「September 27, 2015, 9:25 AM. Clear, cloudless sky.」
After a month of purely militarized managent and training, the students of the various academies had shed the lax habits of their student days. Upon hearing the mobilization order, the students from the Practical Combat and Exploration Systems imdiately gathered on the training grounds.
Within five minutes, on Qinxing Academy’s massive training field—a full four tis the size of a standard sports field—three massive, dark formations had assembled. Over a thousand Awakened Level Cultivators stood together in silence, their combined Spiritual Pressure distorting the very air around them.
The three great Cultivation Academies were established to train dostic professionals to handle Extraordinary Events. The ’Practical Combat System’ was the branch that specialized in training Combat Skills, suppressing Transcendent criminals, and responding to Extraordinary threats from abroad and even from Otherworlds.
The Exploration System, on the other hand, was the branch that cultivated Explorers with the ability to operate and fight independently. They specialized in exploring Otherworlds, ancient ruins, and various other locations inaccessible to ordinary explorers.
Only these two systems had practical combat evaluations, and their daily training was far more rigorous. In return, they received subsidies for pills and had slightly more access to Cultivation thods than ordinary students. They could apply to learn high-risk, lethal Magic, as well as Exotic Techniques like Suppression Curses and Insect Gu Poisons.
Of course, learning such Curse Techniques required registration. After all, while these Exotic Techniques were useful, their misuse could cause imnse harm.
Qinxing Academy had the highest number of students in the Practical Combat and Exploration Systems among the three major academies, with over four hundred and sixty and over seven hundred students respectively. Their numbers accounted for nearly one-third of the academy’s first batch of students.
Modu’s Zhizhi Academy had just over two hundred in Practical Combat and over eight hundred and eighty in Exploration.
Celestial Capital’s Daoist Discipline Academy had even fewer, with no Practical Combat System at all. Its Exploration System had only a little over one hundred and eighty students.
This was due to a division of labor. Qinxing Academy’s predecessor was ford from several special units of the forr National Security General Bureau and the Ministry of National Defense. The professors and lecturers here were all old hands from the original Security Bureau. The forr director of the Security Bureau was now retired, while the deputy director had been promoted to beco the academy’s dean—a significant step up. Graduates from here would, based on their performance, be directly transferred to positions in the Security Bureau, hence the highest demand for combat personnel.
Zhizhi Academy was a rger of the forr Bureau of History, the Bureau of Cultural Relics Protection, and several marine exploration units. This was why it had more exploration personnel. It even incorporated several museum units, and explorers from here were generally required to be proficient in archaeology.
As for the Daoist Discipline Academy, it was a purely academic institution. Its Exploration System was also different from the others; it specialized in outer space exploration.
After all, once a Cultivator reached the Extraordinary Tier, their tolerance for different environnts would increase exponentially. Even if these superhumans weren’t conducting research, sending them to explore outer space was far more practical than sending ordinary people. The future Moon Base was counting on these Transcendents. They might not even need oxygen, their food consumption would be greatly reduced, and they might even be capable of Fasting. God knows how much trouble that would save.
This ti, all mbers of the Practical Combat and Exploration Systems were being dispatched to the Kunlun Mountain ruins. Firstly, it was to train the students and give them practical fieldwork. Their future jobs would involve exploring ruins as assault teams or archaeological squads, or coordinating with the military to provide periter security.
Secondly, the Spiritual Qi around the ruins was extrely dense, and its location on a plateau made the environnt ideal. Continuing their training there would improve the students’ tolerance for abnormal environnts.
Su Zhou was also among the professors leading the teams—in fact, he was at the very front.
In front of a group of middle-aged and older n and won stood a young man who looked like he could be their son or grandson. But no one found this strange. Even the students stared straight ahead, finding it completely natural.
This was the Majesty that ca with strength. It wasn’t as if other professors hadn’t tried sparring with Su Zhou while he suppressed his power to the Awakening Tier. The outcos were usually embarrassing defeats for them. Even the veterans who had worked for the Security Bureau couldn’t match the number of real-world battles Su Zhou had experienced in the Divine Wood World.
Once everyone was accounted for, the Qinxing Academy students set out, riding in armored personnel carriers to the airport. There, a flying vehicle, pitch-black like a colossal Profound Bird, was waiting for them.
The ’Profound Bird Level’ ultra-large supersonic cruise vehicle.
The Profound Bird-level Flying Vehicle was built using Extraordinary Technology and could achieve both radar and physical stealth. It was a monstrous aircraft with a wingspan of over 130 ters and a length of 120 ters. Its maximum takeoff weight exceeded a thousand tons. The maximum payload was unknown, but according to Zhengguo military reports, it could carry over five hundred tons. Created using the cutting-edge ’Integrated Spiritual Artifact Forging’ technique, the entire Profound Bird-level Flying Vehicle was equivalent to a single, gigantic Magical Artifact. Its performance limits would gradually increase along with the Spiritual Energy Revival.
But even with its current basic specs, it could deploy a fully equipped armored battalion anywhere in the world within three hours.
The Profound Bird Level, which only made preliminary use of Extraordinary Technology, had already shattered previous design limits. Its existence signified that the combination of the Extraordinary and scientific technology was the major trend of the future, a perfect example of successful experintation in the field.
Many of the students who were military enthusiasts teared up just at the sight of the Profound Bird Level, their eyes welling with emotion. When they learned they would actually be riding this very vehicle to the Northwest Plateau, any lingering dissatisfaction from thinking ’We just finished boot camp, and before we can even enjoy academy life, we’re being shipped off to the plateau to train again’ vanished like a feast before a starving man.
"Waaah... Look at that paint job! Look at those sleek lines! Look at that airfra design! If the Profound Bird Level ca to life, it would definitely be a gorgeous, tall beauty in black stockings!"
"How can you be so crude! And didn’t you hear the professor? This is a Magical Artifact! How can a Magical Artifact ’co to life’? That’s called an Artifact Spirit!"
"A person can’t... or at least, they shouldn’t..."
"Hahaha, Old Ma and his buddies were just mocking us from the Practical Combat and Exploration Systems for having it so tough. If he knew I get to ride a Profound Bird Level, wouldn’t he be crying and begging to switch with ?"
"Hmph. n."
A month of training couldn’t suppress the students’ instinctive awe. The professors on site didn’t rush to quiet them down. They waited ten seconds for the excited chatter to die down on its own before speaking, reiterating the purpose and objectives of the mission. This was a quasi-military operation, so from now on, everyone had to hold themselves to the strictest standards.
With the behemoth that was the Profound Bird-level Flying Vehicle as a concrete example, the reality and solemnity of the mission beca powerfully persuasive. From that mont until they boarded, not another sound was heard from the ranks.
Su Zhou wasn’t nearly as emotional, mainly because he had already ridden it twice before. The first ti was when he went to Modu with the entire team to assist the fleet in capturing the Thunder Marsh Jellyfish—it turned out the fleet wasn’t needed at all, as any Transcendent who could discharge electricity could have led them around in circles. The second ti was for a eting at the Daoist Discipline Academy in the Celestial Capital to report his findings and data on cultivating the Heart of the Thunder Marsh.
That eting had been of a particularly high standard. The Daoist Saint, Math Saint, Military Saint, and Plague Saint had all attended in person, with seven other Holy Seats listening in via remote holographic projection. It was basically the highest-level eting short of a full Central Committee congress.
When they learned that Su Zhou had, in the ti from the beginning of the year until September, directly ford four Spiritual Power Organs—the ’Digestive System’, ’Eyes’, ’Bone Marrow’, and ’Heart’—and that one of them was a Special Level Spiritual Qi Organ like the ’Heart of the Thunder Marsh’, nearly all the Holy Seats present in their True Bodies almost lost their composure. The corners of their eyes and mouths twitched upwards, and the projected Holy Seats remained silent for a long ti.
’—Are you really sure he’s human? What I an is, could he be the reincarnation of so Ancient Immortal God, like a banished Immortal or sothing?’
’—We expected his strength to progress quickly, but we never imagined it would be this exaggerated...’
’—Four organs in nine months... That’s an average of restructuring his internal Spiritual Qi Circulation and accumulating enough Spiritual Power to advance once every two months and one week. Even with us providing the vast majority of the resources, that speed... it’s already approaching the theoretical maximum!’
’—The bearing of an Immortal... this is surely it...’
Even the Military Saint, who held so hidden reservations about Su Zhou, couldn’t help but sigh. "The power of Dragon Blood... is it this terrifying? If every citizen of Zhengguo possessed Dragon Blood, we wouldn’t need to worry about the problem of Demon Transformation and Dao Simulation... I’d wish for the entire population to practice it."
This one-eyed old man, who had been injured years ago and lost an eye, was the leader of the faction within the system that opposed the Demon Blood lineage. But even he, as he looked at Su Zhou, found his single eye gradually softening. "As much as I want to say that no matter how fast a Demon Blood wielder cultivates, they remain a hidden danger... his speed is just too fast."
"You were right. The New Era is here, the Spiritual Energy Revival has happened. The ancient conflicts from the past millennium, born from resource scarcity... it’s ti to let them go."
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