Stupidity

To his surprise, the four of them were aiming for his residence! He couldn't hide the smile forming on his face and almost laughed.

Seeing them trying to find a way to enter his residence covertly made him feel a bit of shame in their stead, he face palmed and sighed.

'Did they really think they could enter a mage– no, never mind, I'm not a mage, but still...

'I am a professor, what gave them the confidence to enter my residence without being noticed? Or perhaps they somehow knew I wasn't there right now?'

Suddenly, Rudd took a black candle out of his pocket and lit it, its flame was black as well and strange.

Wu Xue narrowed his eyes as he began to sense his senses being disturbed by a mysterious force, it was trying to disturb his mind and make him ignore the four of them, and even forget about their actions.

'What a strange object...' Wu Xue noticed the three mages withdraw their senses as if they lost interest, 'Damn weaklings, if not for me being here, it would have been kept a secret from me.'

Wu Xue clicked his tongue and continued to watch his daring students' actions, he could easily protect himself from that candle's effects.

After managing to enter through an unlocked window, the four began to wander his residence separately.

'Should I play tricks on them?' Wu Xue smiled mischievously and snapped his fingers, casting some illusion spells 'They should be punished!'

Rudd was searching his bedroom without caring about the mess he was making, while Gus was doing the job of fixing all the mess with a disgruntled look.

Meanwhile, Rose and Eliz were simply looking around at everything they found interesting, without a clear objective.

Suddenly, their eyes began to turn dull and they immediately fell into a terrifying illusion.

After a blink, however, they returned to their senses and fell to the ground with terrified faces and full of cold sweat.

The worst of the four was Rudd, he began to throw up on the floor and began to bleed from his nose, he was crying without even noticing.

Rose and Eliz began to cry loudly and Gus, the least affected, tried to help Rudd, who refused any close contact and was in utter panic.

"Professor, please be merciful," Gus shouted with a sad face.

Wu Xue appeared beside him and grinned, "Bad students should be taught a lesson."

"What did you do to him?" Gus asked with fear in his eyes, he had experienced a terrifying illusion, but he wasn't as affected as Rudd, he just felt he had the worst nightmare of his life.

"Nothing," Wu Xue shook his head and pointed to Rudd, "Can't you see his perfectly entire body?

"I just cast an illusion on him."

"What kind of illusion?" Gus asked but regretted it.

Wu Xue grinned maliciously, "He just died a few times."

Gus's face turned white, "He died on the illusion? He can't bear it!"

"Don't panic," Wu Xue clicked his tongue, "With me here, he will be fine even if his mind collapses."

Gus trembled in fear and kneeled on the ground, "Please be merciful!"

"Nah," Wu Xue teleported to Rose and Eliz, ignoring him.

The two girls didn't die on the illusion, but both of them experienced their skin being peeled off, literally. But Wu Xue didn't let them experience the full amount of pain, but the despair was left intact.

Wu Xue didn't like to see them crying, although he found it fit for the wild Rudd, so he cast a calming spell on the two girls.

"I hope it serves as a good lesson," he said with a stern voice, "Other mages won't be as benevolent as me if you intrude on their residences. It is a capital crime, and you know it!

"What, do you think being a professor is more important to a mage than keeping his secrets?"

Rose tried to say something but Eliz opened her mouth first, "I'm sorry, teacher! Please let us go!"

Wu Xue sighed and waved his hand, "Go! I'm letting you off the hook easy since you both seemed to have no malicious goals, contrary to that little runt."

Rose hesitated for a moment but mustered the courage to say, "Please don't be too harsh on him."

Wu Xue could feel the deep concern in both her voice and expression, he smiled and said, "Fortunately for him, I'm not a bad-natured professor, and don't wish to do something overboard."

Rose smiled bitterly and almost cursed, 'Isn't it overboard already?'

Wu Xue secretly cast another healing spell on the two girls and let them go, that spell would guarantee their mental health, but their memories wouldn't be affected and so they would always remember that lesson.

He returned to his bedroom and found it disgusting the sight, the whole floor was full of gastric liquids and blood that Rudd threw up.

The boy eventually fell unconscious and Gus was trying to wake him.

"Don't bother, his soul is damaged and he won't awaken with an external stimulus," Wu Xue explained, and Gus immediately despaired.

"But don't panic, I can heal him," Wu Xue smiled and cast a complex spell with concentration.

Healing deep soul wounds wasn't easy for him, but it was possible because he was much stronger than Rudd.

After a few minutes, Rudd opened his eyes and began to cry, albeit more calmly, "How horrible! I thought I was being tortured beyond death!"

Rudd's eyes narrowed when he saw Wu Xue and he swallowed his saliva, "Was it you, professor?"

Wu Xue snorted and cast another spell on him so his mental health wouldn't collapse just after stabilizing, "Yes, I wanted to teach you all enough of a lesson for your own good!

"Infiltrating a mage's residence is a capital crime, no matter if he is a professor or not!"

Rudd had a complex look and shivered from time to time, "I-I'm sorry!"

"Get out!" Wu Xue waved his hand and began to cast cleaning spells on his bedroom.

Gus helped Rudd and both left Wu Xue's residence with gloomy looks.

After a while, Wu Xue took a black candle from his pocket, "I need some compensation, after all."

That night, four talented students were secretly left with varying traumas, and no one except the related parties knew about it.

The reason he was able to teach them such a harsh lesson to them without being killed by the cursed contract he was under was that the academy's rules clearly stated that professors could deal with students infiltrating their residence personally, as long as their lives weren't harmed.

The only exception where professors could kill infiltrating students was when the culprits pried on vital secrets without permissions, permissions involving the lifeline of the professors.

Wu Xue harmed their mental states, but he had the intention to restrict the damage with his own healing spells, so the contract wasn't triggered.

Moreover, Wu Xue was clear that experiencing death and surpassing the trauma could give unexpected benefits. Not only with death but any kind of traumatizing experience.

After cleaning all the mess in his residence, Wu Xue sat cross-legged on his bed, "It has been a while since I concentrated on cultivation... Should I?"

He pondered hard and decided to just cultivate his four formal paths instead of adding another one to his body.

He planned to first cultivate his literary body to completion and then use it to practice the magic of the vast world. That way, even if the magic path had problems he was unaware of, he would maintain some leeway.

That was also the reason he let Jasmine practice the literary path. In the beginning, he planned to let his literary body practice magic instead of his main body.

He took a deep breath and began to greedily absorb the aura around him through his natal acupoint. But because the acupoint wasn't as efficient as using all his pores, it was slower.

He frowned and cast a formation spell with his True Qi, a variation from the Formation Path but that didn't need materials to be cast.

He used the five elements [separated] artistic conceptions as the main points of the formation spell and used it to attract more aura to him, increasing the density of the aura.

Although the Vast World had its own set of laws concerning supernatural practice, the five elements were present in all worlds, so he could use them anywhere.

He still found the effects unsatisfying and cast a formation spell on his natal acupoint as well, but this time he used Yuan Qi.

Finally, he felt he wasn't wasting time. He began to refine the aura and used his self-created Colorful Horizons Unity Cultivation Technique.

That technique was the crystallization of his genius and luck, and he considered it his most precious possession because it was something he created by himself.

Slowly but surely, all his three pillar energies began to grow stronger together, and a vortex of aura formed around his heart, madly absorbing all the aura available.

Unfortunately, he felt it would take some time for him to break through in any of his three pillar cultivation paths (True Qi, Yuan Qi, and Soul Power) if he depended on simple grinding, but his literary power (Main Path) was growing astonishingly fast, although not because of the refinement of aura.

The literary power wasn't as dependent on the refinement of aura as the other energies, it depended more on comprehension and enlightenment.

Because he had many novel experiences since entering the Vast World, he was always consciously or not integrating everything into his literary background with his terrifying comprehension capacity.

When he began to actively cultivate his literary path, it began to show all it accumulated.

His literary body began to quickly develop further. More bones and organs were formed and it was about 75% complete when suddenly empowerment ended.

Although only a few hours passed in reality, it felt like months from Wu Xue's perspective. He felt tired and as if a mountain was pressing his eyelids.

But because of the soul's proximity to the literary path, his soul path benefited immensely from its development and he broke through several levels consecutively.

The vortex of aura around him was much more intense than before thanks to that.

Soul mind, soul eyes, soul ears, and soul mouth, those four soul's secret talents were all completely developed and he was on the verge of awakening the last secret talent, soul touch.

His soul power and external soul sense both skyrocketed and he felt like his soul was almost breaking out of his body.

Thanks to his self-created cultivation technique, the other two cultivation oaths began to benefit from those Soul Path breakthroughs as well.

The strong soul power refined the True Qi, which refined the Yuan Qi, which refined the soul power in return. It was a closed circle maintained by his literary power and the Order Artistic Conception shared by all energies.

The vortex of aura around him turned even wilder as he cultivated.

When the first rays of light shone the next days, his cultivation paths finally normalized, he felt that the aura around him was incredibly thin, even though he was still operating the formation spells.

He used his external soul sense and discovered that a commotion arose outside. Apparently, the whole capital's aura had plummeted in density in just one night and everyone was trying to find out why it happened.

Wu Xue wiped the sweat out of his forehead and was glad and also surprised no one found out about him.

He inspected his gains and a big grin appeared on his face.

Pure marrow, pure blood, pure bones, and pure organs, all those four secret life treasures of his body had been awakened and completely developed, he was on the verge of awakening the fifth secret life treasure, [pure muscles and tendons]¹.

¹It is a single treasure, rather than two separate ones.

His Yuan Qi was monstrous and his body had been strengthened several times compared to previously, just like his soul.

His Qi Cultivation Base also advanced by leaps and bounds and he directly reached the Eight Layer of the Qi Vortex Realm, just a step away from the Ninth Layer. The vortex in his dantian was almost completed and its currents were dozens of times stronger and faster than before. His True Qi was much denser and powerful than before, despite the increased quantity of it.

He understood it was completely normal for the aura of the city to have plummeted after so much progress on his part, he was actually surprised it didn't reach the complete bottom.

Although he didn't follow his previous routine of courting death every single layer by bordering utter annihilation while expanding his limits, he had other plans in mind... it was a very ridiculous plan.