Tribulation of Myriad Races

Human Realm.

For many people, the recent chaos was now in the past. Life was starting to return to normal. But as news of the coming opening of the Luminous Domain Mansion spread, the recently settled calm broke yet again.

It was time for a new fight. A fight for the slots. This was the highest number of slots humanity had received in centuries. Each Invincible was granted twenty slots to allocate.

Great Xia.

After the deaths of numerous experts, Great Xia had declined. But its number of Invincibles had increased. The losses it had suffered among the younger generation had also been quite minimal. Like many other prefectures, the competition for the slots had also begun in Great Xia.

Great Xia Cultural Research Academy.

With the departure of people like Bai Feng and Su Yu, things had changed considerably in the academy.

In a ring.

Like a beast out of its cage, Zhou Hao dominated the ring. With his intense killing intent, he shot forward and clawed at his opponent, creating a fountain of blood in the ring.

A Skysoar teaching assistant was sent crashing into the ground while coughing blood.

All around the ring, the gathered experts frowned.

Ji Hong watched in silence. At present, he was the acting principal of the brand new Great Xia Cultural Research Academy that had been established after merging the three cultural research academies of Great Xia together.

“Director Ji, this youngster called Zhou Hao…is quite a ferocious one.”

An old man remarked, “He does look like a good candidate to join the army. But I’m worried that he only looks ferocious but is actually a coward. I have seen quite a lot of people like this.”

These people would mostly be ferocious and decisive when competing against their fellow humans back home, but they would turn into a cowards right after entering the Allheaven Battlefield. They would fail to keep their spines straight the moment a divine or a devil was present. Such individuals would be completely worthless in the Allheaven Battlefield.

The old man was worried that Zhou Hao was also one such person.

Ji Hong nodded, “It’s fine. We’ll see who he is after we put him to use. He has been growing rapidly. He has even completed eighteen body forgings. He will probably grow even stronger by the time the Luminous Domain Mansion is open. He will get a slot.”

The others nodded in agreement. He might only be a Skysoar, but at eighteen body forgings, he was quite impressive.

If Su Yu were still around, those from his batch would have been in the academy for a year and a half. And this batch had produced an exceedingly large number of freaks. Alas, Su Yu alone had overshadowed all of them. It was hard to judge whether they were lucky or unlucky to be in the same batch as Su Yu.

Then again, Great Xia had also gained a unique advantage after the recent events. During the battle in Nanyuan, too many Sunmoons and Invincibles had perished, resulting in a massive increase in the source qi and ambient willpower density around that region. A lot of young geniuses had been cultivating there as of late, and they had all grown rapidly thanks to the environment. Furthermore, the fake ruin was still around, including the heavenly source qi and all the other resources Su Yu had planted in it while making the fake ruin.

Ji Hong said, “When we finalize the list of candidates, we will reopen the Nanyuan Ruin for them. This will be yet another chance for them to grow further.”

The fake ruin, now known as the Nanyuan Ruin, had been temporarily sealed. A lot of Sunmoons had perished in there as well. In fact, the entirety of Great Xia was enjoying a surge of density in ambient source qi and willpower. The elders nodded at Ji Hong’s words.

Even after the merger, the number of elders in the academy was only comparable to what Great Xia Cultural Research Academy alone had prior to this. More than half of the elders had perished during the recent conflict.

Ji Hong looked at the nearby Wu Yuehua and asked, “Faculty Head Wu, has Wu Qi recovered from her injuries?”

Wu Yuehua answered without looking up, “More or less. After her full recovery, she will grow even stronger than before.”

With her head lowered, she looked like she was in the middle of conversing with someone else with voice transmission.

Standing beside Ji Hong was Jia Dequan, better known as Jia Mingzhen the fake student, who sent Ji Hong a voice transmission, “Don’t bother asking her. She has not been able to put her voice transmission talisman down recently. She has been constantly keeping in touch with those in Liu City. I reckon she wants to be there more than here right now.”

Right at that moment, Wu Yuehua looked up at them and demanded, “I will be one of the leaders for the team we’re sending to the Luminous Domain Mansion.”

Ji Hong hesitated and said, “You should be focusing on your breakthrough to the Sunmoon Realm. I can see that you’re not too far from that…”

“No. I want to enter the Allheaven Battlefield.”

Wu Yuehua remained stubborn. She had to go. Her advancement was nothing. If she stayed away from that certain someone for much longer, that bastard would start forgetting her.

Ji Hong looked helpless as he didn’t know how to handle her stubbornness. Beside him, Jia Dequan teased, “Faculty Head Wu, the marquis is in the middle of recovery. Maybe you can wait for the marquis to exit seclusion before leaving together.”

“…”

Wu Yuehua stared at him silently. After a while, she said, “Xia Xiao’er has indeed acted like a man this time. Unfortunately, I also heard that he was crying and complaining about the pain even when he was dying. I suppose he can only be manly once in his life. Since you seem to like him that much, you should take a lesson from Lan Tian and marry him.”

“…”

Jia Dequan was instantly rendered speechless. Her tongue was still as venomous as ever.

He decided to ignore her and return his attention to the rings below. Most of the combatants involved were Skysoars. After a while, he nodded, “The Skysoars of those from batch 350 are indeed impressive. Zhou Hao, Hu Qiusheng, Wan Mingze, Xia Chan, and Xia Huyou are all as impressive as one can be at their age. Even Ji Xiaomeng, your own daughter, is quite good.”

He frowned as he continued, “As for the Cloudbreaches…where is Liu Hong? He is one of the few humans capable of entering the Heavenly Hunt Index. With him, Wu Qi, and Huang Teng from the war academy around, our position will be much stronger. After all, they are all fellow index members.”

These were all elites among their peers.

After a slight hesitation, he asked, “Will you be considering Hu Wensheng as well?”

Hu Wensheng was the genius who had been defeated by Bai Feng back then and also the student of Zheng Yuming.

Zhou Mingren had died, but Zheng Yuming was still alive. After returning from the Vanguard Regiment, he had walked an entirely different path from his teacher, Zhou Mingren, and participated in the battle in Nanyuan.

He was a smart man.

One could say that both he and Zhou Mingren had seen the signs of what to come. Each of them had merely opted to take a different choice from the other. Even knowing he would die, Zhou Mingren had still decided not to join the fight. He was prepared to die.

Without his death, Great Xia Cultural Research Academy would not be able to rebuild and reform itself easily. After the battle, Zheng Yuming entered seclusion and had been in seclusion since then. Perhaps he was doing all this just so he could preserve his line from extinction.

Ji Hong gave it some thought and answered, “If he comes and wins a slot by himself, I won’t stop him. But he won’t be getting any slot for free if he’s absent.”

Ji Dequan nodded, “This time, Great Xia has gotten quite a lot of slots. Including the ones given to the third principal, we have sixty of them. According to the prefect, fifty will be allocated while the remaining ten will be kept as spares. That is enough for us.”

He paused slightly and continued, “But the prefect also intends to let these fellows train themselves for a few months in the Allheaven Battlefield before entering the Luminous Domain Mansion. They will be allowed to go if they can survive that. Will this be too dangerous?”

Ji Hong indifferently said, “They will need to face these dangers sooner or later. Rather than letting them die in the Luminous Domain Mansion due to their inexperience and waste the slots given to them, we might as well let them experience the myriad races in advance.”

So be it.

Ji Dequan had nothing else to say about that. But suddenly, he recalled someone and sighed, “I wonder if that kid will go as well.”

What a pity. If Su Yu were still around, he would serve as their greatest trump card for this expedition into the Luminous Domain Mansion.

Su Yu, a young genius who had truly faced the geniuses of the myriad races. The rest of the young geniuses, including Huang Teng, were far less experienced in comparison.

As for the batches before them, very few geniuses of note had emerged among them. Instead, it was the military that had produced a few decent geniuses. For example, Chen Long, who had cultivated only the common cultivation methods distributed in the army, had grown rapidly. He was someone who had truly killed his way up from the very bottom as a regular footsoldier.

Shaking his head, Ji Hong stopped himself from thinking too much about Su Yu. Rather, he looked down at the rings below and slowly asked, “Why is Wan Mingze here as well? I’m afraid he will be prejudiced against by the others if he joins the expedition as well.”

Wan Tiansheng might be gone, but the Wan Family was still around. Not long ago, Wan Mingze had traveled throughout the Human Realm to seek justice for Wan Tiansheng. For many, this was unacceptable.

By joining the expedition to the Luminous Domain Mansion, Wan Mingze would open himself to being targeted by these people.

Jia Dequan laughed, “It will be fine as long as this doesn’t happen within Great Xia’s group. As for the others…they may do as they wish. Wan Mingze is no pushover either. Everyone will need to think carefully if they want to risk creating another Principal Wan.”

A demon wearing the skin of a human. Was Wan Mingze such a person as well? Nobody knew.