Early that morning, Lin Jin was called back to the association by one of the Friar Association messengers.
The disciple in charge of conveying this message looked rather anxious. Lin Jin asked him what it was about but the messenger claimed that he had no idea too. He was only here because Assistant Lecturer Wang had sent him.
“Assistant Lecturer Wang?” Lin Jin tried to recall but he didn’t know who that was.
Following this disciple back to the Friar Association, Lin Jin finally met Assistant Lecturer Wang. The latter was a slightly plump and seemingly kind-hearted friar.
Standing beside him was a keen-eared monkey.
This must be the guy’s pet beast.
In the Friar Association, those with a fourth realm blood contract or lower were exclusively disciples. To become an assistant lecturer, one had to reach the fifth realm while official mentors had to at least be at the sixth realm.
Lin Jin was aware of this much.
“Lin Jin, come come come!” At the sight of Lin Jin, Assistant Lecturer Wang quickly beckoned him over with a smile on his face. “I’m Assistant Lecturer Wang who’s in charge of the association’s open lectures. We have a tradition here where each month, we would pick a disciple to give a lecture to the disciples of our Friar Association. Although every disciple gets a chance to be selected, only disciples whose blood contracts are on the fourth realm get chosen. After a round of discussion with my fellow assistant lecturers, we’ve decided to choose you as today’s speaker. You can start preparing now. When everyone shows up later, you can take the stand.”
Lin Jin was stunned.
It hadn’t been a month since he joined the Friar Association so Lin Jin didn’t know about this tradition.
However, he didn’t think too much of it. Since Assistant Lecturer Wang said only disciples whose blood contract was on the fourth realm and above would be chosen, it seemed fairly plausible that he’d be chosen considering how he fits all the requirements.
Still, he had to clarify what needed to be clarified.
“Assistant Lecturer Wang, what should I talk about?” Lin Jin held up the man to ask.
“Don’t be nervous. You can talk about your experience in cultivation. It could be about spells or pet beasts. But spells would take precedence of course. You can mainly share your insights about learning spells,” Assistant Lecturer Wang answered casually. Then, he smiled and said, “I still have some things to take care of so I’ll be excusing myself. You can stay here and get ready for the speech. I’ll remember to notify you when it’s starting.”
Having said that, he left.
After giving it some thought, Lin Jin decided he would go through with it. However, his knowledge of spells was rather limited. He could say quite a lot about pet beasts but this was the Friar Association, not the Beast Appraisal Association. Talking about beast appraising would be fairly inappropriate.
The two spells Lin Jin was currently most familiar with were the Fire Spirit Possession and Spell Negation.
Among the two, Lin Jin knew more about Fire Spirit Possession so he could talk about that.
As Lin Jin got ready backstage, the Friar Association’s lecture hall began to fill up with students.
Many disciples of the association held lectures like this one in high regard especially when it was Yang Jie who delivered them. Hence, many female disciples came early to secure seats nearer to the podium.
Sometimes, assistant lecturers and mentors would even attend the lectures as well.
As time passed, the lecture hall became full. Since there weren’t enough seats, some people would even stand in the corridor or empty lots nearby.
Chen Cheng watched on cheekily in a corner. He was waiting for the show to start.
Meanwhile, Yang Jie was held off backstage.
This made him frown. Assistant Lecturer Wang immediately came over at the sight of this.
“Assistant Lecturer Wang, what is the meaning of this?” Yang Jie asked, looking annoyed.
He was obviously referring to him being held up. Assistant Lecturer Wang smiled instead. “Yang Jie, after some discussion, we’ve decided to pick another speaker for this month’s open lecture.”
Yang Jie’s irritation increased.
Just as Chen Cheng expected, Yang Jie did think that only he had the sole right to deliver these lecture sessions. Moreover, he had consecutively been the speaker for more than ten months in the past, so it no surprise that he would get mad to suddenly be switched out without prior notice.
However, there was no rule that all speakers had to be the same individual. Yang Jie knew this very well.
Hence, he suppressed his anger and asked, “Is it Lu Yunhe?”
To him, the only person in the entire Friar Association worthy of going against him was Lu Yunhe. Still, Yang Jie didn’t think Lu Yunhe could match up to him at all.
Assistant Lecturer Wang shook his head. “It’s not Lu Yunhe but a new disciple who achieved a fourth realm blood contract on his first assessment, Lin Jin.”
Yang Jie’s expression froze.
Lin Jin?
Of all the people, why him?
At that instant, all the news he had heard about Lin Jin came flooding into his mind.
It was difficult for Yang Jie to ignore these rumors anymore.
Although letting disciples take turns in giving lectures was more than normal, to Yang Jie, this seemed more like a challenge from Lin Jin. The man was trying to usurp his rightful position as the number one disciple.
His anger overflowed and Yang Jie found himself unable to contain it.
Without another word, Yang Jie stormed out darkly. Instead of going back, he entered the lecture hall and found himself a seat.
He wanted to hear just what could come out of Lin Jin’s mouth. If it was nonsense, Yang Jie wouldn’t let him breeze through it without facing any repercussions.
“Why is Senior Yang sitting down here?”
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“I don’t know. He’s the main speaker so why isn’t he standing at the podium!?”
“Senior Yang looks sulky. Did something happen?”
Many disciples were discussing among themselves.
Without saying a word, Yang Jie seemed dangerously moody.
At the sight of his expression, Chen Cheng grew merrier.
“Fooling Lin Jin is a given, and now, even Senior Yang has fallen for my plan. So what if his cultivation level is higher? I still have him wrapped around my finger.”
At that moment, the slightly brighter disciples began to catch on.
“The lecture is about to begin but Senior Yang is still here. That could only mean one thing. The main speaker for this lecture isn’t Senior Yang.”
“I got it. It must be Senior Lu!”
“Senior Lu? Forget it. Didn’t he give a lecture before? It was average at best. Senior Yang is much more knowledgeable and he can even answer tricky questions without a hitch.”
“The speaker this time isn’t Senior Lu either,” one of the disciples said as he pointed to Lu Yunhe who just entered the hall.
The others turned around and were stunned.
If Lu Yunhe was in the lecture hall as well, that means he wasn’t the speaker either.
At this, the disciples came to another realization. “Could it be Xue Bao’er?”
Only a handful of people among Maple City Friar Association’s disciples had reached the fourth realm of blood cultivation. If it wasn’t Yang Jie, nor Lu Yunhe, then it was most probably Xue Bao’er.
No one doubted Xue Bao’ers cultivation capabilities. According to the last disciple tournament, Xue Bao’er had only been slightly inferior to Yang Jie, ranking second among the disciples and was far stronger than Lu Yunhe. She had never given a lecture before so it made sense to let her do it now.
Still, it didn’t sound convincing.
Everyone knew about Xue Bao’er’s character and the sight of her solemnly giving a lecture on stage was something they couldn’t imagine.
More and more disciples joined into this discussion.
Of course, some of them speculated that it must be a newcomer with a fourth realm blood contract, and Lin Jin’s name was mentioned a handful of times. But comparatively speaking, Lin Jin had just entered the Friar Association and was lacking in experience so chances of him being today’s speaker were slim.
Xue Bao’er soon appeared and sat inside the hall.
With this, Xue Bao’er was also ruled out.
As the crowd had pretty much settled down in the hall, the main speaker, Lin Jin walked up to the podium.
At the sight of Lin Jin, Yang Jie’s face darkened. A mischievous smile cracked across Chen Cheng’s face while Xue Bao’er’s eyes lit up.
“It’s Brother Lin!”
The crowd of disciples looked confused. Those who had seen Lin Jin before were doing alright but those who had not looked puzzled as they didn’t recognize the man on stage.
Lin Jin was able to maintain his composure as he walked over to the center of the stage and bowed. “I will be the main speaker for today.”
One of the disciples below asked, “Are you perhaps Senior Lin Jin?”
Lin Jin nodded. “That is correct!”
Everyone now knew who he was.
The crowd immediately exploded into another round of discussion. Some looked skeptical, thinking even if Lin Jin was a prodigy, that still didn’t mean he was worthy of taking the stage; Some were discussing what Lin Jin might talk about for this session. If he ended up spouting nonsense, wouldn’t that be a waste of everyone’s time?; Some even assumed that since Lin Jin was a Rank 2 beast appraiser, his talk would definitely be related to pet beasts.
After all, that was his forte.
Just then, one of the disciples below called out, “Senior Lin, we know you’re a Rank 2 beast appraiser from the Beast Appraisal Association but this is the Friar Association. If you’re planning on talking about beast evaluations or any related skills, that won’t be necessary. Friars mainly focus on cultivating our blood contracts and learning skills. We’d rather listen to these topics.”
When this disciple was done talking, the others nodded in agreement.
The one who spoke up was one of Chen Cheng’s men. There were only two goals for this plan he so painstakingly came up with. The first was to intensify Yang Jie’s hatred for Lin Jin, and the second was to embarrass Lin Jin in public.
If the latter talked about pet beasts, no questions could put him on the spot. Hence, Chen Cheng deliberately ordered one of his henchmen to make the statement. But if Lin Jin insisted on talking about pet beasts, he had other countermeasures. Questions were allowed during the lecture process so they just had to raise some tricky questions on relevant spells and Lin Jin wouldn’t be able to answer them. And when that happens, Lin Jin would definitely be shamed publicly.
Lin Jin didn’t plan on talking about pet beasts though.
He had wanted to talk about Fire Spirit Possession earlier, but after some thought, he decided against it.
After all, some of the disciples here might not have learned the skill before. To Lin Jin, since he had to give a lecture directed to the general crowd, he had to talk about something basic but insightful. Practicality was of greater importance.
Methods to promote blood cultivation level and spirit energy were the most useful topic at the moment.
Lin Jin had learned quite a few of them from the Museum of Deadly Beasts before, for example, visualization, spirit seizing, vein strengthening, energy formation, inner alchemy, and so on…
By randomly picking one of these areas, he could go on talking about it for hours on end.
Lin Jin planned to talk about visualization.
He had been trying it out recently as well and thought it useful. Even during the ancient times of immortals, visualization was a very basic cultivation method. On the most basic level, this skill was divided into ‘outer imagery’ and ‘inner cognition’.
As visualization could raise one’s blood contract cultivation level, the museum provided a detailed explanation on the topic. If Lin Jin were to talk about it thoroughly, he wouldn’t be able to finish it up that quickly.
Hence, Lin Jin planned to talk about one of the branches, ‘outer imagery’ in today’s session.