Academy

A few days later, William left his room early in the morning to fully explore the Academy and get his meditation technique.

The streets were definitely nicer than the capital. There was a building for everything. For example, the blacksmith building, the pet building, the potion building, and dozens of other similar buildings.

The places he was most curious about were the Mission Building, the Training Building, and the Cultivation Building, where there were large spiritual energy formations that gathered certain elements.

He couldn't enter the cultivation building right now, even if he wanted to. He knew that the moment everyone joined the academy, there would be no contribution points.

From the Mission Building, he would have to earn them slowly and spend them after completing missions.

Today, his first stop was the Techniques Building.

It was a huge four-story building with a gray color.

As he entered, he saw a few people sitting in the lobby, reading or chatting. The whole academy was already a bit quiet. In fact, it was as if this was a holy place of education and the students were righteous, faithful believers.

He immediately came to a table arranged so that only the head of the person inside was visible.

He spoke softly. "Hello, I have come for the meditation technique. I'm at the iron level, although I just joined. Can I get a technique suitable for my level?" he asked.

Behind the desk was a young girl in her twenties. She looked so cute with her long hair in two tails.

But William knew that she was definitely an Iron Level warrior. There was no weak person in this school.

The girl rolled her eyes at him. "Let's see first, give me your seal," she said.

William took out a hand-sized seal from his dimensional bag that the teacher had given him the day after he had placed them.

This seal was truly magical. It had the same function as an identity card. In addition, it also recorded the contribution points from the missions he earned. Right now, there was zero on it.

The girl took the seal and sent Qi into it. After confirming that she saw an image that matched William's face, she began to stare at a larger-looking seal in front of her.

After a while, she lifted her head. "William, you are lucky. The teachers have written that you can receive a meditation technique of the Iron Level. Then she handed him a small token. "Take this to the first floor. You have half an hour to choose, and half an hour to copy. Choose a meditation technique that suits you." She said.

William thanked her after receiving the small token and his own seal. When he reached the 1st floor, it was almost empty. Next to a desk in the entrance, a man, like a librarian, was quietly reading a book. When he saw William coming, he looked up and held out his hand.

"Give me your token." He said.

William handed over the token he had just received.

The man took it and said, "You have half an hour. Choose quickly." He said.

William had been thinking about this for a few days. He had two affinities and the metal affinity was slightly better. Moreover, he was very optimistic about his defensive power. Even though his attack techniques were cooler, he still had one life. He still had a long life that he wanted to live.

So he started walking towards the area where metal techniques were listed.

There weren't many techniques here. But there was a library full of meditation techniques from every element.

He thanked the man who had organized this place a thousand times. Otherwise, he would have to read them all and might not find anything suitable.

When he arrived at the shelf that said Metal Techniques, he was very surprised.

Although there were at least hundreds of techniques on other shelves, the metal element meditation techniques were almost half as many. The shelf was only half full.

He didn't want to waste time, so he took the first ordinary leather scroll.

The meditation technique is called "Metal Hyena Tooth". Its brief description was, "Bite hard like a hyena. It was nice for people who practiced spear techniques.

He found the name funny and dropped it with a small smile. He didn't want any meditation technique that would contribute to his attacks, so he continued to stare.

But no matter how much he looked, it was all about the attack. He only had three scrolls left.

It was true that the metal element had a clear advantage over the warriors when it came to attack techniques. But he could close the gap with normal techniques.

He took the third scroll from the end. This was going to be more interesting. The meditation technique was called Heavy Body.

This technique had three levels.

The description only said what the levels brought.

It said that it strengthened metal techniques by 10% at level 1, 20% at level 2, and 30-40% at level 3.

It was an absolutely brilliant technique. He thought that his defensive power was forty percent stronger and decided that it was a good technique. He looked at the names and descriptions of the other two and decided that only the one he had was the best for him. So he immediately took it and asked the Teacher's permission to copy it.

The teacher pointed to a table in the corner. William sat down and began to copy.

If a person wanted to move up from the Iron Level to the Bronze Level, he had to compress his spiritual energy in the form of qi. With this compression, he would gain one drop of qi at each level.

The strength of these drops could not be underestimated, as each of them was at least equal to the total qi power of a strong Iron Level warrior.

There should be a total of three drops. After combining three drops of qi, he had to combine these three drops to advance to the bronze level.

Meridians determined one's life and death, and levels determined one's strength. The reason why people got stuck at those levels was because they couldn't do things that required complex thinking, like compressing phases.

In this way, William was able to quickly complete the techniques he had already learned. Of course, for people in a modern age like this, who only care about strength and have almost no knowledge of subjects like mathematics, physics, and physiology, the comparison could not be made.

He had begun to think that he was at an advantage because of this, but he could not be sure.

It was good for him anyway. So he didn't think much about it.

He quickly copied the scroll, thanked the teacher, and left.

He was in no hurry to try meditation. He walked slowly through the academy. After a while, he found himself in front of the mission building.

The door was always busy. Some came in with big bags and left with happy faces, some came in with sad faces and left with sad faces.

Curious about what kind of mission they had, he decided to take a look inside.

It was more crowded inside than it looked from the outside. A huge billboard greeted him with papers hanging from it. There were thousands of them. He understood that these papers were missions.

He quickly approached and read a random mission.

[Mission Name: Earthworm's Blood

Mission Location: 100 km east of the Black Forest, Worm Mountains.

Mission Danger Level: Three Stars.

Mission objective: Take a barrel of earthworm blood and bring it back unclotted.

Mission Reward: 5 low-level soul stones or 50 contribution points

Recommended level: Peak Iron level.

Note: The anticoagulation potion will be given to you upon receiving the quest.]

William was very surprised. He had not thought that they could fit so much necessary information on a tiny piece of paper.

Almost everything about the mission was written down. The only thing missing was the most important part, like the strengths and weaknesses of the Earthworm. But he could understand why, because one could not expect everything from the other side. You should have read some books or learned from experience.

William considered taking the mission but decided against it. After all, he would not be able to kill a creature with a recommended peak iron level on his own. He knew his limits.

Besides, the reward for the mission was not enough to make it worth doing as a team.

He discovered that there were many unknown creatures in the missions. He thought he should go to the academy's regular library. In this academy, the only place you could enter with gold coins was the regular library.

It was also very expensive there. He had heard that it cost ten gold coins a day. Fortunately, the rich brats in the academy, including himself, were not short of money.

Meanwhile, a mission caught his attention. It was the same mission. Fearing that the other mission would not be accepted, the requirements were lowered. This time, the location was written as "the foot of the mountain, the rocks."

The quest reward was not as much as the other one, but it was still considered good. Because from the beginning, he wanted to finish it himself. He didn't think he needed a teammate for now.

He tore off the mission sheet for the 3 Soul Stones Reward, which had a two-star danger level.

He quickly went to the table where the people were lined up to register that he had taken the mission.

After a while, when it was his turn, he quickly registered the mission and left for the library. With a rough map of his destination, he wanted to know the level of the creatures he would encounter.

Although the library was extremely large, it was very quiet. An old man led the way.

He quickly took out the ten gold coins and asked.

"Is there a book about the creatures in this area?"

The old man replied wearily. "Fifty-first bookcase, fourth shelf from the bottom."

William thanked him and ran to where he had said. But the book was already taken. He went back to the same man. This time he asked for a book for items like plants and ores he could collect on his way, not for creatures.

He found the book easily. The herbs or ores he collected could also be sold to the Academy's Treasury Building for contribution points or soul stones. The fact that people left this book alone meant that all the plants in this region might already have been collected. However, he still wanted to know. If he came across a plant he didn't know, he could at least determine whether it was valuable or not.

Thousands of plants were mentioned in the book. It was obvious that it would take him a long time to read it. He read the 'Encyclopedia of Plants' until noon and a book called 'Mountains and Ores' in the afternoon. The book about ores was relatively short. It had given him a considerable amount of information about the geography of the surrounding area. This region of the Black Forest consisted of thousands of mountains, valleys, and lakes.

It was a rich region in terms of habitat, and the diversity of creatures was abundant. Strong creatures, on the other hand, were not reckless enough to come before the Academy.

In particular, the growing plants attracted his attention. Some plants were very valuable because they contained rich spiritual energy.

Of course, there were also some forbidden areas. Even a silver-level teacher might not be able to get out of those areas.

He wrote them down in his mind as areas to stay away from. Of course, there were also mountains that had an abundance of metal elements, but they were usually inhabited by powerful creatures.

An example would be the Worm Mountains he wanted to go to. The strongest worms usually lived deeper inside the mountain. And it was here that the metal and earth elements were most concentrated.

William made plans to gradually explore these mountains and tunnels. With each mission, he would get stronger, and as he got stronger, he would go deeper. The tricky part was that it wasn't easy to reach the Worm Mountains. The area was a bit chaotic. Because of the abundance and diversity of the creatures, he might encounter a very powerful creature on the way there and lose his life.

This was the reason why the academy had such a high death rate. Half of the new students who joined every year would surely die. Of course, it was all for the sake of power and money. Their families who sent them to the academy also knew this.

The academy produced very few graduates every year. But those who did graduate were certainly strong-willed.

Compared to the people who cultivate outside with their own means, the people who have developed through hard work and effort were naturally superior.

After reading the two books and putting them on the shelf, he went out to eat.

He was also happy that the meals were free. As long as it was a normal meal, one could eat enough. Of course, there were also special meals that could be ordered privately, but the price had to be paid with either soul stones or contribution points.

William already knew that he could eat the flesh of magical creatures in the Black Forest in abundance since he always wanted to go on missions. So for now, normal food was enough.