Chapter 313 - Dragonrise Training Hall
"This is a little gift from us. It is Qingye’s good fortune to be able to receive your guidance!"
The father of Su Qingye respectfully offered Ai Hui two hundred essence elemental beans while Su Huaijun silently sized him up. Su Qingye opened his eyes wide in admiration as excitement filled his face. The Sha family was so powerful, yet they’d crumbled in front of Teacher.
In the past, his aunt had always been wary of Teacher, but now that she remained silent, Su Qingye felt rather pleased.
Plus, he could now focus on training in Swordsman Training Hall since his father no longer required his a.s.sistance at the shop.
Ai Hui looked at the money pouch in Mister Su’s hands but did not accept it. He shook his head, saying, "No need, Qingye’s tuition fees have already been paid. Qingye, go train. The rest, please go back."
Su Qingye was moved. He knew Teacher would treat them differently from the rest! He nodded and rushed into the training hall excitedly.
Under Lou Lan’s maintenance, the training hall regained its original layout. No signs of damage could be seen.
Father Su and Su Huaijun made eye contact. They were both rather surprised. Ai Hui’s money grubbing nature was a topic of ridicule in Peace City, but he had actually rejected their money. No matter how hard they tried to wrap their heads around this, they simply couldn’t understand.
Mister Su did not know what to do. He used to feel unconstrained in front of Ai Hui, but today, in front of the same person, he felt an unprecedented pressure oppressing him.
Delighted, Su Qingye greeted Lou Lan loudly. "Morning, Lou Lan!"
Lou Lan replied happily, "Good morning, Qingye. Work hard today!"
"I will!" Su Qingye hoisted his fist and ran towards the sandbox.
Hearing the voices behind him, Ai Hui felt happy inside but kept a straight face. He nodded at the two visitors before turning around to leave.
"Why don’t they have to pay the fees?"
Fu Yonghao’s unhappy voice sounded.
"It’s none of your business!" Ai Hui replied casually before walking past him.
"You…" Fu Yonghao seethed with anger.
Shortly, Ai Hui returned and told him, "Almost forgot. I’m your teacher now so please mind your manners."
Fu Yonghao opened his eyes wide and glared at Ai Hui, but saw not even the least bit of guilt on his face.
Ai Hui waved at Su Qingye. "Come over here."
Su Qingye rushed over immediately. "Teacher!"
"This is your junior. Go teach him some basics."
Fu Yonghao couldn’t believe his own ears. His face stiffened up. Jun... junior?"
Ai Hui said with a stern face, "He’s too old. His life will be hopeless if he continues this way. Double the training intensity temporarily. Lou Lan has many matters to attend to so you’ll be in charge of supervising him."
Su Qingye’s young and tender face glowed, as if he was a soldier who’d just received an important mission. He patted his chest and said rea.s.suringly, "Don’t you worry, Teacher, I will look after him properly!"
Ai Hui left in satisfaction without even looking at Fu Yonghao, who was dumbstruck at this point.
Coincidentally, Zhou Wen and Hua Xiaoyun arrived. Upon seeing them, Su Qingye shouted happily, "Quick, come over! We have a junior!"
With regard to the fight against Sha Wuyuan, the three smalls were feeling much better now.
"Shut up! Who’s your junior?"
Fu Yonghao suddenly lost his temper. He flew into a rage, turning around to leave.
"Hey, Junior, you’ve not finished your training…" Su Qingye called out hurriedly.
Fu Yonghao cursed. "Training my a.s.s, you really think you’re great, don’t you!"
The Three Smalls made eye contact before simultaneously pouncing on him.
"You guys better not force me! Hey, you’re really hitting me! You guys are dead! Ahhhh…"
Fu Yonghao’s bitter cries echoed throughout the training hall.
In the warehouse.
Lou Lan was a.n.a.lyzing the clips from Ai Hui’s latest battle. Every fine detail was recorded from start to finish. If not for the fact that there were sufficient mirage bean pods inside the hall, it would have been challenging to obtain such clear images.
Lou Lan had been a.n.a.lyzing them for a long time. There was a faint light ray in his eyes. The gentle glow resembled the light of dawn.
His core, Midnight, had gotten stronger after he was upgraded.
Lou Lan was the one who’d sorted out the veined patterns Ai Hui had previously collected. It was thanks to his help that Ai Hui could fix up the sword formation.
Ai Hui stood beside Lou Lan, quietly observing the whole battle process.
Ai Hui couldn’t help but get stirred up by the lighting up of the sword formation. When it came to sword formations, Ai Hui’s understanding wasn’t great since there were too many areas which were badly damaged. His knowledge of them was sloppy at best.
When he saw G.o.d-Subduing Peak, a few hazy thoughts occurred to him and shortly became clear.
Ultimately, [Treating the city as a piece of cloth] had merely been a spell formation. They’d had to sort out all the city’s nodes, drill the gold needles into them, and then let the city’s elemental energy flow in a regulated pattern. Afterwards, Mistress was the key to activating the spell formation.
Central Pine City was the first place in Avalon of Five Elements that had a spell formation being casted and it was elemental spell formation.
The nucleus Teacher had referred to was the exquisite and complicated vein patterns on the nine gold needles. Ai Hui called them the elemental traces.
Even now, AI Hui still found it difficult to imagine. A city’s elemental energy flow was beyond complicated, so how had Teacher figured them out? He’d even managed to cleverly connect them to form a perfect spell formation.
Teacher was simply too great!
Yet, he himself had yet to thoroughly understand these elemental traces.
Deep admiration and a little distress enveloped his heart and mind.
Ai Hui snapped out of it when the images closed up. Lou Lan was done with his a.n.a.lysis. He handed a movie bean, which contained his a.n.a.lysis, to Ai Hui. Rather than a.n.a.lysis, it was more like a breakdown of events. Lou Lan could present many fine details to Ai Hui and help him with trivial calculations and so on.
He just was unable to help when it came to the comprehension of details. Ai Hui had to do that on his own.
When it came to this part, every time, Ai Hui would feel that he wasn’t smart enough.
The highest building in Dragonrise Training Hall was Skydragon Pavilion. One could overlook the entire training hall when standing on it.
On the pavilion, the teachers were drinking their tea in silence. Their expressions did not look good.
Seeing that half a day had pa.s.sed without any visitors, Ren Haitong, who was standing in front of the railings, couldn’t help but say, "What happened exactly? Why is business so bad all of a sudden?"
There was a fang-bearing silver dragon embroidered on Ren Haitong’s garment, which indicated his position in the training hall. Teachers in Dragonrise Training Hall had a strict ranking system where the most ordinary teachers wore a black dragon on their s.h.i.+rt and those one level up wore a green one. The next few levels would wear red, silver, gold, and jewelled respectively.
Only the owner of the Dragonrise Training Hall, Yang Zhen, wore a jewelled dragon. He was a legitimate metal elemental master. As the overseer of the compound, no one dared to provoke or seek trouble with him.
Gold dragon teachers were usually the hosts of different halls, whereas silver dragon teachers were strong, reputable players, and also the core strength of Dragonrise Training Hall.
Other teachers kept quiet. No one dared to provoke Ren Haitong when he was in a temper.
Business had been extremely poor these few days. While the place wasn’t completely deserted, the number of students enrolling had drastically declined.
Before then, business had been prosperous. Dragonrise Training Hall was a big hall with branches in cities that were slightly larger than the Silver Mist Sea. The general headquarters located in Silver City was also extraordinarily grand. There were as many disciples as there were clouds, with no lack of n.o.ble people.
A truly influential family would naturally have plenty of guidance from famous masters. If they were to suffer a reversal of fortune, however, or if they weren’t as superb, it would be difficult to receive beneficial nurturing from their own elders.
An outstandingly reputable training hall like Dragonrise Training Hall was naturally extremely popular due to the number of good teachers. It had inherited practical moves and students improved significantly within a short period of time, attracting a lot of public praise. Sons from n.o.ble families would even frequent it regularly, seeking to improve their battle experience with friendly matches.
To the citizens of Peace City, the opening of a new branch of such a well-recognized and well-liked training hall was beyond appealing. From its opening day, people had been arriving in an endless stream to register for lessons.
Following the confirmation of the news regarding the mini Avalon of Five Elements, a huge volume of visitors flocked to Peace City, bringing even more business every day to Dragonrise Training Hall.
Nevertheless, everything changed when the Swordsman Training Hall’s owner revealed his ident.i.ty.
Dragonrise Training Hall initially hadn’t been bothered by this. The ridiculous price of two hundred essence elemental beans was simply a joke! Who would’ve expected that people would still go! Upon investigating, they realized that it was a n.o.ble visitor from the Evergold Enterprise. Unable to get a good grasp of that person’s ident.i.ty, Dragonrise Training Hall did not dare to act recklessly.
Luckily, no one else had been foolish enough to spend so much money. Yet, their own business had strangely been declining.
Ren Haitong became angrier the more he thought about it. "Blast it, it’s all because of that stupid Swordsman Training Hall! Tsk, people might be afraid of that Ai fellow, but I’m not!"
The branch master of Peace City’s branch, Miao Hai, sat calmly on his seat of honor with his eyes shut, pretending not to hear anything.
Nevertheless, he was in a poor mood as well. Being sent over to Peace city was a heavy responsibility for him.
The training hall had spent a large sum of money to obtain inside information before opening the branch in Peace City. He knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity for him. Without the support of this training hall, it was going to be challenging for him to upgrade himself in this era where resources were becoming scarce.
Despite this, he did not act blindly without thinking. Ai Hui’s ident.i.ty was sensitive, and the flaming lotus seeds he’d thrown out had stirred up the whole city.
He wasn’t afraid of Ai Hui’s abilities, but at the same time, he knew very well how complicated the situation was in Peace City.
A subordinate rushed over to Miao Hai’s side and said in a low voice, "Master, there’s news from headquarters."
Miao Hai suddenly opened his eyes and sat up straight. He took the wooden case over, opened it, and took the tree leaf from within. There were no words on it. His heart trembled a little. This was news to be kept confidential. Headquarters would only use such a method when they had important instructions to relay.
He channeled a wisp of elemental energy into the tree leaf and words started appearing on its surface.
Shortly, the handwriting gradually faded and vanished.
Miao Hai carefully placed the empty leaf back into the case.
Upon raising his head, he noticed that all eyes were on him.
With his usual expression, he said indifferently, "Go. On the next written war challenge, state that I admire The Lightning Blade’s excellent swordsmans.h.i.+p and will make a visit three days later to request a match."
His words caused an uproar among the teachers.
Some couldn’t help but ask, "Could it be that headquarters…"
Miao Hai waved them off. "Don’t ask too much. Follow my orders. Remember, spread the news."
The teachers dared not ask too much. They moved hurriedly to make the necessary arrangements.