Chapter 495: Shrek's Decline
In the southern part of the Tianhun Empire, Soto City.
This city, known as the "granary", is located in the area bordering the Xingluo Empire. At the same time, because it is close to the Star Dou Great Forest, it has strategic significance in soul master activities and commercial trade.
The new campus of Shrek Academy was built on a flat wasteland outside Soto City, several miles away from the city. This was once the border between farmland and wilderness, but now it has been simply enclosed as the starting point for the reconstruction of the academy. Compared with the vast and majestic academy in Shrek City in the past, the new campus looks shabby and cramped, no longer glorious, with only a remnant of glory struggling in the ruins.
The new campus occupies only one-tenth of the original Shrek City and is surrounded by only a rough wooden fence. It is far inferior to the once indestructible city walls that withstood several large-scale beast tides.
The buildings on the campus are sparse. The main teaching building is a three-story gray stone building with mottled exterior walls and a simple tiled roof. Even the windows have not been completely repaired. Several low-rise dormitory buildings are crowded together, with mud and plaster hastily smeared between bricks and stones, revealing a sense of haste and simplicity. The only benefit is that students no longer have to compete with 400 classmates for a public toilet every day, because the number of students in each grade of Shrek's external college is less than 400 now.
Next to the teaching area is a small training ground. The ground is not leveled, bumpy, and dusty. It is incomparable to the open and flat fighting spirit area of Shrek City. A symbolic statue of Poseidon was originally planned to be built in the center of the campus, but it was shelved due to lack of resources. Only a stone tablet with "Shrek Academy" engraved on it was erected, with the inscription personally written by Xuanzi, the current head of Poseidon Pavilion. The handwriting is sloppy and reveals a bit of loneliness.
However, in Xuanzi's opinion, the downfall is only temporary, and everything is developing in a good direction. Bai Richi has passed the difficult stage of cultivating the ultimate martial soul and reached the level of a quasi-soul saint at level 70.
The cultivation speed of the Ultimate Martial Soul was average before level 30, and slow between levels 30 and 70. But it became extremely fast after level 70. It was well worth it that he made the entire academy tighten its belt and devote all its efforts to support the hope of Shrek's rise.
On the westernmost side of this dilapidated campus, in a quiet corner, stands an exquisite two-story wooden house, built entirely from the remains of a golden tree, and containing extremely pure and gentle light energy.
As early as a thousand years ago, Shrek Academy established an iron rule: no one is allowed to cut down the golden tree. This treasure that carries the academy's ten thousand-year heritage, its value cannot be measured by money, and it is the core and soul of Shrek. However, under the full force of the beast god (not full force), the golden tree collapsed and the debris scattered everywhere.
After Bai Richi was entrusted to Shrek Academy by the God of Phoenix (that's what Xuan Zi thought), Xuan Zi summoned the best craftsmen in Soto City and personally supervised the construction of this comfortable courtyard with the remains of the golden tree.
The wooden house only occupies a few dozen square meters. It looks low-key, but it is full of craftsmanship. The outer wall is made of broken trunks of the golden tree. The surface has been carefully polished, and the golden wood grain is as smooth as water, revealing a faint golden light. The roof is woven from branches that have fallen off the golden tree and collected by Shrek Academy for thousands of years. It is layered and shaped like a phoenix spreading its wings. Each branch is reinforced by soul power, and the edges are dotted with a few dry but unfallen golden leaves, which tremble in the wind and emit a faint breath of light.
Compared with the roughness of the new campus, this small courtyard is like a treasure among the ruins. Even Xuanzi himself does not have such treatment.
It's all worth it. The Min clan is also fully supporting their young master. Although Xuanzi still refuses to let Bai Richi go home, the Min clan has been sending people to bring her various cultivation resources over the years, even including a soul ring storage device that contains a ten thousand year soul ring.
When Xuan Zi saw the dark red soul guide device that seemed to be carved from a special crystal, he thought it was a divine soul ring bestowed by the Phoenix God, and even had an argument with the soul guide department for this.
After Bai Richi speechlessly confirmed that the thing was indeed a soul guide device, Xuan Zi had the idea of asking the Soul Guide Department to develop a soul ring storage device. That way, they could solve the soul ring problems of the current students to the greatest extent possible, and even use soul rings as resources to reward outstanding students, and use this as a gimmick to attract more talented students to sign up.
Xian Lin'er and Qian Duoduo couldn't help but feel sad when they heard this. Since when did Shrek Academy use customized spirit rings to attract students? This old Deng should be responsible for at least 80%, no, 90% of the responsibility!
In order to prevent Xuanzi from doing anything weird again, and also to buy a glimmer of hope for the precarious soul guide system, Xian Lin'er decided to use the funding issue to temporarily stabilize Xuanzi.
For example, this thing is very expensive and extremely difficult to make. It is even more difficult to disassemble it and mass produce it. Unless there is a ninth-level soul engineer from the Sun-Moon Empire, it is simply a pipe dream to want to replicate the soul ring storage device.
What's the difference between this and asking Fan Yu, who can't even make a sixth-level fixed-type soul guide cannon shell, to make me a ninth-level fixed-type soul guide cannon shell?
Alas! One by one, they are all useless! Xuan Zi couldn't help but shake his head and sigh. In the past few years, Shrek Academy has also organized several soul hunting operations. Although no students and teachers have encountered the Golden Eyed Black Dragon King outside the Star Dou Great Forest, and there have been no unfortunate incidents such as teachers and students getting lost and encountering a hundred thousand year soul beast, but since the destruction of Shrek City, more and more high-level soul beasts have run to the outskirts of Star Dou. With the expansion of the Star Dou Great Forest, their territories have also moved to the periphery.
Therefore, only core disciples can obtain spirit rings with the best ratio. There are even cases where ordinary students’ third spirit ring is a hundred-year level, and their fifth spirit ring is a thousand-year level, which was almost impossible in the past.
The downgrade of spirit ring configuration also means the downgrade of spirit master strength. More and more students have to rely on external forces, such as choosing the spirit guidance department, or simply drop out and choose a better advanced spirit master academy.
The Soul Guidance Department also turned a disaster into a blessing in disguise, as it was not revoked by Xuan Zi with his power of one vote.
Everything will be fine as long as Xiaochi can successfully inherit the throne of the Phoenix God.
Xuanzi's eyes fell on the closed wooden door in the courtyard. He didn't know how the Shrek Academy team was doing now. He thought he was not arrogant enough to regain his position in this competition, but what about the next one? After Shrek Academy was reborn under the leadership of the new Phoenix God, it would no longer have to remain neutral as before.
The reason why Shrek Academy has ended up in this situation is that it has remained neutral for too long.