Chapter 7.1: Freshmen Entering the Academy
After hearing Bei Bei’s introduction to Teacher Zhou, Huo Yuhao was also astonished. “Eldest senior brother, if this teacher does these sort of things, why doesn’t the school seem to care?”
Bei Bei spoke in a low voice, “Although Teacher Zhou Yi is a strict teacher, she’s honestly a very good one. Of all the students promoted from her class, none of them have actually said that she was a bad teacher. Teacher Zhou’s strictness is mainly reflected in the high requirements that she sets for her students, as well as in her harsh teaching methods. However, almost a fourth of the students who’ve been taught by Teacher Zhou, and passed, have entered the inner courtyard. This statistic is one of the best within the entire academy. Teacher Zhou was only demoted to teaching freshmen because the commotion was too big this time. However, as long as you work hard enough, and are outstanding enough, Teacher Zhou’s teaching will only have benefits for you.”
Huo Yuhao relaxed and replied, “So it’s like that. Teacher Xiao Ya, eldest senior brother, you guys must have plenty of other things to do. I’ll return to my room first.”
Bei Bei smiled and said, “That’s fine, Teacher Xiao Ya and I want to go and take our promotion test. If we can pass this test, we’ll be promoted to fourth-years. I live in Room 316, so you can go there if you need anything.”
Bei Bei and Tang Ya were truly busy. The reason why Tang Ya had been in such a rush to obtain her third soul ring was so that she could smoothly pass the fourth-year promotion test. Furthermore, there would be even more issues waiting for them after they were promoted. Huo Yuhao had gone to the Great Star Dou Forest alone, and had obtained his soul ring there, so his self-protection abilities were quite strong. Thus, they didn’t worry much about him.
After passing through the white school building for first-years, and the yellow school building for second and third-year students, Huo Yuhao saw the dormitory. The dormitory occupied an extremely large area, and although it was only a single building, the same four colours—white, yellow, purple, and black—were still present on it. The building’s colours clearly represented the different living areas of the students from their respective years, and had a total of six floors.
Huo Yuhao arrived at the entrance to the white building, and was met with the sight of a man who looked quite old. The old man had a set of grey clothes on, and the the number of flies that his wrinkles could crush to death had reached the double digits. His eyes were yellow and muddle-headed, while his eyelids were droopy. His appearance was as if he had one foot in the grave. The sunlight between the buildings spilled perfectly over his body. His body, which was half-lying in a chair, actually gave off a very comfortable feeling.
Huo Yuhao walked forward and spoke respectfully, “Hello, Grandpa. I’m a new student who’s come to live in the dormitory. Would you like to check my freshman badge?”
The old man didn’t even raise his head as he stretched his trembling right hand out. Then, a slightly deep yet hoarse voice echoed out, “Take your badge and dormitory key out for me to see.”
Huo Yuhao hurriedly passed the two items over.
The old man waved them in front of his eyes before returning them to Huo Yuhao. “Go on. Room 108 is the third room from my left on the first floor. The women’s dorms start from the fourth floor, so you can’t go upstairs at all. If we discover you up there, you’ll be expelled.”
“Thank you.” After bowing and greeting the old man again, Huo Yuhao walked into the dormitory building.
The old man didn’t move from his original position as he muttered nostalgically to himself, “It’s rare to see a kid with manners.”
As he muttered to himself, a few new students walked past the area. However, they clearly hadn’t taken note of the old man beside the building, and directly went inside. The old man didn’t stop them either. He simply sat there drowsily.
After following the old man’s instructions, Huo Yuhao quickly found his dorm room. The dormitory had a standard hallway layout, with both sides of the long hallway having dorm rooms with numbers etched into their doors. The passage of time was clearly visible in the dorm rooms, and it could be seen that they had been in use for an extremely long amount time. The two ends of the corridor had shared bathrooms.
After using his key to open the door, a gust of slightly musty air surged out of the room. Huo Yuhao hurriedly turned to the side, waited a while, then held his breath as he charging into the room and opened the window. The room had been uninhabited for over a month, at the very minimum. A layer of dust covered the entire room.
By relying on the window’s ventilation, Huo Yuhao was able to clearly see the dorm room’s layout. The dorm room was very small, its area only about ten square metres or so. The two beds took up a large portion of the room’s floor space, but there was also a table, two metal wardrobes, as well as a lamp on the ceiling. There were also a few metal protrusions on one of the walls. Bei Bei had told him that lamps were basic soul tools that needed soulforce in order to light up. The metal protrusions were places that one could pour soulforce into.
After some ventilation, the musty air within the dorm room had finally cleared up. As Huo Yuhao looked around the small room, a hard-to-describe excitement appeared in his heart. From today onwards, this would be the dorm room that he’d live in for a year. From the looks of it, he’d even have a dorm-mate. I’ll clean up a bit first.
The saying ‘poor children can manage a house earlier on in life’ was true. Although he’d been born in the Duke’s Mansion, Huo Yuhao’s life hadn’t even been as good as a commoner’s. He used a little bit of his saved money to buy a basin from the student convenience store located outside the dorms, and after requesting a used cleaning rag from the shop, he immediately started to clean the dorm room.
After only an hour had passed, not even a speck of dust was left under the meticulous scrutiny of Huo Yuhao’s Spirit Eyes. Although everything in the dorm room was still in-place, there was now a sort of fresh smell to it. Huo Yuhao didn’t plan on buying any sort of bedding for himself, since the wooden bed was already enough for someone like him, who devoted all of his hard work to cultivating.
He felt a bit hungry, so he enquired about the dining hall’s location. After buying the cheapest lunchbox from the student convenience store, he went to the dining hall.
Each year-group had a dining hall that belonged to them, which were located behind the dormitory. When Huo Yuhao walked into the freshman dining hall, he was astonished. At that moment, there weren’t many people in the dining hall, making it appear extremely spacious. There wasn’t even a single table; it was an entirely empty place. There was only a washbasin used to wash one’s hands and tableware. The inner parts of the dining hall had windows that one could buy food from, with price tags outside them. There were a total of eight windows that increased in price from right to left, and all served different dishes.
There were actually no seating areas in the dining hall? The dining hall’s entrance even had the words ‘No food is allowed to be taken from the dining hall. No exceptions.’ written on it.
After a brief moment of astonishment, Huo Yuhao walked towards the right-most window to buy the cheapest available food, which was stir-fried vegetables and white rice. However, he still devoured the food despite its quality. For him, having something to eat was already extremely good. Furthermore, the food’s price was extremely cheap; it was only two copper coins. With his monthly income of one gold coin, he could eat for the entire month as long as he was frugal with his money.
Whilst eating, Huo Yuhao observed the dining hall. He discovered that the most expensive window’s food was actually priced in gold spirit coins. That was something that he didn’t even dare to imagine.
After quickly finishing his mealy, Huo Yuhao returned directly to his dorm. Like the saying goes, the clumsy bird needs to fly into the forest earlier. He understood the difference between himself and the other students, so he naturally couldn’t waste any time.
After sitting in a cross-legged position on the sturdy wooden bed, Huo Yuhao quickly entered a meditative state, and started cultivating the Mysterious Heaven Technique.
Although his cultivation speed was far slower than Bei Bei’s or Tang Ya’s, he’d already improved quite a bit compared to the past. After changing his cultivation technique to the Mysterious Heaven Technique, he could now at least feel a slight improvement in his cultivation as he cultivated, which was much better than his previous state. Furthermore, after the few days of cultivation that he’d done during their journey back, his originally chaotic and impure soulforce had already completely turned into that of the Mysterious Heaven Technique. There was one effect of the Mysterious Heaven Technique’s soulforce that was extremely useful for him—the Mysterious Heaven Technique would nourish his passageways when he circulated it. Although he couldn’t see much improvement currently, Bei Bei had told him that it would definitely improve his physique in the long run.