Tribulation of Myriad Races

Xia Yuwen was furious. He coldly said, “Are you threatening me?”

“You misunderstand me, Teacher.” Su Yu feigned innocence, “I’m only going to tell my Brother Zhou that his teacher isn’t as good as he thought. He even told me that his teacher is a good man and I shouldn’t talk badly about you. Can you believe that? But I understand. He is too naive, hence his misunderstanding about your true nature…”

“Hmph!” Xia Yuwen snorted coldly and said, “Su Yu, it’s not too good for your tongue to be too sharp.”

“Teacher, learn to be more open-minded if you’re going to be the future prefect. Why is it a bad thing to have a sharp tongue? Don’t tell me that Great Xia only requires combatants? Do you not need negotiators? Do you not need economists? Do you not need administrators who can manage the populace for you? You only need fighters?

“If you really think that…I’m afraid you won’t be able to become the next prefect. Do you think all the upper echelons of Great Xia are dumb? They will let you become the prefect just because of your strength? If you become the prefect with this mindset, Great Xia will drop from a top three prefecture to the bottom rank.

“Teacher, I make a lot of sense, right? Even after you injured my teacher so badly, I did not declare a blood feud against you. I’m even offering to help your student with his advancement. Don’t you think that someone like me is very suitable as an advisor or something like that?

“If you manage to become the prefect in the future, just give me Administrator Hu’s position. I’ll be happy with that. In fact, that’s a great idea. You should understand that talents are very hard to come by. If you are willing to show appreciation toward talent, you will be able to strengthen your reputation. You need to have the breadth of mind to take even an ex-enemy under your wing and trust them with heavy responsibilities.”

Su Yu sighed and said, “In my opinion, the main reason for your recent defeats is the lack of an advisor. Teacher, focus on recruiting some talents. Don’t spend all your time fighting. If you’re trying to imitate Prefect Xia, you should imitate all aspects of him instead of only certain aspects. Even Prefect Xia has someone like Administrator Hu by his side.”

“…”

Xia Yuwen was furious. He coldly said, “Deal. 5,000 merit points for Zhou Hao’s advancement. Su Yu, there is no need to provoke me. This is only a transaction. Zhou Hao will not owe you anything.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Su Yu said, “In that case, let’s end the talk here. I am aware that this is a transaction. I have never expected him to owe me anything. But remember that he is not allowed to leak this cultivation method. Teacher, you should be aware that all cultivation methods are patented in the Human Realm. If someone spreads my cultivation method without permission, I can sue that person. I doubt you want to ruin your own reputation for a cultivation method, right?”

After a short pause, Su Yu added, “I get it, your reputation is already terrible, but you still care about it, right?”

“…”

“Su Yu, stop challenging my patience.”

Xia Yuwen’s voice was frosty.

“Fine, fine, I apologize.” Su Yu apologized indifferently and said, “Teacher, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that. Honesty can be offensive to the ears at times. I guess you don’t appreciate honesty. Forget it, then. But I really need to say one last thing. Teacher, that was a really bad move. The single character faction is clearly related to Great Zhou. You are trying to be the next prefect of Great XIa. How can you collude with them? Are you not afraid that Prefect Xia would cut you down after leaving seclusion?

“Your actions are the same as inviting a wolf into your house. Sigh, how do you not know something this simple? And Vice Principal Xia had actually not reminded you about that. Perhaps he never cared about you? Or he was simply confident in the generosity of Prefect Xia and Great Xia King? But I doubt Great Xia King enjoys having Great Zhou meddle in our affairs. Even outsiders can see this. Are you the only one who is still unaware of this? Teacher, that must be an act right? You must be plotting something against Great Zhou, right?”

“…”

Xia Yuwen hung up. This person was too annoying.

Su Yu grinned and turned around to look at Zhou Hao. “See, your teacher is actually quite nice toward you. He agrees to pay so that you don’t need to owe me a favor. Don’t feel bad. Don’t hold back if you need to make a move against me in the future. I certainly won’t hold back. If there is a need to kill you, I’ll still do it.”

Zhou Hao remained silent.

After a while, he said, “Since my teacher is paying, you should be paying me a salary for testing your cultivation method as well.”

“…”

Fuck!

Su Yu was stunned. This fellow…had learned to bargain? Su Yu suddenly felt like someone was challenging his entire worldview.

Zhou Hao calmly said, “Normally, people will be paid to test new cultivation methods. Your cultivation method is top secret and can benefit me, so I should have done it for free. But that changes since my teacher is paying for it.”

That made a lot of sense. Su Yu couldn’t even argue against that.

After thinking about it, he nodded, “That makes sense. Alright, I will teach you the Pure Source Art as the payment. But you’re not allowed to teach anyone what you learn from me. Can you agree to that?”

“Sure.”

Zhou Hao did not ask about the Pure Source Art, but from its name, he could guess its purpose. It should be a decent cultivation method.

Su Yu said, “If you leak my cultivation methods, I will kill you. I will kill you openly and Great Xia won’t even punish me for that. I hope that you can understand this.”

Zhou Hao said nothing. Whatever.

He did not enjoy talking to Su Yu as he wasn’t too good at talking. If a day arrived when they needed to face each other, he would just fight it out. What was the point of talking so much?

…

Finally, they arrived at the Source Soul Research Center.

At this point, Su Yu sighed again. Earning money sure was easy. As long as he found the right person and used the right method, money would come. Xia Yuwen was cold and arrogant, but he was also wealthy.

Thus, it was very likely that one would be able to get some money from him. Of course, one needed a proper reason to ask for money to avoid being cut down. Asking for money without a proper reason was the same as robbery. If there was a proper reason, it would be an exchange of benefits.

Su Yu stepped through the door.

Inside the living area, Zheng Yunhui and Xia Huyou were playing a card game. There was also Zhao Ming there. Su Yu was completely speechless. These three were complete freeloaders.

When Xia Huyou saw Su Yu, he grinned, “What is this fellow doing here? Is he ready to become your lab rat?”

That was very easy to guess. After all, Su Yu had gotten dozens of cultivation methods over the past few days. Was he finally going to test them out on someone?

“Yeah.” Su Yu said nothing else to Xia Huyou and said, “Zheng Yunhui, go activate the formation to prevent any eavesdropping.”

Zheng Yunhui blanked out slightly before asking, “Did you produce a new cultivation method?”

If it was an existing cultivation method, there wouldn’t be a need to be so cautious.

“Yeah.”

They all stared at him. Stop messing around. It had only been a few days. They then looked at Zhou Hao with sympathy. Dang. Su Yu sure was cruel. He was having his test subject try the new cultivation method only after working on it for a few days.

Well, it didn’t concern them since Zhou Hao was going to be the one to test it. Initially, Zhou Hao did not feel anything about this. But when he saw the gazes of sympathy, as though they were looking at a corpse, he started to feel uneasy. This felt somewhat uncomfortable.

Zheng Yunhui was blunt, “Su Yu, this fellow might be your rival, but he is still a good test subject. It isn’t good to kill him just like this, right? Even if he manages to survive this, he will still take a long time to recover after losing a few acupoints. That will only delay your research.”

Su Yu grinned and said, “It’s fine. If he ends up dying, you can be the next test subject.”

“…”

Zheng Yunhui shut his mouth. Was this fellow dreaming? Did this fellow think that he was stupid?

With an awkward cough, Zheng Yunhui said, “Forget about me. But the war academy definitely has a lot of good test subjects. They also have a lot of students who are not afraid of death. As long as you pay, you can easily find professional test subjects.”

Su Yu ignored Zheng Yunhui and started going downstairs. While walking he said, “Just turn on the formation.”

“Sure.”

Xia Huyou and the others stood up and asked curiously, “Can we take a look?”

A new cultivation method! It wasn’t too surprising for someone to come up with an experimental cultivation method. Just plot out a few dozen acupoints and randomly link them together and something like that would qualify as a new cultivation method. It didn’t matter if one would die cultivating something like that.

Thus, they were not surprised to hear that Su Yu had created a new cultivation method. They were only wondering if Zhou Hao would lose all his acupoints after testing this new cultivation method.

…

Before long, everyone was gathered in the underground room.

When Wu Jia saw Zhou Hao, she first snorted. But soon, her face lit up with delight. She believed that her junior brother was intentionally doing this as a form of revenge. She greatly approved of not waiting to take one’s revenge.

Yes, there was no need to wait. Just let Zhou Hao be the test subject. Zhou Hao deserved it since he was stupid enough to agree.

Meanwhile, Wu Lan had her head raised arrogantly as usual. With a frown, she asked, “It has only been a few days. Are you sure this cultivation method will work? Nobody cares if Zhou Hao dies, but wouldn’t that delay our progress?”

Xia Huyou smiled, “There’s no harm in giving it a try. Su Yu has gathered a lot of cultivation methods during the past few days. He himself has tried some of them. Perhaps there are some issues with the first cultivation method he created. As someone with so many acupoints, I reckon Zhou Hao can survive even if a few of them blow up during the testing. You guys should stop scaring him.”

“…”

Inside the laboratory, Zhou Hao’s head was lowered as he maintained his silence. He could hear what they were saying. The room wasn’t soundproof. Could they all shut up? He was not worried at all before this. But now…he was starting to feel anxious.

Su Yu also found himself speechless. He said, “Stop talking. It will be fine. Also, Zhou Hao might not even be able to use the cultivation method directly as there is no guarantee that he already has all the required acupoints opened.”

Su Yu then handed an acupoint chart to Zhou Hao and asked, “How many of them have you opened?”

After taking a look at the chart, Zhou Hao answered, “26 of them. I still need 10 acupoints.”

“What?” Su Yu frowned, “How long do you need to open them all?”

“At least 20 days.”

“By cultivating non-stop?”

“Yes.”

Su Yu was somewhat speechless. Outside the room, the others were speechless as well. This was a big blow to their confidence.

Fuck!

Just by cultivating non-stop, this fellow could open so many acupoints in 20 days?

But Su Yu was not satisfied. He said, “Fatty-cough, cough. Huyou, get me five earthly source fruits. With these fruits, he can open his acupoints faster.”

“…”

Xia Huyou stared at Su Yu in astonishment. His face turned solemn as he asked, “Are you serious?”