Zhao Fan woke up and stretched his body, feeling extremely well-rested.
"Did you do anything last night?" He remembered that Hei Long liked to wonder around when he was sleeping.
".."
"Hey, I'm talking to you! You know I have the right to at least know what you do with my body" Zhao Fan prodded Hei Long's soul in the soul dimension inside him.
"Grr- Just some business negotiations and training, please let me sleep now" A tired, raspy voice replied.
Zhao Fan yawned and scratched his chin, not paying any more attention to Hei Long. He got up and put on his armor before heading outside.
"Fan'er, sit down and eat with me. I haven't seen you for days and you want to sneak out again?"
"Eh, alright!" Zhao Fan sat down at the seat across from his father.
His father was sitting at a table, a newspaper was strewn out in front of him. There were two bowls of rice porridge sitting on the table.
"You finally listened to me!" Zhao Fan grinned when he saw the newspaper.
"As your father, I can't shame you and remain ignorant! All of those big names came down to the factory just to hear about your work! All of the people you hired are currently swimming in pride and our family is now one that people point toward and treat as idols."
"Is the impact that big? I just hired twenty or so people, there are tens of thousands of workers in our city!" Zhao Fan raised an eyebrow.
"Even uneducated workers are still people and not fools without common sense! They saw how easily you made more cauldrons, it's not difficult to realize that you can hire many more workers!" A wide smile spread across Zhao Yang's face.
Zhao Fan tasted a spoonful of porridge as he listened. The smile on his face froze.
"Father, all this talk about being rich and you still refuse to buy salt or any spices!" He said indignantly.
"Brat, place in the top ten in the competition and then I will let you lecture me! Eat your porridge quietly otherwise!"
Zhao Fan didn't pay his father any mind after seeing his smile. He quietly sipped on the boiling hot porridge when a thought came to him.
"The loan sharks haven't been troubling you right?"
Zhao Yang tensed up as if he bit into a lemon. Seeing this, Zhao Fan frowned. The silent atmosphere lasted for a short while before it was shattered by a deep sigh. Zhao Yang seemed slightly hesitant but spoke anyway.
"Zhao Fan, do you understand the purpose of the Academy in our city?"
Zhao Fan did not expect the question at all.
"To give all people a chance to cultivate and strengthen the Empire of course, what else could it be?" Puzzled, he blurted out an obvious answer.
"You are a bit naive, but I guess you are still too young. Answer me this, why would the Empire pour so many resources into giving the commoners the chance to cultivate? What benefit would it gain from this?"
"The Immortal Flame Empire has the royal family as its ruler and many sects which combined are around the same strength, this is common knowledge. The Academy is made so geniuses could be weeded out from the poor peasants and given a chance to shine on a wider stage." Zhao Fan did not even have to think over his answer
"Right, but a devious snake like the Immortal Flame Empire only has its benefits in mind, the only goal from the Academy is to improve its army. You don't understand since you are young, but strength is the ultimate force behind everything. The royal family doesn't like the sects since they threaten their superiority, they couldn't care less what the sh*tty sects want!"
"How is that different from what I said?"
"You still don't seem to understand… The Academy is created to get more power for the royal family, do you think they would just let people learn in it and then leave to become lone cultivators?" Zhao Yang shook his head and laughed.
"Are you saying that the Academy forces people who don't make it into the sects to join the army?" Zhao Fan's eyes widened, his hand forming a fist. Didn't this mean that if he did not make it to the Academy Competition, he would be sent to the frontlines by the army as cannon fodder? His pride would not allow him to be forced into something like the army against his will.
"Calm down, the royal family are not idiots. They can't outright force us to join the army." His father waved his hand.
"The loan sharks!" Zhao Fan opened his eyes wide in shock.
"Exactly right, that year when I bought this house for your mother, me, and you, I needed money to pay for the Academy registration fee, so I took on a heavy loan. You see, the city probably needs to send a certain number of kids into the army every year, these people giving loans to the poor are nothing, but scum hired by the Sun clan. Once a student fails, they have no sources of income and need to sell themselves to the army to pay the loan which grows every year."
"How could you take on such a loan! We would have been a perfectly happy family even if I didn't cultivate!" Zhao Fan slammed his fists on the table, rattling the dishes. He couldn't understand why his father would take on such a bad loan which would force both of them into slavery if he did not succeed.
"QUIET! You brat think you know so much just because you have a bit of success! No, it's my fault, I have hidden the events of the past from you, so you can't be blamed." His father suddenly had an outburst, slamming his palm on the table. Zhao Fan instantly quieted, it was an unprecedented event for his father to lose his temper with him.
"Events of the past, could it be something related to my mother? What exactly happened to her?" He asked quietly but with an excited tone. The topic of his mother was completely off-limits in the house.
"What I have told you before is true, she died while hunting in the forest, but there is something else you need to know."
"What is it? I have the right to know about my mother, I know you probably think I am not strong enough to protect myself but how can I possibly step on my path if I don't even know if I have any other ancestors in heaven watching over me?" Zhao Fan pleaded.
"Fine, listen up all you want. Your ancestors? The Zhao family? All dead! As for who killed them? Think for yourself and tell me!" His father started laughing uproariously.
Zhao Fan's face paled and became like a sheet of paper. He always thought that his family was just him, his father, and his mother, but now that he knew about the whole Zhao family, a million thoughts rushed through his brain.
"Our family was wiped out, how is that possible!? The Empire is right on the border with the territory of the beasts, it must have been a beast tide, right? Hold on, how did you manage to escape while the family was destroyed? Could it be that you were a powerful cultivator back then?"
"Hahaha, me? I was and still am a slave of the Zhao family! The only reason I am alive is because of your mother, the very person that wiped out the Zhao family!"
"My mother, who was she…" Zhao Fan mumbled a question.
"Your mother was possessed by a demon wight and single-handedly wiped out the clan, only taking me because of the attachment we had previously." A cold tone reverberated across the silent room.
"So, you are saying that my mother is a demon ghost"
"Yes, the last request of your mother to the demon was to continue the Zhao family, when she left, I still had a bit of money from the Zhao family which she had given me and so I bought a house and tried to register you for the Academy. The goons of the Sun clan took away all my savings once they saw my money, and I was forced to take a loan" Zhao Yang said in a grave tone.
"The motherf*ckers of the Sun clan actually dare to harm the common people for profits, do they have no respect for any laws in the Empire?! Also, hold on let me reiterate, I am the child of a demon? Am I going to grow horns when I turn eighteen or will I get hunted down by some random person who notices that I am part demon?"
"No don't worry, it is impossible for a human to have the characteristics of a demon, when you grow from a fetus up until your eighteenth birthday, the demon aspects in your soul will be naturally cleansed by the will of the world which rejects such things, these are all things your mother told me before she left so you can be assured, they are definitely true."
"Will of the world?"
"I have no idea either, you are the cultivator here so you will probably find out eventually" Zhao Yang shrugged.
"So, I'm guessing the will of the world did not do its job properly" Hei Long's voice sounded from the soul dimension.