Yama Rising

It wasn’t as though the lecture hall was empty.

In fact, every single student in the Faculty of Combat was already present and eagerly awaiting the opening lecture. Furthermore, they were all packed to the front of the lecture hall, much unlike the usual college students who would much prefer to sit at the back of the hall so that they could look at their phones or play video games on their laptops.

And this disparity arose because the students were keenly aware that their circumstances were vastly different from that of regular college students, who could cruise along or slack off for four years and still find a comfortable job to support them for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, they didn’t have such a luxury.

If they didn’t work hard now, they would have to pay for it later with their blood, sweat and tears… and perhaps even their lives!

Thus, pairs of keen, sincere and passionate gazes landed right on Qin Ye as he walked across the hall. The atmosphere was still and silent for a moment, before someone began to applaud. In an instant, the applause spread like wildfire across the entire hall, and the roar of applause from approximately two hundred people continued incessantly.

“Good morning instructor!” “Good morning Instructor Qin!” “Instructor Qin, we’re counting on you for the next two years! Please take good care of us!” “You have to teach us how to breakthrough to the rank of a Soul Hunter so quickly! It would drive my family members crazy if I graduate as a Soul Hunter!”

Voices popped here and there as the tide of applause continued.

Qin Ye drew a deep breath and cupped his hands at everyone.

Today marked a momentous occasion!

The husky was finally standing in front of the entire pack of wolves! And it was even entrusted with the hefty responsibility of educating the next generation of wolves!

He took a look at his cell phone - there was still approximately ten minutes to go. The lesson plan had already been uploaded into the lecture hall’s computer system last night. He took several deep breaths to calm his nerves, and then closed his eyes to rest. Time trickled by slowly amidst the burgeoning chorus of excited discussions. Dong! The clock struck nine, and Qin Ye finally opened his eyes once again.

The entire hall quietened down once again in a split-second. Students flipped open their notebooks and even whipped out their cameras. Some students even armed themselves with a voice recorder, while others immediately switched on their cell phones. Pair after pair of expectant eyes landed right on the lectern where the youngest Soul Hunter in history was standing.

One second later, a faint wave of energy that was disguised as true energy radiated out from the lectern and filled every corner of the lecture hall. All of the students were immediately stunned, but their astonishment quickly turned into immense joy and elation! Gasps and murmurs of excitement echoed out in just an instant as the students turned to exchange looks of amazement with each other.

Soul Hunter.

It was really a Soul Hunter!

The students were still skirting around on the edges of their bottleneck, unable to attain the breakthrough to become an Operative-class cultivator, and yet their instructor had already stepped into the ranks of the mainstay cultivators at the level of a Soul Hunter!

“Whew…” Ye Xingchen closed his eyes and immersed himself in the experience of Qin Ye’s true energy. His eyelids trembled excitedly, “I’d already heard rumours that Instructor Qin is the youngest Soul Hunter in history before coming here, but seeing is believing. The rush that you get from experiencing it and seeing it with your own eyes is quite something else…”

“An eighteen years old Soul Hunter… that’s even younger than I am…” A young man with a simple and honest disposition closed his eyes and shook his head in exclamation, “It’s true… the particulars sent by the school weren't lies… There truly are geniuses in this world…”

Like the tide of the sea, the murmurs and chatter in the hall rose and fell.

The whispers came like a raging fire and went like the wind. A few seconds later, the students opened their eyes once more. And this time, their eyes were filled with a burning gaze.

Qin Ye finally spoke up, “Before I begin with my lecture, I’ve got one question I’d like to ask all of you.”

He swept his gaze calmly around as his voice reverberated coolly throughout the hall, “Students, what’s most important when facing a Yin spirit? Come, first row, third student from the left, what do you think.”

Wang Chenghao stood up.

Qin Ye’s face instantly darkened.

Are you kidding… What kind of an uncanny coincidence is this? No wonder I thought he looked quite familiar! Turns out, it’s the unruly one!

I beg of you, can you just give me a normal response for once?!

“Courage!” Almost as though he’d heard the cries of Qin Ye’s heart, Wang Chenghao responded with gusto under Qin Ye’s imposing gaze, “I want to learn how to face those peculiar things, suppress them, and even… destroy them.”

Nice…

Qin Ye glanced at him with a pleasantly surprised look and then nodded softly, “That’s part of it. Graduates of the First Academy of Cultivator would be able to stand on the frontlines of resistance against the incursion of the Yin spirits. Courage is essential, but not everything. Second row, fourth student from the right, what about you?”

A short-haired girl with a cold expression on her face stood up and responded, “Strength. This would include all essential skills such as a good foundation in one’s arts and techniques, as well as a sufficient cultivation base.”

“That’s also right. However, I’m looking for something more. Third row…”

After asking another four to five students, he stopped inviting them for more answers and continued, “All of your responses are important, but none of them constitutes the most crucial factor. The most crucial thing… is survival.”

“Yin spirits aren’t as simple as you think. When you enter a zone where a Yin spirit could be hiding - even a house - the number of individual items in these zones could number in the hundreds.”

“A notebook, a pen, a mirror, clothes… all of these could potentially be mediums of the Yin spirits’ residence. If you can’t immediately distinguish the safe from the unsafe items, you would already be placed in a disadvantageous position.”

“And what happens after you discover the Yin spirit’s existence? You’ll have to connect the Yin spirit with any previous supernatural incident in that place as quickly as possible. And you’ll also have to assess the threat level of the Yin spirit. Is it a wandering spirit? A vengeful apparition? A malevolent ghast? Or perhaps even… an incarnate revenant? And how many spirits are there? Is it a nest of spirits?”

“Survive. It’s only when your survival is secure that you can begin to even think about purging evil spirits. Therefore, the topic of my lecture today is…”

He snapped his fingers, and a ten meter by six meter LED screen lowered behind him. This was an inductive LED display, one of the most high-tech screens available right now. All he needed to do was to tap his teacher’s pointer at the screen to control the slides.

His lesson plan was displayed on the screen for all to see.

It was a simple line of black characters, and yet everyone’s eyes brightened up immediately.

“Yin spirits - types, abilities, and countermeasures.”

Whoosh! Countless pairs of eyes immediately lit up at the same time.

This was remarkable.

The topic was straightforward, but its content… essentially taught them how to live!

Just then, a young student raised his hand. Qin Ye promptly pointed at him, and he rose to his feet and asked in confusion, “Instructor Qin…”

But before he could finish speaking, the back door suddenly opened.

A group of people walked into the hall in a single file. The person leading the way was none other than Principal Xu Anguo, followed by Zhou Xianlong, Tao Ran, and then the leaders of the school’s Department of Academy Administration, Internal Affairs Department, Human Resources Department and the Information Department. There were ten people in all. The other four instructors of the Faculty of Combat entered the lecture hall behind the illustrious lineup of observers, followed closely by a number of personnel wearing black suits and holding cameras and laptops.

The sound they made wasn’t loud, but it was certainly audible enough to draw the students’ attention away from the ongoing lesson. Xu Anguo made a shushing gesture to the students and pointed at the lectern to redirect their focus back to the front of the hall as he invited the rest to take their seats silently. Then, he silently made a gesture to Qin Ye to invite him to continue where he left off.

Qin Ye nodded. They’re finally here… The students might have been oblivious to this, but he noticed it immediately.

Xu Anguo, an advanced Hellguard-class expert[1], was seated right in the center of the bunch!

He could see Xu Anguo’s true energy wafting abundantly like a thick winter fog.

Just beside him, Zhou Xianlong silently set down his cup without saying a word. His true energy was like a sea of fog enshrouding the Yellow Mountains. Zhou Xianlong sat stoically in the midst of the billowing fog like a domineering asura.

An advanced Judge-class expert!

Even if he were cast into the depths of the old Hell, a Judge-class expert like him would undoubtedly have been appointed a chief and placed in charge of the life and death of tens of millions of people.

His eyes continued sweeping across the illustrious line-up - Zhou Ruping, Director of the Department of Academy Administration, intermediate Hellguard-class expert; Ma Shanglong, Director of the Internal Affairs Department; nascent Hellguard-class expert; Zhu Youde, Director of the Human Resources Department, advanced Hellguard-class expert; Long Qin, Director of the Information Department, advanced Hellguard-class expert; Guo Zhengxiong, Director of the Human Resources Department, intermediate Hellguard-class expert…

The evaluation panel comprised a total of ten leaders of the academy, nine of whom were Hellguard-class experts, and the other a Judge-class expert. All of them opened their notebooks in unison. None of them made a single sound, but the amount of true energy flowing out of their bodies appeared like an intense wall of fog, rising and falling like the tide. The concentration of Yang energy was immense!

Apart from that, Qin Ye could see that the four men dressed in black suits weren’t wearing the emblem of the Special Investigations Department on their chests. Rather… it was the SRC!

What an impressive, imposing line-up… Traces of a disquietened expression surfaced on Qin Ye’s face. He was going to speak under the close scrutiny of nine Hellguard-class experts and one Judge-class expert. It would be a lie if he said he didn’t feel any pressure.

However--

Nervousness was useless. One had to be bold when push came to shove.

He was a husky living among wolves after all. Shouldn’t he already have anticipated that such a day would soon arrive?

As everyone took their seats, Qin Ye did his best to appease his mind and return his heart to a state of tranquility. He glanced back at the student with the question and nodded, “Please continue.”

All of the other students were completely astonished. A Hellguard-class expert wasn’t something that was commonly seen, and yet they appeared to be dime a dozen in the First Academy of Cultivators! The student who had been speaking earlier instantly flushed red and stammered away, “I-I-Instructor Q-Qin… W-why isn’t there any… any classification of Yin spirits and their abilities?”

Qin Ye smiled, “This student has asked a very good question. It would seem as though there are only that many types of Yin spirits in the world. But this isn’t the case. Some Yin spirits are so peculiar that you wouldn’t even be able to identify it as a Yin spirit - even if it passed by right in front of your eyes.”

“I’m not saying that the database isn’t perfect or complete, but there are just some Yin spirits that are more than meets the eye, and they’ve been able to fool everyone to date. Thus, I’m going to teach everyone how to identify and distinguish a Yin spirit today.”

In the back row, a member of the SRC who had just finished setting up his camera paused awkwardly. Xu Anguo glanced at him, “Any thoughts?”

The four men switched on their cameras and sat down behind Xu Anguo. The man deliberated for a moment, before stating with a stiff expression, “He’s criticizing the databases of the SRC and the Special Investigations Department by stating that they’re problematic.”

“He’s not criticizing. He’s refining them.” Zhou Xianlong responded without even turning to look at the man, “Besides, if there are mistakes, you can correct them; and if there aren’t, you’ve got nothing to lose. He’s not even begun to elaborate yet, so why are you already poisoning the well? The SRC’s team is here for the purposes of observation. Don’t rush to conclusions.”

It was apparent that Zhou Xianlong’s triad-like disposition wasn’t only limited to the Momo app. The man in the black suit didn’t dare to say another word, and he obsequiously opened his notebook.

“You’re rather protective of him.” Xu Anguo looked at Qin Ye with keen interest as he whispered under his breath to Zhou Xianlong.

Qin Ye naturally noticed the two old men whispering with each other, but he didn’t dare to act on it at all. He ignored their misdemeanor and delved straight into the first part of his lecture.

“This is the youngest Soul Hunter in history. His future is practically limitless. What reason is there not to be protective of him?” Zhou Xianlong didn’t even bat an eyelid, “I’d never do something that would stumble our allies to the delight of our foe.”

Xu Anguo tapped his fingers on the table and suddenly posed Zhou Xianlong a query, “What do you think of this topic of his?”

“It’s great.” Zhou Xianlong responded nonchalantly, “Breaking down the types of Yin spirits and their corresponding abilities is a topic of great importance. After all, know thy enemy and know thyself, and you shall be victorious in every battle.”

Xu Anguo’s voice remained completely calm and unperturbed as he immediately followed up with another question, “Then why isn’t there such a corresponding faculty to date?"

1. So it seems like this is the first reference to subdivisions in the different cultivation levels, namely nascent, intermediate and advanced.