the sandalwood table that had been prepared and placed it in the middle of everyone.
On the sandalwood table was a landscape map. On it was the terrain of the Dragon Abyss Mountain Range.
The map looked no different from the map that the Merit Hall gave to the disciples who went out for the first time for free. However, as Xie Jingsheng waved his hand, colorful mist immediately appeared above the map and quickly condensed into mountain peaks.
If one observed carefully, one would discover that these connected mountains were actually the three-dimensional Dragon Abyss Mountain Range.
At this moment, the pagoda had just entered the Dragon Abyss Mountain Range and stopped above one of the mountains.
Xie Jingsheng pointed with his fingers, and the image of one of the mountains above the sandalwood table enlarged rapidly. It was the mountain below the pagoda.
At the same time, hundreds of soybean-sized balls of light appeared out of thin air.
They were red and yellow dots, some darker and some lighter. Most of them were yellow, and only about twenty were a light shade of red. Only one red dot on the mountainside was slightly darker.
The disciple standing at the side swept his gaze around and quickly said,
“Senior Brothers and Sisters, this mountain is called Lijian Mountain. There is a total of one mid-phase Ascension Stage spiritual beast, 23 early-phase ones, and 86 Spirit Awakening Stage spiritual beasts!”
Xie Jingsheng nodded slightly and looked around. He smiled and said,
“Which Junior Brother or Junior Sister is willing to start the first battle?”
As soon as he finished speaking, the dozen or so Yellow-rank disciples sitting at the end impatiently walked out of the crowd and volunteered.
The Heaven, Earth, and Black-rank disciples sat quietly without saying a word.
In a battle like this, the disciples of the academy already had a tacit understanding.
Everyone present was here to obtain merit points. It was in everyone’s interest to share the benefit instead of letting a few people take all the credit.
The demon beasts on the outer mountains of the Dragon Abyss Mountain Range were generally weaker. Naturally, they would be left to the relatively weak Yellow-rank disciples to deal with so that they could earn some merit points.
The deeper they went, the stronger the demon beasts they encountered became. Higher-rank disciples would have to take action. Only then would they be able to obtain merit points.
“Thank you, Junior Brothers and Sisters!”
Xie Jingsheng granted their requests with a smile and raised his hand.
Immediately, someone handed over smooth and flawless jade tokens.
They were called merit tokens. It was an item used by the Nine Yang Academy and even the Nine Suns Sect to record the number of demons the disciples killed.
Every time a disciple killed a spiritual beast, they would be able to extract a trace of its blood essence and inject it into the jade token. The stronger the demon beast, the more blood essence they would be able to extract.
Afterward, the disciple would go to the Merit Hall with the token, where his merit would be measured according to the amount of blood essence.
The dozen or so Yellow-rank disciples took the tokens with excited expressions on their faces. They walked toward the edge of the pagoda one after another. With a leap, clouds appeared and sent them to the mountain below.
Not long after.
Beast roars and battle cries came from below.
About half an hour later, the dozen or so Yellow-rank disciples returned to the tower.
Although everyone was injured, there was a heartfelt smile on their faces.
The original crystal clear jade tokens now had traces of blood-red patterns swimming in them like worms. It was the blood essence they had absorbed after killing the spiritual beasts.
According to the rules of the Nine Yang Academy, a token full of blood essence could be exchanged for twenty minor merits!
Those with less than a minor merit would be given merit points.
After such a battle, these Yellow-rank disciples would obtain at least two or three minor merits!
In the past, even if they killed the same number of demon beasts, the merit points they obtained might not even be half of what they had now.
This was also the main reason why the disciples were eager to participate in the battle.
The merit points obtained from killing spiritual beasts during the war were far more than usual!
After clearing a mountain, the pagoda continued to fly forward.
The pagoda would only stop when they reached the next mountain. Then, the landscape map on the table would reveal the number of demon beasts on the mountain and their cultivation level.
At this moment, they were still in the periphery of the Dragon Abyss Mountain Range. The demonic beasts they encountered were generally not strong. At most, they were at the mid-phase of the Immortal Ascension Stage. Therefore, the ones who attacked along the way were all Black and Yellow-rank disciples.
Including Lin Shen, the group of Heaven-rank and Earth-rank disciples sat still from the beginning to the end.
This was also the difference between human cultivators and spiritual beasts.
Human cultivators had martial techniques, weapons, and talismans, but most spiritual beasts could only rely on their instincts and claws to fight. Therefore, when their cultivation levels were similar, the human cultivators would often win in the end.
A Yellow-rank disciple at Level 2 to 3 was enough to contend with or even defeat an ordinary mid-phase Ascension Stage spiritual beast.
Only spiritual beasts with special bloodlines like white-eyed spirit tigers could contend with human cultivators of the same level.
In the following period of time, they maintained this pattern of clearing the area while advancing steadily.
For three consecutive days, the pagoda only wandered around the outermost area of the Dragon Abyss Mountain Range to the west. It had almost killed all the spiritual beasts in the surrounding mountains.
Lin Shen calculated in his heart. In the past three days, they had killed at least two to three thousand beasts.
However, more than 70% of them were only Spirit Awakening Stage spiritual beasts.
Ascension Stage spiritual beasts only accounted for a small portion.
As for the white-eyed spirit tigers, there were even fewer of them. There were only thirty to forty of them.
Lin Shen wondered if the large group of white-eyed spirit tigers that he saw that day had fled when they saw that the situation was turning south.
On the fourth day, after the disciples finished their breakfast and gathered in the martial arts arena as usual, the three upper-house disciples discussed for a while and finally gave the order to go deeper into the mountain..
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