Chapter 719: Yang Yunhan in the Spotlight
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 719: Yang Yunhan in the Spotlight
After a full night’s rest, I threw myself back into my research the following day.
Meanwhile, the events within the Academy continued to ferment.
First came the announcement regarding the restricted opening of the Expansion Realm. Many Teaching Assistants who had planned to return and reap one last harvest after the League Hunting Exam found themselves barred from ever entering the Expansion Realm again.
The Academy still promised to fulfill the terms of their existing contracts, as that information was legally binding. However, those who no longer had a relationship with the Witch Academy were disqualified from using those contracts to enter the Expansion Realm. Witches are masters of contract law; they don't include superfluous words.
The contracts were for Teaching Assistants. If you weren't a Teaching Assistant... what right did you have to touch the resources of the Expansion Realm?
One could say that the Ninglan Territory within the Expansion Realm had done an excellent job of keeping its resources localized. The final right of interpretation always rested with the witches. If the Academy wanted something done, it would be done. If you had the means to profit, that was your own skill; if you didn't, don't go crying that those things belonged to you.
Everything... belonged to the Witch Academy.
However, one notable exception was made: loose organizations like the "Xiao Han Fan Club" were permitted to enter the Expansion Realm during the break to finalize the handover of their remaining industries.
Many questioned this. Since Teaching Assistant Yang Yuehan was dead, why were her assets being allowed a final handover? Were they being collected as an inheritance?
The Witch Academy didn't bother responding to such inquiries.
I kept a close eye on the situation during this period. As for why I suddenly cared, there were three reasons. First, the fan club was intimately connected to me. Second, while I didn't have absolute dominion over this massive, loose organization, a significant portion of its assets belonged to me—assets I had entrusted to Millian to manage and grow.
And third... I was watching Millian.
I wanted to see how she would handle such a sudden crisis. Now that her backer was gone, would she run off with the funds, or would she initiate some other unexpected development?
This wasn't a loyalty test—at least, that’s not how I defined it. Whatever she chose to do would be "only human." People look out for themselves; how could the living be expected to remain shackled to the "dead"? Most ordinary people would choose the former, and one cannot force them otherwise.
But if, amidst this misunderstanding, she displayed a spark of brilliance that caught my eye, I might change my perspective of her. Ultimately, this was a threshold test.
Moreover, she had already passed the stage where she couldn't survive without me. It’s often said that once people move past the crisis of basic survival, they begin to pursue things of higher value, making choices that transcend the framework of mere profit.
It was much like how I already possessed the physical Talent of Self-Generated Mana, yet I was still willing to expand its lower limits so that more people could possess it. You could call it a thankless task, or assume I was doing it for some hidden benefit, but to others, such an action likely looked like pure stupidity.
Putting those matters aside, another piece of news was circulating among the other Transcendent Academies.
"That little witch Yang Yuehan, who died during the League Hunting Exam, has a younger brother who just participated in the National College Entrance Exam."
This news quickly caught everyone's eye, becoming inexplicably popular. However, the reports and rumors all avoided one specific detail: the brother and Yang Yuehan were not related by blood.
In truth, if no one went out of their way to mention it, who would stop to wonder if family members were blood-related?
The reason this rumor caught fire was primarily because it collided with the "traditional specialty" of the Transcendent Academies: the annual freshman recruitment wars. This was a tradition started by the Witch Academy and subsequently perfected by the other Transcendent Academies. By now, the activity had developed many unspoken "under the table" rules, such as the prohibition against poaching students prematurely.
Caught in the heat of this topic and spurred on by the deliberate guidance of certain "witches who wished to remain anonymous," many academies had fixed their sights on the youth named Yang Yunhan.
In reality, quite a few academies had very clear intelligence on the boy. For instance, they knew he didn't share a drop of blood with the little witch Yang Yuehan. The Afuhemi Academy had known this a year ago; even the elven student Yao Beijuan had publicly mentioned it during the Exchange Competition.
However, that fact wasn't considered particularly important. Among ordinary people, there is no real difference between bloodlines. Once someone steps into the Transcendent realm, the transformation they undergo creates a gap far wider than any blood relation ever could.
What they valued was the family. If that "terrible" family could "cultivate" one Yang Yuehan, it was entirely possible they could produce a second. Even if there was a gap between the two, it didn't matter.
It was merely a "gamble." They just needed the "qualification" to place the bet.
Filling out college preferences, kidnapping students, and admissions—it was all a gamble. The Luck Ritual of the entrance exam was simply a way to filter out those destined not to be geniuses. It didn't matter how many geniuses might be missed this way; compared to searching for gold in the mud, it was far more efficient to filter the mud out of the gold dust.
Thus, having been thrust into the spotlight, this boy now possessed an added value that was completely disproportionate to his actual worth.
While I kept track of this information on the side, I remained immersed in the laboratory.
The completion of the Incubation Rebirth Spellbook was faster than I had anticipated. I had handed the research over to Yi Rui and the others, primarily so they could familiarize themselves with the characteristics of this resurrection spell and then attempt to derive new spells from it.
During this time, Yi Rui and her team also began formal contact with the power of Body Cultivation. After I returned, I had spoken to Sister Bai about it. She was more than willing to open an extra private tutoring class during the break to help them get in touch with Body Cultivation.
Meanwhile, I was organizing everything related to Self-Generated Mana. I now had a general direction, especially after gaining a certain understanding of Totems.
A Totem was indeed the brick needed to knock down the threshold for non-Transcendent beings to acquire Self-Generated Mana. The problem I needed to solve had now shifted to "formulating" a Body Cultivation advancement system similar to Witchification.
I would use my own Self-Awakened Body Cultivation as the template to bridge the gap of "creating something from nothing."
I already had some ideas for this system. I planned to use the existing "framework" of a Mana Source as the foundation. I had to be clear on one point: anyone walking this path was naturally driven by the goal of "eventually becoming a witch." Therefore, this Body Cultivation system had to interface with Witchification. It was best to use that framework as the prototype.
And what was the most unavoidable element in that process? Without a doubt, it was the "Mana Source."
Thus, I planned to use the Mana Source as the core to construct a progressive "advancement system," while also limiting the number of Mana Sources involved to under ten thousand. This was because, before obtaining a Self-Generated Mana constitution, a person could only carry Mana Sources via Ley Line Shackles, which had a cap of ten thousand.
At first glance, this method seemed similar to the current process of using Mana Sources to advance to a Transcendent Witch, but from another perspective, it was a simplified process. The significance of this simplification was to allow one to possess Self-Generated Mana before advancing to a Transcendent Witch.
Doing this offered many benefits. First, the number of Mana Sources one could hold before the Transcendent advancement would no longer be limited to ten thousand. Second, with a foundation of Self-Generated Mana, the threshold for crossing into the Transcendent realm would be lower. Furthermore, once the Self-Generated Mana constitution was established, any Witch Projects related to that constitution would be much easier to research.
"This is..."
In the laboratory, Yi Rui looked at the preliminary proposal I had given her, looking somewhat confused. "You want me to use a Mana Source to... actively cultivate?"
"Correct. Reverse cultivation relying on a Mana Source," I nodded, confirming her suspicion.
As someone who had mastered the skill of condensing Mana Sources, I was very familiar with their structure. My idea was simple: use the Mana Source as the architecture for reverse cultivation. The cultivation system would use Body Cultivation as the framework, specifically a system evolved from "Witchification Body Cultivation."
Generally speaking, Self-Generated Mana should lead to the condensation of a Mana Source. I was doing the opposite: relying on a Mana Source to cultivate and lead toward Self-Generated Mana.
The concept was simple and had no entry barrier, but the "objective" required to make it work had a very high threshold. I needed to use this method to reverse-engineer the analysis of Self-Generated Mana, and I was the only one who could perform that analysis.
Broken down, the process looked like this: use the Mana Source as the cultivation medium, follow a specific Body Cultivation path to reach the level of Self-Awakened Body Cultivation, and then use that to construct Self-Generated Mana.
This was the method only "I" could achieve. Only once this path was proven could I attempt to lower the threshold of "Self-Awakened Body Cultivation" to the level of "Ordinary Body Cultivation." Then, by constantly refining the Body Cultivation path to match its effects, I could bypass the Self-awakened threshold to reach Self-Generated Mana.
That was my initial line of thought. But by building more "practically feasible methods" onto that initial thought, it became a tangible path. One should never expect to reach the goal in a single step. No matter how difficult or winding the road, only once the path is cleared do you have the right and the confidence to discover a better one.
"Cultivating by relying on a Mana Source... this really is... a first." Yi Rui took out a Mana Source from within her body and began to try my method.
In truth, the first attempt was simply to flip the path of "Witchification Body Cultivation" into an "active cultivation" mode and increase the efficiency. The effect was equivalent to using high-concentration mana to catalyze the process of physical Witchification during my earlier experiments, but this method was more "gentle" and "systematized."
Only if the first stage—the "Single Mana Source" mode—succeeded would I have the right to discuss using Mana Sources as nodes for Body Cultivation and progressively talk about "creating something from nothing."
The "method" for this cultivation came from the Totem of Self-Generated Mana. I had discovered that a Totem was also a "template" for reverse-engineering; it explained Transcendent results from a different angle. To reverse-engineer the effects of a Totem, one needed an equivalent level of understanding. Only after understanding it yourself could you use your own way—be it through runes or rituals—to express it concretely.
I was acting as a "relay station for understanding and conversion." This was also something only I, as the possessor of the Totem, could do. No one else could help me in the slightest.
"Tsk... ah... I failed..."
Yi Rui tried several times in a row, all ending in failure. Because she and the Mana Source were two different forms of existence, the Mana Source could not become a medium within her Body Cultivation system.
This conflicted with my initial hypothesis. The essence of Body Cultivation is self-growth and metamorphosis. Even Witchification is merely a form of catalyzed self-growth using the mana from a Mana Source. Therefore, a Mana Source itself cannot become a part of Body Cultivation. Furthermore, Mana Sources are designed for the constitutions of Transcendent Witches. They have zero compatibility with a Prospective Witch.
This was where the Incubation Rebirth spell came in.
While Incubation Rebirth couldn't help a person directly reach the level of Self-Awakened Body Cultivation or transform their constitution into Self-Generated Mana in one go, it could, through constant "derivation," allow one's body to incubate and evolve into a "constitution" compatible with a Mana Source.
This compatibility wasn't about accepting the Mana Source like Self-Generated Mana does, but rather allowing an ordinary person to use this method to practice the Body Cultivation system I had modified.
For now, I’ll name this system the "Mana Source Body Cultivation Method." After all, in my conception, this form of Body Cultivation used the Mana Source as the medium for practice.
As for why such a troublesome method was needed... it was because a Mana Source makes for an excellent medium for ritual nodes. The entire "Mana Source Body Cultivation" was a "composite ritual" designed to analyze the generation of the physical talent of Self-Generated Mana. It was a mode equivalent to "Pseudo-Self-Awakened Body Cultivation," specifically designed to produce only the "Self-Generated Mana" derivation.
There were now two major hurdles for us to clear.
One was the problem Yi Rui and the others had to solve: using Incubation Rebirth to successfully practice the "Mana Source Body Cultivation" mode, summarizing the cultivation methods, and ensuring they were universal enough for widespread promotion.
As for me, I needed to use my mastery of Self-Awakened Body Cultivation to analyze the ritual architecture that birthed Self-Generated Mana. Once I completed that analysis and mastered the ritual and architecture, that ritual could be synchronized into the "Mana Source Body Cultivation" mode that Yi Rui and the others were practicing.
In theory, they would then be able to follow the steps to cultivate the most primitive state of Self-Generated Mana. That is, the state I was in at the beginning, where I could only produce a single thread of mana.
Once the process of "creating something from nothing" was complete, the journey from "something to perfection" would no longer be an issue!
* * *
The sound of a phone ringing broke the silence.
"Hello? Who is this?"
"Hello, is this student Yang Yunhan? I am a mentor from the Admissions Office of the Holy Angel Academy. First of all, congratulations! You have been admitted to our Holy Angel Academy..."
"Wait! Hold on... my exam scores haven't even come out yet, right?"
"I understand your concern, but that doesn't matter. The Holy Light Church performed an evaluation on you some time ago and confirmed that you are qualified to enter our Holy Angel Academy. We are one of the Three Top Academies, possessing the most elite..."
"This... alright, alright... I see..." Yang Yunhan nodded blankly into the phone, humoring the person on the other end.
No matter how extravagant the recruiter's words were, at this moment, the only thing echoing in his ears was: The Holy Light Church values you because you are my brother, not because of how excellent you are!
The more enticing the offer, the more it proved how incredible his bro—sister was, rather than how sought-after he was as an individual.
Just as he hung up the phone, it rang again. Another unknown number.
"Hello?"
"Hello, is this student Yang Yunhan? I am the admissions mentor from Afuhemi Academy. First, congratulations on becoming a pre-admitted member of our academy..."
"Afuhemi... Academy?!"