Chapter 141 Date—Head of the Five Academies  

Ding Hao couldn’t help but take a few more glances at the domineering lady, his teacher.

Ding Hao followed her and came to a very quiet nursery garden, just after half an incense of time.

Green fences surrounded the garden with a wooden house in it. A small artificial canal passed through the garden. The flowing water made the small garden become more quiet and beautiful.

Ximen Qianxue pushed the wooden door with a creaking sound and walked in.

Her frosty face, when she saw the green herbal seedlings in the garden, finally revealed a little soft smile from the heart.

This should be an experimental herb garden that she pioneered by herself. It was planted with some common low-grade herbs, but it was luxuriantly green and full of vitality; the air was filled with a beautiful fragrance of herbs.

Ding Hao hesitated, but he still followed in.

“Ding Hao, do you dislike the spiritual herb course?” Ximen Qianxue, who had been silent for a long time, finally spoke. She crouched in the nursery garden. Her white fingers brushed several green herbs like touching a baby’s body. She looked back at Ding Hao and asked calmly and expectantly.

“er... no, I like it very much,” Ding Hao said with a light laugh.

“You are lying,” Ximen Qianxue’s words punctured the fallacy in Ding Hao’s words. Her clear eyes seemed to be able to see through people’s hearts. She was slightly disappointed and said, “If you like it, why are you staring blankly in my class?”

“Er...”

Ding Hao was silent and said in his heart that, ‘if I told you that I was not in a daze, but I was learning from an old woman who lived in my mind and claimed to be a teacher of immorality pills, would you believe it?’

In every class Ding Hao seemed to be absent-minded. Actually, he was learning the knowledge about spiritual herbs from the Saber Master. Although Ximen Qianxue had great strength and talent in immorality pills, she was still too far from the ancestor-level monster, the Saber Master.

“Let me guess why you don’t like this course.” Ximen Qianxue stared into Ding Hao’s eyes and calmly said, “You must think that herbs and refining elixirs are too complicated and will take too much energy from you. It is not as good as practicing Qi and swordsmanship, which can make you strong and invincible in a short term, right?”

What could Ding Hao say?

“In fact, this is all a misunderstanding of the pharmacist profession by the ordinary people, thinking of it as a maker of immortality pills. Yes, pharmacists start learning at a lower level and achieve results at later stage. But you have to know that even gurus with extraordinary strength have to show their respect for high-level pharmacists. If strength is said to be the foundation of martial artists, then, an immortality pill is their second life. Moreover, as far as I know, the fighting capacity of high-level pharmacists—makers of immortality pills, are no worse than martial artists.” Ximen Qianxue said earnestly.

Ding Hao nodded.

Saber Master had told him such things too many times.

Noticing Ding Hao’s expression, Ximen Qianxue said helplessly, “Since you know all this, why don’t you listen and pay proper attention to the lectures? I think you have the potential to become a Dan pharmacist. You should think about it carefully. Even if you learn how to make immortal dans and practice martial arts at the same time, you will not waste too much time.”

“Madam, I will study hard.” Since Ding Hao wanted to hurry back to complete his daily practice plan, he patted his chest and made a promise.

Ximen Qianxue, of course, saw Ding Hao’s perfunctory response and could only reluctantly shake her head. She was a little disheartened and said, “All right, you can leave now.”

Ding Hao hurriedly saluted, said thanks and intended to leave.

Ximen Qianxue sighed, still feeling a little pity. She thought for a moment, and then added, “Wait, I have a compendium of spiritual herbs here, that is some of my own experience. Read it diligently and you will find that the study of spiritual herbs is definitely not what you think.”

Ding Hao turned and took the thick blue thread-bound booklet.

At that moment, Ding Hao’s palm touched Ximen Qianxue’s suet-jade-like slender fingers, and a slight cold touch was transmitted to him.

Ximen Qianxue retracted her jade-like hand as if receiving an electric shock.

Ding Hao thanked her again, and strode away from the secluded herb garden.

Looking at Ding Hao’s back, Ximen Qianxue shook her head faintly. With a slightly disappointed look, she sighed, turned and came to the herb garden. She unfolded her palm, and a pale red light flashed, then a fist-sized red elixir furnace showed up, revolving and slowly rotating in her hand.

A dense, light green gas sprayed from the red furnace and fell on the herbs.

When the breeze blew, fresh spiritual herbs became greener.

If Ding Hao were present, he would have burst into alarm. Ximen Qianxue looked delicate and weak, but unexpectedly her Qi was far above the Martial Disciple Realm. She controlled the furnace and reached a subtle level as described by the Saber Master.

...

In the next few days, Ding Hao spent a lot of time taking care of Zhang Fan and Fang Tianyi, besides attending classes and practicing martial arts.

The storm brought after the Tianli Attic was defeated by him with one sword also gradually calmed down. The top management of the sect did not investigate this matter. The outer core elders who were said to be behind the Tianli Attic showed no signs of wanting to make trouble for Ding Hao, as if nothing had happened.

Duan Tianli was badly beaten and lost his face. He could not regain his self-esteem any more. After finally recovering his wounds, he left the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect despondently and disappeared. The Tianli Attic was completely closed and was taken away by others at a high price.

As a result of this incident, the commercial organizations of some of the other outer disciples had also been better-behaved and had no longer exploited and squeezed registered disciples as before.

The name of Ding Hao had once again become the focus of discussion.

A few days later, Zhangfan and Fang Tianyi’s wounds had finally recovered completely without leaving any sequelae.

Especially Zhang Fan the teenage hunter, under the stimulation of various spiritual herbs administered by Ding Hao and Wang Xiaoqi at all costs, his body was improved to a higher rank in terms of meridians, just as it was said that every cloud had a silver lining. He used to be extremely poor in terms of meridians. Although he had not remoulded himself thoroughly, he was much better than before.

At this time, the expected election date for the head of the academies came at last.

The academy head was the manager of two hundred registered disciples. He had various kinds of enviable rights and could decide many things in the academy by himself, including allocation of cultivation resources, etc. His power was no less than that of the teacher-in-chief Wang Juefeng. Therefore, it had an extremely fatal attraction for every registered disciple.

The academy head was elected in a very simple way.

He was neither assigned by the high-level nor decided by a martial arts contest.

Registered disciples of each academy recommended their own academy head, and the person who won the majority if the disciples’ support became the academy head.

Since the election news of the academy head came out, many people had been fighting for this powerful and prestigious position. Some people had paid a lot of money to invite their disciples to drink and eat, some had privately formed small groups to lobby for votes, and some had made many promises that something favorable would happen if they were elected to be the academy head