"Very good."
Ye Hongyu spoke, her voice carried by spiritual energy to every corner of the plaza:
"The governnt has invested top-tier resources to cultivate you. Senior instructors personally teach you, guaranteed monthly training supplies—every vial of dicine here represents countless people’s efforts.
Your achievents today do not belong only to yourselves; they belong to everyone who paved the way for you."
Ye Hongyu raised her tone, and the temperature of the entire square seed to climb with it:
"Rember! The power in your hands is not a toy for showing off!
When the Mist descends, when the people wail, every awakened talent who walks out of Vermilion Bird Academy must shoulder the responsibility of protecting this land!
What you receive today is not just a reward but a contract.
Swear in the na of the Vermilion Bird: use what you’ve learned and your strengths to keep the mountains and rivers safe!"
As her final word fell,
the twelve Vermilion columns around the square flared up simultaneously with towering flas.
"Use what you’ve learned and your strengths to keep the mountains and rivers safe!"
Xie Xi was the first to roar.
She slamd her right fist hard against her left chest, her eyes burning with fierce fighting spirit as she stared unswervingly at the red-robed figure before her.
Liu Ziming’s neck veins bulged.
The boy had completely abandoned image control, shouting until his face was flushed and even spitting a little.
Feng Jue, rarely, tore at his throat and shouted.
Xu Hao’s voice was sonorous.
Su Zhan shouted too, but compared to the others his cry was not especially outstanding.
Nearly three hundred freshn were infected by the atmosphere, the waves of sound surging higher and higher:
The roar made the ancient trees around the plaza tremble and rustle, frightening birds into flight.
At that mont there was no distinction between scions of noble families and students from humble hos—only a group of young people’s purest oath echoing between sky and earth.
Of course... Su Zhan was the exception.
His other identity prevented him from being as sincere as these young people.
After the Vermilion Bird Academy exchange eting awards ceremony ended,
Su Zhan specifically asked Xie Xi if she could tell him about Dean Ye’s life and experience.
Her answer was:
Ye Hongyu studied at Vermilion Bird Academy for six years before enlisting in the military.
A life of war and service, she pushed through life and death step by step; at forty-three she reached the highest awakened realm in Daxia, the Ocean Realm.
Later, the old dean of Vermilion Bird Academy passed away.
She felt affection for her alma mater and, pushing aside objections, took the post of dean.
From then on she held two positions: commanding the army to guard the border and managing the academy to cultivate new recruits.
That was also why she hadn’t attended the freshn opening before—she was simply too busy to leave.
But despite being spread thin, Ye Hongyu never slackened in reforming the academy.
She introduced military training systems, expanded training grounds, and even personally brought rare resources back from the battlefield to enrich the academy’s treasury.
And under Ye Hongyu’s leadership, Vermilion Bird Academy improved steadily.
This is not empty praise.
You can see it from the graduation contests among the five major academies.
Every year graduates from the five academies compete in a unified match to test each academy’s teaching quality.
Since Ye Hongyu took over, Vermilion Bird Academy’s results have steadily risen.
One could say Ye Hongyu gave her life to Daxia.
She did only two things in her life.
Guard the Daxia border with her flesh and blood, and cultivate the new generation of awakened talents with all she had learned.
For years the "Blood Blade Pass" she defended was never breached; the piled-up skeletons of Mist creatures beneath the pass walls could have ford a second wall.
Wherever that crimson-feathered cloak went, even the fiercest disaster-level threats instinctively gave it a wide berth.
And at Vermilion Bird Academy,
she set educational thods and taught and nurtured students.
Use what you’ve learned and your strengths to keep the mountains and rivers safe.
Her life rits the phrase "peerless patriot."
No wonder Xie Xi admired her so much.
Even Su Zhan, after listening to Xie Xi’s introduction to Ye Hongyu, could not help but feel respectful.
However...
the next item on the schedule...
two words: start training!
After bidding farewell to his teammates,
Su Zhan walked straight to the body examination room. Under professional equipnt’s spiritual scans,
he inserted his ID card into the spiritual analysis machine.
With a low-frequency hum, six scanning beams moved slowly down from above his head.
Fifteen minutes later the machine spat out a detailed report:
[tabolic Function Assessnt Report]
Liver spiritual energy conversion efficiency: 78%, already at safety threshold.
Blood oxygen binding rate: 95%, can tolerate 1–2 blood oxygen enhancers.
Neuron activity level: normal; recomnd pairing with neuron-protection agent.
Kidney filtration system: very healthy; filtration and detox are perfect, suitable for carrying dicinal agents.
...
There was a whole stack of information beyond that.
Using the data, Su Zhan walked straight to the resource distribution counter.
"Neuron activation serums, three doses."
Su Zhan tapped the counter.
The staff raised an eyebrow.
These military-grade serums cost five million Daxia currency each and were limited.
If not for Ye Hongyu’s connections with the military, these wouldn’t be available at Vermilion Bird Academy.
"And this."
Su Zhan didn’t hesitate and pointed to the blue-glowing injection vials in the cold storage: "Extre cellular regeneration solution, five doses."
Each was priced at 850,000 Daxia currency.
Things he normally would be stingy about, today he took them all.
"And the spiritual overload suppressants, I want—"
Su Zhan pointed at the glittering array of goods.
The staff swiped his ID card with trembling hands: "Are you sure you want the spiritual overload suppressant? One vial of that is worth a downtown apartnt—"
"That expensive? Then two vials."
Su Zhan showed no change in expression.
These dicines would support his two-week extre training.
First use the neuron serums to boost reaction speed and ntal resilience.
Then the regeneration solution to repair body damage caused by intense training.
Finally use the suppressants to forcibly push past spiritual thresholds.
The staff’s mouth twitched; he warned: "dicines must be used according to your body’s absorption rate, you know that.
Also, you may not resell these dicines. If discovered, your free privileges will be revoked and you’ll be fined ten tis the value of what was sold.
And don’t waste them on purpose—"
"Of course I know."
Su Zhan, unable to wait, politely extended his hand: "May I have my ID card back now?"
"…Here you are."
The staff didn’t say more and handed the card back.
Su Zhan took the card.
The dicines were boxed with shockproof asures to prevent breakage in transit.
He placed the boxes into bags, then went to procure more elsewhere.
Well, “procure” was more like zero-cost pickup.
At the gravity training room’s entrance,
the resources Su Zhan carried already totaled over fifty million Daxia currency.
And that was with restraint.
He pressed the neuron serum’s needle against his carotid artery.
As the serum entered his bloodstream, his thinking cleared in an instant.
Ti to start training.
Su Zhan stepped into the gravity training chamber; the heavy alloy door slamd shut behind him.
He pressed the control panel and set the gravity coefficient directly to ten tis.
When not using Aberrant form,
as a control-type awakened, his raw physical strength wasn’t high.
"Gravity field activated: ten tis standard gravity."
A chanical female voice declared.
In the next mont,
Su Zhan’s knees sank violently; his bones cracked and creaked.
He inhaled deeply, straightened his back slowly, feeling blood struggle and sluggishly flow under the super-gravity.
He began basic physical conditioning.
Starting with the most basic push-ups. Each movent felt like bearing a thousand-weight burden; muscle fibers tore under the overload.
Sweat that just broke on his skin was yanked and slamd to the floor by the heavy gravity with a crisp sound.
At the thirty-seventh rep he heard a faint crack from his right arm.
A small fracture in the ulna.
But... that was the effect he wanted.
Briefly shutting off the gravity was not for rest,
but for... dicating.
Extre cellular regeneration solution to repair the body damage from intense training.
...
Su Zhan drew his twin blades and began practicing basic sword techniques.
Under ten tis gravity his motions beca unbearably slow.
Slashes that should have flowed like clouds now required his entire body’s muscles just to barely execute.
The blade’s arcs were crooked and jagged.
Yet Su Zhan forced himself to complete each move at standard speed, even if it ant tendons throbbed painfully under the overload.
For awakened people,
muscle tears and similar physical injuries are minor.
Only damage to spiritual energy—overdrafts, injuries to the spiritual cycle—counts as severe injury.
So Su Zhan had no reason to worry this would harm his foundation.
...
Next,
he took the spiritual overload suppressant.
Su Zhan began guiding the flow of spiritual energy within his body, repeatedly speeding it up for himself.
He practiced nonstop.
Gradually,
he increased the gravity coefficient.
"Gravity field adjusted: eleven tis standard gravity."
A sar of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
But this—was exactly the result he wanted.
And so,
Su Zhan trained himself crazily, with the help of the dicines,
cycling constantly through those three actions.
He trained until very late every day before returning to the dormitory, collapsing into bed and falling into deep sleep.
The next morning he arrived on ti again.
Monotonous and flavorless,
but full of drive.
Su Zhan declared: I am truly terrified of being poor—these three months, I can’t waste even one second!
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