Chapter 247: Ruin Expedition (11)

*clop clop clop*

As soon as the students who broke through finished their narration, the sound of horse hooves could be heard. Lee turned to his right and saw many horse puppets moving along the grassless path with some powerful cultivators on top of them.

With colours ranging from pastel green to forest green, the Long Sect cultivators had the aura of pride around them. Their robes fluttered in the air though there was no breeze blowing. The golden leaves design on their sleeves and back of the robe was aesthetically beautiful. The party consisting of 10 women and 10 men did not have a pleasant face when their eyes met the party from Alaquvier academy.

The oddly long tent caught these people's attention. For a moment, they pulled the reins and halted the puppets to inspect the tent. After finding nothing special about the tent even through their senses, they decided to move on. When the puppets stomped the ground to move again, Lee Shen felt as if that stomp was directed towards him.

The cultivators also saw the students and the professor who led them as the tent was only a few metres away from the path. The look of displeasure and repulsion was evident on the faces of cultivators and they moved away towards the Ruin vicinity with an unfriendly air around them.

Lee could feel the hostility arising from those cultivators. Though the cultivators concealed it, his senses were much sharper than these generic cultivators.

[Looks like these cultivator fellows would do something idiotic only to piss us off.]

Nodding to the opinion, Lee turned back to the students. A surprise awaited them as he saw unrest in the students' eyes. To be precise, these students were those who broke through yesterday.

'Looks like their senses have developed significantly.'

Of course, their senses have developed beyond expectations. What they went through was a transition equivalent to breaking through two whole major realms in Qi cultivation. Of course, their senses have heightened!

Lee shook his head as a plain expression veiled over his face.

"Let's continue with sharing experiences."

He clapped again and spoke in a gentle voice.

After diverting the attention back to the students, the session went smooth without a hitch. Almost all the remaining 9 students expressed their doubt that they are at the verge of breaking through to the next level.

While the students were actively immersed in narration, Lee was able to detect some serious hostile intent piercing his back. He swept his senses around but found none. It was through the Map that he saw the cultivators at the Ruin vicinity observing them using a telescope.

[Oh, a telescope? These people sure have surprises with them!]

As the narration went on, only Lee Shen detected the stealthy spies nearing their premises to obtain information from their conversations. Lee quickly discharged Mana from his body and created a sound barrier around them. It restricted the sound waves from travelling out of the restricted area.

Along with sound barrier, Lee attributed Poison affinity to the Mana and the surrounding outside of the barrier became slightly poisonous. The smell of the toxic substance alerted the spy cultivators and they quickly fled without raising alarm.

---

After the narration session, the students began to talk among themselves and discussed the new-found enhancements and possibilities. Those who were yet to breakthrough eagerly gave their ears to these details and facts. The atmosphere, however, did not become too loud as Lee Shen opened the Workshop to tinker with the academy robes.

Along the way to the Ruin, Lee had asked the students to give him their academy robes. Though the students did not question the authority and intention of the professor, they had uncertainty as to why Lee needs their robes.

Summoning the Workshop, Lee Shen saw one of the academy robes displayed in the screen.

'Enhanced Mana Absorption, Qi Repulsion Enchantment, Defense Enhancement and Agility Boosting.'

As Lee Shen uttered the names of the attributes in his mind, the Essence cost began to increase by leaps and bounds. After attributing these enchantments to all the 13 robes, Lee Shen paid 108,500 Essence.

=====

9 AM.

5,976,400 Essence harvested.

=====

'I have been noticing the decrease in Essence harvest. What is it D?'

Lee Shen had been observing a steady decrease in the Essence harvest. He initially thought that it might be related to the old-age Trolls in the EsGen, but he felt that there was another reason for it. Lee Shen decided to ask about the reason.

[The reason is the coffin. The emission of Lifeforce from the coffin seems to be decreasing at a very slow pace. We tried to take a look, but could not find anything abnormal. The boundless spewing of the Lifeforce itself is abnormal.]

Now that the reason is known, Lee Shen thought about the coffin. The combined effort of D, Hudson and Lee coupled with the Map could not peek into the coffin. According to Hudson, something is obstructing them from taking a peek of the inside. D assumed that there is a powerful lifeform buried or imprisoned inside it.

'After returning to the academy, we will take a look at the coffin. Let it be until then.'

Lee Shen conveyed his intentions. He had placed the Lureland expedition as a priority. If the expedition was a success, then the students would have enough experience to venture outside the campus without fear of suppression.

Lee, who was sitting on the grassland cross-legged, got up and walked to the crowd of students. These 13 students were his first batch of students and he intended to nurture and raise them as a group of elite disciples.

Lee took out the robes as he walked to them. Passing them to the students, he spoke-

"The Ruin is expected to open by noon. So we need to prepare.

Few of you have broken through, so do not attempt to go higher at the moment. Make your foundation stronger. Those that are yet to step up can strengthen your basics before proceeding further.

Relax your body and feel the Mana inside you. You all can try to familiarise with it."