I Can See Your Combat Power
Chapter 1636 - Eighty-Two: The True Essence in One Sentence

Chapter 1636: Chapter Eighty-Two: The True Essence in One Sentence

"The Dean can rest assured; having accumulated Spiritual Power to overflowing at the peak of the Mortal Realm for over a decade, with robust internal organs, I only await a proper method to forge my soul."

A brawny middle-aged man with the number 9999 (3075) on his clothes stepped out from the formation, clasped his fists, and spoke in a loud voice: "I will go back to prepare the tuition fee right away!"

"Me too."

"Me too +99"

Watching the solemn pledges of the students before him, Tang Luo couldn’t help but feel a mix of laughter and tears.

Ignorance breeds confidence more easily than wisdom, which is why the foolish are always full of confidence, while the wise are always filled with doubts.

Take the first student who spoke, for example; ten years is three thousand six hundred days. Even the martial artist with the lowest aptitude can accumulate seven thousand points of Spiritual Power. Claiming over a decade of accumulation but only achieving just over three thousand is enough to judge how one has been cultivating.

With such an amount of Spiritual Power, recklessly breaking through would lead to no other outcome than deviation and madness, yet he carried the confidence of someone merely lacking a Soul Casting technique.

Those who echoed his feelings were mostly in the same state, with slightly higher accumulations of around ten thousand, but most hovered around five to six thousand.

No wonder the world says Soul Casting is perilous; these people are simply unprepared!

Shaking his head with a sense of helplessness, Tang Luo raised his hand in a gesture to quell the fervent speeches of the crowd.

"Soul Casting is not about taking a chance! If you fail to forge your soul for the first time due to inadequate preparation, injuring your spirit, you’ll never have the chance to mend it again!"

The chilling words made the temperature in the hall plummet. Every student felt the Dean was looking into their eyes as he spoke, and all of them averted their gaze.

"Five years, ten years, or fifteen years?"

His gaze as sharp as knives swept over the disappointing students, Tang Luo said coldly: "Do you all think that with your meager accumulation, you are ready for Soul Casting? For most, without thirty continuous years of bitter cultivation, they could not gather enough foundation to break through!"

The martial arts researchers from great families did not possess the ability to see Spiritual Power, thus they could not conclude how long it takes to break through with the accuracy of Tang Luo.

But the heritage of past years and the tens of thousands of disciples have formed a vast database, allowing great families to summarize the experience of their predecessors.

Amongst the most treasured experiences was the estimation of the preparatory accumulation needed for breaking through the Mortal Realm. As recorded in the Tang Clan’s annals, even an individual of average aptitude, after reaching unity of spirit and intent, could gather the foundation required to break through after thirty years of unyielding cultivation.

However, this kind of secret was jealously guarded within noble families, and the common folk had no knowledge of it.

Hence, after Tang Luo finished speaking, there were students who stepped forward in defiance, questioning: "But people always say that unity of spirit and intent is the standard for breaking through, and the required accumulation varies from person to person. Some with good aptitude can break through by their early thirties, whereas those with poor aptitude might still be unsuccessful after a hundred years of cultivation even if their Spiritual Power fades, and all of us have reached unity of spirit and intent and accumulated over a decade of cultivation. Why would the Dean suggest our aptitude is insufficient?"

"It’s a falsehood."

Tang Luo looked directly into the slightly defiant eyes of the student, speaking indifferently: "If these ’rumors’ were true, then why are there so many cases of failed breakthroughs leading to deaths of despair around the world?"

"Think harder. Why do you suppose all these cases of failed breakthroughs occur among the members of minor clans or independent cultivators? You all come from practitioners across various states and regions, but have you ever heard of any failures within the noble families?"

"Could all of this merely be due to the differences in techniques? After careful and thorough consideration, make your judgments!"

The true teachings are like one line in a thousand scrolls; most of the world’s rumors about breaking through are mysterious to the point of obscurity, preferable to be lost in the mists.

After reading thousands of words, one finds not a single line that directly points to the Tao but only posits various imagined possibilities.

The most terrifying aspect of martial arts is not failing using the correct method, but succeeding using the wrong experiences.

The former allows for the accumilation of experience from failure leading to success, while the latter treats the outliers and erroneous experiences as standards, constantly sinking deeper into the abyss.

What Tang Luo was doing now was to pierce through the lies that spread across the world, laying bare the great path right before the students’ eyes.

"The Dean means to say..."

The first student to speak pursed his lips, complexity written across his expressions: "Does this mean anyone can break through provided they accumulate enough?"

"That is correct, that is what The Academy means."

Tang Luo smiled and nodded: "Unity of spirit and intent is indeed a necessary condition for breaking through, but that is only one of the prerequisites. Without a sufficient reserve of Spiritual Power in the internal organs, they simply cannot sustain the rapid evolution of the physical body and spirit during breakthrough. Once the power supply falls short, not to mention failing to forge the soul, it could cause severe injuries to the spirit, resulting in grave hidden ailments and chronic illness."

What is a closely guarded secret? For a tofu shop, it’s the methods of making tofu; for a dye house, the secret lies in their color formulas.

With a thousand years of flourishing martial arts, different regions have developed new social classes based on their accumulations.

Whether it’s the noble families with the Fierce Realm as their cornerstone, or the local forces with the Mortal Realm as their main strength.

The former’s means to keep the latter in check is merely one method: controlling the number of breakthroughs the latter can achieve.

Hence, the world is filled with ambiguous rumors about breaking through, along with strange and unfathomable Soul Casting techniques.

For an independent cultivator, each piece of advice seems believable and could be credible, yet facing the multitude of examples of failed breakthroughs, hesitation arises.

This is why even independent cultivators with aptitude like Feng Shixin dare not rashly proceed with Soul Casting. However, today Tang Luo has declared that as long as sufficient Spiritual Power has been accumulated, anyone can forge their soul.