Chapter 930: Our Teacher Is Number One Under the Heavens, I Absolutely Dare To Brag About This for Sure!
Translator: Lordbluefire
The vast majority of great teachers were humble and acted poise on the surface. But in their bones, who among them wasn’t proud and arrogant?
The more impressive a great teacher, the greater their sense of superiority would be. They would have pride in themselves and high ego. Only then would they be able to nurture their students into elites.
In the great teacher world, there was a hidden rule everyone knew about. If you wanted to awe someone, you had to crush them at the aspect that he or she was the most confident about.
Make your opponent concede wholeheartedly!
Sun Mo was said to be an ancestor-level spirit runist, and spirit gathering runes were considered the most basic out of all basic runes in the study of spirit runes. Hence, Lu Jian chose a spirit gathering rune to test Sun Mo.
In the world of spirit runes, there were many types of spirit runes with the same effects. However, the ones handed down to the latter generation for widespread usage usually had the highest cost-performance ratio..
As for the spirit gathering rune, there were currently over 1,000 variations, and new ones would appear every year. Hence, even if one was an ancestor-level spirit runist, they might not have seen all the types before.
Lu Jian purposely chose an extremely rare and cryptic-looking spirit gathering rune. He then carved it on the stone tablet along with that dew spirit rune.
That’s right. That stone tablet wasn’t any antique dug out from the ruins of darkness. It was something Lu Jian had asked a colleague, who was proficient in archaeology, to counterfeit.
As for why, it was naturally to beguile Sun Mo.
After all, who would imagine that a spirit rune that appeared to be a single whole was actually made up of a few separate components?
One couldn’t help but say that this move from Lu Jian could definitely ‘kill’ all grandmaster-level spirit runists. Sadly, the person he encountered today was Sun Mo.
“Eh, this is clearly a single spirit rune. Why would there be two types of effects?”
A female great teacher around 20+ years old squeezed her way over and couldn’t help but ask curiously.
“We have to ask Teacher Lu then.”
Sun Mo’s lips twitched as he glanced at the female great teacher.
There was no solution to it. Her face was filled with freckles and it looked too frightening.
Actually, from her face shape and features, she was someone beautiful. It was a pity that the freckles destroyed her beauty completely.
2
Also, her height was also slightly shorter than the average female and her head wasn’t even at Sun Mo’s shoulder. But, her papayas were huge, almost Lu Zhiruo’s size.
1
Generally speaking, she was more adorable than she was sexy. She was like a persian cat one owned. Also, her voice was puerile and soft sounding. After one heard it, they would become lazy and feel like taking a nap.
“Ask me?” Lu Jian didn’t understand. “If I knew the answer, I wouldn’t have to consult you for guidance.”
“You probably have done something to this spirit rune, right?”
Gu Xiuxun’s mind was very quick. Also, she dared to ask and directly questioned Lu Jian.
“This great teacher. If you have no proof, please do not speak recklessly.”
Li Jian’s expression turned solemn.
Everyone was in a discussion.
“Teacher Sun, if you are certain, please copy it out to prove your thinking. If you cannot do so, it’s fine as well. You can take this back with you to slowly ponder over.”
Lu Jian ‘magnanimously’ pushed the stone tablet toward Sun Mo.
“This fellow is making trouble!”
Xianyu Wei was very angry. “Are great teachers from the Central Plains all so shameless?’
Swish~
Several gazes at the side immediately looked over.
“Xianyu, I know you feel it’s unfair for Teacher, but please pay attention to your words. You are no longer in the plains.”
Li Ziqi frowned as she admonished in a low voice.
“Don’t worry, Junior Martial Sister. Our teacher will definitely crush him!”
Lu Zhiruo wanted to pat Xianyu Wei’s shoulder to comfort her, but she discovered that Xianyu Wei was too tall. Lu Zhiruo had to tip-toed before she could reach it.
“Hehe, I don’t dare to say anything reckless about other subjects, but as for the study of spirit runes? Our teacher is number one in the world. I absolutely dare to brag about this,” said Jiang Leng.
Swish~
Li Ziqi and the others all glanced over.
“Mn?”
Jiang Leng started. (What the hell? What’s wrong with my words?)
“You usually don’t speak for a long while, but when you finally do, you actually say so much in one go!”
Tantai Yutang teased.
“Is this important?”
Qin Yaoguang chewed on a piece of candy and rolled her eyes. “Let’s eat some melons and watch the show!”
Sun Mo didn’t take the stone tablet.
“Why? Is this stone tablet very scalding to the touch?”
Lu Jian mocked, ridiculing that Sun Mo wasn’t able to see through the spirit rune engraved on it.
The surrounding spectators were discussing while revealing a doubtful expression. Could it be that Sun Mo’s fame was fake? Did he become famous from empty boasting?
Honestly speaking, everyone understood that since Lu Jian dared to step up to make trouble for Sun Mo, he must have prepared this difficult question meticulously.
It was very normal if Sun Mo couldn’t answer it in just half an hour. However, Sun Mo was after all a genius great teacher with a series of titles. He was someone that inspired curiosity and admiration in others.
Right now, this was such a large setting. If Sun Mo failed, it would definitely be a heavy blow to his prestige.
“You mean it is scalding to your hand instead?”
Sun Mo smiled. “Teacher Lu, if you take back the stone tablet now and apologize, I can pretend this matter never happened. If not, you should be prepared to face the consequences yourself.”
“What’s wrong? Could it be that your embarrassment has turned into anger because you cannot answer?”
In the crowd, someone suddenly shouted. He wanted to hit a person who was down.
(Is he swindling me? He can’t possibly have really discovered something, right? That can’t be the case. This spirit rune was put together by me. It is like a casual treasure map that I’ve drawn. Other than me, who could unravel it?)
Various thoughts flashed through Lu Jian’s mind. After that, he became calm again.
From a theoretical point, Sun Mo absolutely didn’t have any possibilities to unravel this spirit rune. No matter what, this stand-off would at most be a draw.
Liang Hongda arrived. However, he stood at the side and observed, having no intentions to interfere.
“I gave you a chance but you didn’t know how to cherish it. Since that’s the case, don’t blame me for being ruthless.”
Sun Mo shrugged and turned his gaze back to the stone tablet. “The spirit rune on this stone tablet appeared to be a single entity. In actuality, it is made up of a combination of three fragmented spirit runes.
“The three runes are the one-third of a dew rune, a variation spirit gathering rune, and an unnamed spirit rune.”
After hearing the words ‘one-third’, Lu Jian’s heart started thumping wildly again.
When Lu Jian was younger and exploring the Darkness Continent, he excavated a one-tenth of a damaged spirit rune in certain ruins. Despite researching it for so many years, he still had no harvest. However, he coincidentally managed to gain insights of about one-third of it this time around.
“Teacher Lu, can I ask what motive you have? Consulting me with a spirit rune you made intentionally?”
Sun Mo questioned.
Hua~
The entire scene was in an uproar.
The gazes of everyone now turned unfriendly when they stared at Lu Jian.
When challenging other great teachers, there was no problem if you took out a difficult question. But if you intentionally created a question that was impossible to be resolved, it could only mean that there was a problem with your character.
Because there was no correct answer.
“Teacher Lu!”
Kang Yan’s tone had turned strict.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Lu Jian’s countenance changed. Right now, he was already on a mounted tiger and found it hard to get off. If this matter became factually proven, his career as a great teacher would be destroyed. Hence, he became even more unyielding. “We can look for an ancestor-level spirit runist to verify this, so everyone will know that I’m innocent!”
Lu Jian’s voice was so resolute and decisive that it caused the audience to feel uncertain.
“No need to look. I’m precisely one!” Sun Mo chortled.
“You are what?”
That female great teacher with freckles asked in a somewhat endearingly silly manner.
“A great ancestor spirit runist!”
After Sun Mo spoke, exclamations of shock echoed out as everyone was dumbstruck.
(Sun Mo, you really dare to brag!)
“We great teachers naturally have to be humble when the situation calls for it. But when we encounter people deliberately making things difficult for us, we should take out our true capabilities.”
Sun Mo spoke frankly with assurance.
“Our role is to educate others. If we have no confidence in ourselves, why are we still teaching students? We might as well go back to our hometown and become farmers!”
After Sun Mo finished speaking, he was a little disappointed when he realized that Priceless Advice wasn’t activated.
As expected, Priceless Advice wouldn’t activate if his words weren’t sincere.
These two sentences by Sun Mo were purely spoken for the sake of boosting his fame.
“Ziqi, ink and brush!”
Sun Mo instructed.
Li Ziqi and Jiang Leng immediately acted. They went to a shop at the side and borrowed a table. After that, they placed the brush, ink, and paper there.
“You guys can take a look. This portion of the rune is a dew rune. And this portion is a spirit gathering rune!”
Sun Mo circled out three parts of the rune on the stone tablet and started to describe them.
Five minutes later, a dew rune was drawn out by him.
Boom!
The spirit qi in the surroundings instantly surged as they began to gather over, forming a spirit qi tornado.
Wow!
The surrounding people exclaimed in shock.
This spirit rune was drawn quickly and was of high quality. Even those who were not experts could tell that Sun Mo absolutely had extremely high attainment in the study of spirit runes.
As for the second rune, it took him slightly longer to draw.
After all, it wasn’t among the spirit runes Sun Mo had grasped. However, for spirit gathering runes, no matter the variations and superficial changes, there wouldn’t be any change to the core structure.
It was like if one saw the first part of a formula, the remaining second part would be the same.
Even if there were changes, given Sun Mo’s current standard, he would be able to self-create a spirit gathering rune to ‘mend’ it.
Hence, the spirit gathering rune was completed 15 minutes later.
There were no accidents. A spirit qi tornado manifested again.
This time around, Lu Jian’s countenance became extremely ugly to behold.
“Teacher Lu, what do you have to say about this?”
Kang Yan’s expression turned solemn.
Sun Mo had used two portions of the spirit rune on the stone tablet to draw out two complete spirit runes. This was already an iron-clad proof.
“Or maybe this is a new spirit rune? One that is formed from the combination of various spirit runes?”
Lu Jian was reluctant to admit his mistake.
One couldn’t help but admit that this explanation was quite possible.
“Teacher Lu, you said that this stone tablet was something dug out from darkness ruins. In that case, this must be an antique, right?”
Sun Mo asked.
“Correct!”
Lu Jian’s reply was powerful and resonating.
Sun Mo glanced at the insignia on Lu Jian’s chest. There were three stars above it. “As expected of a 3-star great teacher. You are so cautious and meticulous even when you want to counterfeit something.
“This stone tablet should be something you brought back from darkness ruins. The ink marks on it should have also been discovered then. They are both antiques.
“After you finished drawing this spirit rune, you even went to find an archaeologist to forge a counterfeit of the item. But do you know something? The part where the ink and stone tablet meets can be used to determine the actual age according to the degree of ‘corrosion’.
“Naturally, an identification technique like this is very high level. Only great teachers who are both proficient in archaeology and spirit runes will be able to grasp this.”
“Then what nonsense are you talking about?!”
Among the crowd, mocking voices rang out once again.
An archaeologist was an extremely neglected profession. After all, the living environment in the Darkness Continent was too vile. One also had to excavate ruins every day, spending their time out in the wind and sleeping in the open while having no guarantee of digging out any valuable items. This profession was too arduous and tiring. Hence, there would naturally not be many great teachers interested to do it.
“Sorry, I myself am a grandmaster-level archaeologist!”
Sun Mo expressed for everyone to calm down first.
“Teacher Sun, you are not being honest now. You are someone that might benefit from this. Hence, your testimony can’t be trusted.”
Yang Yuwang interjected. His relationship with Lu Jian wasn’t bad, and he naturally would help him to speak out at this moment.
No one here cared about Yang Yuwang’s words. Instead, their gazes were filled with astonishment when they looked at Sun Mo.
(You are still a grandmaster archaeologist?)
(Why don’t you just go to the heavens?)
Who didn’t know that for the archaeology profession, one had to garner experience slowly through time? The more they saw and the more antiques they excavated, the more experience they would accumulate.
Hence, when a young person said that they were an archaeologist, that would basically be a lie.
“Everyone, please don’t be anxious. I haven’t made my explanation!”
Sun Mo smiled and took the stone tablet up and shook it. “This is a stone tablet formed from burning pinewood soil. It has a special characteristic. The ink used to draw on it would completely permeate the stone tablet as time passed. In fact, 1,000 years later, it would directly penetrate the stone tablet, and one could see the obverse side of the diagram engraved on it at the back”
“Such items created by the burning of this soil…where would they usually be used?”
“In a tomb!”
“Deeds of the tomb owner would be engraved on it, or it could be used as a funerary object to maintain some valuable information, such as cultivation arts, secret prescription, ancient records, etc.”
“This type of soil is very rare and expensive. If one wasn’t part of royalty, they wouldn’t be able to afford this. Also, these people all had unique characteristics. They naturally hoped that their funerary burial objects could remain undamaged for many years.”
Upon hearing Sun Mo’s explanations and seeing how seriously he took this, the gazes of the audience became extremely unfriendly as they looked at Lu Jian.
“If we want to know if this spirit rune is recently drawn onto it, we can simply cut the stone tablet and see how deep the ink has seeped into it.”
Sun Mo chortled.
Cold sweat immediately appeared on Lu Jian’s head.
(Damn!)
A rivulet of sweat flowed down Lu Jian’s face.
(What the hell, why is this Sun Mo also an archaeologist? Things are dire now! Think quickly! I have to think of a way to resolve this situation or my career will be finished.)
“Teacher Lu. From your expression, you must have guessed it. You probably haven’t unraveled this unknown spirit rune yet, right?”
Sun Mo was curious. “How long did you have the stone tablet for?”
Lu Jian refused to answer.
“You don’t want to speak? It’s fine.”
Sun Mo took up his spirit rune brush again. “Let me show you something good.”
Hence, Sun Mo started to dip his brush into ink and began to draw a spirit rune.
Everyone didn’t understand. What did Sun Mo want to do exactly?
Only a few great teachers were furrowing their brows in understanding.
Could it be that Sun Mo wanted to unravel this unknown spirit rune?
If he succeeded in this, it would be even more impressive.
Lu Jian’s frown became even more intense.
When he thought about this, he quickly discarded the thought of it. (If Sun Mo could unravel this spirit rune despite just looking at it for not more than half an hour, wouldn’t my seven years of contemplation and research be wasted?)
“It’s stable now.”
Gu Xiuxun relaxed.
Mei Ziyu smiled calmly. Her gaze landed on Sun Mo as she admired his graceful and heroic bearing!
Losing? There was no such thing!
There was always a type of people whose strength would surpass the imaginations of the crowd, even surpassing the era.
For example, a person like Sun Mo.
“Teacher Lu, if things are like what Teacher Sun has said, there’s still time if you admit defeat now.”
Kang Yan warned in a low voice.
Although she despised Lu Jian’s character, he was still a great teacher from her school. She couldn’t bear to watch his future being destroyed.
Lu Jian already had no words left. When he looked at the spirit rune under Sun Mo’s brush gradually taking form, he could see that there was no difference from that spirit rune he had hidden on his bookshelf. After that, his body started to tremble involuntarily.
(I…I’m finished!)
