Chapter 0070: Two Years

Two months of vacation passed, and it was time for Huang Long to return to the academy. Over these two months, with the second prince ascending to power and the support of the Huang family and the Annie family, the Lu Tong Kingdom had stabilized. The surrounding smaller kingdoms, which had once coveted it, also gave up their ambitions.

During this time, the Huang family naturally didn’t forget to strike down their enemies. TheHill family and the George family were devastated and withdrew from the royal city, with the remnants of theHill family moving to the Dragon Language Empire.

Initially, Du Meng had fled with the eldest prince of the Dragon Language Empire, Long Ji. The great asura Kaidi tried to intercept them, but they still managed to escape to the Dragon Language Empire.

The palace of the Dragon Language Empire was incomparable to that of the Lu Tong Kingdom. As far as Huang Long knew, there were no fewer than ten Holy Lands within it, even including powerful experts at higher levels of the Holy Land. Moreover, they had the strong dragon race backing them, so Huang Long didn’t want to confront them head-on for now.

With the covert support of Huang Long’s power, the influence of the Huang family expanded significantly, making it the foremost family in the Lu Tong Kingdom.

During these two months, the orc mercenary group also completed ten F-rank missions assigned by the mercenary guild and successfully upgraded to E-rank.

As Huang Long set off for the Divine Wind Academy again, over three hundred orcs followed behind him in perfect order, exuding a fierce aura. After completing ten F-rank missions over two months, these orcs had developed excellent coordination and began to take on the form of a cohesive mercenary team.

Of course, with Huang Long’s medicinal pills and cultivation techniques, the overall strength of the orc mercenary group had improved greatly.

Most of these orcs were naturally suited for practicing the “Xuanwu Art,” so their progress was rapid.

Huang Long wasn’t in a hurry to return to the Divine Wind Academy. He moved slowly along the way. Especially when passing through the Magical Beast Mountains, he ordered the orc mercenary group to hunt magical beasts of level four or five at the mountain’s edge every day to boost their combat skills.

By the time Huang Long arrived in Divine Wind City, the three hundred orcs behind him carried a strong scent of bloodshed. When passing through the city gates, they even had minor conflicts with the city guards.

After resolving these minor issues, Huang Long led everyone back to the manor.

Everything in the manor remained unchanged. However, after returning, Huang Long planned to expand it. After all, orcs were already large in size, and sharing one room with several of them made it cramped and inconvenient.

So, Huang Long spent five hundred thousand gold coins to buy the four manors surrounding it, connected them together, and had them merged into a super-large manor.

According to Huang Long’s estimate, the merged super-large manor would have four or five hundred rooms, more than enough to accommodate the orc mercenary group.

Huang Long even caused the backyard to be expanded five times, turning it into a training ground large enough to accommodate a thousand people for drills. Upon returning to the manor, the next day, when Huang Long arrived at Shenfeng Academy, discussions followed him wherever he went. Due to delays on the journey while training the orc mercenary group, Shenfeng Academy had already started classes. Naturally, Huang Long was absent from the new semester’s opening ceremony once again. This time, however, his mentor, Lei Ke, not only wasn’t scolded mercilessly by the head principal Ma Jiang but was instead highly praised at the assembly for his effective teaching methods. Effective teaching methods? Did that mean just flipping through books in the library or playing outside for months before returning for the grade assessments? Many mentors muttered among themselves, though of course, they could only say such things in their hearts. At the opening ceremony, Lei Ke’s expression became even more complex as he received praise. Initially, he had been scolded by Ma Jiang for a whole semester because of Huang Long, yet now he was praised—still because of this student. Thinking of Huang Long filled Lei Ke with mixed feelings. With the arrival of the new semester, Huang Long, once labeled both a super genius and a complete failure, was now regarded as an even greater genius. His fame seemed to overshadow Feng Xiaotian, the academy’s top expert. Feng Xiaotian was a disciple of Ouyang Hai, one of the five academy leaders. Naturally, many people mentioned the duel between Huang Long and Du Fei. The outcome of their duel, spread by those with ulterior motives, caused quite a stir throughout Shenfeng Academy. No one expected such a result, nor did anyone anticipate that theHill family behind Du Fei would be destroyed by some mysterious force, causing them to drop from among the four major families of the Lutong Kingdom and migrate to the Dragon Language Empire. Du Meng also fled to the Dragon Language Empire like a stray dog. Some tried to link this mysterious force that destroyed theHill family to the Huang family, but those theories were dismissed. The Huang family was just a family from a small kingdom; if they possessed such a mysterious force, they would have long become one of the super major families on the Luyuan Continent. After all, this force could destroy theHill family overnight, with even some level-9 experts unable to escape—clearly, it must have been done by a being from the Holy Land. Could the Huang family have such a being? The major forces interested in Huang Long knew this was impossible. On the first day back at the academy, on the stone path, Huang Long also ran into the Little Witch Zhao Ying and Lin Na, the second princess of the Blizzard Empire. Their expressions when they saw Huang Long were quite strange, especially Zhao Ying’s.

She naturally knew the results of the arena battles as well. She had been there when Huang Long’s grade assessment took place back then. Just like when she saw the results of Huang Long’s registration for the newcomer talent test, she was shocked beyond words at that time. And now, this cousin had shocked her once again by defeating Du Fei, who possessed the strength of a level-four peak mage, in the arena battles. Instant magic! Normally, only the powerful ones in the Holy Land could do this. Yet, this cousin managed it. When Grandpa Zhao Yang, a Holy Land warrior, learned about it, he was stunned speechless. When Little Witch Zhao Ying saw Huang Long again, she treated him like an ancient monster. Finally, she blurted out, “Are you really my cousin?” She couldn’t reconcile the cute little cousin who held a pet at Grandpa Zhao Yang’s 80th birthday with the cousin who kept shocking everyone at Divine Wind Academy. No matter what others said or thought, Huang Long knew that no one in the academy would criticize his actions anymore. In the new semester, Huang Long continued to do as he pleased—reading books in the library and practicing in the manor. He occasionally went to the classroom once or twice, which actually “shocked” his mentor, Reke, with its kindness. Flowers bloomed and withered, seasons changed. Two years passed quietly. Huang Long was now nine years old. During that year’s grade assessment, Lei Yun, the proud disciple of Tang Wudi, finally became a level-three mage in three schools. However, when Huang Long demonstrated the strength of a level-four mage in all schools, Lei Yun, the talented youth who had spent two years striving to challenge Huang Long, completely lost his confidence to do so. Over those two years, Huang Long had changed a lot. At nine, he looked almost like a teenager of twelve or thirteen—nearly 1.6 meters tall, with a silver-like complexion and a faint glowing aura on his skin, his eyes like stars in the deep sky. One day, Huang Long felt that he was finally about to break through to the realm of Refining the Spirit and Returning to Emptiness, with his original spirit about to leave his body.