Chapter 556: The Students of the Crafting Class
Seven students. Four males and three females, all of them fairly young. They had all initially been standing on top of the stone platform, but when Bai Yunfei came, they started to gather around him.
Drawing closer to them, Bai Yunfei noticed that several of the students were actually older in age than he was, making him feel slightly awkward and nervous around them. As a teacher, he was undoubtedly less experienced in the way of the world than several of his students. He couldn’t afford to slip up either, as an instructor required having dignity. For that reason, Bai Yunfei forewent shaving for two days so that he could look slightly older than he did. With all that he experienced so far in the world, his body was appropriately built and mature. And it was this external experience that Bai Yunfei felt himself having a huge difference in over the soul cultivators in the academy.
“Good morning, students.” Bai Yunfei nodded to the students in greeting.
“Good morning, instructor Bai.”
“This student pays his respects to instructor Bai.”
“Instructor Bai…”
“……”
One by one, the students called out their varying greetings to him with a bow.
There was of course, one exception. The granddaughter, Mo Wanxia. The hostility in her eyes today was a great deal less than before, but the dislike she had for him was still palpable. With narrowed eyes, a crinkled nose, and a slight harrumph, she gave a reluctant bow to him like the other students.
Bai Yunfei felt himself curious with her attitude towards him.
Hadn’t it been her who caused so much trouble for him? So why was she acting like it was the other way around?
In any case, the students were all closer to him now, allowing Bai Yunfei a better look at each of his students. They were all handsome men and pretty women, and though their exact ages weren’t clear, the oldest didn’t look any older than twenty-eight and the youngest just barely twenty. Their strengths differed from a little mid-stage Soul Ancestor to Mo Wanxia who was a late-stage Soul Exalt.
Bai Yunfei stood there, a strange feeling suddenly occurring to him. These people would be his students from now on?
“Haha, with all things considered, today shall be our first official class. But before that, I’d like to get to know each one of you.” Bai Yunfei tried to act as ‘dignified as a teacher’ as he possibly could. “Why don’t you all introduce yourselves to me, even if by just a little bit. We can become more acquainted in time.”
His eye wandered over to Mo Wanxia, “You don’t need to introduce yourself, Mo Wanxia. I recognize you. Granddaughter of the chairman and late-stage Soul Exalt. Admirable. I hope that you will achieve just as great of things in my class.”
“Hmph! You don’t look any older than I am, where do you get off talking like an old man, how pretentious!” Mo Wanxia wanted to say. If not for her grandfather, she wouldn’t have joined the crafting class. She wasn’t any weaker than Bai Yunfei was and was very unwilling to accept him as her instructor. But she was already clear that should she and Bai Yunfei fight, she wouldn’t be a match for him.
Bai Yunfei had after all defeated the peak late-stage Soul Exalt Zhou Yu, and that fight was more than enough to emphasize just how strong he was in comparison to her.
Completely disregarding the bitter look on her face, Bai Yunfei turned to the younger girl next to her. “Let’s start with you then.”
“Oh—yes, well….” She straightened herself up, revealing her height to be of about 1.65 meters around with two pigtails on her head. Looking slightly uneasy, she began, “I...I’m Fang Yong. Early-stage Soul Exalt and previous sixth year student in class one of the fire section. It’s nice to meet you, instructor Bai.”
Bai Yunfei smiled and nodded before turning to the other girl besides her.
This girl looked quite younger than the two before her—perhaps just barely twenty—had snowy-white skin and hair that reached down to her waist. With a cute bow to Bai Yunfei, she introduced herself, “It’s nice to meet you, instructor Bai. I’m Fang Tianmeng. Mid-stage Soul Ancestor. Previous fifth year student in class four of the fire section.”
Up next was were the four males, the oldest one of them giving a scholarly smile when it was his turn. “My name is Ouyang Yuyun.” His voice was charismatically magnetic, “Mid-stage Soul Exalt and previous sixth year student of class three of the fire section. I’ve heard of your name before, instructor Bai, please instruct us well.”
“Hehe, my turn my turn.” A younger boy next to him piped up straight away. He wore black robes and looked like he was twenty-one or twenty-two at most. His hair was slightly long and his bangs covered covered up his right eye almost. Contrary to his frail physique, his eyes shined brightly with vivacious spirit. It only took one glance to know that this was a lively male.
“I’m Mo Chen, a mid-stage Soul Ancestor. Previous fifth year of class five. I’ve always admired instructor Bai, that battle you had with instructor Zhou Yu and then the crafting segment was super cool!! I hope that one day, I’ll become as amazing as instructor Bai is!”
“Haha, I’m sure you’ll can become even stronger as long as you work hard.”
The sixth student to speak was a robust young man dressed in white. Smiling kindly towards his classmates and Bai Yunfei, he spoke, “My name is Dongfang Yuhui. Mid-stage Soul Exalt and previous sixth year student of class four.”
Nodding, Bai Yunfei turned to the last one. He wore purple robes and had long hair, though his face was completely blank with emotions. He had been completely silent until it was his turn, speaking only a few impassive words to Bai Yunfei. “Zhang Zhifeng. Peak late-stage Soul Exalt.”
He was a man of few words. He said those few words and then nothing more.
……
And now that he was done with the introductions, Bai Yunfei now had a decent grasp on each of the seven students and their personalities. Nodding, he spoke, “Very well. Now that we all know each other now, I hope that we’ll get along with each other as I teach the art of crafting to you all.”
“Ah,” Bai Yunfei suddenly remembered, “Before I forget, everyone please take out your assigned ‘work’ and hand them to me.”
Clearly prepared for this, each of the seven students took out pieces of paper from their space ring. Some of them had over ten pages, some only a few, but they all handed their portion over to Bai Yunfei.
Now that Bai Yunfei had the ‘homework’ all together, Bai Yunfei spoke, “I’ll take a good look over them later. The insights you had over my crafting will be my first evaluations of you all.”
“Furthermore,” Bai Yunfei added on, “since this is my first assignment for you all, I will have a reward for the one I deem being the best.”
“Reward?!” This caught everyone’s attention.
It was Mo Chen who spoke up first, “What kind of reward, instructor Bai?”
“Haha, since this is the crafting class, of course it’ll be a soul armament. Hm….I can let you see it, I suppose. This will be the prize.”
His right hand shook once, retrieving a golden longsword that shined brilliantly in the light.
A sheen of sharp light exuded from the blade. Everyone was entranced by it; even the strongest one there, Mo Wanxia, couldn’t help but speak out in amazement, “This soul armament—is it a….heaven-tier….?”
“Correct. This is a low-heaven tier metal-type soul armament. This will be the first reward I will give.”
A heaven-tier soul armament as a reward!!
It had been upgraded to +10 beforehand and had a +10 additional effect of further increasing its attack, allowing it to be strong enough to be considered a heaven-tier. Although it wasn’t much in Bai Yunfei’s eyes, it was definitely quite something in the eyes of anyone else….
“Ah!! Instructor Bai, I suddenly just remembered I forgot to write some things down. Can I have my paper back, I’ll give it back as soon as I write them down!”
Mo Chen broke the silence as he pleaded with Bai Yunfei. The one who had written down the least amount of things had been him.
Bai Yunfei shook his head, “I cannot. Since I’ve collected them already, it will be a fair evaluation this way.”
He chuckled when he saw the mournful look on Mo Chen’s face. Putting away the sword and clapping his hands, Bai Yunfei spoke, “We can start class for today then. I will be teaching you the most fundamental of things today, so let us go to a place more suitable to have class.”
Silent, everyone stared at Bai Yunfei. “Instructor Bai, aren’t we going to learn here?” Asked Fang Tianmeng.
“It’s unsuitable here. We’ll go to a different place to craft soul armaments.” Bai Yunfei shook his head again.
He turned around to walk out the building and to the left. Confused, the students followed suit.
Hurrying up next to Bai Yunfei, Mo Chen asked, “Instructor Bai, where are we going?”
Bai Yunfei pointed ahead, “To that mountain.”
“Behind? Why are we going there?!” Mo Chen’s eyes widened.
“To dig a hole!”
“.....”