Chapter 117 To Be Ranked First

“Host has discovered the essence of the spirit gathering rune. As for the mastery degree of this spirit rune, if it’s upgraded again and reaches the ancestor realm, you will be rewarded with 1 black iron treasure chest. Please continue to work hard and be promoted to ancestor-level soon.”

The content that the system had said scared Sun Mo.

“What did you say? Say it again!” Sun Mo pricked up his ears and listened attentively. That was right, the system had indeed mentioned ancestor level-to-be.

What did this phrase mean? It meant that Sun Mo was just another step away from becoming an ancestor-level grandmaster!

“You’re not joking with me are you?”

Sun Mo’s expression was a little unbelievable.

What was an ancestor-level grandmaster?

It was someone who had extraordinary accomplishments in a certain field and possessed the qualification to set up a sect. There were merely 2 or 3 people who were on par with this status.

“The system will never joke!”

After the system spoke, it paused for a moment before adding, “It’s named as ancestor-level grandmaster because one has reached the peak of a certain field and almost no one is able to compete with them.”

“What you mean is, no one can compete against me or my Spirit Gathering Rune Drawing Technique now?” Sun Mo laughed at himself.

“There’s still a gap between you and an ancestor-level grandmaster. However, your ranking now has been upgraded. Following this, you need to keep drawing spirit gathering rune to reach the ancestor-level realm.”

The system explained.

“Why?”

Sun Mo didn’t understand. Until now, he had only drawn ten over spirit gathering runes in total, did this already allow him to rise to an ancestor-level to-be?

“Because you’ve thoroughly understood the essence of spirit runes, your proficiency index has gotten an upgrade.”

The system was very patient and incarnated as a caring big sister again. “This is just like how students solve academic problems. They only do it blindly without trying to understand the theory. Even if they were to do 100 problems, if they met a similar problem in the future, they would still have to solve it from step 1. Only a few students would conclude conscientiously and find the law of behavior behind the problems. Once they found the method, they could solve any type of problem easily.”

“Do you mean that now I understand why 1+1 equals 2?”

After the reflection earlier, Sun Mo had indeed understood the essence behind spirit gathering runes.

In order to draw a spirit gathering rune successfully, the most important thing was to constitute a spirit qi circulation. There were 2 steps to the key of this circulation.

The first step was to have a core that gathered the spirit qi. The second step was to construct a spirit rune that possessed an amplification effect to increase the gathering ability of this spirit rune core.

Sun Mo had completely broken down the spirit gathering rune to understand the impact of every strand of spirit line. Now, he knew which strands were important and which weren’t.

The primary structure of the spirit rune core couldn’t be touched. He had to avoid the vascular system of the leaf to avoid the influx of spirit qi that would cause some disturbances.

However, the assisting structure of the spirit rune core could be touched. In fact, it could be connected with the vascular system of the leaf to build the circulation of spirit qi.

The spirit qi inside the plant was similar to spirit qi in the air and would work as long as there was supply from the surroundings.

Hence, in order to successfully draw a spirit gathering rune on a plant, the crucial point was on the primary structure of the spirit rune core. It was important to choose the right spot.

To Sun Mo who possessed the divine sight, a piece of leaf was just like a beautiful naked woman whom he had a panoramic view to. Hence, choosing the right spot wasn’t a difficult task for him.

“That’s right!”

The system sighed thoughtfully. It had never expected that Sun Mo would have such outstanding talent in the study of spirit runes.

Within such a short period, Sun Mo had managed to understand the concept of this spirit gathering rune. This was just like manufacturing a tank. Sun Mo wasn’t just purely looking at the blueprint to assemble the parts. In fact, he had reached the stage of being able to design a tank by himself. It could be said that Sun Mo was optimizing and extending the spirit gathering rune, making it more widely applicable.

Sun Mo raised his brush and dipped it in ink. He chose a piece of goodyera and started drawing

This time, his speed was much faster and he wasn’t drawing according to the original pattern of the spirit gathering rune anymore. He was drawing according to the concept he had understood.

15 minutes later, the spirit gathering rune was completed.

Boom!

The piece of goodyera jolted and a spirit qi tornado the size of an apple appeared on the leaf.

Sun Mo smiled.

This spirit qi spiral signified that this spirit gathering rune was at least a fourth or fifth grade. However, the thing that made him happy was the success of the drawing. It had proven that his understanding of the spirit gathering rune wasn’t wrong. “How invigorating!”

Sun Mo made a sound by clicking his tongue. Now he had more confidence for his lesson this afternoon. Under the excitement, he couldn’t stop drawing more spirit gathering runes.

At the start, Sun Mo still took time to specially choose the leaves. However, later on, he was too lazy to choose and picked on leaves randomly. In fact, he even intentionally chose those damaged pieces of goodyera to draw on.

The time passed by quickly.

When Sun Mo realized that it was time for his lesson, he discovered that he had already drawn more than 10 spirit gathering runes.

“It seems I was so bored it became a pain in the ass?”

Sun Mo swept off the dust on his body, packed his stuff, and went to the teaching building. “System, what’s my rank for Spirit Gathering Rune Drawing Technique now?”

“In Central Province Academy, you’re ranked first. In Jinling City, you’re ranked second. In the whole Central Province, you’re ranked seventh,” the system replied.

“So low?”

Sun Mo frowned. “In any case, I’m still an ancestor-level to-be!”

“We shall see when you can strike off the word ‘to-be’, then you’ll really become unmatched. But I’m thinking highly of you.”

The system rarely praised Sun Mo.

“How about the ranking for those under 30 years old?”

Sun Mo knew that among these people, many of them were old men who had been immersed in the study of spirit runes for ten, twenty, or even thirty years.

“The best in Central Province Academy and Jinling City. But in the whole province, you are tied with another person!”

“There’s another ancestor-level to-be?”

Sun Mo was startled.

“In this world, there isn’t a lack of talents!” the system explained.

“En!”

Sun Mo took back the slight complacency that had risen earlier. If his own proficiency index wasn’t at ‘grandmaster-grade’, he wouldn’t be able to decipher this spirit gathering rune. It could be said that he was standing on the shoulder of a giant and completed the promotion this time around!

When Sun Mo could analyze a spirit rune completely, he would then become an ancestor-level grandmaster without any controversy.

After Lu Changhe woke up from his afternoon nap, he washed his face and hurriedly went to the teaching building. This afternoon, Sun Mo was having a spirit rune lesson.

As his family owned a shop that sold spirit runes products, Lu Changhe had been influenced since young and was very fond of the study of spirit runes. Until now, it had been almost 10 years since he started.

When all newly appointed teachers started to teach a certain subject, they would start teaching from the foundation before making steady progress in the teaching plan.

However, there was a con to this practice. As students from higher grades had already understood the foundations, these teachers could only attract the new students.

But why would a new student choose to attend a new teacher’s lessons? They could just choose to attend lessons from teachers who had many years of teaching experience.

All the new teachers knew about this con, but they had no choice. If they chose to teach the higher level content, they would definitely lose students. And if their teaching effect wasn’t good and they didn’t even manage to grab hold of the senior students, then this decision would be an utter failure.

In conclusion, for new teachers to start teaching, the pressure of competition was too high. If they didn’t have solid and firm teaching skills, their lessons would be dropped by the school very quickly.

One must know that in any school, the management had set regulations for a minimum number of attendees to a class. If they weren’t able to achieve the minimum number, their lessons would be dropped.

Lu Changhe wasn’t too positive about Sun Mo’s prospects. He was guessing that there would be at most 20 attendees in his class.

When he arrived at 209, Lu Changhe didn’t rush to enter but extended his head to take a peep. (Tsk, how miserable, there are only 5 students in the class!)

If he hadn’t seen Sun Mo’s spirit gathering rune and heard his father exhort earnestly about the artwork, he would want to leave in that instant.

“Dad has probably recognized the wrong person.”

Lu Changhe reckoned. After he entered the classroom, he found a seat and sat down. However, when he raised his head to look at the blackboard, he was stunned.

“Teacher Sun Mo’s spirit rune class has been changed to 201, please help to pass the message!” There was a slight hint of fierce aura within that graceful handwriting.

If it were usual days, Lu Changhe would have shouted ‘beautiful’. But now, his head was filled with question marks. (201? That’s a big classroom that can fit 100 people, has the school management made a mistake?)

As a senior student, Lu Changhe had been to many new teachers’ first classes. In all honesty, they all only had 20 to 30 attendees.

Let alone a 100 pax classroom, even a 50 pax classroom wasn’t needed.

Lu Changhe rushed to 201, his entire mind filled with questions. He looked inside and saw that there were over 30 people. According to the standard of a new teacher, this number was quite high!

“It’s time for the lesson, stop standing outside the door!”

When he heard the sound coming from behind him, Lu Changhe hurriedly walked in.

Then, he turned his head and saw a young man walking in. This young man was wearing an azure-colored long robe. He was very young. His face had distinct features, and the faint smile that he was wearing gave off a favorable impression. “Teacher!”

Li Ziqi and the few other students who came earlier stood up and greeted in unison.

“Those who aren’t interested in the study of spirit runes, go attend other teachers’ lessons. There’s no need to stay here to accompany me!” Sun Mo waved his hand to and fro.

Hearing this, Xuanyuan Po immediately stood up and left. Tantai Yutang shrugged and left as well.

Jiang Leng hesitated for a while, then he bowed at Sun Mo before leaving.

“These 3 fellas!”

Li Ziqi clenched her teeth. Teacher was just being courteous, how could they have taken it for real!

There were obviously very little people in the classroom and they didn’t even stay to help fill the seats? It was indeed ridiculous.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

The bell for the class had rung.

Sun Mo didn’t waste any time. When the bell rang, he started to say his opening speech. “I’m Sun Mo. From today onward, I’ll be teaching the study of spirit runes.”

There were 3 reasons why the morning lesson was filled to the brim.

First, this was a new subject that everyone hadn’t heard of, so they were curious. Second, they were all interested in Sun Mo’s God Hands. Third, they were interested to see who An Xinhui’s fiance was and how he looked.

As for the study of spirit runes, this was a popular subject that was only second to study of alchemy and weaponsmithing. Hence, many teachers were teaching this subject as well.

The students had too many choices to pick from; hence, there was not much meaning in coming to attend Sun Mo’s lesson.

For these 30 over people in the classroom, almost two-thirds of them had impure objectives. They didn’t come to listen to Sun Mo’s lesson and only hope to ask Sun Mo some questions regarding cultivation after his lesson ended.

“In today’s session, we will be drawing spirit gathering runes!”

Sun Mo had already guessed these students’ intentions. Hence, he didn’t spend time to say nonsense anymore and instead took out his brush, ink, paper, and ink-stone. He started drawing spirit gathering runes.

Capabilities would eventually prove everything!