Star Odyssey

Chapter 2510: Voidforce School

Mu Duo approached and said, "I think that the Lost Clan’s style of trapping their opponents for a fight would suit me best."

Luo Lao'er rolled his eyes. "Congratulations. We won’t see you here next year."

Mu Duo snorted. "I’ll definitely master it!"

Everyone quickly made their way to the stairs that led to their school of choice. Zuo Yu was the first to head towards the Cyclic Wheel School’s staircase, followed by Mu Duo, who walked down the Lost Clan School’s stairs. One by one, everyone approached their chosen stairs and descended towards their respective schools.

Luo Lao'er followed Lu Yin, and they both headed for the Voidforce School. "Brother-in-law, the power of the Voidforce Universe shouldn't be too difficult for us to pick up. Look, there are many other people heading there as well."

It was true that many people were heading for the Voidforce School. However, the most popular school was the Cyclic School, and the least popular was the Lost Clan School. Many people had the impression that the Lost Clan Universe’s method of fighting would be very difficult to learn.

Also, of the six showcases of the six different schools’ fighting styles, the Lost Clan School’s video had not been particularly impressive. There was no denying that their cards were quite mystical, but such a thing did not hold much appeal to most people. It was a style of fighting that best suited people who enjoyed scheming behind the scenes.

As he watched Mu Duo step onto the staircase that led to the Lost Clan School, Luo Lao'er gritted his teeth and said, "If that kid’s still in the academy after a year, it will mean that he’s managed to learn their battle style. If you see him again, everyone, don't let him ambush you."

That single comment caused Mu Duo to receive a number of odd looks from the people nearby.

Mu Duo's face flushed with anger. "Luo Lao'er, just you wait! I’ll kick your ass next year!"

Luo Lao'er rolled his eyes. "Let’s talk about that after you manage to stay in the academy."

From a distance, the mountain peak seemed to stand at the center of the entire universe, as the Taiyi Universe was not that large. Six staircases descended from the peak in different directions. At the bottom of each staircase was a continent, rather than planets.

Beyond each continent was nothing more than ever-changing constellations that swirled through outer space.

For some time, Lu Yin and the others walked down the stairs. None of them had any idea how far they had to go.

Suddenly, they heard someone shout, "There's someone down below!"

The crowd all looked down.

They saw a woman sitting next to the mountain beneath the transparent staircase. She was looking up at the new students with bright eyes. They were already directly above the woman.

Lu Yin also looked down. Had this woman been their escort? They had arrived at the mountain peak from outer space, and then been told that they needed to climb back to the top in order to leave the academy. Was the woman a student of the Sixverse Academy?

The woman suddenly tied a white rope to her waist, and then by using a battle technique, she threw the rope up towards Lu Yin and those with him. The rope shimmered with the aura of tri-colored monarch essence as it shot through the air.

Luo Lao'er grew puzzled. "Is she hoping that we'll catch that rope and pull her up?"

"Impossible," Lu Yin responded. He knew that someone was monitoring this area. If the woman truly wanted to leave the Sixverse Academy, she would not try to take this shortcut.

As the rope flew up to the stairs, the woman stared at Lu Yin. Her eyes grew unfocused, as though she was using a battle technique.

The moment Lu Yin’s eyes met the woman's, he felt an invisible power envelop him. It was a similar sensation to the runes that he was familiar with, as they were both powers that ordinary people could not see.

The woman's gaze sharpened, and she gritted her teeth. "Control."

Lu Yin's body trembled. He furrowed his brow and twitched a finger, instantly breaking free from the restraint that had been placed upon him.

Down below, clarity returned to the woman's eyes. She stared at Lu Yin in disbelief. How can this be? Why can’t I control him?

She had wanted to seize control of one of the people on the stairs and then manipulate them into grabbing her rope and pulling her up. That would allow her to ascend the stairs, which would complete her trial. However, what had happened? Had a new student broken free from her control? That should have been impossible. These were new students from the Transcendent Universe, no?

She had received news that people from the Transcendent Universe would be arriving at the Sixverse Academy this day. People from that universe did not cultivate, and instead only relied on their energy converters for combat. This made them the easiest people to control, which the woman had already confirmed through many rounds of experimentation.

She had calculated the timing, come up with a plan, found a location, and properly arranged everything. But in the end, she had failed to control someone from the Transcendent Universe. How was that even possible?

As Lu Yin and the others slowly descended the stairs, the rope fell in front of them and awkwardly landed on the ground.

Resentment filled the woman's eyes as she glared at Lu Yin.

"Brother-in-law, she's looking at you," Luo Lao'er said.

Lu Yin glanced back. "Let's go. Stop being ridiculous."

In the distance, someone gloated. "She failed, haha! What a cunning girl. I was wondering why she suddenly decided to challenge the trial, as she should be far from meeting the minimum strength requirements. Now I see why."

"Hmph, taking advantage of a loophole. Even if she had succeeded, she would have been disqualified."

"Why? Success is success. It’s called 'using your brain.' Do you think everyone is as brainless as you?"

"That's just being cunning."

"Say that to Zhi Bing, the old bastard. Now that I mention it, you've never beaten that old bastard, have you?"

"I will find a way to destroy that card of his!"

"I'll be waiting for that, but for now, I'm more interested in watching that girl. I hope to see her go wild with her schemes."

"Even if that girl was just trying to take advantage of a loophole, she still should have succeeded. She only failed because she wasn’t able to control that person from the Transcendent Universe."

"That's true. People from the Transcendent Universe should be easy to control, and are actually no different from an ordinary human. Given her abilities, it doesn't make sense for her to fail to control one of them. That’s quite strange."

"Look into this. There has to be a reason why she failed. We can’t allow anyone from Aeternus to sneak in. We can’t allow any accident to befall the Sixverse Academy."

…

The staircase was extremely long. After all, it spanned the length of the continent beneath it.

Initially, the group did not move quickly, but suddenly, the stairs behind them started to crumble. Luo Lao'er screamed, "Brother-in-law, run!"

Lu Yin pursed his lips. Such childish games. Following behind Luo Lao'er and the others, he ran down the stairs.

A while later, beams of light shot toward the group. They initially believed them to be some sort of test, but the beams stopped directly in front of the people and then revealed themselves to be jade slips.

A glance was enough for Lu Yin to know that these jade slips were the work of the Main Universe. Only cultivation civilizations used these things.

He grabbed the jade slip in front of him, and information soon entered his mind.

The others did the same, and soon, everyone understood the general situation of the Voidforce School.

Although it was called a "school," the Voidforce School had no instructors or anything along those lines. It was simply a place for the students to cultivate.

These jade slips did not contain much information, and they simply informed the youths on how they could learn Voidforce Universe's power from the school.

"Brother-in-law, this looks pretty simple," Luo Lao'er said.

Lu Yin replied, "It may look simple, but actually cultivating this might be a very different story. Let's hurry."

Half a day passed before they finally saw clouds above the continent. At the same time, the new arrivals also saw countless strange things.

Various items were floating in the sky above the continent: weapons, stones, and even what appeared to be an entire village.

There was a village floating in the sky.

This group of new arrivals was stunned by the sight. While they did not understand the mechanism behind what they were seeing, they did understand that the floating objects in front of them were the voidforce puppets that the jade slips had mentioned. People from the Voidforce Universe, or those who learned their methods, could control these voidforce puppets.

There were all sorts of different strange and peculiar objects floating about, though most of them were relatively normal. The only problem for most people was that there were relatively few weapons. The village was the only one of its kind to be seen.

Why would anyone want to control a village? To attack people?

Suddenly, the stairs disappeared completely, and everyone plummeted.

Fortunately, they had descended to a height where the fall was not a problem. Even without energy converters, the youths from the Transcendent Universe had physiques that were robust enough to handle such punishment.

Everyone landed safely. After a brief rest, everyone started seeking out familiar faces before leaving in groups of two or three.

After learning about the situation in the Voidforce School, each person had specific places that they intended to visit.

As for Lu Yin, there was only one place that he wanted to visit: he wanted to first perceive voidforce energy, which was the first step to cultivating the power of the Voidforce Universe. This was the same destination as most of the new arrivals.

Luo Lao'er simply followed Lu Yin wherever he went.

The school’s continent was vast, but Lu Yin was pretending to be an Enlighter, which meant that he was still able to get around fairly quickly.

Someone watched Lu Yin from the shadows. Upon seeing him display a cultivation prowess at the Enlighter level, the person instantly grew wary.

It was rare for someone as young as Lu Yin to achieve such a level of cultivation in the Transcendent Universe, and the young man was also clearly using battle techniques.

Luo Lao'er was originally from the Three Monarchs Universe, and thus he also used battle techniques.

There were two people who were clearly from cultivation civilizations, but they had arrived with the Transcendent Universe’s group. Clearly, something was not quite normal about this situation.

The first step to being able to cultivate the power of the Voidforce Universe was becoming capable of perceiving voidforce energy.

voidforce energy was an invisible power, and it was necessary to immerse oneself in the energy to learn how to perceive it.

Similar to cultivating Truesight, the first step was Awakening.

Before Lu Yin’s group of students had joined, the previous students studying in the Voidforce School had already undergone an elimination process, which meant that everyone who remained either wanted to improve their mastery of voidforce energy or had transferred over from one of the other five schools.

To graduate from the Sixverse Academy, it was necessary to reach the minimum requirements for at least four of the six different schools. This was why, after students met the requirements for a given school, they could apply to transfer over to another.

The Void Ground was a place within the Voidforce School where there were stones of varying sizes floating around. Each stone had been imbued with voidforce energy, though they did not possess any sort of offensive capability. Instead, the stones were designed to allow any who touched them to sense the voidforce energy that they contained.

All they needed to do was touch a stone.

As soon as Lu Yin and Luo Lao'er arrived in the Void Ground, they saw stones of all different sizes floating about. There were also other people already present. These people were like Shi Hong and the two young men who had accompanied her. These were students who had entered the Sixverse Academy long ago.

Upon seeing Lu Yin and Luo Lao'er arrive, someone spoke up. "They're finally here. Does this mean that we’ve actually managed to start integrating the different universes’ civilizations?"

One of the men was sitting atop a stone that was more than a meter across. He looked at Lu Yin and Luo Lao'er. "Which universe do you come from?"

Lu Yin replied, "The Transcendent Universe."

"How many of you came?"

"1,700."

"1,700 people? So many?"

"Interesting. It seems that those guys had a pretty significant impact when they returned to their universe. If the Transcendent Universe is showing such a strong reaction, then I imagine that it's going to be the same for others as well."

"Hmph, at least they have a bit of foresight. We might not have spent much time here in the Sixverse Academy, but we’ve already gained far greater power than if we had stayed in our own universe. Not only have I acquired an innate gift after undergoing a wood transformation, but I’ve also started to cultivate voidforce energy. When I go back, I'll be able to suppress all of my peers."

"Not necessarily. Those geniuses aren’t stupid either. Soon enough, they will come here themselves, and there are also many geniuses who’ve entered the academy in our class. We can’t compare to those kinds of people."

"We’ll catch up to them. It's just a matter of time. All we need to do is determine which method of cultivation suits us best."

Lu Yin looked around, seeking a stone to use for himself. Everyone that he saw was lounging on their own stone.