Chapter 377: “Zephyr Academy (1)”
The Zephyr Academy was situated in the northern side of the Da Du Country, its terrain flat and it sat upon vast tracts of land.
It was rumoured that if you stood at the doors of the Zephyr Academy, you would not be able to see the end of it.
Being among one of the top three academies, whenever the Zephyr Academy opened their doors for enrollment in September, people from all across the lands thronged its gates and the sea of people always made for a magnificent sight.
Horse drawn carriages carrying whole families rolled in endlessly and girls and boys of suitable age were accompanied by their families from all directions, travelling thousands of miles to the Zephyr Academy. Every year, in the period between mid August to early September, not only the Zephyr Academy’s headquarters, but the surrounding towns’ inns and restaurants would be filled , overflowing with the endless rush of people coming in.
There were almost as many academies as there were stars in the skies, but only three stood at the top of the pyramid. Among the three, Zephyr took up one spot.
The top inst.i.tutions had always set a very strict criteria for their enrollment. They would only accept youths between fourteen to sixteen years of age and any applicants who did not fall within this category were turned away without exception.
The Zephyr Academy was separated into the main division and the branch division. The main division only admitted disciples with elite ring spirits and disciples who showed exceptional growth in their spiritual powers. Anyone who possessed average talents could only dream of gaining entry into the main division.
The criteria for the branch division was a little more relaxed. Basically anyone who could afford the fees would gain the chance to study under the branch division. If anyone in the branch division displayed great apt.i.tude and excelled in the branch division, they would be promoted into the main division immediately. While those who remain average, would stay and finish their studies for the rest of the one year given to them. If they do not get into the main division before the year is up, at the spring the next semester, they would all be thrown out of the academy.
When the youths are enrolled into the school, they would be expected to pay upfront the full fees for three years, and even if they were to be dismissed early due to their lack of talent, there would be no refund of the money paid up.
Basically, among all the first years enrolled into the academy, only tens of them would be accepted into the main division and the remaining disciples usually numbering more than a thousand, would be thrown into the branch division.
Only at fourteen, would a person’s ring spirit awake and the Zephyr Academy capped the age of the disciples who were eligible to apply at sixteen. That would also mean that for anyone who would attempt to make use of that two year gap to train vigorously to enhance their powers gunning for a spot in the main division, the short time frame would not be sufficient for them to make any significant difference in a.s.sessing their talent.
For those youths directly accepted into the main division, almost all of them had gotten in due to their unusual ring spirits.
The reason that the Zephyr Academy was able to secure a spot among the highly compet.i.tive top three academy rankings was due to the robust portfolios of their teachers, and more importantly, it was their unique, one of a kind field of development, the Spirit Healer!
The academy was split into three faculties that pursued three different fields. The beast spirit, weapon spirit and lastly the spirit healers.
The beast spirit faculty accepted only disciples with beast ring spirits, the weapons spirit faculty only disciples with weapon ring spirits. The spirit healer faculty did not discriminate against the type of ring spirits their disciples possessed nor the might of the ring spirits. They picked disciples who were more inclined towards development towards the healing of the spirit.
The ring spirits and their human master’s soul were joined as one and although ring spirits did not bleed, prolonged battles or accidental damage could bring about trauma or injuries to the ring spirits. It might not result in their death but it might bring about a drastic decrease in their power during battles. And the group of spirit healers existed here for this very reason.
Spirit healers was just becoming a fast rising star as an highly desired occupation and the Zephyr Academy was the only academy that knew how to groom a spirit healer.
It was common knowledge everywhere that spirit healers were now more sought after than elixir producing healers!
There were many who were able to cultivate elixirs but very few people possessed knowledge in the healing of ring spirits, and the importance people placed on their ring spirits were undeniable and irreplaceable.
To be a spirit healer, it was not a necessity to possess strong spiritual powers, but rather it needed the person’s spiritual powers was able to fuse well with ring spirits. In a nutsh.e.l.l, a spirit healer used his own spiritual powers to restore a ring spirit’s deficiency to their original power.