Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After leaving Martial Hunter College, Lin Huang and Lin Xin hung around in White Capital for a week. They took their time visiting several of the hottest tourist spots and checked out more than ten renowned restaurants and greasy spoons before moving on to their next stop.
In the month that followed, the sibling duo kept traveling and making stops, feeling an unprecedented sense of satisfaction from their trip.
Along the way, Lin Huang also visited the siblings Yi Zheng and Yi Yeyu, Leng Yuexin, Li Lang, and several other old friends for a joyful reunion.
When they journeyed to No. 3 Zone, Lin Huang remembered that his senior Liu Ming was the vice dean of the Martial Hunter College there. He also wanted to see for himself what the Martial Hunter College of No. 3 Zone looked like, so the siblings made the place their first stop.
Early in the morning, Liu Ming received the duo at a brunch shop near the entrance of the Martial Hunter College.
“Senior Brother, long time no see.” Standing at the shop entrance, Lin Huang spotted Liu Ming who was sitting next to the French windows and immediately waved his hand in greeting.
Out of the many students under Mr. Fu’s instruction, Lin Huang was the closest to Liu Ming. Apart from the Yi siblings and a few other diehard followers, he was Lin Huang’s closest friend.
Liu Ming stood up with a smile, beckoning with his hand for Lin Huang to come over. “Come in quickly.”
As the siblings entered the shop and sat down, Liu Ming took a good look at Lin Huang. “After not seeing you for so many years, it seems that the more you mingle, the better you get at it. You’ve become more handsome too, junior brother.”
As an Imperial-level cultivator, Liu Ming knew all the happenings in the cultivation world like the back of his hand. Excluding the year when Lin Huang had gone to the great world, Liu Ming was more or less aware of everything that Lin Huang had gone through these years, as he had been keeping a close eye on this junior brother of his all this time.
“Senior brother, you’ve changed a lot as well. Your Sword Dao has advanced to level-6, and you’ve slimmed down a lot. I imagine you must have been practicing with your sword often.” Lin Huang teased him good-naturedly.
Liu Ming’s combat level was currently Yellow gold-rank and his Sword Dao also had advanced to level-6. With his current abilities, he could be considered a powerhouse even when compared to other Imperial-level cultivators.
“It’s true that I have been practicing with my sword a lot, but that isn’t the reason I slimmed down.” Liu Ming shook his head with a smile. “I only started losing weight this past month.”
“I’ve been managing the college enrollment of Reserve students for over a month now. I’m being worked to the bone.”
“Isn’t the enrollment of Reserve students an easy task?” Lin Huang felt slightly bewildered. He had been a teacher at a Martial Hunter College before and naturally knew about the Reserve students’ enrollment.
Under normal circumstances, the enrollment of Reserve students took place six months in advance to select the most outstanding students from Hunter Reserve Colleges to undertake the Reserve Assessment. Passing the assessment would be tantamount to meeting the entry requirements of the Martial Hunter Colleges. Students who passed would not have to take part in the Regular Assessment in June and only had to stay on in their Hunter Reserve Colleges until graduation before enrolling at Martial Hunter Colleges straight away.
The reason this task was easy was that there were not many students in Hunter Reserve Colleges who fulfilled the Reserve Assessment requirements. In No.7 Zone where Lin Huang was stationed previously, there were no more than a thousand students who met the Reserve Assessment requirements each year. For comparison, the number of Regular graduates from Hunter Reserve Colleges every year was as many as thirty million.
The Reserve quota was kept small mainly because the numerous large colleges demanded that the quota be highly inflexible, with the most basic requirement being Iron-level Combat.
This meant that to qualify, one would have to possess the ability to kill Iron-level rank-1 monsters before his or her sixteenth birthday.
As Hunter Reserve Colleges only taught the basic knowledge, practically offering no real combat courses or teaching official combat skills, there were very few students who could accomplish this threshold.
“It used to be a breeze, but I don’t know what happened this year. The number of Reserve students submitted by the various Hunter Reserve Colleges has increased by several times over. Even some small grade-C footholds also submitted Reserve numbers.” Liu Ming looked rather gloomy.
“Usually, our college’s yearly Reserve quota is around three thousand students. This year, the number submitted has reached about thirteen thousand.”
Students were not qualified to submit their own names for this Reserve quota. It was the dean of every Hunter Reserve College who submitted the names after doing a thorough check on each student’s circumstances.
Every December, Martial Hunter Colleges would run a preliminary selection on all the reporting students. The pass rate of the preliminary selection would be recorded. The Hunter Reserve Colleges with too low a pass rate would be investigated. If they were found to be untruthful, the dean would be sacked straight away. Hence, under normal circumstances, none of the deans from any of the Hunter Reserve Colleges would submit a false quota.
“I don’t know if it’s due to the changes in the force density in the air that the number of talents this year has suddenly increased.” Liu Ming also could not make sense of what this was all about.
On the contrary, after hearing all of this, Lin Huang figured out what was happening. The Rule of the gravel world was completed, making cultivation a lot easier.
The more gifted ones or those with stronger abilities felt the changes of the world more intensely.
Amongst the younger generation, there were many who were naturally gifted or had potential, and they were all becoming increasingly excited around now.
“To be frank, these two months have been quite extraordinary. Lately, the internet has been buzzing with talk of how in the danger zones and forbidden lands of each level, the monsters’ abilities in general have increased.”
“I’ve seen many posts claiming that some people found a good number of immortal-level monsters at a moderate danger zone, as well as imperial-level monsters at a severe danger zone.”
Here, Liu Ming suddenly lowered his voice.
“I have a friend who works for the Union Government. Some time ago when we were drinking together, he revealed that lately the Union Government has been discussing in meetings about dividing the ranks of certain danger zones.”
Of course, Lin Huang knew that these changes were brought upon by himself.
It was not really a bad thing that monsters have become stronger. Humans were becoming stronger as well, it was just that many people have not realized it themselves.
In the long run, these changes would only make the humans in the gravel world stronger.
Compared to the Emperor’s Heart straight-up opening the Virtual Door, these changes brought about by Lin Huang were rather insignificant.
After having breakfast and chatting with Liu Ming, Liu Ming escorted the siblings around the Martial Hunter College for a while, before leaving in a hurry after receiving a prompt from his messenger.
Lin Huang knew he was busy and did not try to keep him any longer.
After Liu Ming left, the siblings also took their leave after making a simple round about the Martial Hunter College of No. 3 Zone.
Upon returning to the hotel, Lin Huang opened his Emperor’s Heart Ring and started going over the various large social platforms.
Throughout this past month or so, he never looked at messages from social platforms. The most he would do each day was to give the news a cursory glance before sleeping. This was because he felt that there was too much time wasted in scrolling through social platforms. On top of that, he often came across various heated arguments, which were usually not only meaningless, but could also easily sour your mood.
As he was on holiday, Lin Huang had decided he might as well block out all this toxic noise.
However, after his conversation with Liu Ming, he was slightly curious about what people were saying about the changes to the gravel world.
After opening up several social platforms one after another and taking a look at some of the most viral posts, Lin Huang did not know whether to laugh or cry.
What made him truly speechless was that a group of people was advocating the coming of doomsday.
The monsters’ increasing strength meant that the gravel world was heading toward its end, for these monsters would continue to become stronger and ultimately conquer the whole gravel world.
More importantly, there was actually a good number of people who believed this kind of theory.
A large group of people even formed an online alliance called the Doomsday Sect.
“If you have so much free time, why can’t you guys focus on cultivating instead?” After skimming through some headlines, Lin Huang finally had enough and shut off all the social platform pages.
“Thankfully, not everyone is this senseless. There are still many people in this world who are actively forging ahead and continuously becoming stronger!”
