Chapter 117: Chapter 117: Learning About the Academy
As the saying goes, even a hero is helpless without money. This was exactly how Lin Yun felt right now. Little Ape had great potential for growth, but the resources it required were a veritable bottomless pit.
Faced with such an enormous demand, Lin Yun couldn’t imagine how he would ever acquire enough resources in the future.
He wandered distractedly through the General Class area. As Lin Yun was a General Class student, he wasn’t allowed to enter any other areas.
Over the following week, Lin Yun went out for a stroll nearly every day. In that same week, Little Ape ate Lin Yun, Li Tian, and Qin Feng completely out of house and home.
Even though Li Tian and Qin Feng were from the Genius Class and received a majority of the Academy’s resource allocations, even they couldn’t keep up with Little Ape’s appetite. The creature was a veritable beast of consumption.
During this week, Lin Yun also learned a lot about Yanhuang Academy.
First, Yanhuang Academy was divided into three halls and one court. The three halls were the Merit Hall, the Martial Arts Hall, and the Steward Hall. The one court was the Punishment Hall.
The Merit Hall was mainly responsible for tracking and exchanging the students’ Merit Points. Within the Academy, students didn’t use Primordial Stones for transactions. Instead, they completed tasks from the Merit Hall to earn Merit Points, which they used for trade.
Within the Academy, Merit Points were extremely useful. They could be exchanged not only for Primordial Stones and Martial Skills, but also for items like Spirit Grass, Elixirs, and Spirit Soldiers.
However, earning Merit Points was correspondingly difficult. An ordinary General Class student might go from entering the Academy to leaving it without ever managing to earn a hundred Merit Points.
Besides the Merit Hall, the Martial Arts Hall, as its name suggested, was the place that managed Martial Skills. The Steward Hall handled various miscellaneous matters, such as student applications for life-and-death battles or student promotions.
Beyond the three halls was the one court: the Punishment Hall. It oversaw all punishments in the Academy, responsible for dealing with students, Stewards, and even teachers who broke the Academy’s rules.
Legend had it that the teacher in charge of the Punishment Hall was one of the Academy’s two vice deans. This person was known to be upright and impartial. Within the Academy, anyone who broke the rules, from members of the Royal Family down to General Class students, was punished without mercy. There were never any exceptions.
In addition, Lin Yun learned that there were over a thousand General Class students. Among these thousand, there were both Qi Sea Realm Martial Artists and Opening Realm Martial Artists.
The Academy separated students of the two different Realms into different classes. The Qi Sea Realm students occupied two classes, totaling two hundred people.
For Lin Yun to be promoted from the General Class to the Elite Class, the first step was to enter the top one hundred on the General Class rankings.
To prevent General Class students from endlessly challenging Elite Class students, the Academy had a rule: only those ranked in the top one hundred were allowed to challenge a member of the Elite Class.
This was the requirement for the Opening Realm; the requirement for the Qi Sea Realm was even stricter. Only those in the top ten were allowed to challenge.
Furthermore, when challenging an Elite Class student, it had to be Opening Realm against Opening Realm, and Qi Sea Realm against Qi Sea Realm.
This was all for the sake of fairness, and Lin Yun could understand that.
Standing in the square of the General Class area, Lin Yun looked at the two ranking boards before him: one for the General Class Opening Realm, and one for the General Class Qi Sea Realm.
Frustratingly, Lin Yun’s name was dead last on the Opening Realm ranking board. It couldn’t be helped; he hadn’t accepted any challenges, so his rank was based on his placement assessment.
"What a headache. So promotion to the Elite Class depends on my rank," Lin Yun said with a frustrated sigh.
"Well, well, if it isn’t the last-place trash? What’s someone like you doing, gawking at the rankings? Can’t find your name? Let me help you—it’s at the very bottom! HAHA!" Just then, a mocking voice rang out.
Several students from Lin Yun’s batch walked over. The one in the lead was strutting arrogantly, an undisguised look of contempt for Lin Yun on his face.
"Trash like him dares to dream about the rankings? Hilarious. Brother Yang, I say we teach this guy a lesson and make him face reality. How dare he have designs on a beauty like Miss Lu," a student trailing behind him jeered.
Hearing this, the leader of the group grew even more brazen. In his eyes, Lin Yun was a worthless piece of shit who was courting death by stealing the goddess of every male student in the Academy.
In truth, he had no personal grudge against Lin Yun. The only reason he was humiliating him like this was entirely because of Lu Bingning—it was purely out of jealousy.
Watching the group slowly approach, Lin Yun asked nonchalantly, "What’s your rank on the board?"
At this, the follower from before answered again, "HA! Brother Yang is ranked 175th! He’s leagues above trash like you!"
This Brother Yang clearly enjoyed the flattery. A proud look spread across his face, as if he were the number one disciple of the entire Outer Sect.
"One hundred and seventy-fifth? Too low." Hearing the rank, Lin Yun muttered quietly, a hint of disappointment on his face.
Lin Yun had been thinking that if this person was ranked in the top one hundred, he would’ve taken this opportunity to defeat him and take his spot. But hearing he was only 175th, Lin Yun immediately lost interest.
Lin Yun’s words clearly reached their ears. When they saw him turn to leave, the leader roared in fury, "Brat, what did you just say? If you have any guts, you won’t leave! I, Li Yang, challenge you to a battle!"
Li Yang shouted angrily. Lin Yun’s words and expression had clearly shown contempt for him. How could Li Yang not be furious, being looked down upon by some last-place trash?
However, in the face of Li Yang’s furious roar, Lin Yun acted as if he hadn’t heard a thing, walking away without so much as a backward glance.
So spectacularly ignored by Lin Yun, Li Yang’s rage finally erupted. He was about to attack on the spot, but at the critical moment, his companions grabbed him.
"Brother Yang, we can’t fight here! The Punishment Hall will definitely punish us!" one of the disciples reminded him.
Hearing this warning, Li Yang managed to suppress his urge to attack. He then said viciously, "That brat... I’m going to the Steward Hall right now to apply for a ranking battle against him!"
With that, the group marched imposingly toward the Steward Hall.
Lin Yun chose to ignore the man’s clamor entirely because his rank was too low. Lin Yun didn’t want to waste his effort. If he was going to issue a challenge, he might as well go straight for the top. He wouldn’t be the least bit afraid even to challenge the number one student.
Lin Yun simply wasn’t in the mood to bother with someone ranked 175th.
’Next, I’ll go check out the Merit Hall,’ Lin Yun thought. He headed in the direction of the Merit Hall, wanting to see what exactly Merit Points could be exchanged for and if there were any other ways to obtain them besides completing tasks.
