Volume 1: Frost Star City Chapter 140: Expensive Cultivation
Su Dong walked into the Wudang Training Center and was immediately shocked by the spiritual energy here.
It's not because the spiritual energy here is abundant, but rather it seems to be compressed, ordinary spiritual energy is like a gentle breeze, a well-trained warrior would feel a gentle breeze when encountering spiritual fluctuations, but here, the spiritual energy is a strong fluctuation!
It's a bit like a rock concert, the huge speakers produce vibrations that can be felt in the blood, making it restless and turbulent.
"What's going on?" Su Dong was taken aback and muttered to himself.
Huang Bu Ren smiled and said, "I knew you'd be surprised. I may not understand martial arts, but I can read people's expressions. Since every single warrior is flocking to the training center, it must have something extraordinary about it."
Su Dong nodded slightly, and the total amount of spiritual energy did not change much, but it became more turbulent, as if there was a tide crashing against his body.
"Huang Bu Ren said: 'This side, this side, we came early today, maybe we can get an empty room. You don't know, the training center only has 5,000 training rooms, but there are tens of thousands of warriors learning martial arts. Wanting to find a suitable training room depends on luck.'"
Su Dong followed Huang Bu Ren to the next room, where the payment and distribution of training room keys were located. The wall had a clear price list, with 5,000 training rooms, each with different fees, ranging from one red crystal to 5,000 red crystals per hour.
To put it simply, the charges are based on the numbering, with the first training room being the cheapest and the 5,000th being the most expensive.
There were already warriors waiting in line, and when it was Su Dong's turn, the staff member didn't even raise his eyes and said: "All below number 1,000 are gone. The lowest is number 1,655."
Su Dong was taken aback. One thousand six hundred and fifty-five, that's one thousand six hundred and fifty-five red spirit crystals, equivalent to sixteen and a half white spirit crystals. He only had over a hundred white spirit crystals himself, and even if he took them all out, it would only be enough for seven hours in the training room? This price is too expensive!
Su Donggang calculated in his heart that the staff had already become somewhat impatient, coldly saying: "One thousand six hundred and fifty-five, do you want it or not? There are still many people waiting behind."
Huang Bu Ren hastily spoke on behalf of Su Dong: "Want it? Of course we want it! If you don't take this, you'll have to go to Da Tong Cang instead."
Booked a room for an hour. After paying the money, Su Dong felt a bit painful, and Huang Bu Ren said on the side: "Money is meant to be spent, you're not short of it, if it were Zuo Fang, he would definitely choose room 5000, according to him, he'd rather stay in room 5000 for an hour than spend his whole life in a big warehouse. The training room, of course, the higher the level the better."
"What does Datong Warehouse mean?" Su Dong asked.
"Oh. It means the free training room, because it's very large, so it's called the Grand Warehouse. Training there doesn't cost any money, but not many people are willing to go. Any warrior with some money will choose a private training room." Huang Bu Ren said simply.
……
Su Dong walked along the corridor and found his own 1655 cultivation room, opened the door with a key, and instantly felt a much stronger spiritual power surge than in the main hall.
Curiosity led him to walk in, and Su Dong closed the door. A strange reaction occurred, after the door was closed, the tide formed a kind of reverberation, constantly flushing Su Dong's body. Su Dong could feel that the total amount of spiritual energy here had not changed, but the intensity was unprecedentedly high.
"This is just room 1655. I really don't know what the highest 5000 would be like?" said Huan Yu with a surprised expression.
Su Dong asked in confusion: "What's the purpose of making the spiritual power fluctuations so strong?"
"Of course, it's about increasing your spiritual power purity. Spiritual power is just like the metal used in casting - the higher the purity, the stronger the attack. This is extremely important. A spirit soldier filled with impurities, how can it possibly rival a high-purity metal-cast spirit soldier?"
"Recently, your spiritual power purity has not increased but decreased. This is likely due to the strange array you used which helped you gather too much disordered spiritual energy. I remember last time you tested, your spiritual power purity was close to 70%, now it's already reduced to just over 60%."
"The Cultivation Room of the Wudang Academy won't help you increase your spiritual energy, but it can make your spiritual energy more refined. It's perfect for you, anyway, since you have an array and you've never lacked spiritual energy to begin with."
Su Dong nodded slightly, what Huan Yu said was right. As a descendant of the Qimen Sect, Su Dong couldn't possibly lack spiritual energy. Even if he fell into hell, Su Dong could still accumulate the spirits of the underworld from within it.
But having spiritual power is one thing, whether the spiritual power is pure or not is another matter.
Recently, Su Dong's spiritual power purity has been declining, to the point where his attacks release chaotic and disordered spiritual energy, tearing enemies apart alive.
Impure spiritual energy is naturally no problem against low-level warriors, but if you encounter a true master, the spiritual energy will be dispersed due to insufficient purity, unable to concentrate on attacking an enemy's point, and may turn a battle that should have ended in ten rounds into twenty or even thirty rounds.
Whether in the Northern Territory or the Divine Domain, warriors are a high-end profession that requires intensity, quantity, purity, variety, and martial skills. Only by raising all of these to the top level can one become a truly top-notch warrior.
Those war gods with divine positions, which one is not close to 100% spiritual purity, and for Su Dong, spiritual purity is exactly his weakness. The Wudang Sect's peculiar training room will be of great help to him.
"Time is limited, you'd better start cultivating now and test the actual effect." said Huan Yu.
Su Dong nodded and immediately threw down four pieces of Huāzhī Xuě, setting up a Four Gate Formation to gather the surrounding spiritual energy.
But this time, the formation didn't seem to have any effect, and even with the addition of the Dharma instrument, Stone in Jade, it still didn't work, leaving Su Dong very perplexed - had the formation lost its effectiveness?
"Take a look at the material of these walls first," said Huan Yu with a smile.
Su Dong was taken aback and hastily walked to the wall to check, only to see that this wall was actually made of Manhan steel, a typical neutral metal with the effect of blocking spiritual power, usually used on war armor.
This metal-crafted wall has completely sealed off the surrounding spiritual energy, Su Dong thought of plundering the spiritual energy from other training rooms, but it's simply impossible, the spiritual energy index was at a certain level initially and still remains at that level.
Su Dong smiled wryly and said, "It seems that the person who designed this training center had already anticipated that someone might not play by the rules and steal others' spiritual energy, so they designed the walls with Vajra Steel. This way, if you want to obtain stronger spiritual energy fluctuations, you can only pay a high price to enter a higher-numbered cultivation room."
Time flies quickly, Su Dong has not yet completed the entire Huang Quan Jue, and the indicator light turns red, indicating that Su Dong must leave here unless he intends to continue using this training room and pay the fee.
Su Dong slightly furrowed his brow and said in a deep voice: "This time has passed too quickly, it's simply like they're robbing us of our money."
……
Rumble...
Azure falls into the yellow spring, sixfold heavens!
Su Dong swung his fist and released six layers of spiritual energy, which was visible to the naked eye. The originally spherical flashes of spiritual energy began to curve, resembling a curved knife.
This is the result of a more purified spiritual power, on the surface, Su Dong's released spiritual power volume has decreased, but its intensity has increased compared to before, violence remains, and added piercing power.
Su Dong looked at his fist in surprise, saying in a low voice: "Good guy, although the spiritual power hasn't increased, I feel that one punch is much more powerful than before. Is this the reason why the spiritual power has become more refined?"
"Nothing to be surprised about, when your spiritual power is pure enough, you'll find that this punch of yours won't just knock down a warrior, but also affect the enemies behind him!"
"So warriors will go all out to improve the purity of their spiritual power, because pure spiritual power has penetrating properties. Those war gods can knock down a large area with one punch like a sugar gourd, precisely because their spiritual power is pure enough and their attack range is very large."
Su Dong was shocked, so spiritual power purity had such an effect? This was simply the legendary "隔山打牛"!
Su Dong's mood had improved as he left the room, and before he knew it, he had already spent a whole seven hours in the training room!
As soon as he walked out, Huang Bu Ren was smiling and waiting for him. Su Dong apologized, "Sorry, I didn't think I'd be stuck in the training room for so long either. You haven't been waiting for me all this time, have you?"
Huang Bu Ren smiled and said, "I knew you'd definitely get lost on the way to the Wudang Martial Arts Academy's training room. So I strolled around the school for a bit, chatted with two girls, took a nap, and then came here to wait for you. How was it? Have you spent all your money?"
Su Dong drew a number seven with his hand and sighed, "There are only seven White Spirit Crystals left. This is still the result after the training center's discount. This place is good, but it's just too expensive."
Huang Buren burst out laughing and pulled Su Dong along, saying: "It's already afternoon, you haven't had lunch yet. I'll accompany you to eat something first before we talk."
"The Wudang Academy is not supported by the Divine Realm, and we need to raise our own funds to keep the academy running. The tuition fees are not high, how can I ask others to risk their lives for me? Let me tell you, the spirit crystals used by the academy cannot be bought on the market, if you want them, you have to complete various tasks for the academy."
"It's equivalent to students learning while working for the college at the same time. The more work they do, the more income the college gets. It turns out that Shuijia is still very cunning, openly not charging money, but in fact, the work done by students here over several years is much more than the tuition fees."
"This way of doing business is great, I'll go back and tell my family about it, and learn from this model."
Huang Bu Ren is indeed from a merchant family background and is very enthusiastic about business matters.
The vast Wudang Academy, with so many professors and students, needs astronomical funds to maintain itself every day. Therefore, the Wudang Academy came up with this method: all projects are charged, and those who want to make money must work for the academy. This is called "teaching and marketing, neither neglected".
Su Dong and Huang Bu Ren had a bite to eat together, Su Dong was clearly distracted, in just a few hours, he himself became penniless, this drop made Su Dong very uncomfortable, what made him even more uncomfortable was the training center, it seemed like there was a curse that attracted Su Dong.
"It won't work, I need to think of a way to make money." Su Dong said to himself while drinking soup.