"Master, there's no need!"
"I truly broke through three levels in a year through my own hard work. There's no special cultivation technique involved."
"I'd love to have your notes, but I don't deserve them!"
In the seventh dormitory, Ye Yu sighed helplessly and reiterated his point.
"I owe everything to my own efforts to get here!"
After some probing, Ye Yu discovered that the notes that Yu Xiaogang had provided likely consisted mostly of information from the common soul beasts found in the Nuoding Academy's library. Ye Yu was speechless.
He thought, "How could the sun rise in the west today?"
This stingy and hypocritical Yu Xiaogang hadn't changed one bit!
If Yu Xiaogang had given him notes with details on rare soul beasts, such as Datura Snakes or Human-faced Demon Spiders, Ye Yu would've been impressed. But the notes were filled with typical soul beasts.
What Ye Yu really wanted were powerful, life-attribute plant-type soul beasts. He felt this would be the key to enhancing the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul, which had the greatest potential for evolution into the Blue Silver Emperor with extreme life attributes.
But since Yu Xiaogang clearly wanted to deceive him, Ye Yu had no intention of falling for it!
Unexpectedly, when Yu Xiaogang realized that Ye Yu wasn't fooled, his stiff face darkened, and he was about to say something when suddenly the sound of footsteps and laughter came from outside the dormitory.
It was the other work-study students.
Yu Xiaogang furrowed his brow and glanced over his shoulder. He then looked back at Ye Yu, his voice low and hoarse, "Ye Yu, I never thought you'd be so selfish."
"With your innate 1st-level soul power and Blue Silver Grass, your vision is too narrow. You'll never go far in the future!"
With a cold snort, Yu Xiaogang turned and left.
Soon after, Chen Hu, along with Wang Sheng and a few other work-study students, walked into the dormitory.
Since Lin Dagui had graduated, Chen Hu had become the new leader of the dorm.
"Ye Yu, what was Master doing here?" Chen Hu scratched his head, clearly confused.
Ye Yu smiled helplessly and shook his head. "What else could it be? He heard that I broke through three levels in a year last year and wanted to know if I had some special cultivation technique."
"I told him I didn't, but he still didn't believe me."
"He doesn't realize that as work-study students, aside from putting in hard work, what other cultivation techniques do we have?"
Chen Hu and Wang Sheng nodded in agreement.
After leaving the dorm, Yu Xiaogang, wearing his black academic robe and hands behind his back, walked stiffly down the shaded path at Nuoding Academy, his face expressionless. But inwardly, he was seething with anger.
"That damned kid is hopelessly ungrateful! I, the Master, am willing to give you my notes, and you refuse to listen! How outrageous!"
How could this happen?
A mere commoner—if I could use your special cultivation technique to publish a new theory on soul masters with your name attached, your ancestors would be glorified! Yet, you dare refuse me?
Yu Xiaogang's heart seethed with indignation.
Soon, an idea for revenge popped into his mind.
"Heh! Kid, you'd better not break through to the 10th level at Nuoding Academy. Otherwise, I'll make sure you never get a soul ring before you graduate!"
A glimmer of resentment flashed in Yu Xiaogang's eyes.
At Nuoding Academy, students need to submit an application to the teachers to obtain a soul ring, which ultimately requires the approval of the Academy Dean and the endorsement of three nobles.
And since he was friends with the Academy Dean, he could freely go to the Dean's office or residence.
With him around, Ye Yu's application wouldn't even make it to the Dean's hands!
Two years passed in the blink of an eye.
After two years of cultivation, Ye Yu had successfully reached level 8!
He was now in his fourth year.
In Nuoding Academy's history, only a handful of students had reached this level of achievement by their fourth year.
And with his Inner Pill method, Ye Yu found his control over soul power growing stronger.
After the incident where Yu Xiaogang had harassed him over his breakthrough last year, Ye Yu had decided to only breakthrough by one level each year during the end-of-year tests. Therefore, although Ye Yu had reached level 8, officially he was still considered a level 6 student in the Academy.
But now that he had reached level 8, Ye Yu suddenly felt that his cultivation speed had slowed down drastically.
Even with the Inner Pill method, his progress was only about one-fifth of what it was before.
Without the Inner Pill method, he estimated his cultivation speed would be about one-tenth of what it was before.
Sighing inwardly, Ye Yu thought to himself: It seems like my potential is almost exhausted.
As a transmigrator, Ye Yu understood the importance of Martial Soul quality in a soul master's cultivation speed and future achievements.
That's why he said Yu Xiaogang's statement, "There are no waste Martial Souls, only waste soul masters," was nothing but motivational nonsense. Unless a Martial Soul could evolve, its quality would determine the highest possible achievement a soul master could attain.
Yu Xiaogang was a typical example of this.
As the young master of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan, Yu Xiaogang had surely consumed plenty of rare heavenly materials. But in the end, his level was stuck at 29, with no breakthroughs for decades.
Ye Yu's Martial Soul was indeed Blue Silver Grass, with an innate soul power level below 1st level.
After attending Nuoding Academy for three years, Ye Yu had learned that no student with innate 1st-level soul power had ever reached level 10 before graduation. This was likely because the quality of their Martial Soul was too low. After reaching a certain level, their potential would be exhausted, and their cultivation speed would drop drastically.
This could only be overcome with hard, slow effort.
From the books he had read at the Academy and the information he had gathered, Ye Yu deduced that the highest level most soul masters could reach through normal cultivation was their innate soul power level multiplied by 10.
The extreme limit would be their innate soul power level multiplied by 10, plus an additional 20 to 30 levels.
If one wanted to break through this limit, it was simple—consume rare heavenly treasures like ginseng, lingzhi, snow lotus, or cordyceps. However, these items were expensive and hard to acquire.
Determined, Ye Yu made a resolution in his heart.
In the coming years, his primary goal, aside from cultivation, would be to earn money!