Tribulation of Myriad Races

After Su Yu sat down, Jin Sheng said, “Both the principal and Faculty Head Hu had talked to us about you. They are hoping that we can join the Source Soul Research Center and help out with your research. But at our age, our stamina is no longer as good. Your research is also quite different from what we specialize in. Senior Brother Wen is an expert on this topic, but that does not apply to us.”

Wen Zhong said, “Just be honest if you’re feeling lazy. Why find all these excuses?”

He looked at Su Yu and said, “Junior Brother Su, after creating the first Mark of Culture back then, Junior Brother Jin has been working on the extraction and separation of characters. He has been working on this topic for hundreds of years. Thus, he is an expert when it comes to the various properties of Divine Characters.”

“Back then, even the fifth principal had sought Junior Brother Jin’s guidance on this topic during his visit. Subsequently, Hong Tan released his theory on character fusion and ability transfer. I’m not trying to belittle Hong Tan, but Junior Brother Jin was the one who had set up the foundations for that research. The fifth principal must have gained a lot of inspiration from Junior Brother Jin.”

Su Yu was very surprised to hear that. Even the fifth principal had asked for Jin Sheng’s guidance regarding this topic?

Jin Sheng said, “Senior Brother Wen is exagerating. During the fifth principal’s visit, I was merely running my mouth based on a small idea in my mind. I had certainly not contributed that much to Hong Tan’s research result.”

Jin Sheng sighed and said, “The fifth principal was the actual super genius. After seeing Hong Tan’s research result, I finally understood that the fifth principal had a much deeper understanding of this topic than me. He was able to focus on both cultivation and research. If he had survived, he would definitely become the first human cultural researcher Invincible.”

His voice was filled with regret.

The fifth principal was actually younger than Jin Sheng. When the fifth principal perished, he was merely 100 years old. That might not seem too impressive compared to Xia Longwu, but it was still an impressive feat as cultural researchers generally grew much slower than warriors.

“Senior Brother Jin, have you been working on the same topic for all these years?” Su Yu asked curiously, “So have you produced any results? Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not challenging you. I’m merely curious. Character extraction, ability transfer, and character fusion…these have always been the focus of the multiple character faction.”

Jin Sheng said, “Right, I almost forgot that you’re also an expert in this subject. I do have some results, but they’re nothing big. Divine Characters are too mysterious. My biggest result is a certain unique discovery…”

He paused slightly to organize his thoughts and said, “I have a lot of characters, including divine, devil, immortal, and human characters.

“After forming all these characters, I found that the characters of all the other races are quite independent from each other. Meanwhile, human characters are more supportive of each other.”

When he saw Su Yu’s focused expression, he smiled and said, “Let’s put it that way. Why are divine and devil characters so powerful? Because they are independent. Or to be precise, each of these characters is an independent character. Why are human characters so weak? Because they are supportive in nature.

“When you bring two human characters together, you will notice that the combination will be stronger than the sum of its parts. This effect will grow stronger with three characters. But I have only formed six human characters, so the sample size is not large enough for me to draw a conclusion…

“According to my guess, human characters will only grow stronger the more human characters you have. In other words, with ten or more human characters, these characters can very well be as strong as divine and devil characters.”

He shook his head with regret and said, “But it’s way too time-consuming to form more than ten human characters. I’ve also discovered that the more human characters you form, the more your human characters will reject the other characters.”

As Su Yu’s eyes flickered, Jin Sheng continued his explanation, “Some people are saying that the divine and devil characters are incompatible with the human race, resulting in a higher difficulty for human cultivators to reach the Sunmoon Realm. But I don’t believe that is the case. There is also a conspiracy theory saying that this is a curse by the divines and devils. That is wrong as well.”

Su Yu exclaimed in surprise, “That’s wrong? But that shouldn’t be the case. Senior Brother, some Mountainseas have personally experienced the rejection of the divine and devil characters. That is why the difficulty of entering the Sunmoon Realm has increased significantly during the past fifty years.”

Jin Sheng said, “I’m aware of that. Naturally, I’m only talking about my personal understanding here. I believe that there is no curse whatsoever. The price for a curse of that scale is too high. It’s not worth it.

“I don’t think the divine and devil characters are rejecting the human race. Of course, that might be the case at the peak Sunmoon Realm. But that is definitely not the case for the earlier realms. Instead, it’s the human characters that are rejecting these divine and devil characters.”

Jin Sheng’s eyes shone brightly as he said, “Everything changed fifty years ago. That was actually a turning point. Prior to that, very few humans cultivated human characters. Instead, most people cultivated divine and devil characters.

“But after generations of development, more and more human willpower texts have been produced. With the abundance of human willpower texts, all the human cultivators starting from fifty years ago started cultivating a small number of human characters.”

Realization dawned on Su Yu. He hurriedly said, “You mean that the Sunmoons prior to that had been able to advance easily due to their complete lack of human characters? Meanwhile, all the peak Mountainseas nowadays have at least a few human characters cultivated, resulting in an increased difficulty of breakthrough. Is that it? Rather than the divine and devil characters rejecting us, the human characters are the ones rejecting the divine and devil characters.”

“Yes.” Jin Sheng laughed, “You’re indeed smart. That makes things easier. Based on my personal experience, human characters tend to reject foreign characters.

“I have been wanting to do something for a very long time. I want to make a survey and find out if those peak Mountainseas that are still stuck today have formed any human characters. What if we remove these human characters? Would they be able to advance smoothly?”

With a regretful tone, Jin Sheng said, “I heard that some people are suggesting the removal of divine and devil characters. That works as well, but that will greatly weaken a lot of people. It will reduce the strength of human cultural researchers as a whole. The price for that is too high.

“In that case, we might as well try removing the human characters instead. After all, for a lot of people, these human characters are accidental creations. They don’t really care much about these characters.”

Su Yu was greatly shocked. Jin Sheng was suggesting something entirely different. He speculated that human characters were the ones rejecting the foreign characters. And Su Yu actually found himself agreeing with that. Why? Because his golden book had been destroying any characters he formed. If the golden book was a character, was it perhaps a human character?

Rejecting foreign characters.

Everyone had instinctively assumed that the divine and devil characters were the culprits since these characters were stronger. But the human characters were the actual culprits. Who would have thought that these weak human characters would be able to accomplish something so major?

Su Yu inhaled deeply and said, “Senior Brother, I agree with you. I also believe that the cost of putting a curse on all divine and devil characters is too high. The experts from fifty years ago have probably formed very few human characters or none at all. If possible, we can try to learn more about this.”

Jin Sheng helplessly smiled and said, “That’s not possible. Fifty years ago, most top experts were either Invincibles or peak Sunmoons. It was very hard to even get in touch with these experts. Even those who were stuck at the peak Mountainsea Realm were extremely hard to contact. And characters have always been the secret of all cultural researchers. Nobody will be honest when you ask them about their characters.”

Su Yu nodded. After thinking about it, he said, “The best option is to get a test subject. We can find a peak Mountainsea and try removing their human characters.”

For these cultivators, the cost of removing divine and devil characters was too big. After all, that was where most of their strength came from. Removing these characters would result in a significant drop in strength.

That was also why even though the people in Great Xia knew that removing these characters would help with their breakthrough, they still refused to do so. It would be an entirely different story if these people were told to remove their human characters.

For a lot of people, human characters were something they would rarely use. These characters had mostly been formed accidentally before being forgotten. And even fewer people would use a human character as the main character.

Su Yu looked at Wen Zhong and asked, “Senior Brother, do we have anyone stuck at the peak Mountainsea Realm here in the academy? I think this is worth trying.”

Wen Zhong said, “Junior Brother, do you think those peak Mountainseas are the same as those death row inmates? Firstly, removing a character is an extremely difficult process. Secondly, removing a character will also result in a backlash that can harm the cultivator. Thirdly, those peak Mountainseas might not trust you enough.”

This was not something they could try just because they wanted to. After thinking about it, Su Yu couldn’t help but agree. What a pity. His solution of using the little furball to remove these characters also wouldn’t work unless the furball was already a Mountainsea.

He also had an alternative: the disassembly method.

But at present, the disassembly method only worked up to the Cloudbreach Realm. According to the data left by Bai Feng, he had tried his disassembly method on Chen Yong and Hong Tan. However, it wasn’t working very well for them.

Liu Wenyan was a unique exception as he was only a Skysoar who also possessed powerful characters. Additionally, he also had a character technique. Because of that, the disassembly method worked for him.

At the thought of his teacher, Su Yu couldn’t help but wonder if Bai Feng had created anything new recently.

Su Yu was feeling quite regretful that Bai Feng was no longer around. Without Bai Feng, life had been a lot more boring than before. In the past, he had greatly enjoyed shocking his teacher with his crazy accomplishments. Additionally, Bai Feng had a unique brain that would produce a shocking theory every now and then.