Ch184 - I’ll be more reassured if I protect you personally (1/2)

13.13 – I’ll be more reassured if I protect you personally

translator: xiin

editors: alamerysl & Macabre

After dinner, Xue Ling sorted through the communications left in his nano-computer today, found the number left by the headmaster, and made contact with his future ‘teacher’.

The Sculptors who really had the ability to sculpt at the SSS level in the Empire were all legendary, and it was not an exaggeration to call them national treasures. Most of them no longer sold their works. Instead, they served the Empire and even if they created something for others, they would generally be given to the Empire rather than private collectors.

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Of course, the Empire would buy these energy crystals at a high price equivalent to what they could fetch in an open market auction, or provide these Senior Sculptors with better working and research environments. In short, they did not need to concern themselves over anything else as long as they worked hard.

Of course, the things that the Empire arranged for these Sculptors also included recommending students.

A Senior Sculptor could not be trained up through the school’s education system. It was more dependent on having a good teacher to lead the way. Every Sculptor that had potential would be recommended to a suitable teacher, and the teacher who the school had recommended to Xue Ling was the nominal vice-president of Longyue College, and was also the most prominent figure of Longyue College. Generally speaking, many prefixes and appellations were added to his name when he was brought up in conversation or introduced.

He was a Senior Sculptor on the national treasure level. Meng Qian was already eighty years old, but because of his strong spiritual powers, he still looked very young.

Xue Ling’s communication was picked up right away, and if it hadn’t been a private line, Xue Ling would have suspected that the other party was Meng Qian’s assistant based on the speed alone. But from the image that popped up, that was obviously not the case.

Meng Qian was a very famous Senior Sculptor. Xue Ling had seen some of his works before, and had gained some inspiration as well as being somewhat influenced by his style. Now that he was talking to the genuine person, Xue Ling was very respectful as he addressed the other party as ‘Teacher Meng’.

Meng Qian nodded and accepted this title; he looked like a man in his forties. As long as one’s power was strong enough, it would be impossible to accurately judge their ages. In addition, as long as they were powerful, over the course of countless years of baptism of their own spiritual power, it would be no problem for them to live for hundreds of years. Amongst the current existing national treasure-level Senior Sculptors, Meng Qian was still considered young.

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“Starting from tomorrow, I will give you a separate course of study to follow.” Meng Qian had completely accepted Xue Ling as his new student, and had carefully studied Xue Ling’s information as well as gone through his previous test in detail from beginning to end, spending the entire afternoon planning out a course schedule for Xue Ling. “There are no doubts about your strength, and you can already handle all energy crystals below SS Grade independently. So, starting tomorrow, your course will require you to come into contact with SSS Grade energy crystals. The first thing you need to do is to obtain a SSS Grade ore for me. I will give you a month’s time.”

Xue Ling: “…” He had been assigned a task so soon? He wasn’t ready!

Meng Qian ontinued before he could speak. “I know you have a very distinguished family, but there is no point in using that boy Yin Jia to give me pressure. I watched him grow up, and he can’t do anything to me. Having abundant resources does not mean that you can ignore a Sculptor’s basic skills, so you cannot rely on your existing resources for this task. Having Yin Jia help you find this ore will be considered cheating.”

Xue Ling thought for a moment and asked, “Is it cheating to have father bring me ores?”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

There were many types of ore planets and asteroids. Most places only produced B/C Grade ores, and A/S Grade ores were very rare. Nor were they exploited indefinitely; these mines were only open for a fixed amount of time every year before being shut down so that the veins could regenerate.

Stones that contained energy crystals above SS Grade depended entirely on luck. They could appear in ore mines of any level, but were still most likely to show up in ore planets that produced S Grade ores.

So if Xue Ling wanted to find a SSS Grade ore, he could absolutely make use of the Marshal’s Palace to select a batch of ores from an S Grade mine.

Teacher Meng Qian nodded. “That’s also considered cheating.”

Xue Ling understood what he meant and asked, “So what teacher intends for me to do is to go and try my luck?”

Meng Qian finally showed a satisfied smile when he got to this point. He laughed and said, “Of course, you can also go to the S Grade mining areas, but the premise is that you don’t use the Marshal’s Palace’s name and power.”

Xue Ling: “…” Without using the Marshal’s Palace, he won’t even know where these mines are, okay?!

Xue Ling gloomily ended his first class. His teacher had made good use of this opportunity to make him realize that good luck was the first thing that was required when becoming a good Sculptor.

It was really funny. Was it so easy to do something like relying on luck?

Xue Ling pursed his lips, and thoughtfully left his own room, running over to knock on the door to Yin Jia’s study.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

Yin Jia had taken a cold shower, finally managing to suppress the messy things in his head. He had just sat down when Xue Ling came to knock at the door. He now had no good way to deal with this little nurturer in his family, and couldn’t not let him in, so he went and opened the door.

As soon as Xue Ling came in, he asked, “Father, can I borrow Mo Xi for a little while?”

Yin Jia froze for a moment before recovering and asking, “What are you doing to do?”

“I just received an assignment. It’s a little difficult, and I want to go to all the big ore markets in the Capital Star, which is why I wanted to borrow Mo Xi.” Mo Xi’s main task in the First Fleet was to patrol the entire Capital Star, and his family originated from the ore business. It was an entirely reasonable request to borrow him because he couldn’t possibly not understand these things very well.

Yin Jia nodded and said, “You can, but you can’t go and bother him during his work hours.”

Xue Ling laughed and said, “Got it. Then I’ll ask him to go out with me during weekends when he’s off duty~”