Chapter 66: Final Choice! Could It Really Be for Beauty?

Skill books were an extremely precious resource; basically all skill books were used immediately upon acquisition to enhance one's own or others' combat power.

But some skill books that one couldn't use themselves would circulate onto the market, and since the number of skill books was small, prices remained stubbornly high!

The Empire collected large quantities of skill books every year to strengthen the combat power of regional garrison forces across the land.

And a skill book used as the reward for the top scorer in the national examination would naturally not be lacking in quality — purely in terms of power, they were absolutely all at the Sacred tier.

However, the vast majority of skill books were of the conventional type; skill books suited for summoners were far too few, and high-quality ones were exceedingly rare. Most were considered support-type, though the summoning specialization could also use them.

The Empire produced five skill books for Lu Zheng to choose from. Lu Zheng merely glanced at them and directly selected one.

【Skill Book: Mana Source】

【Effect: Consumes 10,000 mana to form a mana source within a single target. The target instantly recovers 5,000 mana, and additionally recovers 1,000 mana per second, lasting 35 seconds.】

【Learning Requirement: Summoning specialization professional, Support specialization professional, or Mage specialization professional, with mental power greater than 5,000.】

This was a Divine Skill — ten thousand mana exchanged for forty thousand mana. With this skill, as long as the rate of mana consumption was maintained at a certain level, it virtually guaranteed infinite casting.

It should be noted that other professionals could use potions to quickly or even instantly recover spent mana, and Lu Zheng himself could do the same — but summoned beasts could not.

Therefore, during combat, a summoned beast's sustained fighting capability was much weaker.

Although Lu Zheng now had skills that could accelerate mana recovery, they were far less overbearing than this "Mana Source," which directly restored mana values — ten thousand mana exchanged for forty thousand mana. This was an enormous help to a summoned beast's sustained fighting capability.

Learning this skill demanded very high mental power: 5,000 mental power was generally something only a fifth-rank expert at minimum could possess, yet Lu Zheng could meet the requirement and learn it directly.

After learning it, Lu Zheng immediately cast it on himself.

Sure enough, just as he had guessed, a single target could simultaneously receive the support of multiple mana sources. In other words, he could directly expend two hundred thousand mana to create twenty mana sources, allowing the target to instantly recover one hundred thousand mana, with an additional twenty thousand mana recovered per second for 35 seconds! In the end, two hundred thousand mana could be exchanged for eight hundred thousand mana.

In a certain sense, this was multiplying combat power fourfold! Having obtained yet another Divine Skill, Lu Zheng was in excellent spirits. After leaving the Imperial Treasury, he had originally intended to hurry home, but to his surprise, he hadn't gone more than a few steps before he was surrounded by a group of people.

These people all had considerable strength — every one of them was a fifth-rank professional, either a Grand Magus or a Sky Knight. Their status was eminent, and Lu Zheng couldn't simply run off.

He could only let himself be escorted by them into the lobby of a hotel, where everyone took their seats.

A middle-aged man dressed in a dark-blue martial outfit spoke up:

"Student Lu Zheng, I am Wang Chen, the admissions officer for Imperial Capital University. You're already in the imperial capital, so you might as well not leave! Enroll at our Imperial Capital University — all fees waived, three years of study, one hundred thousand gold coins in scholarship each year, and all other resources provided at the highest tier as well. What do you think?"

Lu Zheng scanned the room and understood what all these people were here for — they all wanted to recruit him for enrollment.

According to the rules, starting from today, there was a total of eleven days of holiday; after eleven days, the various universities would begin enrollment.

Today students would submit their preferences, and tomorrow the results would come out.

And he had clearly performed so outstandingly that the admissions officers from these top institutions had rushed to the imperial capital, unable to wait for him to return home, eagerly surrounding him, all wanting him to enroll.

Actually, it wasn't hard to understand.

His very existence was unprecedented. Whichever university he enrolled in would inevitably be recorded in history, and every institution would fight tooth and nail to get him to enroll!

But unfortunately, he already had a choice.

Just as he was about to say something, Xue Wuning, the admissions officer for Polar North University, dressed in a snow-white mage's robe, spoke up:

"I see that student Lu Zheng is very adept at using ice-type spells. Ice specializes in control. At our university, you can push this control to its absolute limit, and combined with your summoned beasts' offense, you will surely be able to unleash even greater combat power!"

"What control! Lu Zheng, your divine pet the Nine-Headed Bird is a true fire-type creature. Come to our Flame Emperor University — right next to our university is an active volcano, which will definitely help your divine pet grow rapidly.

As a summoner, making your summoned beasts stronger is what truly matters!" The admissions officer for Flame Emperor University was a heavily bearded man whose voice was so booming it made everyone's heads buzz.

This man was not a fire-type mage, but a Flame Forger — an Epic-tier professional. Though currently only fifth-rank, he was not far from stepping into the Sacred tier, and he spoke with great confidence.

The moment he spoke, the officers from several universities hesitated — after all, the man made some sense, and his presence was imposing! Yet among the crowd, only one person showed not the slightest intimidation: Xiang Junting, a fifth-rank Divine Grace Priestess and likewise an Epic-tier professional, the admissions officer for Sacred University.

"Sun Zhenhu! So you think a loud voice makes you impressive, huh!?"

Xiang Junting glared at Sun Zhenhu beside her, then smiled at Lu Zheng:

"Child, don't be afraid of this old thing! Come to our Sacred University — our Sacred University has the most support-type professionals of any university. Come to us, and whatever resources other universities can offer, we can offer them all! Most importantly, with so many summoned beasts of yours, we have many beautiful and powerful female support professionals to help you raise your level!"

As soon as these words came out, the surrounding officers were all indignant.

How could she do that!? How could she use beauty to tempt him — Lu Zheng was a hot-blooded young man; could he withstand such a trial? Truth be told, Lu Zheng was indeed somewhat tempted after hearing this.

Not out of lust for beauty, though.

He simply felt that if there were many support professionals buffing his summoned beasts, then combat power could indeed increase significantly, and the leveling speed would rise as well.

But after a moment's thought, with over a thousand summoned beasts — and potentially thousands or even tens of thousands in the future — even if every support professional in all of Sacred University mobilized, they still couldn't help him.

Moreover, his trump cards couldn't be exposed to these people.

It was still safer to raise things slowly on his own.

Seeing him fall silent, everyone thought the dust had settled and Lu Zheng was going to choose Sacred University, but then they saw another person speak up.

Ji Minghan, the admissions officer for Southern Guard University, smiled and said, "Student Lu Zheng, gold coin scholarships, dungeon resources — we can provide those too, but those aren't important. What everyone can offer is about the same. I'll just say one thing: our Zirou is waiting for you in Tiannan City. You can't break a young lady's heart!"

Hearing this, everyone looked at Lu Zheng, thinking to themselves: this is bad — Southern Guard University was too cunning, actually deploying a honey trap in advance! Lu Zheng saw that everyone had misunderstood and quickly explained.

New book: "After the Divorce, Dao Companions from All Heavens Came Chasing After Me"

Synopsis: A wife of three years, dissatisfied with her current life, believed she deserved better and, egged on by her best friend, asked for a divorce.

Facing his wife's cold mockery and sarcasm, Lu Zheng was disheartened and could only agree.

Who knew that the moment he received the divorce certificate, he was immediately embraced by a white-robed female knight-errant dressed in ancient attire.

Then, one after another, women of various identities appeared — a cold and elegant empress, a holy maiden of the demonic cult, a fairy of the Daoist gate, a charmingly naive dragon girl, and more.

They all insisted that they were Lu Zheng's one and only Dao companion!

They even fought each other over Lu Zheng, vying to gift him all manner of precious pills and magical treasures.

It turned out that three days later, the "World Pearl" that Lu Zheng had picked up a year ago would activate, beginning his journey of traversing the myriad heavens.

He successively experienced one hundred and eight worlds across wuxia, xuanhuan, and xianxia, and in every world, he had a Dao companion.

With his help, these Dao companions grew into the top experts of their respective worlds! In a great battle one hundred thousand years later, time fell into chaos, multiple dimensions merged, and the myriad heavens began to overlap with the origin world where Lu Zheng resided.

Lu Zheng perished, body and Dao extinguished.

And each of his Dao companions obtained a fragment of the World Pearl. Guided by the fragments, they came searching for him! As the myriad heavens merged with reality and everyone feared for their lives, Lu Zheng, with the help of his Dao companions, step by step once again ascended to the supreme heights, commanding the nine heavens and treading upon the ten thousand worlds.

(End of chapter)