Chapter 10: I will stay with you for the next six years
Douluo Continent
Eastsea City.
Eastsea Academy.
The next morning, Fan Lin opened his eyes and stopped his cultivation. He got up from the ground and opened the window to gaze at the calm environment of the Eastsea Academy.
It was the first day of Fan Lin's school life in Eastsea Academy. He looked at the time and went to get ready for the opening ceremony of the school.
The opening ceremony was happening on Eastsea Academy's huge plaza. It was only during this ceremony that both clusters of students from the Advanced Academy and Intermediate Academy met.
As Fan Lin was one of the first ones to come to the ceremony, it gave him ample opportunity to observe the whole plaza, as well as all of the students within the academy.
At the intermediate academy, there were around a hundred students within each grade, totalling up to a rough figure of seven to eight hundred students in all. Compared with the intermediate academy, the group at the advanced academy was significantly smaller as there were close to two hundred students. Students in the advanced academy were divided into three grades. It was thus an arduous task to get into the advanced academy that only had a small succession rate of 20% of students coming from the Intermediate Academy.
"Good day students. We shall now begin the Eastsea Academy's annually held opening ceremony. The President of Eastsea Academy has been invited to the ceremony and he will be making a speech shortly."
Eastsea Academy's President was a senior who looked to be about sixty years old. He had a medium build and didn't look that exceptional. He gave off a bookish atmosphere with his head full of white hair and pair of eyeglasses.
"Welcome to the academy, students. Every single year at this time, I feel a bit sad that students from the intermediate and advanced divisions have graduated, and have left us. However, some of the intermediate students will enter the advanced academy in addition to our new students."
"As I see it, academies are like the blood of society. It receives individuals into the academy and later delivers them into society. In the near future, I hope all of you can..."
The President was very eloquent in his speech. In fact, he didn't even have a script to read off of. He spoke excellently for a full hour before he brought his speech to a close.
The pinnacle of the opening ceremony proceeded right after the President's speech – class assignment.
Students who did not need a class assigned to them were slowly making their way out from the crowded plaza. Fresh faces from the advanced academy left towards their academy for their own class assignment. What was left within the plaza were the new students of the intermediate academy.
"We will proceed with the class assignment. It is known that within Eastsea Academy, the smaller the class number, the more prestigious class. Though that is a fact, we too hope for exceptions where students from the last class will work harder and perform better. We have a total of one hundred and eight new students today, divided up into five classes. The students whom I will call up next are in class one…"
There were a total of five classes, and students with more ability were positioned at the front. That said, class five was positioned right at the back.
"Tang Wulin, Zhou Zhangxi, Xie Xie, Yun Xiao, Fan Lin..." As expected, the names were finally called when the announcer arrived at the list for class five.
There were twenty one students within class five, and it was the smallest class of them all. Each and every one of them had a listless expression and Fan Lin was also in that class.
"Class teachers, please direct your students to their classes and help them familiarize themselves within the academy."
Five teachers appeared before the crowd as the announcement ended. One of those five teachers headed towards the direction of class five.
This teacher looked to be about 27 or 28 years old. When the students of class five turned to look at him, they were all stunned.
This teacher was simply too handsome!
The teacher stood at a staggering height of over 1.9 meters along with a pair of lanky arms and a thin waist. White trousers accentuated his long legs. Though he looked thin, the combination of that along with his brightly lit eyes, well-set nose, and thin lips gave off an image of height and intelligence. The mass of hair was swept to the back of his head. A random current of wind caught on his lake-blue tresses and rested them on his waistline, affirming the length of his hair.
His pupils were of a smoky green and the colour matched well with his blue hair, giving off a strange temperament. His face was expressionless, his gaze icy.
One of the girls in class five breathed out quietly, "The teacher is so handsome!" Unknown to the girl, she had voiced out the thought of all the students.
"Come with me!" This young teacher spoke simply. Though the words were simple, it left a certain chill among the students, right within their hearts. This feeling… BDSM?
A student whispered under his breath, "The teacher seems powerful."
He seemed to be someone powerful indeed. His mere appearance in the plaza had inflicted frostiness onto others to such a great effect. This would not be possible if he were an ordinary person.
The classroom for class five was located at ground level, positioned at the innermost area of the building and required much more walking to reach.
There were thirty sets of tables and chairs in the classroom. The teaching platform was positioned at the front of the classroom.
"Take your seats." The youthful teacher said coldly. Every single time he spoke, it always gave off a feeling of iciness!
Fan Lin chose to sit at the end as he didn't want to get in the sight of a Soul Emperor who had a connection with Shrek. His plans were anything but noble and pure.
The youthful teacher walked to the platform after entering the classroom. As he turned and scanned through the faces of the students before him, the chatter stopped and the classroom regained its silence.
"My name is Wu Zhangkong!" The youthful teacher introduced himself plainly. "For the next six years, you will all be under my tutelage."
'You left them after three months.'
"I would like to emphasize a point – you may disregard whatever Director Long Hengxu had mentioned at the ceremony. Even if you are a bunch of trash, I will train you into the strongest students within your cohort. That is unless you choose to drop out; otherwise, that shall be your aim for the next six years."
While the words were full of arrogance, Wu Zhangkong spoke with a plain tone and it still attracted the attention of all the students within the class.
"You shall introduce yourselves – your name, martial soul, soul power rank, and your aspirations. Tell me all of it. You may begin!"
It was clear and simple, nothing overboard.
The area that the protagonist Tang Wulin and his roommates sat happened to be the side-most row of the room and Wu Zhangkong happened to be pointing towards their direction. And so, Yun Xiao broke the ice and started his introduction.
"Hello everyone, my name is Yun Xiao. My martial soul is an Astrolabe, and my soul power is at rank 12. My goal is to become an intelligence-support-type soul master."
Tang Wulin was next in line, and so he stood up. Wu Zhangkong's gaze rested on him. It was then that he understood the tremor in Yun Xiao's voice. His gaze was sharp, to the point that it seemed to penetrate into a person's essence.
"Tang Wulin, martial soul is Bluesilver grass, soul power is rank 11. My aspiration is..." He halted when he was introducing his aspirations. "I don't have one yet."
"That's a trash soul, no wonder you have no aspirations." A comment escaped from the mass of students seated within the classroom.
Sou! A piece chalk flew precisely into the mouth of said student, like a guided missile being aimed at its target.
"Ou!" The chalk had some spiralling force as it went into the throat of the student. He started retching immediately.
Wu Zhangkong spoked ruthlessly, "There are no trash martial soul in this world. Rather, there are only trash people. Consider your own morals first before calling others trash. If you aren't a piece of trash yourself, would you have landed in class five?"
Wu Zhangkong's ice-cold and powerful voice caused the whole class to quiet down in fear.
"Proceed."
"I, I am Zhou Zhangxi. My martial soul is the Titan Ape; soul power at rank 11. My goal is to become a Strength System Battle Soul Master."
...
"Xie Xie. Martial soul is Light Dragon Dagger; soul power at rank 18. Agility System Battle Soul Master."
When the words 'rank 18' came out, the whole class was instantly shocked. A nine-year-old child with rank 18 soul power. This was truly a genius! Moreover, he was actually a Battle Soul Master. After another two soul power ranks, he would become a Soul Grandmaster. Anyone capable of becoming a Soul Grandmaster before twelve years old was qualified to be called a genius.
'Fake.'
...
"Fan Lin. Blue Silver Grass. Rank 11. Control-Attack dual type Battle Soul Master. No aspirations."
The whole class went on a jitter when they heard of another person with the Blue Silver Grass martial soul who was above Rank 10.
Wu Zhangkong gazed at Fan Lin and then towards Wulin with a raised eyebrow. It was not common for a person with a Blue Silver Grass martial soul to reach rank 10; to find two of them at the same time in the same academy in the same class was quite a coincidence. If it really was one at all.
In the end, the highlight of the class was Xie Xie's soul power rank. In fact, Yun Xiao's rank 12 soul power was considered quite high as the majority of students entered with rank 11 soul power. As for their martial souls, there were all sorts of fantastic oddities, but none of them were particularly powerful.
Of course, Tang Wulin and Fan Lin's Bluesilver Grass were still the worst of them all. This fact was practically set in stone.
"Starting tomorrow, classes will officially begin. My teaching style is a bit different from other teachers so if you're afraid of pain, fatigue, or aches, quickly change schools or think of a way to change classes. Those who remain should mentally prepare themselves. That is all, class dismissed."
After Wu Zhangkong's tall figure strode out from the classroom on his pair of long legs, the classroom exploded with chatter. Nearly all of them were discussing this cold, yet handsome teacher.
Fan Lin was also looking at the back figure of Wu Zhangkong.
"Did he get suspicious? Tang Ya had a mutated Blue Silver Grass martial soul and now there are two Blue Silver Grass martial soul awakened students who came from the infamous Glorybound City that is said to be haunted by a child who had awakened an evil martial soul."
Fan Lin silently got away from the students and went to his room. He looked at his storage ring and then towards his stuff in the room.
"Better get rid of all the things that are related to poison from my storage ring. I should store them at a locker or some other place. I should stay in the Academy for now, entering the Black Market at this point in time is just committing suicide." Fan Lin mumbled his present course of actions that he was going to enact.
'This is going to increase my workload but I don't have the luxury to postpone it. Atleast not now. As for later, we will see.'
Fan Lin thought while sitting on the ground. He chose to cultivate instead of going to search for new and exotic materials.
He had already prepared various types of poisons before leaving Glorybound City.
He didn't need to make any poison or antidotes for his protection. The only thing that he lacked were the ingredients of the Half Energy serum.
The problem of the ingredients had already been solved as he had ordered them from the Black Market and it would reach him by the end of the upcoming week.
Now he was free and that was the reason why wanted to use that time to learn about the usage and quality of the exotic plants, herbs, flowers and many other floral things that are natives to this world.
He wanted to create better and stronger toxins than the ones that he, Chunnibyou and Altruist one had created, except the Doom series.
"Yeah, anything except those poisons that come under the doom series. I am not going to create another one of them. Definitely not going to create them, for even Chunnibyou isn't mad enough to create them."
Fan Lin said and closed his eyes to cultivate. The dorm room fell into complete silence.
....
[You can skip this part as it didn't actually that much necessary]
Meanwhile in the Spirit Pagoda.
"Cross that kid down as well. He is not the Evil Soul Master that we are trying to find. Looks like the kid that killed all those people had already left with another Evil soul master or they must have gone to another city. Did we get any information from the others?" The War God Temple officers asked to the Branch manager from the Spirit Pagoda.
"None. We have already informed all of the Spirit Pagoda branches in the Skysea Alliance, if the killer that you described reaches us, we would inform you guys. Shall I show the exit to you?" The Spirit Pagoda Branch manager said with a smile on his face.
"No need. let's go." The War God Temple officer said and went away with his men.
"Losers." The Spirit Pagoda Eastsea City branch manager mumbled in a nearly audible voice. The War God Temple officers heard the manager due to their cultivation but chose to restrain themselves when there leader signalled them.
...
"Sir, are we really going to let that lowly bastard from the Spirit Pagoda insult us? Just give me the order and I will show him his place." The officer from the War God Temple asked his superior.
"No need. If we were to get mad at every dog that barks at us, what would be our position in the eyes of others. We are the soldiers from the War God Temple, the strongest Military force in the whole Douluo continent. And don't worry, that smug face of his won't last that long." The senior War God officer said to his juniors.
"What do you mean senior?" One of the officers asked.
"Why do you think that I came here of all places? He is going to come here. I am sure of it." The senior officer said with a serious look in his eyes.
"How can you be sure about that Sir?" another officer asked.
"Just an instinctual guess. Do you know that whether the killer is actually a child or not isn't important but in the past years, he was playing with us the whole time. He attacked whenever we increased the security and went into hiding when the security was lax. "
The senior continued," Adding to the fact that he had a set pattern that he obeyed till we interfered. He killed once every three months on the same day, not date but day. I have looked at his first kill to the last one, and they all have one thing in common. The killings happen on the fifth day of the week. Every single of his killings happens on the fifth day of the week, regards if they happened in the span of weeks or months. The killings always happened on the fifth day of the week." The officer said to his junior co-workers.
"What does that even signify? He could be a psycho who liked that day. I don't think this proves anything. But if what you are saying is true then we already know that the next possible mass killing by him is going to happen on the fifth day of the week in anytime of this year." one of the officers said.
"That is the catch. I thought like that at first too but then I read the translated version of his engraving on the stone. That reminded me of a case that the Spirit Dou Empire encountered when they changed continents."
"When the Spirit Dou Empire left the Douluo continent and to establish themselves in the then new found continent, they found that the continent was already inhabited by tribal people who had been living in the hiding. The Spirit Dou Empire exterminated most of the tribal people and sent historians and other officials to the remaining tribes to offer peace. The tribes agreed and began a part of the New Spirit Dou continent but the story isn't about that."
"Of the many historians that were sent to gather information about the tribal people, some historians were able to decipher and record lots of historical rituals and ceremonies from the tribes. One of those ceremonies was the sacrificial ceremony in which the tribal people sacrificed living beings to the forest on the night of full moon once every three months. Does the story not seem familiar to a case that we all are part of."
"Adding to the fact that the killer wrote himself as the Gloomy Forest that resides in the END. He is not an Evil Soul Master, just as what the reports from the headquarters said. He is a poison expert and he isn't a child. I have seen and read many reports by all the officers that were working on the case, and all of them, excluding the old lady that saw him, wrote in their reports that the killer is not a child. All the reports mentioned the killer as child-like but not even a single of them said it was a child."
"This leaves us with two theories. One that the killer has a soul skill that has the ability to transform into different people, like a variant the one that the founder of the Spirit Pagoda had; the second being that he is a spirit beast incarnation."
😳😳😳😳😮!!!
All the officers were silently listening to the investigation of their senior. The moment they heard about the two theories of their senior, they were left wide-eyed at the revelation.
"Ah, calm down senior, you shouldn't things like this."
"Even though I respect your sir, that a pretty wild theory that you have there."
"Come on senior, be serious about it."
Three of the five officers tried to stop their senior in a panic while looking out for any people.
The other two officers remained silent as if they had guessed what their senior was going to say.
"What are guys talking about? The headquarters were the ones that came with that theory and sent me here. I just suggested them a little and this is the most probable intel that we have against him. Now that all of you know about it. Spread out and blend with the crowd. We are appointed here for the next four months, so think of this as a holiday and live casually while on the lookout for each and any kid that feels different from the others. The old lady had said that his way of talking wasn't like that of a young boys, so were his actions. So our first objective is to lookout for a young boy(s) or girl(s) that acts too maturely for their age."
"Our second objective is to gather the information of all the plants and herbs related orders that are placed in both the market and the Black Market. The headquarters had already appointed some cyber hackers for this but many of the Black Market merchant tend to use physical paperwork so we have to get a copy of those. Since there are two objectives, I am dividing the group into two, group one would be me and you two, the rest are group two."
"Group one has to get the information from the black market dealings while group two will be on the lookout for any suspicious individual. Now that I have explained all this, are you guys ready?"
The senior officer asked.
""Yes, Sir.""
"Then, onto your tasks! but first let's eat at the seafood restaurant. I heard that the Eastsea City has really great and cheap seafood." The senior officer said and went towards the seafood restaurant.
'He really destroys the atmosphere whenever he wants huh.'
All the officers thought while following their senior.
...
As your Author.
Should I take out the unnecessary plots that aren't that useful in the future chapters and just fillers providing no actual growth of the protagonist Fan Lin.
As I continue to re read, I found a lot of things that are completely dragged out while there were some things which should have been explained more but wasn't.
I am really on the mood of cutting the dragged out unnecessary plot as it would speed up the proofreading and what necessary will be added later on.
But that would make it a sort of a re write.
Currently on Chapter 17
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