Heavenly Jewel Change Volume 6 (Chapter 36 - Chapter 54)

Shangguan Bing’er hesitated a little, saying: “But, didn’t the academy say that we shouldn’t leave school grounds?”


Zhou Weiqing said: “Leave it to me, there will always be a way. Let me ask around, I’m sure that these so-called rules are there just for them to make money, otherwise they wouldn’t have such a separation between noble and commoner students. Money makes the world go around indeed. To be honest, the atmosphere in the school is really not conducive for cultivation, it is just too messy in the dormitory. Let me check around and we can leave to find a place outside once I find out how… at most… we can always sleep in separate rooms.” As he said the bit about separate rooms, his tone and face showed an obvious disappointment.

Shangguan Bing’er flushed deeply and was about to retort, but thinking about the cute Da Huang and Er Huang, for their sakes, she could only shake her head helplessly.

Just as Zhou Weiqing had expected, when he went to the freshmen reporting area to ask about living outside the academy area, he was given a direct answer. It was not unheard off for students to live outside, and there was no direct rule against it. However, the dormitory fee still had to be paid, and the student also had to apply and pay for an exit permit from the school - it would last for a year and would cost ten thousand gold coins. In his heart, Zhou Weiqing cursed the school for such daylight robbery prices, but he gritted his teeth and bought two exit permits.

Of course, he would not mention the price to Shangguan Bing’er, lest her heart ached about the price. He had no choice but to buy the exit permits, not only was it for Da Huang and Er Huang, it was also for his own future possible ‘happiness’[1. He made a pun here. (xingfu) means happiness, but he used (also xingfu), where means sex. ( ?° ?? ?°)]. Furthermore, in the future, when he created Consolidating Equipment Scrolls for sale, he definitely needed to go out to sell them. Of course, in the future, he would not be creating the basic Consolidating Equipment Scrolls, after all, for Consolidating Equipment Scrolls, the higher the quality, the greater the profit.

The reason why basic Consolidating Equipment Scrolls were a lot cheaper, with only several tens of thousand gold coins being able to buy a set of 1000 sheets, was that the success rate of Consolidating is very low. Even with a set of 1000 sheets, there was no guarantee that they would be able to succeed in Consolidating Equipment. More importantly, to actually go through trying Consolidating all of those 1000 Scrolls, it would take almost 3 years! Unless they had no choice, who wouldn’t prefer to use a higher level Consolidating Equipment Scroll which was not only more powerful, but with a higher success rate?!

However, Mid Level Consolidating Equipment Scrolls were different, and much better indeed. First of all, there was only 100 pieces to each Mid Level Consolidated Equipment, with each having a three in a thousand chance of success. With a hundred of them, that meant about a thirty percent chance of success in total, and more importantly, it would take a much shorter time to complete Consolidating all hundred of them, with a much higher success rate than the one in ten thousand rate of the Basic Consolidating Equipment Scrolls. As such, the price and profit margin on Mid Level Consolidating was already much larger, ad with Zhou Weiqing’s success rate, it was even more so.

In the recent two years, Consolidating Equipment Scrolls had been getting rarer, thus causing the price to shoot up higher than what it used to be. Taking Zhou Weiqing’s original Overlord Bow with a single socket as an example, such a Grandmaster Consolidating Equipment Scroll like that would probably fetch at least five hundred thousand gold coins in an auction house, far beyond the two to three hundred thousand that Huyan Aobo had quoted him several years ago. At the same time, this had caused the lives of Physical Jewel Masters to be a lot more miserable than Elemental Jewel Masters, with many four or five Jeweled Physical Jewel Masters having only two to three Consolidated Equipment, and that was already considered pretty decent.

In the world of Jewel Masters, Heavenly Jewel Masters were indeed at the tip of the pyramid. As for whether Physical Jewel Masters or Elemental Jewel Masters were better than the other, it was a hotly debated topic, with each having their own various pros and cons. All along, Elemental Jewel Masters had a slight edge, one of the reasons being their numbers being rarer, and also with a greater destructive capabilities. Another reason was that it was much more difficult to Consolidate Equipment than to Store Skills.

After all, with the presence of the various Skill Storing Palaces, it was the best training area for Elemental Jewel Masters. As long as they had sufficient cultivation level and money, it was not difficult to train up an outstanding Elemental Jewel Master. However, it was much harder for Physical Jewel Masters due to the rarity of Consolidating Equipment Scrolls, and even more so to find one which was suitable for them. Without all their Physical Jewels with Consolidated Equipments, how could Physical Jewel Masters possibly compare to Elemental Jewel Masters? In truth, if a Physical Jewel Master had all their Physical Jewels Consolidated Equipment, especially if they were good or suitable ones, or even better, an entire set, their power was no weaker than Elemental Jewel Masters!

With exit permit in hand, Zhou Weiqing left the academy to hunt for a nearby house to rent. Indeed, his luck was pretty good, and before long he had found a suitable house nearby. It was about 300 square metres[2. It wasn’t specifically stated which unit of measurement, although they used chi previously, I assumed 300 square metres due to the room descriptions], with 8 rooms all well furnished and relatively new. The rent was also pretty cheap, around 50 gold coins a month, which was considered a steal in this area of the city. In fact, it was even cheaper than the dormitory room fees, which told the tale of how expensive these high ranking academies were.

The reason why commoner students were treated so badly was because they lacked the financial backing. If not for the fact that the Fei Li Empire had passed the law to force them to accept commoner students in order to keep talents within, perhaps the top academies would not even accept commoner students.

Without hesitation, Zhou Weiqing paid a deposit to the landlord before running back to the academy. Since he had found a place, he couldn’t wait to bring Bing’er to the place to have a look, and they could also move over with Da Huang and Er Huang.

However, he did not know that his battle with Zang Lang had already spread like wildfire amongst the entire population of commoner students, causing quite a stir. Including the freshmen, there were more than 160 commoner students currently studying in the academy. Although they numbered much less than noble students, they were all Jewel Masters! As a contrasting example, the entire Heavenly Bow Empire did not even have that many Jewel Masters! Of course, most of the commoner students were of rather low cultivation level, most only having a single Jewel. Being able to defeat Zang Lang, who had been their ‘boss’ and protective figure for several years, it had caused Zhou Weiqing’s name to be known throughout their circle. Before school had even started, he was already famous.

“Stop! You cannot enter the girl’s dormitory!” Zhou Weiqing headed into the dormitory and was about to look for Bing’er when he was stopped by an aunty of around 50 years or so. Previously, when Bing’er and he had entered the dormitory, she had not been around.

“Err… I’m here to look for someone.” Zhou Weiqing gave a honest, pleasing smile.