Chapter 193 Grilled Buttered Corn (a)

Translated by Gumihou

Edited by Gumihou

 

“What are your plans after this?” asked the Dean with a smile. [1] He was smiling so widely that his eyes had turned into crescents. He has very few ambitions in his life. His sole wish was to build up the Imperial College into the best Spiritual educational establishment in the world. The youths before him were the most suitable walking advertisements he could ask for.

“Cultivate,” Lin Fan was the first to answer.

Feng Luo nodded. Before these prestigious elders, he had reverted back to his polite and reserved young master persona. Nothing of the naggy, gossipy auntie attitude could be seen, it was quite amazing, really.

“Is everyone the same?”

“Yes,”

“Very good, I know that all of you are very promising prospects. Nonetheless, at this stage of your Cultivation, it probably did not matter where you train or practice. Therefore, I have a proposal for all of you, will you hear me out?” asked the Dean.

[1] The Dean’s smile had become even more fox-like, causing the youths to stay silent.

“Your next goal should be breaking into Divine Transformation, right? Unfortunately, it is a very difficult undertaking. Just look at the entirety of the Eastern Empire alone. We have countless promising and talented young people, but they are all limited by the Dao of Suppression. Even with hard work and tremendous effort, how many of us are in our twilight years before we even touched the possibility of breaking through?”

At this, the Dean sighed. In his generation, aside from the few gathered in this room, most had either left the Ninth Realm or were struggling against old age and sickness.

The road to Cultivation truly does forces one to grapple against heaven’s will.

After sighing, he turned to these promising youths again, “You all are very lucky. Even at this age, your Cultivation has surpassed us when we were the same age. Nevertheless, it is still not enough. From what I can see, you have experienced very little combat situation. I’ll let you in on a secret, Cultivation is best honed through battle experience.”

After all, a human being’s potential could only be fully stimulated under life and death circumstances.

Shiyu started to have some idea where this was going, “Dean, you’re saying…”

“I’m saying there’s no need to travel to other places to pursue Cultivation. Just Cultivate here, at the Eastern Empire. Cultivate your potential at the Imperial College,” said the Dean.

Elder Feng chose this moment to say, “We have already discussed the matter. We will set the stage for you inside the Imperial Capital. We old men will work together to set up a reward system and make the announcement. All fighters below Divine Transformation Stage, regardless of age, could participate and fight with any of you. If you win, you will receive the rewards. If you lose, you can only sit back and watch as others receive the reward.”

Each one of these Divine Transformation Elders has an incredibly deep and profound background. If they were the ones who set up the rewards…

Shiyu and the rest could not help but be tempted.

It’s not like… they have anything to lose through this arrangement.

Combat was indeed the fastest way to improve oneself.

“But, if you want us to fight on stage and not lose even once. Surely that’s a bit too harsh?” Dong-Fang Zhen said. Although their strength was not bad, what if a bunch of Great Perfection Level Core Condensation experts come onto the stage? Aren’t they just asking to be flattened?

“Two wins out of three, draws are another matter,” said the Dean.

The elders have considered the subject for a long time and decided that it was impossible to win every fight, therefore loosened the restriction by deciding on two wins out of three.

“Don’t worry, even if you happen to face a team with a much higher Cultivation stage than you it’s still not impossible to win. There are three rounds of fights. The interval between the first and second round will depend on your Cultivation level,” explained Patriarch Liu. “For example, if the matchup is between 5th and 6th level fighters, where the difference is only 1 level, their fight will commence a month later. Fighters separated by 2 levels will fight 2 months later. This will also give you an opportunity to improve yourself.”

Shiyu thought over the slightly complicated fighting arrangements for a while. It certainly seemed more acceptable this way. After all, the main point was to improve their Cultivation levels.

Although it was still quite difficult, Cultivation is something that had to be improved through various challenges.

“What do you think?” asked Lin Fan.

“Doable,” said Shiyu with a nod.

“I, too, feel that it’s not bad,”

The others nodded along. Having gotten these youngsters to agree, the Dean moved the topic along quickly, “We’ll make sure to put up some good rewards, of course. However, if you lose, we’ll have to bear the cost of these rewards. Please understand that if you caused us old fellows to lose our [2] burial money, prepared to be sold off.”

Leaving that last remark aside, it looks like these bunch of elders really were prepared to go all out and push the next generation of Cultivators to their limits.

The youths looked at the expectant faces of their elders and nodded together, “Yes! We’ll do as you say!”

“Excellent, now that you’ve all agreed, us old fogeys will make all the arrangements. You just make sure to get stronger,” the Dean sighed privately to himself. He had done everything he could, everything else would depend on these young ones.

“Oh, by the way,” he pointed at Qing Chen and Xuan Yin. “You and you, we’ve already spoken with Leisurely Cloud Pavilion. They’ve agreed to lend you to us.”

In fact, the negotiation to borrow these two had started middle of last month. After all, these two were like precious jades. So, why not polish them together with the College students?

When Qing Chen and Xuan Yin heard this, shock overcame their cool nature enough to make their faces go a little slack…

Had they been… sold off?

Dong-Fang Zhen patted their shoulders sympathetically.

“Dean, do you mean to say that we should form a team?” asked Lin Fan.

“Whether it is one knife or many knives, as long as it is sharpened, it makes no difference to us,” said the Dean. “You may return and decide on the team arrangement. It’s best to have seven people on the main team with the rest as substitutes.” If they sent out the entirety of the Villa it would be too excessive.

“By the way, I shall tell you this in advance. We old men have to make up our losses somehow. So the competition will be held at the Imperial Capital’s Central Square,” remarked Elder Feng as he stroked his beard.

The Central Square could easily accommodate 200,000 people at once. If they were to advertise the competition as a spectator sport and collect ticket money for the fights… they could make a huge profit out of it.

For the common people, the image of a Cultivator had always been mysterious and far away. Like an untouchable cloud in the sky. If, for a reasonable amount of money, they could witness the wonderful scene of Cultivators battling it out before their own eyes, how could they refuse?

Lin Fan and the rest have no objection to this.

After asking after a few more things, the Dean gave them their Contribution Points and let them go. Once the youths left, the elders sat together and began to discuss the finer details of the competition.

The Ninth Realm was too calm right now. As still and unmoving as a pool of stagnant water. This was not their first attempt to agitate the waters, but it would be the first time they all work together like this and all of them were determined to give it their best.

If these youths managed to ascend the heavens, they could turn this competition into a special Eastern Empire tradition. By then, the Imperial College name would spread to all four corners of the world.

 

[Gumihou: I love it when elders get together to help rather than hinder their juniors]

Pic from Cooking Classy

Gumihou is keeping track so that you don’t have to ~

凝氣	Condensation Stage	Stage 1
化丹	Core Transformation	Stage 2
凝丹(46)	Core Condensation	Stage 3
化神(52)	Divine Transformation	Stage 4
成嬰	Nascent Formation	Stage 5
合體	Unification	Stage 6
返墟	Revert Decay	Stage 7
歸真	Original Purity	Stage 8
成仙	Become immortal	Stage 9

 

[1] USMiC: Imperial College Dean: Gave him a bit more description because Gumi likes him and mourn the fact that we don’t know his name…

[2] Burial money – The money prepared for one’s funeral. Because getting buried is an expensive business, so some people saved their whole life for a good burial site and valuable coffin material. You can also pay temples to pray over your grave if you don’t have relatives to pray for you.

 

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