Chapter 9

The Huang family's bone-checking ended. Out of nearly two hundred youths, ten were finally left.

The best innate talent was that Yi-Upper youth, who was also the only one with Yi-level innate talent. Ranked second was Bing-Upper innate talent, also only one.

Xu Yang's Bing-Lower innate talent ranked third, but he wasn't the only one; there were three youths with Bing-Lower innate talent, and the remaining five were all Ding-Upper.

The old master who checked the bones left directly, and the Huang family had another big figure appear—the Second Master of the Huang family, the younger brother of the Huang family head—Huang Ping.

"Congratulations to all the talents for standing out..."

Huang Ping looked kind and first congratulated everyone who had been selected.

Next, he talked about the Huang family's cultivation for everyone, giving different levels of cultivation according to different levels of innate talent.

The highest was that Yi-Upper youth, a boy named Lu Ren, with a monthly cultivation fee of eight taels.

Of course, it wasn't given as cash, but in the form of tuition, food, medicinal soup, etc.

Bing-Upper innate talent got four taels a month, and Xu Yang's Bing-Lower innate talent got three taels a month.

Excluding the tuition fee paid to the school, his meal standard at the school was one tael of silver a month, which could provide meat at every meal and three bowls of body-strengthening soup, exactly one tael of silver.

In other words, the Huang family sent them to the school to practice, and the tuition fee was lower than if they had signed up themselves, only one tael of silver.

As for Ding-Upper innate talent, there was only two taels of silver for cultivation. Besides the one tael for tuition, the remaining one tael was for food, with no medicinal soup.

Huang Ping said a lot, talking about the fact that they must become Huang family retainers after becoming martial artists, and also about the retaliation they would face from the Huang family if they went back on their word.

He spoke for a quarter of an hour until his mouth was dry. No one quit; everyone accepted the Huang family's cultivation and the condition of becoming Huang family retainers in the future.

Huang Ping left, and the middle-aged man who appeared with Zhou Shunchang earlier appeared again, immediately wanting to take everyone to the school to start practicing.

"Fifth Master, wait a moment. I have a few words to say to my nephew." Zhou Shunchang pointed at Xu Yang.

Everyone then knew that this middle-aged man was also from the Huang family.

"This boy with Bing-Lower innate talent is your nephew?" Huang Jin looked surprised.

Zhou Shunchang raised his head: "My own nephew!"

Huang Jin smiled: "So it's family. That's really not bad."

Because of Zhou Shunchang's relationship, he showed goodwill toward Xu Yang.

Zhou Shunchang ran to Xu Yang's side. Actually, there wasn't much to say; he just stuffed one tael of silver to Xu Yang and urged him to practice martial arts diligently and not waste this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The ten people soon followed Huang Jin out of the Huang family courtyard and arrived in front of a large courtyard, from which came bursts of shouting.

"It's actually Weiyuan Hall!"

Xu Yang looked at the three gilded characters above the courtyard and couldn't help but reveal a hint of realization.

In his original plan, he was going to come to Weiyuan Hall to apprentice and practice after getting money, because this was the cheapest one among the dozen martial arts schools in Qingyuan County. He didn't expect the Huang family to choose Weiyuan Hall too.

The Huang family chose Weiyuan Hall, probably because it was cheap.

Following Huang Jin inside, the first thing that caught his eye was a huge martial arts arena, with all kinds of training equipment placed there—stone locks, swords, plum blossom stakes, etc., all available.