Chapter 318 - 38: New Research Field: Qi and Blood Witchcraft, Mo Ning’s Debut at the Arbitration Court, Mark of Corruption (3)

Chapter 318: Chapter 38: New Research Field: Qi and Blood Witchcraft, Mo Ning’s Debut at the Arbitration Court, Mark of Corruption (3)

But he was disappointed.

The newcomers merely glanced at him before looking away coldly. Few were even willing to spare him a second look.

Sitt walked to the Apprentice’s Gate, his face grim. Just as he was about to step through, an old voice suddenly echoed in his mind:

"Do you want to make them all regret it?"

Sitt’s body froze. He subconsciously asked in his mind, "Who are you?"

The mental exchange was incredibly swift. Within a single second, he received an unbelievable answer.

The old voice reminded him, "You’re currently under the academy’s surveillance. Once you become an Apprentice, the monitoring will stop. Go on, quickly."

Sitt suppressed the terror in his heart and stepped through the Apprentice’s Gate.

「Ten minutes later.」

「Apprentice Town 44.」

In a corner room of the task hall, Sitt completed his registration, receiving an Apprentice’s Magic Ring and two sets of Apprentice Grey Robes.

He immediately put on the Magic Ring. A small smile graced his lips, and he felt the resentment that had been festering in his heart ease slightly.

He thought to himself, ’I possess a powerful ancient bloodline. Sooner or later, I will crush everyone, including Mo Ning, under my heel.’

Sitt snorted in contempt. ’So what if he was the first to form a Spirit Ring? So what if he wrote a few nonsensical papers?’

’None of you have any idea. My bloodline allows my Spiritual Strength to grow all the way to 100 points.’

’Forming a Wizard’s Ring is just a matter of time for me. When that day comes, every last one of you will have to greet me respectfully as ’Lord Sitt’!’

This astonishing figure of "100 points" was a fact he had just learned from the old voice.

Sitt hadn’t quite believed it at first, but the old voice had presented several powerful pieces of evidence and easily convinced him.

Now, he was filled with hope for the future.

With his business concluded, Sitt walked briskly toward the task hall.

The moment he stepped across the room’s Boundary Line, a cacophony of voices rushed to assault his ears.

"Feels like there are half as many people in the hall as usual today."

"What’s so strange about that? They’re all either lined up at the Mysteries Hall waiting to learn the Birch Magic Breath Technique, or cooped up in their residences studying it."

"I heard so many people were trying to borrow a copy of the *In-Depth Analysis of the Magic Breathing Technique* that the library’s reserve copies weren’t nearly enough. They printed 5,000 more books and sold them for 12 Black Tower Points each. They were gone in three minutes."

"Tsk, tsk. The book is barely over a hundred pages. That’s like paying 2 Black Tower Points for a hundred sheets of scale pattern paper and a simple Rubbing Trick. What an easy way to make a fortune."

"It can’t be helped. The apprentice competition is coming up, and everyone wants to master the Magic Breath Technique as soon as possible to get a larger Magic Pool."

"Every other apprentice is learning it. If you don’t, it just means your Magic Pool will be smaller than everyone else’s."

Listening to the apprentices’ chatter, Sitt began to truly appreciate the massive impact this Magic Breath Technique, which had seemingly come out of nowhere, was having on the academy.

The newcomers were discussing it too, but they were treating it as just another piece of news.

After all, the Magic Breath Technique had a strict requirement of 1 point of Spiritual Strength, a milestone most newcomers were still a long way from reaching.

Sitt watched the dozens of apprentices sitting and chatting, and a thought flashed through his mind:

’There are countless talented people among the apprentices. Maybe this Magic Breath Technique is just some Secret Technique created by one of those geniuses.’

’Someone like Mo Ning, who gets a big head after writing a few papers, wouldn’t amount to anything in the Apprentice Town.’

He strode out of the hall and looked up at the five-hundred-meter-tall Spiritual Giant Tree in the center of the Apprentice Town. He felt as if he had finally escaped the fetid mud pit of the Newcomer Area and entered a much wider world.

Sitt knew this giant tree had a name: Barry.

The residences of Apprentice Town 44 were rows of detached wooden houses situated beneath the sun-blotting canopy of the giant tree.

The wooden houses were divided into three tiers.

The 150 houses in the Upper District were all painted blue. They stood seven meters tall and were said to have two floors, with a total area of over 150 square meters.

The 500 houses in the Middle District were all painted white. Their height dropped to just over three meters, and they had only a single floor with an interior of a little over 80 square meters.

Sitt glanced enviously at the tall, beautiful houses of the Upper District, then swept his eyes over the neat rows of the Middle District before heading straight for the Lower District.

The Lower District contained 2,500 wooden houses. Their exterior planks were bare, without any paint. They were even more squat, and their interior space was said to be less than 50 square meters.

The residence numbered 3-1025 was the one the academy had assigned to Sitt.

Every cluster of two hundred houses was called an "Apprentice Village" by the apprentices. His own residence was located in the Lower District’s sixth Apprentice Village.

Sitt followed the stone path as it wound across the grass. After passing several Apprentice Villages, he suddenly saw a group of figures in Black Robes emerging from a village up ahead.

He paused, startled, and instantly recognized them—Arbiters.

As far as he knew, the Arbiters of the Arbitration Court patrolled the various Apprentice Towns from time to time, randomly inspecting apprentices’ residences for contraband.

If any was found, the resident would face a crippling fine.

No one wanted their residence inspected, so throughout the entire academy, very few apprentices had a favorable opinion of the Arbitration Court.

Sitt never imagined that on his very first day in the Apprentice Town, he would run into an Arbiter inspection.

He subconsciously slowed his pace, curiously sizing up the black-robed "Faceless People"—the private nickname all apprentices had for the Arbiters.