Chapter 58 Is This Melon Ripe?

"Teacher, let's put that aside for a moment." Xu Zhao changed the subject, a mysterious look on his face as he said, "In our academy, among the students under fifteen years of age, can we put together an elite team capable of executing a seven-in-one soul skill fusion technique?"

Hearing this, Zhang Xuanfeng looked somewhat perplexed. After pondering for a moment, he replied, "In the intermediate department of our academy, there are only five students who possess the innate ability known as 'Ring Fusion', and one of them is already in the sixth grade."

"If we find six other sixth-grade students and have them practice together specifically for a period of time, it is indeed possible to successfully master a seven-in-one soul skill fusion technique."

"However, why do you ask about this?"

"According to reliable insider information," Xu Zhao did not speak out loud, switching instead to spiritual communication, "next year—meaning the next semester—the upcoming Heavenly Sea Alliance Grand Competition will invite Shrek Academy to play a seven-on-seven exhibition match on the opening day of the tournament."

"Furthermore, the seven representatives sent by Shrek will all be from the under-fifteen youth division."

"Oh?" Zhang Xuanfeng understood instantly, grasping right away what Xu Zhao was driving at.

Yet, feeling somewhat doubtful about the source of this inside information, he pressed further, "Are you certain this intelligence is reliable?"

"Rest assured, it's 100 percent solid!" Xu Zhao patted his chest in guarantee.

Upon receiving this assurance, a wicked grin immediately spread across Zhang Xuanfeng's face.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk... I'd love nothing more than to see Shrek suffer a crushing defeat right now under the gaze of the entire public."

"I'm heading straight to the sixth grade right now to assemble this seven-person elite squad. I guarantee Shrek will receive a massive surprise on the opening day of the Heavenly Sea Alliance Grand Competition."

It was currently between classes.

The moment Zhang Xuanfeng finished speaking, he slipped out of the classroom like a gust of wind.

Nearby classmates, having noticed the smile that had surfaced on their head teacher's face, gathered around Xu Zhao as soon as the teacher left and asked with curiosity, "Class Monitor, what were you and the teacher talking about? Why was he smiling like that?"

"It's a secret." Catching the curiosity in their eyes, Xu Zhao feigned profoundness and replied, "You'll find out in a few months."

***

After the morning classes concluded.

The intermediate department cafeteria.

Xu Zhao sat on the second floor, eating his lunch.

Yes, he was actually sitting down to eat.

The Imperial Sun Moon Soul Engineering Academy did not subscribe to Shrek Academy's pretentious and absurd doctrines.

Standing up to eat just to instill a sense of urgency in the students?

Total nonsense!

It was nothing more than deliberate nonconformity, a gimmick used to make the titles of Shrek and the Monster Academy sound more fitting.

Such behavior had turned the cafeterias of many academies across the Federation into chaotic messes as they blindly followed the trend.

For instance, the Eastsea Academy where Tang Wulin was currently enrolled was just such a brainless follower, styling itself as the premier academy of Eastsea following Shrek's lead.

The only fortunate thing was that these Federation academies merely copied Shrek in their cafeterias and did not extend this toxic nonsense into their educational philosophies.

In Xu Zhao's view, Shrek's educational philosophy was no different from raising Gu insects.

Capitalizing on its reputation as the continent's top academy, it lured a vast number of high-quality potential "Gu insects" from across the Federation to register every three years.

After a meticulous screening process, it would pick a few of the most talented and promising specimens among the surviving insects to serve as prospective "Gu insect kings," while all the remaining insects served merely as nourishment for the mutation and evolution of these prospective kings.

However, Shrek was an academy after all; while these ordinary students might not necessarily die, given their talents, they deserved a much better future rather than having their vitality drained by these prospective Gu insect kings, ultimately fading into mediocrity.

***

"Boss."

Across the dining table, Xue Liushuang sipped her matsutake soup leisurely, her tone unhurried as she asked, "This afternoon, Long Chen is going to try using spirit alloy to forge a one-word battle armor. What do you think his success rate will be?"

She did not ask whether Long Chen would succeed.

After all, Long Chen's mecha manufacturing proficiency was inferior to hers and Xu Yucheng's. If he could succeed, the boss would have already had them start using spirit alloy to forge one-word battle armor.

"A success rate of at least fifty percent is certain, but whether he can reach seventy percent depends entirely on his actual standard."

Xu Zhao finished the last bite of his meal, glanced at Xu Yucheng beside him, as well as Xue Liushuang and Weng Daimin opposite him, and said, "A one-word battle armor made of spirit alloy requires the maker's personal participation in its creation to blend with their bloodline and truly achieve a connection where one's aura resonates with the armor."

"Daimin, your mecha manufacturing has been stuck at the third rank for quite some time now. Hurry up and catch up with everyone else."

"And the two of you, how long do you estimate it will take before you can attempt to break through to become fifth-rank mecha manufacturers?"

Hearing this, Weng Daimin gave a precise reply, "Soon, Boss."

The evolution of her martial soul had enhanced her talent across the board.

Although this still left Weng Daimin unable to match the standards of Xu Yucheng and Xue Liushuang in mecha manufacturing, she would at least not fall too far behind, barely managing to keep pace with the team.

Xu Yucheng and Xue Liushuang exchanged a glance.

"Boss, we aren't as freakish as you. You smashed through the bottleneck from rank four to rank five with such ease."

"Still, barring bad luck, we should be able to break through within a year."

Among the four auxiliary professions, regardless of which one it was, the transition from rank four to rank five represented a qualitative change.

For a blacksmith, who provided the raw materials, it was the qualitative leap from thousand-refined to spirit-refined. The same applied to the other three mecha-related auxiliary professions.

A mecha designer's blueprints had to account for the changes brought by spirit-refinement;

A mecha manufacturer's difficulty skyrocketed when they had to use spirit-refined materials for finished products;

And a mecha repairer's repair targets also shifted from the previous maximum of thousand-refined metals to spirit-refined metals.

Therefore, while a blacksmith's breakthrough from rank four to rank five was the most difficult, the remaining three were not far behind.

And although spirit alloy was still classified under rank-one thousand-refined in terms of grading, in essence, it fell within the domain of spirit-refined metal.

Take Tang Wulin in the original text, for example: he was already a fourth-rank blacksmith at age nine, yet it wasn't until he broke through to a fifth-rank blacksmith at age thirteen that he became capable of forging rank-one thousand-refined spirit alloy.

At the same time, Tang Wulin took four years to advance from a fourth-rank to a fifth-rank blacksmith.

Although his soul power rank was dragging him down to some extent, this still demonstrated just how immense the difficulty was in breaking through from rank four to rank five in an auxiliary profession.

Furthermore, among the protagonist group in the original work, Tang Wulin was the only one explicitly stated to have started learning blacksmithing at age six.

The others—Gu Yue, Xie Xie, and Xu Xiaoyan—all began learning their auxiliary professions at age nine.

By the time they reached thirteen, Gu Yue was a fourth-rank mecha designer, while the ranks for Xie Xie's mecha manufacturing and Xu Xiaoyan's mecha design were unstated, though they were most likely somewhere between the second and third ranks.

As for Xu Zhao and his team, all of them had been exposed to the foundational theoretical knowledge of auxiliary professions before the age of six. Combined with their exceptional talent and the devoted cultivation of the Imperial Sun Moon Soul Engineering Academy, reaching rank three and rank four in the other three auxiliary professions by age nine placed them in the category of normal geniuses, rather than anything earth-shattering.