Read Reincarnated as an Energy with a System Chapter 271 - Nilo's Request online for free - AllNovelFull
Ning spent the next 3 hours of the lecture explaining about cabbages. He told them what you could make with them and why they worked the way they did in those pills.
The alchemy students who hadn't even heard of cabbages being used in alchemy were beyond shocked to listen to Ning tell them so many uses of it.
"And when you mix a little bit of cabbage with Sun Pears, you can get the juice known as the Poor Man's Elixir that you can later use during alchemy. You can use it to make a pill called the Grasping Free Pill which can be used to elongate your limbs to your desired length," Ning said.
"That is the 40th pill you can make with the cabbages. Any questions?"
The students were pretty surprised once all of the lectures was out and it was time to leave. A lot of students raised their hands.
Ning chose one on random.
"Teacher, you explained everything gracefully, and I feel like I at least understand the gist of it," the student said. "However, How can we be sure that you are telling the truth at all? After all, I have never seen a pill made with cabbages before, or have heard of other teachers talking about it."
"Hmm… how about this?" Ning said. "I gave you 40 pills, you can choose 3 of the pills and I will give you the recipe. Why don't you try and see if it works or not?"
The student thought for a bit and nodded. "That's fair. Can I choose?" he said.
"Sure," Ning said.
The student chose 3 pills based on their effects and Ning gave him, and the rest, the recipe. Once that was done, he looked to the class and spoke.
"I hope you all learned from today's lecture," he said.
"Yes, Teacher. Cabbages truly are great; we never knew about it," one of the students that was truly happy to have chosen today's lecture spoke out loud.
"No!" Ning said. "That was not the point of today's lecture. It's not about the cabbages."
"…it's not?" the student asked.
The other students looked in confusion. How could the point of a lecture about cabbages not be about said cabbages?
"No, the point of today's lecture was to make you realize that there are many everyday alchemy ingredients that you ignore just because you see it every day," Ning said.
"Cabbage is not the only thing. Tomatoes, potatoes, long beans, apples, oranges, berries— There are so many everyday foods that you simply ignore, even when it has hundreds of uses in Alchemy."
"It's not just you guys. The other high-grade alchemists ignore it too, and it's just ignorant. There are a million things in the world that can help you make pills and you guys only focus on one that's rare.
"Try to switch it up. Use an everyday item and see how it can produce a similar type of pill. It might not have the same amount of energy, but when mixed together with other ingredients, it will certainly step up to at least be an average pill."
"Making an average pill with everyday items, you would call that a massive success, wouldn't you?" Ning smiled.
"What you learned today was just the beginning of what I can teach you. If you want to learn more, come to my class tomorrow under the name of Ning. I hope to see most of you then, goodbye."
With that, the lecture ended, and Ning walked out of the door, leaving behind nearly 3000 students who didn't know what to do or think.
"That… was a weird lecture," a student said.
"It all sounded so… real. You guys think it's real?" another student asked.
"We can try, right? He did give us 3 of the recipes after all."
"If what he's saying is true, and this is only the beginning, then… I will go to his classes."
"I'm going to the guild to try and make some."
"Me too."
Nilo stayed on his bench for a little longer as he tried to process everything he learned today. 'Pills with cabbages… if he knows that then… maybe he knows that too.'
Nilo's eyes shined as he felt like he finally found a teacher that could help him.
"Urghh! Giving lectures is so hard. I'm exhausted, and I couldn't even show it to the students," Ning said out loud.
"Haha, you'll get used to it. How many students did you get?" Ryuger asked.
"3000 or so," Ning said.
"T-Three THOUSAND? Did the cabbage trick work?" Ryuger asked.
"Trick? You mean topic?" Ning asked.
"Uhh… didn't you write cabbage to just catch their attention?" Ryuger asked.
"No, I taught them about cabbages as an alchemy ingredient," Ning said.
Ning then had to quickly explain Ryuger how it was all true and how cabbage as well as other household ingredient was perfectly usable.
"Teacher Ning! You have a student here to see you," someone shouted from near the door.
"Huh? I'll be right back," Ning said walked over to the door and saw a young man standing at the doorway.
"Can I help you?" Ning said.
"Yes, I think you are the only one who can," the young man said.
Ning got a little confused and didn't bother hiding it. Seeing the confused face, the student spoke again.
"My name is Nilo, teacher Ning. I was in your class earlier. I heard you talk about how easy it was to make pills and was hoping you could help me in making a pill," Nilo said.
"Uhh…" Ning didn't know what to say. 'Damn, I only know the theory, kid. I've never actually made pills before. I don't know how they will come out.'
Still, he couldn't say that as a teacher. "What sort of help do you want?" Ning asked.
"Teacher, I have a very rare condition that makes me sleep. If I don't sleep overnight, my body get's really lethargic the next day," Nilo said.
"That's... weird. So, you want me to make a cure for you?" Ning asked.
"No, I want you to help guide me towards the cure that I will make myself..."
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"So… let me get this straight. You want to do the work on your own, but still need my help to…"
"I want your help in directions and stuff. I want you to tell me what I'm doig wrong, when I'm doing and no other time," Nilo said.
"Hmm, that's not a very hard thing for me to do. You just want my validation on whether you are on your right path or not," Ning said. "Why not ask the other teachers? I'm sure they would help you too in this. Why did you wait until a new teacher came to ask for this?"
"I've tried all the teachers except the two grade 9 teachers. They all hear about my illness and don't even know what it is, let alone the cure, so they can't help at all," Nilo said.
"Your illness? What exactly is it again? Explain to me," Ning said.
Nilo agreed and explained exactly what was wrong with him. Ning took the doctor's approach and asked as many questions as he could.
"So… constant need for sleep, kills any qi you use to awaken your mind, can't cultivate at all during night— I see. I know what your problem is," Ning said.
"Y-You do?" Nilo's face got wide as he looked at Ning. Finally, a teacher who didn't tell him that he had no idea.
"Yes, I do. It's called the Im—"
"Stop! Stop! I don't want to know," Nilo said.
"Oh, not even the name?" Ning was surprised.
"Yes, I want to find it all on my own, from beginning to end. I just want you to keep me from going in the wrong direction, is that okay teacher?" Nilo asked.
"Uh, sure. I'm okay with that. There are like 30 different pills that can cure you, so it should be easy," Ning said.
"T-Thirty? Wow, so many. The other teachers don't even know a single one. Teacher, what grade of Alchemist are you?" Nilo asked.
"Uh, I don't have a grade. I just came to this academy on a whim," Ning said.
"Huh?" Nilo said. He started to get a little suspicious about whether to believe Ning or not. "Um, what's the highest grade pill that you have made yet?"
"Pills… uh, I haven't made a pill in ages actually. I think the one I made randomly at that time was a 3rd grade pill," Ning said.
Nilo hesitated a little. "Uhh, teacher… are you sure you know what you are talking about? Do you really know my disease?" he asked.
Ning looked at Nilo and said, "Of course I do, why would you— Oh, I see. I guess I should go check my grade at the guild today. I wonder where I am at."
"Um, I am going to the guild right now. Do you want to come with me?" Nilo asked.
"Alright," Ning said. "Teacher Ryuger, I will be going to the Alchemy guild for a little while, take care."
"Alright, have fun, teacher Ning," Ryuger replied.
Nilo took Ning down the stairs to the are with the guilds just at foot of the mountain. There were hundreds upon hundreds of people here. Since there were so many guilds, it would just be natural for this place to be crowded.
Nilo quickly took Ning to the Alchemy guild and entered.
"So… what do we do here?" Ning asked.
"Well, there are a few things you can do," Nilo said. "You can rent rooms to make pills, you can take your grade test, you can sit down in a lecture done by a high grade alchemist, you can take up tasks, etc."
"Oh, that's quite a few things you can do," Ning said.
"Yeah, it's all written there," Nilo pointed towards the board hanging at the side of the guild hall. Ning looked at it for a few moments and remembered it all.
"Alright, I should first make some pills to make sure that I know everything," Ning said. "I should go register right?"
"Yes, teacher. I will register for the library too," Nilo said.
"Okay," Ning said and got in queue to get himself a room. He and Nilo had to wait for a while due to the sheer number of people, but after a few minutes, Ning finally got his chance.
"Hello, can I have a furnace room?" Ning asked.
"Sure, do you have a guild Id?" the registrar asked.
"Uh, no. Do I need one?" Ning asked.
"No, but you will have to pay the full price on everything," the registrar said.
"Um, how do I join the guild?" Ning asked.
"You have to pay 200 spirit stones to take a test. If you pass it, we will accept you into the guild," the registrar said.
"200? Wow, that's expensive," Ning said. "I'll think about it later then, for now just I will just take the room."
"Haha, sure." The registrar simply took out a badge and handed it to Ning. "Here, this is your room. Please pay 10 spirit stones per hour you wish to spend in the furnace room."
'Damn, why is everything in central continent so expensive? Do they have more spirit stone caves or what?' Ning wondered. He quickly looked through the map in his head and realized that he was right.
'Damn, so many,' he thought. 'No wonder.'
He took out 50 spirit stones and handed it over to the registrar. "5 hours, please."
"Sure," the registrar marked it.
"By the way, what would it have cost the guild members?" Ning asked.
"Well, there are 6 different grades that the guild members would have had. The first 5 guild members would have gotten from 20% to 80% discount, with 15% increase in discount between each grade for everything in the guild. And the highest grade would get it all for free," the registrar said.
"Uh, I see. I should look into becoming a member later then. Thank you," Ning said and walked away after taking the badge. He went to the room he was given and entered.
He would finally make some pills for the first time in centuries.
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Ning locked the door behind him and walked in. Inside the room was an open fire pit with fire spewing out from inside of it.
Ning sat next to it and stopped. 'I need a cauldron now,' he thought and opened the interface. He went to the objects section and voiced in 'Alchemy Cauldron' in the text field.
Once the words showed up, he hit enter.
Immediately, a long list of cauldrons showed up for him to choose from. He looked at the filters specific to the cauldrons and started setting his requirements.
'It has to be wide. It has to be large. Hmm… good at transferring heat, yes. Uhh… fast at losing heat when not in the flame too. Sturdy and durable— it needs to survive explosions from the random mistakes I might make too. What else?' Ning tried to think of all the good ones he could and set the filters.
Finally, once he felt like the filters were perfect, he hit Enter.
A long list of cauldrons showed up, and Ning sort it by price. He clicked on the cheapest one and looked at its information.
"Hmm, everything matches my description perfectly," he thought. "Alright, buy!"
A notification appeared telling him that he had just bought the Hollow Jade Cauldron. Suddenly, a white light appeared in front of him as it quickly formed into the shape of a cauldron. When the light died down, he could finally see the cauldron in front of him.
The cauldron was a black cauldron with slight green outline to it. Except for the simple handles made up of jade, there was almost no other design.
It looked like someone stuck an expensive jade piece on a crappy old cauldron. However, Ning understood that the cauldron was made up of metal that was so extremely rare and was one of the reasons why it cost him nearly 6 Billion Energy to buy.
'Finally, I can start making pills,' he thought and put the cauldron on the fire pit. The moment the cauldron touched the fire, the heat transferred to all of the cauldron immediately.
Within seconds, the cauldron was ready for use. Ning decided to use the first pill that came to his mind. It was a True Healing pill that could heal almost any poison and venom that one might get attacked with as long as the poison or venom wasn't graded 7 or higher ranked.
The ingredients for the pills were Red Lotus' seed, Fate Toucan's Feathers, Black Apple's roots, Ceremonial Ferret's tailbone, Pale Water Lizard's Eye, Alabaster Swan's Talons, Cursing Mushroom, and 3 blades of Crimson Sun Grass.
He put in the first ingredient, Red Lotus' seed, and followed the recipe. After a while, he put in the Fate Toucan's Feathers and stirred the contents a little longer.
After some more time passed, he put in the Black Apple's roots and Ceremonial Ferret's Tail bone together and stirred it up a bit too. He followed that soon after by putting in the Pale Water lizard's eye.
Once the contents inside were more or less ready, he put in the Alabaster Swan's talons, followed by Cursing Mushroom soon after.
Finally, he put in the 3 blades of the Crimson Sun grass and started stirring it in the end. Before he knew it, the powder inside was ready and he started condensing it.
He felt like there was enough powder inside for him to make multiple pills, and he did. He gathered the powders and formed them into 5 distinct spherical shapes and smashed them together.
Once it was all done, 5 pills floated out of the cauldron.
Ning felt the aura and smell given off by the pills and smiled. The first-ever pill he had tried to make turned out to be a 7th Grade pill.
He was quite happy about it. While grades didn't affect what the pill did, it impacted the health of the pill eater and the proficiency in doing a task.
For example, a grade 1 pill would be bad compared to a grade 8 pill, but it wouldn't be so bad that the Grade 8 pill did something 8 times better than the Grade 1 pill.
In fact, with each grade, the effectiveness of the pill started to lower. After 7th grade, there was no point in increasing the pills any further.
However, there was a difference in what the lower grade pills did have that the higher grade pills generally didn't have. That was the existence of harmful byproducts in the pills.
A Grade 1 pill was a pill that could only hold 10% to 19% of the pill's energy. Meaning the rest of it was filled with products that weren't necessarily good for the eater's body.
While it wasn't necessarily bad, the by-products could stay in a person's system for ages and accumulate over time which would cause a negative impact on the person's life.
So, people were always looking forward to pills that had a very high grade, where the byproducts just weren't that many.
Ning tried to make a different pill and was just as equally successful. His pills came out looking glorious and one of them was also an 8th-grade pill.
However, that seemed to be Ning's maximum ability. He couldn't go past the 8th grade at all. He wondered if it was the result of acquiring bad ingredients during his many years around the world, or if he was just too new to get good at this immediately.
Whatever it was, he swore to himself he would improve and decided to try the different pill-making methods in his mind.
One of them, in particular, looked really fun, but similarly really hard, so he really wanted to try that. With nothing to lose, Ning prepared his batch of ingredients to try out this method.
Once everything was ready, he took all of the ingredients at once and put them inside the cauldron at once.. The moment he did that, he knew he needed to give it his all this time.
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At the end of the 5 hours of the Alchemy session, Ning felt like he learned a heck of a lot of things. He checked his storage to see the many pills floating around in the void.
Thanks to the time stop in his storage, he wouldn't have to worry about his pills losing potency at all.
"I just need to find a few ingredients and I will have the ingredients to make pills that will improve you guys as well," Ning said to his beasts who were still recuperating in his beast space.
Since they were very strong in their cultivation base now, healing them would cost a lot, so Ning had chosen to let them heal on their own for the most part. But that would take a long time, so he decided to make pills for them. Only he would now need to find ingredients to do so.
He opened the door to the room and walked out. He walked over to one of the registrars and handed him the badge for the door.
"By the way, what should I do if I want to take the grading test?" Ning asked.
"The grading test? Uhh… you will simply need to pay 50 spirit stones and take a 2 part exam. One part will be where you will answer the questions of 3 grade 1 alchemists, and another part where you will make at least a grade 1 pill," the guy at the register said.
"Can I skip grades?" Ning asked expectantly. He really didn't want to go through the exams one after another. That would just end up being a lot of money down the drain for nothing.
"Umm… You can't skip the grades. Well, you can skip the grades, but you will need one of the 2 Highest grade alchemists to vouch for you," the registrar said.
"I see, so I guess I will have to do it all on my own then. Can you please register me for a grading test then?" Ning asked.
"Uh, sure. What day would you like to take the test at?" the registrar asked.
Ning thought for a second and asked, "is it possible today?"
"It's already 4 pm, so the next available one is at 6 pm. If you are willing to wait, I can register you," the registrar said.
"Yes, please do that," Ning said.
The registrar quickly registered him for the evening's grading test. "You will be called in an hour," he said.
"Thank you," Ning said and went over to seat in an empty chair in the guild. He looked towards the wall while he had some free time and read through it.
"Oh, the prices are all mentioned here," Ning thought and read it all. The more he read, the more he realized just how bad his understanding of spirit stones as a currency in the central continent was.
He continued reading and saw just how beneficial it was to become a member of the guilt. As long as you were registered in the guild, you could get a lot of discounts.
The one that shocked Ning the most was the system of the quests. Sometimes, people would come across a problem in their alchemy that they could not solve or needed a pill they couldn't make themselves.
During that moments, those people would come to the guild and hand over a request for the answers. It would usually be along with a sum of spirit stones, and as long as a person took up the quest and did it, they would successfully get half of the reward.
The other half was taken by the guild. However, if the person who solved it was a member of the guild, depending on their rank in the guild, they would get a discount. Meaning, the guild would take less from their end and the person would get more.
'Just what sort of quests are there?' Ning wondered and walked up to the board to check. There were many questions being asked as well as asking people to make pills.
'Huh? These are pretty easy,' Ning thought. 'How do I get these?' he wondered. He tried to search for a way to answer these questions, but he didn't find anything.
'Do I directly write here?' he thought, but quickly removed that thought as that could be considered vandalism. After all, there weren't other people with answers written on the board.
"Excuse me," Ning said as he walked towards the person at the register again. "How do I use those quests? I know the answer to some of them and wanted to solve it," Ning said.
"Are you a guild member?" the man asked him again. There were hundreds of thousands of people coming in and out of the guild, so it was obvious that the man at the register wouldn't remember about his situation.
"Uh, no," Ning said.
"Then please bring a single quest from the pile," the man at the register said. Ning walked over to the board and looked through the list of the quests.
"Hm… these are all equally easy, but the ones where I have to make a pill or give them an ingredient is time-consuming," Ning thought.
"So… I have to choose… this," he picked up a quest and walked over to the registrar.
"For this one please," he said.
The registrar looked at the questions and asked, "What's the answer?"
"The reason that your Ebon Brass Rabbit's legs do not work in the Violent Concealment pill is that the Rabbit's legs have energy in it that is quite tame in nature. You will need to put it in a salt-water solution overnight, and the energy inside the legs is very chaotic and will show violent tendencies, just like the name of the pill suggests," Ning said.
"I see," the registrar said. "Is that all?"
"Yes," Ning answered.
"Very well. I will take the answer and hand it over to the client in the morning tomorrow. Please come back anytime you want to check if the client has accepted or rejected the answer," the registrar said.
"Until tomorrow?" Ning was a little surprised. "What about other quests?"
"A non-member can only do 1 of the quests at the same time," the registrar said.
"Sigh, I guess being a member is quite important to me now."
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As Ning waited for 6 pm to arrive, a few more newer alchemists came and sat next to him in the waiting area, as they were also going to take part in the upcoming grading test.
Ning felt a little embarrassed when he saw that the people taking grading test were actually mostly little kinds who weren't even 15.
The kids would turn to look at him curiously, wondering if he was there to take a test as well.
Finally, it was 6 pm, and the people taking the tests started getting called in. Ning walked in to see a small room with a bunch of open furnaces on the ground.
Soon, a lady walked in and handed a pouch of ingredients as well as a recipe. They all had to now make a pill that was at least 10% or Grade 1 in quality.
Ning quickly opened up the bag to see the ingredients and found out that they were all simple ingredients that everyone would know about.
He quickly took out his weird looking cauldron and started making his pills. The recipe was quite simple and he wasted no time with the pills.
Within a a few minutes of starting the pill, he was done with it and handed the pill to the lady. The lady had a weird apparatus to test the pill's grade.
She quickly checked it and found out that his half-assed attempts at making the pills had resulted in grade 5 pills.
Soon, everyone was done with making their pills and it was time for the practical test.
This time, the people would go into the test room one by one and answer the questions of 3 grade 1 examiners. It was finally Ning's turn to enter.
When he went in, the testers were a little surprised but quickly started asking questions. The questions were so easy that Ning could answer it even if he didn't have any knowledge from the system.
He freely answered the questions and walked out proud. Without question, he had passed the 1st grade, and was now officially an alchemist.
He was then handed a badge that he could wear or simply carry around to show his identity as an Alchemist. Ning looked at the badge and saw a few things written.
"So, it's like an official identity card for me, except instead of me being a citizen, it says I'm an alchemist," Ning thought. He walked over to the registrar and started to ask him some more questions.
"Now that I'm a grade 1 alchemist, can I join the guild?" Ning asked.
"Yes. You can take a test anytime starting tomorrow," the registrar said.
"Thank you." Finally Ning returned back to the academy and went straight to his sleeping quarters. He decided to go for the guild member registration a few days later once his grade was high. So, he could do nothing but wait for now.
Tomorrow morning, he got up from his bed and went back to his classes once again. He needed to choose what he had to do for his classes today, so he decided to go with normal questions and answers segment since he would have new students and he didn't want to immediately start boring lectures.
Once he set the topic for the day, he went to his class. He stayed there for a few minute, hoping he would get some students.
For the first few minutes, only 2 or 3 students came, leading him to be a little disappointed. However, right before the class was to start, the students started appearing in droves.
Ning started counting them walk in, and by the time they stopped coming in, he was happily surprised.
'600 students,' he thought with a smile. While he wanted more, realistically, he was expecting way less. So, 600 was more than enough students for him.
"Thank you all for coming to my classes. For today, I will be answering any questions you guys might have. If you do, please raise your hands," Ning said.
Almost all the students in the class raised hand. Ning smiled and said, "Alright, I will get to all of you one by one. If any of the other students end up asking the questions you were going to ask, please put your hands down."
With that, he asked the first student what his question was. The students asked questions without hesitation, and Ning answered them all without having to think for even a while at all.
The students were surprised how well versed Ning was in every topic. Each question he got, it was as if he was a teacher that specified in that portion of alchemy and knew it better than most people.
However, given how many different questions there were, that was impossible.
"What is the use of the Melon Groove Vine in the Spirit Hallucination pill, teacher Ning? I have tried to understand the content of the pill and from what I can gather, the remaining ingredients in that pill can bring forth the same effect. Yet, every single recipe I have tried to find tells me to put it in," a student asked.
"Oh, that's because the Melon Groove Vine has a special liquid inside it that contains trace amounts of Yin energy. You need that yin energy to bring out the darkness within the pill."
"Spirit Hallucination pill can also be made without the vine, but if you do that, the person will simply hallucinate something random. However, if you put in the vine, the person is guaranteed to hallucinate a nightmare, and that is the purpose of the pill," Ning explained.
The student was satisfied with the answer and sat down. Reya was on the front seat, constantly scribbling down stuff onto her notepad to remember it. Nilo was at the end of the room looking at Ning with awe at how good his teaching skills were.
Needless to say, the rest of the students were also very impressed with the class today.. So, overall, the first proper class of Ning was a total success.
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Ning walked back towards the staff room with a smile on his face. He was really happy at how successful his class had gone.
'If it goes on like this, or even drops to half, I should be able to get a Silver badge by the end of the first month,' he thought excitedly.
He entered the staff room and saw that it was generally empty. Most of the teachers did not want to spend their time in the staff room and would rather spend it down underground making pills.
While other teachers were in their class teaching their lectures. Ning didn't know what to do in the staffroom either as there was nothing here for him to look at. Still, it had become a regular thing for him to come here after the classes ended.
'I should go down to the guild again. If I remember correctly, there is a grading exam at 2 pm. I should be able to become a guild member by the end of the week,' Ning thought.
He then started wondering what he should teach tomorrow, but then remembered that it was the end of the week and there were no classes tomorrow.
'I guess I can relax for today and tomorrow,' he thought. 'Is that why the room is so empty today?'
He decided to leave for now and go register for the grade 2 test. As he was walking away, a man entered the room. Ning looked at the man and saw a dark-skinned man with thick skin and a large beard. His hair was shoulder-length long and was left freely.
Other than that, the things that caught Ning's eyes were the black robe and the silver badge. Ning closely looked at the badge and saw a small claw mark on it.
'A beastmaster, huh?' he thought.
"Hello," Ning greeted the man and stepped a little to the side to walk out. However, just as he was walking out, the man stuck his hands out to block his chest.
"Huh?" Ning was confused. He turned towards the man to see him glaring at him.
"Do you need something?" Ning asked.
"Why are you inside the staff room?" the man asked.
"Uhh… because I'm a teacher?" Ning said.
"A student dare lies to me? These grass-eating bastards must have finally gone crazy to let their students do whatever they want," the man said.
"Get off me, bastard. I'm not a student, I'm a teacher," Ning said as he brushed aside his hands and showed his ID card.
The man was surprised for a second when he saw that Ning indeed was a teacher and was about to apologize. However, the moment he saw the name on the card, he stopped.
"NING! It's you. You are the one that stole away one of my best students," the man said out loud.
"What?" Ning was confused.
"My student just came to me today saying that he will likely not join the beastmasters again and would focus on Alchemy. It's all because of you, you damn bastard," the teacher screamed and grabbed Ning's robes.
"I don't even know what student you are talking about. Get away from me," Ning shouted and pushed the man back. If the man wasn't a teacher, he would punch him in the face by now.
"Send me my student back, or I will kill you today," the man shouted.
"What student? Why would I be teaching a beastmaster in my class for god's sake? I'm an alchemy teacher, not a beastmaster teacher. Look at my damn red robes," Ning shouted.
"I know, goddammit! My student is an alchemist too, and he said that you had accepted to help him in curing his sleep disorder," the teacher shouted.
"What? Is your student, Nilo?" Ning asked confusedly.
"Yes! You finally accept it, don't you? You stole my student away," the teacher shouted.
Ning started to get pissed off. "It's just one bloody student, and he chose to learn with me. I didn't steal anyone. They are students, not properties. I entice them with knowledge and then give it to them. If you want him back, go talk with him," Ning shouted back at the teacher.
"What's so important about Nilo that you had to come all the way here to get him back from me?" Ning asked.
"He… He… You don't need to know," the teacher said making Ning even more curious. "I will remember you, teacher Ning. Don't think that you will have a smooth time now that you have made an enemy out of me," the teacher said and walked away.
Ning stood there dumbfounded. 'What the hell even happened just now?' he wondered. One moment he was happily on his way to get registered for the test, and the next thing he knew, he was in an argument with that teacher.
'What was his name again?' Ning thought and then soon realized he never gave any.
"Coward," Ning said out loud and went to the guild at the foot of the mountain. He registered himself for the 2 pm grading exam and waited as his mood finally returned back to normal from the shitty one he had been in ever since the fight.
He was once again taken to a room full of pill furnaces to make a special pill that they gave. Ning absentmindedly put the ingredients into his cauldron and started converting them into 3-4 pills.
The examiners were surprised when they saw this, but mostly presumed it was because he was a talented person taking the beginners exam.
Ning was then taken to the room where 3 Grade-2 alchemists were sitting around, asking for questions. Ning calmly answered everything and he was sent back out.
Finally, after waiting for a few minutes, the results came out. As expected, he had successfully passed the grading test and was now a Grade 2 Alchemist.
He was about to leave the guild when he remembered something and walked over to the registrar.
"Hello, is my payment from my quest ready?"
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Ning took back his earnings from the quest he had successfully done and left the registrar a new one. With his Grade 2 badge in hand, he left back to this room.
Over the course of the next few days, he slowly improved his Alchemist grade. After reaching the 5th Grade he had to stop since the higher grades were only tested once a month.
The price of it had also increased, but Ning didn't worry about that. Since he had also joined with the guild after taking a test after reaching Grade 5, his costs in the guild would now be reduced by quite a bit.
Similarly, his classes were also going quite well. As he had expected, his students had dropped by quite a few over the course of the week, however, there were still about 400-450 students on average during each class of his.
He was a little disappointed that he wouldn't get a Gold badge immediately, but he was still happy about the silver badge.
Ning had just finished his classes where he taught exclusively about a single ingredient. His class had about 435 students today, so it was better than most days.
He dismissed the class and walked out.
"Teacher Ning, wait," Nilo said and ran behind him.
"Yes, what is it?" Ning asked.
"Can you check this?" Nilo asked and handed him a talisman. Ning quickly read the talisman and made a curious face.
"Can you tell me why you decided to add the Fire Ginger's Nectar?" Ning asked.
"Uh, it has a yang component that can greatly boost my mental capacity and drive away any tiredness my body might have," Nilo said in a tone that almost made it a question.
"And how long will it drive away said tiredness?" Ning asked.
"Uh… I don't know. Is it not forever?" Nilo asked.
"No. This will work for 3 days at most. After that, the fatigue will catch up and you will have to sleep again," Ning said. "You are trying to get rid of the fatigue that has already built up when instead you should be stopping the fatigue from ever building up."
"Find something that will stop you from getting tired, instead of finding something to cure your tiredness. Get it?" Ning asked.
"Ohh, that makes so much sense. Thank you teacher Ning," Nilo said and walked away. With just that bit of help, Nilo had enough confidence to do the whole thing by himself.
Ning smiled and walked back to the staffroom. As he entered, he saw a bunch of teachers making a group as they looked at something.
Ning slowly walked forward and a teacher noticed him coming towards them. "He's here. Teacher Ning is here," someone shouted.
Ning was a little surprised. "Um… what's going on?" he asked as he looked at the faces of all the teachers who were wasting their time here instead of going to their classes.
"Um, teacher Ning, did you offend someone recently?" someone asked.
"Huh? No, I hav— Oh wait, there was this one guy from beastmaster wing that came asking me to return one of his students. I told him the student wasn't mine to give back, but he seemed pretty upset about it," he said.
"Did he have dark skin?" someone asked.
"Yeah, he had surprisingly dark skin. That complexion is quite rare in this place," Ning said.
"In just a week of entering the sect, you managed to pick a fight with teacher Gonez, teacher Ning?" someone asked.
Ning was a little confused. "Pick a fight? What do you guys mean?" he asked. The teacher who held the talisman that everyone was reading, handed Ning the talisman.
-Under the authority of my name as the head of this school, I hereby approve of the fight between Teacher Gonez and Teacher Ning. The fight will remain to non-physical combats. Please be mindful of what you say-
-Signed, The Principal-
'The principal approved of two teachers fighting and even tells them how to fight? Is he a nut job?' Ning thought.
"Um, can anyone of you please explain to me what all of this means?" Ning asked. One of the teachers came forward and started explaining it all.
Due to the nature of how the school was run, there was bound to be discontent between two or more teachers. A full-blown fight between two teachers would be detrimental to the students, so the academy had decided to hold a non-combat match between two teachers to determine the winner.
Before the fight, both of the teachers would gamble something of theirs that the other party would be fine will taking.
Most of the time, the bet objects weren't agreed upon, so the two teachers would bet until they were bet the one thing they had been looking forward to.
In Ning's case, the bet object was most likely going to be Nilo, but Ning wasn't sure how that was going to work since Nilo was not his to bet away.
He also didn't know what this teacher Gonez had with him that he would want to get.
More than anything, he wasn't sure what sort of non-combat competition would he fight in. According to the rules, it was decided by the participants, however, Ning and Gonez were both teachers from two separate professions, so Ning had a hard time realizing what competition he would even have to take part in, or would choose.
"So, I am compelled to fight? Is there no denying?" Ning asked curiously.
"No. This one costs a teacher a hefty amount of spirit stones, so it's very unlikely the academy would let you go after teacher Gonez already paid to fight you. You just have to prepare yourself, Teacher Ning," the teacher who explained everything said.
Afterward, everyone left the staffroom and went to their own classes, leaving Ning and a few other teachers to the classroom.
Ning looked at the talisman once again.. "So, I will have to fight with him in some sort of competition in 7 days, huh?" he thought.
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"Hello, I'm back for my quests. Have they been verified?" Ning asked as he walked up to one of the registrar.
"Ah, Mister Ning! Yes, both of your quests have been verified. Let me look up your stuff. You can choose two of the new quests if you want to," the registrar said.
"Thank you," Ning said and walked up to the board and looked for easy quests to do.
Thanks to his Intermediate Alchemist rank, He could now do 2 quests at once instead of just the single one. The number slowly increased until 5 as he went up the rank too.
There were 6 ranks in the Alchemy guild. They were Novice Alchemist, Beginner Alchemist, Intermediate Alchemist, Advanced Alchemist, Master Alchemist, and Grandmaster Alchemist.
The way you could rank up was by buying ingredients from the guild, selling pills and ingredients to the guild, and complete quests that were hung up on the board.
Each of these things had a certain point assigned to them, and as long as you did them, you would gain that point.
Ning had spent the last two weeks making pills and buying ingredients for his beasts. He had gotten quite good at the whole alchemy thing and was still very certain that he could get better.
After gaining a lot of points, he had managed to reach the Intermediate Alchemist rank where he could start taking two quests at once. Also, he was starting to get 50% discounts on everything, so that was quite a surprise for him.
"Hmm… I don't see that many quests that I can just answer outright to solve," Ning thought as he looked at the list.
Suddenly, from the back of his body, he saw a person quickly turn around as soon as they saw him. That brought Ning's attention towards the person, so he turned around to get a clearer look.
"Oh, hey Ender, Where are you going?" Ning asked.
The person who was trying to quietly hide away from Ning's sight was Ender. Ender awkwardly turned around and looked at Ning.
"Uhh, hello, Teacher Ning," he said.
"Hey, you don't have to call me teacher. Haha. What's up? How's your study going?" Ning asked.
"Umm, it's fine. I'm doing quite good," Ender said with an awkward smile.
"Oh, good. By the way, how come I didn't see you in my class even once? I thought you would be the first one to join me," Ning asked.
"That's…" Ender really tried to not answer anything, but couldn't in the end and gave up. "Sigh, it's because my sister told me not to," Ender said.
"Your… sister told you not to come to my class?" Ning asked. "Why?"
"She… She says that you are a fraud and a liar," Ender said.
"I… am not a liar though. I don't remember lying about anything exactly," Ning said as he thought back to their conversations.
"What about you not knowing about Alchemy?" Ender asked.
"Oh that was just me not knowing how good my knowledge was. Only now do I know it's quite good," Ning said.
Ender was also quite sure that Ning wasn't lying at all, but his sister was never wrong about someone, so he would rather believe his sister than his own guts.
"Sigh, alright. You do what you feel like doing. I won't blame you for not showing up," Ning said. "Why are you here by the way?"
"Oh, to make some pills," Ender said.
"Alright, have fun," Ning said his goodbyes and went back to the board to choose his two quests. He quickly found two that he could answer right here and brought them to the registrar.
He first got 250 spirit stones for his 2 quests, and then answered the questions on the two new quests. Once that was done, he left.
He looked around at the many guilds and wondered if he should become part in them too, but those could wait until he learned about them.
After all, he was just two days away from getting his silver badge. 'A month goes away so quickly, huh?' he thought and walked up the stairs. Starting from the day after tomorrow, he could fly up and down the mountain like the many different teachers.
'Still, getting 500 students is quite hard. Not even another lecture helped, and the students keep dropping. What should I do?' Ning wondered.
He had gotten a burst of 700 new students after his 2nd lecture, which was on Grim leaves that one could find just about anywhere. The students stayed behind for a day or two, but it quickly dropped to 300 again.
'I should be just a few students away from reaching 500, right?' he thought. 'Just what am I doing wrong? Is my teaching method not very good?'
Many doubts appeared in Ning's mind, but they were soon gone when he realized what tomorrow was.
'Sigh, that barbarian still isn't stopping his fight. What does he want me to do? Why is Nilo so important to him?' Ning wondered. He had tried asking Nilo himself, but never got a straight answer.
He would either make up stuff like 'the teacher really likes me', or 'I'm just that good with beasts I guess', never giving an answer that Ning was okay with.
"Fine, whatever. I will just beat that damn barbarian at whatever game he wants to play with me and be done with it," Ning thought angrily and walked back to his room.
He spend the entire night preparing for the fight tomorrow in any way he could. It took him some time since the system wasn't there to aid him automatically, and he had to do everything by himself.
Finally, once he thought he was ready, he started cultivating.
Early in the morning, he woke up and went to his class. Today, he had less than 300 students in his class. He really was doing something wrong.
He quickly finished the class and walked out.. However, instead of going to the staffroom, he went to the back of the academy and down the mountain where the duel between the two of them was going to take place.
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Ning could hear the students excitedly speak about the upcoming match. They talked in delight about watching the two teachers compete against each other, not knowing that one of the competitors was right beside them.
He sighed as he looked in front of him.
Right below the mountain was an open ground, followed by a massive building that housed all of the students in the academy. Right next to them were other buildings that belonged to the academy.
They either housed the normal staff or were a place where the beasts were kept. Beyond that was a massive forest that didn't stop until the desert on the other side.
Ning could see a rather large group of people making a crowd down below. 'Damn, do these students have nothing else to do?' he wondered.
He reached the foot of the mountain and made his way to the crowd. He walked past the crowd and entered the center of the crowd.
In the center were 2 people. One of them was the dark-skinned man that had challenged Ning to this competition. He looked ready for this match and was waiting for Ning.
The other person was a middle-aged female wearing a white robe. She too had been waiting for Ning, but for different reasons altogether.
The white-robed people were staff of the main academy. They didn't belong to any of the 5 professions and their main task was to make sure the academy ran smoothly.
For now, she was certainly going to work as the referee in this competition.
"You have finally come, grass-eater?" the dark-skinned man shouted out.
"Teacher Gonez, you know we can't let you go on with such racist remarks," the white-robed woman immediately said when she heard him call Ning a grass-eater.
"Ah, sorry, Miss Maeve. You know I'm just too used to it," Gonez said.
"I shall allow this one time. If I hear you say that again, you will be fined," the lady said.
Ning walked up to them and waited for them to continue. "Teacher Ning, my name is Maeve, and I will be holding your duel with Teacher Gonez, is that okay with you?" she asked.
"Yes, miss Maeve," Ning said.
"Great. Let's start with the thing you two will be betting on this duel," Maeve asked.
"What do you want from me?" Ning asked.
"I want my student back," Gonez said before a single moment could pass.
"Sigh, you hear this, Miss Maeve? I've told him that the student came to me out of his own volition, and still, this guy asks me to hand back the student. What am I supposed to do?" Ning said.
"Hmm, that certainly is troubling. If you don't own something, you can't really bet it," Maeve said. "Do you have anything else you want from teacher Ning? This student you ask for is not something he can bet."
Gonez tried to argue that Ning had indeed stolen his student away, but couldn't prove it at all since it wasn't true. "If he can't do that, then I want him to stop talking with that student," Gonez said.
Ning frowned. "That student came to me because he needed help. Are you saying you want to deprive a student of opportunity just because you don't want him to learn Alchemy?" Ning asked.
Maeve's eyes turned cold when she heard this and looked towards Gonez, waiting for his answers.
Gonez could feel the freezing cold coming from Maeve's eyes, so he had to choose his next few words carefully. "No, I won't deny the student of any opportunity," he said.
"But you are stopping him from entering my class?" Ning asked.
"Yes, just your class. If I win, I want you to stop interacting with this student altogether," Gonez said. "If he ever needs help, there are dozens of other teachers he can get help from. I just don't want that person to be you."
Ning was a little stupefied because of how far Gonez was going just to get Nilo back. 'Just what is his background to make a teacher this stupid?' Ning wondered.
Maeve thought about what Gonez had said and nodded. "Those are acceptable bets. Teacher Ning, do you accept?" she asked.
"Yes," Ning said without hesitation.
"Good, what about Teacher Gonez's bet. What do you want from him?" Maeve asked.
Ning thought for a bit to think of what he could want from the man, but nothing came to his mind. In the end, there was really just one thing he could get.
"I want the same thing as him. I want him to stop seeing the student after this if I win," Ning said.
"Those terms are acceptable," Maeve said. "Now, please choose the form of competition for the two of your to duel in."
"You are lucky we don't have physical combat, or I would have beat you near to death in the upcoming duel," Gonez said.
Ning tried to think of a non-combat competition that he could fight against Gonez right now.
Maeve looked at the two of them not speaking for a while and spoke. "Do you guys need help with the ideas?' she asked. She had refereed many such fights between two teachers, and so she knew quite a few ideas for them.
Since they were both from different professions, so it was hard to create a competition that was a middle ground for both of the people.
A beast master had an inherent advantage regarding beasts, while an Alchemist had an inherent advantage regarding plants and corpses.
Maeve needed to make sure that they both knew when the other one had a little too much knowledge on a subject when compared to them.
They were contemplating on what competition to hold when suddenly Ning decided to speak.
"I don't think it really matters what sort of non-combat competition you choose," he said. Gonez and Maeve looked at him with a little surprise in their eyes.
"What do you mean, Teacher Ning?" Maeve asked.
"What I mean is, I will let him choose whatever he wants and I will go along with it, with zero complaints.
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"You… want me to choose?" Gonez asked. He started getting a little suspicious about it all. Why would a person who didn't plan on losing, actively get a disadvantage?
"Yeah, just choose. I will take part in whatever little competition you want me to," Ning said and waited.
Gonez was still suspicious, but he decided to take up on the offer since he saw nothing but stupidity in Ning's decision.
"Very well then. Miss Maeve, I would like the competition to be regarding beasts. Whoever can give the most information about beasts wins," Gonez said.
Maeve was a little surprised that Ning let Gonez choose such a thing. Still, she asked him one more time, "Are you okay with that, Teacher Ning?"
"Yes, please proceed with it," Ning said with a smile.
Outside in the crowd, the students and teachers got a little confused.
"Isn't that an alchemy teacher? I don't see any badges on him. Is he really going to take part in such a skewed competition?" somebody asked.
"Just look at their chests. Teacher Gonez has a Silver star, while this teacher doesn't have anything. He must've been worried about losing really badly, so he decided to lose in the best way he could, in a match where the other person had the advantage," a student said.
"I think so too. That way, he won't be humiliated when he loses. Honestly, I might have done the same in that situation. That's a great idea for any future matchups," another disciple said.
"Damn it! Why is Teacher Gonez trying to take the only teacher that can help me away from me? I don't even care about beast mastery so much!" Nilo said from the side.
"Isn't it because of your heritage? He must've learned about it somehow," his friends said.
"What? I've been trying to keep it hidden. I even denied it when teacher Ning asked me," Nilo said.
"Well, it's hard when you talk to your father so much," his friends said.
Reya was also watching the competition with some worry in her mind. There were other teachers who were also looking at it, wondering why Ning was doing what he was doing.
"Look at him show off. Trying to act like he's a small fish," a voice spoke from amongst the elders.
"What do you mean, Teacher Rigot?" someone asked.
The green-robed lady shook her head and said, "nothing. I'm just talking to myself."
"Silence!" Maeve shouted, quieting the audience with a single word. "Teacher Ning and Teacher Gonez have decided to have a knowledge battle regarding beasts."
"I will now bring out 3 different beasts, one by one, and you will have to give as much information about the beast as you can one after another. Whoever stops from giving any valuable information loses," Maeve said.
She then flew to the area where the beasts were kept and brought back a small beast in a cage with her.
Ning and Gonez both looked at the beast and were a little surprised. "This is a Purple Horned Rabbit. I assume you know about it. Please start giving me one factoid about it that I wouldn't know from just looking at it."
"Who would like to go first?" Maeve asked.
"I will," Gonez said. Ning nodded towards Maeve to let her know he could go second.
"Very well. Please start, Teacher Gonez."
"Yes. The Purple Horned Rabbit's tail is actually a meter long," Gonez said. Maeve wasn't going to check it herself. Instead, she had a little book in front of her that she was reading.
"Correct. Teacher Ning," she asked.
"The horn of the rabbit can be used in alchemy to make poison," Ning said.
Maeve was a little surprised that he was going to the Alchemy route, but that was to be expected. She nodded and looked towards Gonez.
"Their claws are so strong that they can cut through steel," Gonez said.
"You can use their eyes to make pills that can improve your vision," Ning said, going for the alchemy route again.
"These rabbits can jump up to 30 meters high, due to their strong hind legs," Gonez said.
"You can make a very potent spirit wine using the rabbit's thick fat around this lower body," Ning said.
"Hey, you aren't even talking about the rabbit anymore. You can make those wines with any beast fat," Gonez complained.
Maeve thought for a bit. "That is true, Teacher Ning. Can you stick towards beast description?" she asked.
Ning just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Very well. A newly born Purple horned rabbit had furs that are strong enough to block a direct attack from a Level 3 Body cultivator."
Maeve quite turned book and saw that the information was correct. She nodded and looked at Gonez.
"Uhh… An adult Purple Horned rabbit's horn is strong enough to pierce through Low-grade defensive Spirit artifacts without using any of their cultivation bases," Gonez said.
"A female Purple Horned Rabbit can give birth to nearly 15 kits at once," Ning said.
"An adult Purple Horned Rabbit can get as big as 3 meters tall if they are let to grow in the wild," Gonez said.
"A Purple Horned Rabbits teeth are strong enough to chew through the bones of a Level 18 body cultivator," Ning said.
.
.
.
They both gave facts about the purple-horned rabbit for nearly 15 minutes before slowing down considerably.
" Uhh… The rabbits can smell blood from 3 kilometers away," Gonez said barely remembering the fact in time.
"Please be faster, Teacher Gonez, or it will be counted as your loss," Maeve said.
"Purple Horned rabbits can evolve to Dual Horned Immortal rabbits," Ning said.
Maeve quickly checked the book to see if that was true or not, but couldn't find any such information. "Um, teacher Ning, that information seems to be wrong," she said.
"No it's not!" someone spoke from the crowd.
Maeve looked towards the side with a frown on her face, but it immediately turned to a smile when she saw the person.
A Golden Starred, black-robed teacher walked forth and handed Maeve a book. She quickly read the book and was surprised. The information on the book was obscure that anyone could have missed it.
"Thank you, Teacher Keng for lending me this book," she said to the newly arrived old man.
"It's nothing. I'm just trying to keep the competition fair," he said with a smile and turned towards Ning for a moment before leaving back towards the audience.
"Sorry about that, Teacher Ning. I have indeed confirmed that what you said was a fact," Maeve said. "Your turn, Teacher Gonez."
Gonez tried to think of more facts, but he had run through all of them. 'Why does an alchemist know so much about beasts?' he couldn't help but curse at Ning.
'Why is the damn old man helping him too?' he thought.
"Teacher Gonez, please hurry up," Maeve said from the side.
"Uh…" he tried to think of something, but everything he knew was already said by both him and Ning.
"Um, their blood is a little darker shade of red," Gonez said.
"Please give a better fact," Maeve asked and waited, but Gonez couldn't come up with anything.
"Time is up. The first round goes to Teacher Ning," Maeve said.. "Please wait while I bring the next beast."
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