Chapter 1236: Secondary Saint, the Prison Warden!
Translator: Lordbluefire
Swish~
A bright light shone the moment he opened his eyes, and an overwhelming aura gushed forth from him.
The excess fluctuations of power from the saint’s inheritance were too mighty, causing Ji Han and the others to not dare to speak out for fear of offending Sun Mo.
Boom!
As the three rows of words transformed into motes of light and dissipated, the originally thick and st.u.r.dy wall also shattered into powder before dispersing in the wind.
“It’s gone, the saint’s inheritance has disappeared!”
Ji Han stared blankly at the walls. He then lifted his right hand and gave himself a harsh slap on his right cheek.
Pak!
Ji Han truly felt so much regret that he wanted to die.
(Why did I have to try and establish my might over Sun Mo? This is like giving away the daughter I’ve raised with care through the years and allowing others to trample over her.)
“Haha, Teacher Ji, my condolences!”
Pang Tong mocked.
The other examinees also revealed smiles. Wasn’t this a cla.s.sic case of losing the corn used to lure the chicken? Ji Han had wanted to use this riddle to swindle the examinees into their demise. In the end, he was counter-checkmated by Sun Mo.
“Sun-laos.h.i.+ is really impressive!”
The old farmer sighed in admiration. Leaving aside his respectful tone, he even changed his way of address for Sun Mo.
Sun Mo cast a glance at the corpse on the ground and sighed. After that, he exited the cell. “Everyone, I’m going into seclusion. I’ll take my leave first.”
“Wait a minute!”
Ji Han subconsciously shouted.
Sun Mo halted and smiled as he looked at Ji Han.
Ji Han’s mind was filled with questions, but he felt too embarra.s.sed to ask. After all, he was the one who had provoked Sun Mo first, wanting to swindle him into taking the test.
Luckily, the others couldn’t control their curiosity anymore.
“Teacher Sun, what was going on with this riddle?”
Pang Tong was too embarra.s.sed to ask Sun Mo what inheritance he had obtained, hence, he beat around the bush a little. But Lian Hongying was extremely direct. “Teacher Sun, what did you obtain?”
Everyone was staring fixedly at Sun Mo like hungry puppies waiting for food.
“Nothing much!”
Sun Mo shrugged.
Upon hearing this, everyone felt somewhat better psychologically. After all, it was like everyone seeing a wallet on the ground at the same time, but it was s.n.a.t.c.hed up by someone with quicker hands. If there were tens of thousands of dollars in that wallet, they would surely be so angry that they wanted to die. But if there were only a few cents inside, it was fine.
At the next instant, they heard Sun Mo’s second part of the sentence.
“Just some knowledge and experience regarding weaponsmithing, the art of spiritual control, and medical studies!”
Sun Mo smiled as he looked at Ji Han. “Oh right, great ancestor-level expertise for all three subjects!”
Sun Mo didn’t dare to say that he had inherited the Empowerment Divine Art. After all, this skill was too bizarre and it was easy to cause others to hate him. They might even band up to kill him. As for the Empowerment Halo, he was already familiar with it. But if he wanted to cast it, he still had to continue training in the Empowerment Divine Art and comprehend it deeper.
“…”
Everyone stared at Sun Mo’s departing back and they felt like they had just swallowed lemons. Their mood was extremely sour.
“What should I do? I really feel like beating him to death!”
Lian Hongying gritted her teeth.
“Go, I’ll add a stab!”
Another great teacher spoke.
Naturally, everyone was just jesting. Leaving aside the fact that they wouldn’t be able to defeat Sun Mo, just with Sun Mo’s current popularity, if someone killed him, it would just be a matter of time before the Great Tang and the Saint Gate hunted them down!
Becoming a dark great teacher?
That was useless too!
Dean Bai from the Dragonspirit Manor was Sun Mo’s bosom friend. He was a hegemon in the dark great teacher world.
…
Sun Mo returned to the residence Ji Han had allocated him. He did a casual check and after ascertaining that there were no problems, he began his meditation.
Although he had obtained a saint’s inheritance, it was like force-feeding. If he wanted to transform it into ‘nutrients’, he still had to seriously ‘digest’ them.
He had to practice the Empowerment Divine Art industriously, but this place was evidently not suitable. Besides, Sun Mo already possessed several types of peerless saint-tier cultivation arts. There was really no hurry for him to train in another one.
With regard to medical studies, Sun Mo didn’t understand much of it. Hence, he decided to place it at the back for now. After that, he skimmed through the knowledge about the art of spiritual control and weaponsmithing.
Currently, Sun Mo was a grandmaster-level spiritual controller. If he chose to digest the knowledge on spiritual control first, he would be able to obtain twice the results with half the effort. But honestly speaking, this subject’s influence on the world’s development was simply too weak.
Ultimately, Sun Mo chose weaponsmithing.
In the modern era, this subject was akin to industrial technology. It was enough to cause the science and technology of this world to improve.
Sun Mo didn’t have time to draw spirit runes one by one, hence, he had long since thought about creating a spirit rune factory. If he could produce all sorts of spirit runes in batches, this world would surely change due to this.
…
Ji Han’s footsteps were hurried as he rushed to the office.
Bang!
He didn’t knock on the door and directly knocked it open. “Teacher, something bad has happened!”
“You are over a hundred years old. Why are you still so fl.u.s.tered?”
In the room, the old man didn’t lift his head. Instead, he continued to bend over his desk and work. No one touched the tea flask beside him, but it automatically floated and steeped the tea, pouring into a cup. After that, the cup floated toward Ji Han.
Pak!
Ji Han caught the cup, but he was in no mood to enjoy it. “Teacher, the three rows of words left behind in Bai Dong’s cell have been solved.”
“Mn?”
The old man’s right hand paused as he raised his head in astonishment. “Which examinee did it?”
This old man had been working here for over 300 years as the prison warden. Hence, he was extremely familiar with everything within the prison. Since that was the case, this surprise must have occurred due to an outsider.
“It’s Sun Mo!”
Ji Han’s tone was filled with deep unhappiness.
“Little Han, your heart is in chaos!”
The old man lectured, “So what even if he inherited Saint Bai’s inheritance? Don’t feel prejudice just because he isn’t one of us. As long as he is a good great teacher, we should congratulate him.”
“This student is enlightened!”
Ji Han lowered his head and conceded verbally, but he couldn’t be at ease in his heart.
When he was posted to this G.o.d-d.a.m.n place, he already disliked the Saint Gate and started to loathe those great teachers.
(If I’m in the Nine Provinces, my fame will be greater than all of them.)
“How is the experiment going?”
The old man changed the topic.
“Still at a bottleneck.”
Ji Han sighed as he spoke of the experiment, “This experiment is too difficult. Teacher, why don’t we give up?”
“It isn’t difficult to eat or walk, but is there any meaning in these things?”
The old man placed his brush down and stared at Ji Han directly. “Ji Han, go into seclusion for three months. Recently, your mental state has become increasingly fickle and impatient!”
Ji Han wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t dare to defy the old man, so he could only bear with it.
“This student understands.”
After Ji Han finished speaking, he s.h.i.+fted the topic back onto Sun Mo. “What should we do about Saint Bai’s inheritance, and what should we do about Sun Mo?”
“What do you want to do?”
The old man counter-asked.
“…”
Ji Han wanted to say that they should force Sun Mo to give up the inheritance. Although the great ancestor-level knowledge was precious, he didn’t care for them. What he wanted was the Empowerment Divine Art.
However, he had no face to utter such shameless words.
“Ji Han, although Saint Bai placed his inheritance in the prison, it doesn’t belong to us. So, you shouldn’t feel that Great Teacher Sun has stolen something from us.”
The old man consoled him. “He obtained that with his own capabilities.”
The old man had researched this riddle before. This was why he knew how difficult it was to solve it.
“But there should be the Empowerment Divine Art in that inheritance…”
Before Ji Han could finish speaking, he was interrupted by the old man.
“So what about it?”
The old man’s countenance turned grave and stern. “Get out, your seclusion time will be extended. Come out only after you can think clearly.”
“I…”
Ji Han was unhappy.
“Get out!’
The old man berated.
Ji Han bowed and backed out from the office.
“Sun Mo?”
The old man muttered. “I hope that Bai-laos.h.i.+’s knowledge isn’t wasted!”
When the old man came to the Great Prison of Desolation, he was still young and had met Saint Bai who had been imprisoned there. Saint Bai had taught him many things.
Among them was the Empowerment Divine Art, but the old man had never mentioned this matter to anyone else.
Wherever there were humans, there were bound to be conflicts.
This old man was Hu Xingjiang, an absolute genius of the old generation. In his youth, he had established immense fame and reputation, but the background of his personal teacher was somewhat ordinary.
A secondary saint had once wanted to recruit him as a personal student and had been willing to betroth his daughter to him, but Hu Xingjiang rejected. He even refused to marry a beautiful great teacher ranked top three in the Devastating Beauty Rankings.
His rejection offended the secondary saint. Hence, Hu Xingjiang and his personal teacher were suppressed.
His teacher was framed and his reputation was destroyed. In the end, he died from depression. After enduring for a few years, Hu Xingjiang couldn’t take it anymore. A major character in the great teacher world then decided to help him out and arranged for him to go to the Great Prison of Desolation to hide.
When that secondary saint died, the prime of Hu Xingjiang’s life had already pa.s.sed. However, his temperament had been tempered down and because he felt disillusioned and discouraged, he wasn’t willing to return to the Nine Provinces and chose to continue staying here, doing his best to make these prisoners turn over a new leaf.
A life like this—akin to a virtuous monk—actually allowed Hu Xingjiang to have more energy to focus on his cultivation and research. Hence, as time pa.s.sed, he broke through to the secondary saint realm.
One could say that the great teachers being employed in the prison were unlucky fools soured by the loss of their hopes. They were also people that were protected and occasionally taught by Hu Xingjiang.
The old man was a secondary saint and ordinary geniuses wouldn’t be able to grab his attention. At this moment, he opened his drawer and took a file containing the information of the examiners before searching for Sun Mo.
(Ze, isn’t his resume a little too good? He’s so young but already has such achievements?)
When he saw how Sun Mo nurtured Li Ziqi, a student which Secondary Saint Zhou had rejected into the youngest great teacher in the world’s history, in addition to her displaying her brilliance in the Five Empires War Discussion, ruthlessly smacking Secondary Saint Zhou’s face, Secondary Saint Hu who had long since cultivated his heart to the point where there would be no emotional ripples couldn’t help but exclaim in praise.
“He’s more impressive than me!”
Hu Xingjiang sighed ruefully. After that, a hint of worry appeared on his face.
(What a pity. You shouldn’t have come to the Great Prison!)
…
Time was like the footsteps of an ex-wife, flowing soundlessly as it left.
In the blink of an eye, a year had pa.s.sed.
“I feel like I’m gonna die!”
Pang Tong lay limply on the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling with a look of despair.
It had been half a year and he had no harvests at all. Those prisoners didn’t even want to talk to him.
“This test isn’t something that can be solved by humans. Say, do you guys think that Secondary Saint Zhou pulled his connections to intentionally make things difficult for Sun Mo? And in the end, we were unfortunately implicated?”
Wu You was also in a deep gorge called despair. “I heard that the previous exam was set at the ancient sage building because Secondary Saint Zhou had used his connections.”
“It’s too late to regret!” Pang Tong turned. “Where’s Sun Mo? Is he still in meditation?”
“Mn!” Wu You felt envious. “He obtained a saint’s inheritance, and it’s definitely priceless!”
“Let’s ignore Sun Mo. Which level are you at currently?”
Pang Tong was curious.
There were a total of seven underground levels in the great prison. One had to solve the puzzle at each level before they could gain qualifications to go deeper.
“I’m stuck on the third level.”
Wu You sighed.
Everyone actually had another objective in their mind to partic.i.p.ate in this exam.. They wanted to learn some knowledge that was in the hands of these prisoners, but up until now, they didn’t have any harvest.