Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
The relationship between the master and the apprentice had long roots tracing back to ancient times.
This relationship existed not only in martial arts but also in other industries. No one knew how long it had been passed down through human history. Gradually, it had formed into a unique culture of its own.
This was a special and close relationship that could closely connect two people unrelated by blood; forming a special relationship that was not inferior to blood relationships.
This kind of relationship remained strong and firm even in a Holy Land of martial arts such as the Sacred Martial Hall.
In any industry, the requirements for accepting new apprentices were relative to the skill level of the master.
The Sacred Martial Hall was a place filled with martial arts talents, which prevented the problem of talent shortages as seen in the outside world. However, no martial arts master in the Sacred Martial Hall simply accepted many apprentices.
The stronger a martial artist was, the less likely they were to recruit new apprentices. Even if one showed promising talents, being accepted into an apprenticeship under these masters would require a huge sum of money.
In the Sacred Martial Hall, money was not as important as it was in the outside world. Medicinal pills held greater value than money in the Sacred Martial Hall and therefore became the main currency for martial artists to gift to their prospective masters.
After a long period of apprenticeships, some ill-intentioned people even created a so-called gifting grade to benchmark the number of gifts according to different masters.
In the Sacred Martial Hall, most of the fourteen-star martial artists had reached the level of a quasi-martial-arts master and were therefore barely eligible to accept apprentices. The gifting benchmarks for these martial artists were listed in detail based on the difference in strength among the martial artists.
If one exceeded the rank of fifteen-stars, it meant that they had succeeded in the Nirvana Marrow Transformation. Although a fourteen-star and a fifteen-star martial artist both belonged to the Stellar rank of martial artists, there was a huge difference in standard between both ranks, as the fifteen-star martial artist would be recognized as a martial art master.
To be accepted for apprenticeship by these martial artists would require way larger amounts of gifts as compared to fourteen-star martial artists. It was perfectly normal for the price difference to be multiplied by tens or hundreds.
As for the martial artists of the sixteen star-class, only a few of them would accept apprentices. Firstly, they preferred to concentrate on breaking their limits and entering the ranks of the seventeen-stars to become a martial artist of the eternal-star level. Furthermore, the price required for them to accept one as an apprentice was way too high to the point where only a lucky few could afford it.
As for the martial artists of an eternal-star level… the apprentices under their mentorship were either related by blood, had paid a huge sum in return, or bore an extraordinary talent among all the martial artists in the Sacred Martial Hall. In short, only a few people were privileged enough to have their apprenticeship under a master of an eternal-star level.
Cases of Heads of Department accepting apprentices? Such cases could be counted easily in the history of Sacred Martial Hall.
Qin Fen, a rookie in the Sacred Martial Hall understood these things clearly. Bai Sheng had thoroughly explained most matters regarding the Sacred Martial Hall to the point that it was almost impossible for Qin Fen to remain in the dark.
When he heard that there were Heads of Departments wishing to accept apprentices, Qin Fen was slightly shocked. Such events were really out of the ordinary.
“Eh?” Ferrero expressed more surprise than Qin Fen as he locked his sapphire-like eyes on to Qin Fen, “Hey kid, aren’t you a little way too calm? Although I can sense your surprise, it’s just way too calm! I wouldn’t be surprised at all if other junior martial artists cheered like a madman the moment I accepted their apprenticeship request.”
Qin Fen grinned and smiled with slight bitterness as he talked to himself, “Old man, if you were to wake up every day and meet a group of experts with monstrous abilities, with each of them boasting their status as an expert of black-hole rank; and receiving the news that a martial artist of an eternal-Star rank accepting you as a disciple, I am sure that you wouldn’t be as surprised as you thought you might be.”
“Disciple!”
Sakra’s reaction was much more intense than that of Qin Fen. His purple eyes suddenly shot out two beams of lights that were not inferior to a lightning strike and shrouded Ferrero instantly.
With gazes strong as lightning that provided a near-substantial aura pressure, it would be no surprise if ordinary martial artists were to die with blood on their mouths under such a glare.
Ferrero smiled at the Sakra. They were both martial artists of eternal-star rank and also part of the Heads of Department. With their almost similar strength, such attacks had no effect on Ferrero.
“What now, kid?” Ferrero turned to Qin Fen. “You haven’t been at the Sacred Martial Hall for a very long time. You probably don’t know much about apprenticeships in the Sacred Martial Hall.”
“Senior, I am aware of apprenticeships in the Sacred Martial Hall.”
Qin Fen once again raised his hand and scratched the back of his head. The Sacred Martial Hall had clearly recorded the price of apprenticeship for each martial artist in different disciplines. Within the list, the price of apprenticeship under a member of the first-row was listed as “unaffordable”!
Unaffordable price! This could no longer be measured by material value, but at the same time, it also illustrated the difficulty in becoming a disciple of a Head of Department.
“You wanted to accept him as a disciple?” Sakra’s cold and gloomy face could almost condense the surrounding air into ice, as his two purple eyeballs shone a tone of understanding.
Ferrero smiled and put his legs on the coffee table and gently swayed his toes, purposely staring at the Sakra with a sly look, “What now? Do I need to seek your permission to accept disciples?”
Sakra suddenly sat back to the sofa and slapped Qin Fen’s shoulder with his palm, “Qin Fen, be my disciple!”
What? Qin Fen quietly twitched his mouth uncontrollably. This Sakra did not have a sense of control when he is excited. That slap just now consisted of powerful levels of Sky Thunder Art! If it weren’t for my adequate true energy levels, I should be fainting in shock from his slap by now!
Even with his true energy resisting the thunderous slap, Qin Fen still felt feelings of pain emanating from the sofa under his butt.
The sofa was not a human being, let alone a martial arts practitioner. The moment it shared the pressure of Qin Fen, it collapsed almost immediately.
Qin Fen didn’t care too much about the pain in his shoulders but rather, he was focused on the Sakra and Ferrero. If memory serves him right, apart from the Madman, there were no other cases in the Sacred Martial Hall where two Heads of Department wanted to recruit the same person at the same time.
“I said.” Ferrero also placed his palm on Qin Fen’s shoulder as he smiled slyly at the Sakra, “Remember that you are the Head of Criminal Law Department. Although no rules will be violated from such actions, suspicions of loophole abuse still remain. Thankfully, a principle-abiding person like you does not have the need to do such a thing.”
The Sakra slightly twitched his brows without changing his gloomy expression, “I would not violate any principles, and in this case, there is evidently no violation of principles.”
“I said Sakra, why do you want to fight with me? It is obvious that I am the first to talk to Qin Fen about the apprenticeship…”
“I found Qin Fen first.”
Sakra countered the words of Ferrero with a gloomy face.
Both of the Heads of Department understood that Qin Fen was not interested in joining the Inner Sacred Martial Hall. For the sake of his martial dao improvement, forcibly placing him in the Inner Sacred Martial Hall would indeed impede his progress in martial dao. However, if they gave up right now, causing Qin Fen to miss out on various opportunities such as entering the Secret Art Pavilion, further learning of martial arts, and the help of the medicinal pills; it would be a very regretful event for all.
Since the rules could not be challenged, the only way was to go around the rules.
Sakra had always been thinking about ways to maintain the rules but never about ways to get around it. It had gotten to the point where he had even forgotten about the rules of apprenticeship in the Sacred Martial Hall.
According to some special rules of apprenticeship in the Sacred Martial Hall, the master could freely teach their disciples any form of martial arts. Under normal circumstances, the Sacred Martial Hall would not question the apprenticeship, on the premise that the disciple was also part of the Sacred Martial Hall.
During the inception of this rule, everyone had formulated the rules by taking account of only normal circumstances. For instance, no martial artists would choose the Outer Sacred Martial Hall given the opportunity to enter the Inner Sacred Martial Hall.
After all, there were great disparities in the quality of the facilities in both Inner and Outer Halls. Even if there were rare cases of people refusing to join the Inner Sacred Martial Hall, they would’ve joined the beneficiary division of the Outer Sacred Martial Hall, where they were able to receive some extra benefits. As for the basic division of martial artists in the Outer Sacred Martial Hall that was devoid of many benefits, any martial artist with an ounce of martial dao ambition within them would not even opt for it.
As a result, when the powerful martial artists intend to accept disciples, they would firstly choose from the Inner Sacred Martial Hall. Only after that would they choose from the beneficiary division of the Outer Sacred Martial Hall. As for the basic martial artists in the Outer Sacred Martial Hall…
These were the kind of martial artists that couldn’t even afford to pay for initiation gifts and were also rejected from the Sacred Martial Hall. How would any master choose their disciples from this rabble? They would only humiliate themselves with such sub-par disciples.
The system in practice did not have any loopholes or defects. However, no one ever thought that a freak like Qin Fen would appear in the Sacred Martial Hall – easily qualified to enter the Inner Sacred Martial Hall yet stubbornly chose to remain at the Outer Martial Hall as a basic martial artist.
In doing so, Qin Fen had cut off his path to the Secret Art Pavilion and put himself in a bottleneck. As a result, entering the Sacred Martial Hall for Qin Fen would only mean a platform for him to accumulate battle experience, and also teaching himself of some martial dao knowledge he witnessed to complement his existing skills.
Sakra had to admire his nemesis, Ferrero, for his ability to bring out such an obscure rule, all the while going through loopholes in the Sacred Martial Hall.
Although Qin Fen was merely a basic martial artist of the Sacred Martial Hall, he remained a martial artist of the Sacred Martial Hall. Going by the rules, if one of them became a mentor to Qin Fen, he would then have the right to study and copy the tomes in the Secret Art Pavilion, or even bring them out from the Secret Art Pavilion for his future disciples.
Of course, very few masters treat their own disciples so kindly unless the disciples were the personal favorites of the masters.
For other martial artists, entering the Secret Art Pavilion was not something that they can do anytime. When they wished to enter, they would need to meet certain conditions before being permitted entry.
However, for Heads of Department, this was not a problem at all. Heads of Department in the Sacred Martial Hall bore the absolute right to enter and exit the Secret Art Pavilion at any time however they wished.
At the same time, if the Heads of Department became mentors to other martial artists, the apprentice would also enjoy the same benefits as the Heads of Department. For instance, the Sacred Martial Hall would deliver an additional set of medicinal pills every month as a means of support.
