Once his excitement subsided, Su Ye dismissed the panel.
He wasn't about to awaken his ability on impulse. He needed to perform the ritual first.
He took out his phone.
Su Ye logged into Blue Sky Trading Company's website and looked up the prices of the materials the ritual required.
Then...
Smack!
Su Ye fell backward.
Despair filled his eyes.
Materials like Half-Moon Ganoderma weren't especially expensive. Together, they cost just over twenty thousand.
A portion of Essence Blood from a Golden Lion Star Beast, famed for its explosive strength, cost forty-five thousand.
But...
Even the most ordinary First-order Star Core cost two hundred thousand!
A Star Core was a special crystal that formed in a Star Beast's brain and contained a vast amount of pure energy.
Such crystals generally formed only in the brains of demonic beasts at the peak of their rank. They served as energy reserves for the Star Beast's breakthrough, then disappeared once it advanced.
So Su Ye had figured a Star Core might be expensive.
He just hadn't expected it to cost this much!
Worse still...
Su Ye took out the black card Zhang Xuan had given him as an apology.
To evolve his supernatural ability, he'd bought a full ninety-five bottles of Primary Nutrient Solution.
Now the card held only fifty thousand.
Even with the thirty-odd thousand he'd extorted from those thugs and the three thousand he'd earned working these past few days,
he had less than a hundred thousand altogether.
He was still two hundred thousand short!
What was he supposed to do?
Ask Liu Ruxin to give back the money he'd given her?
No!
Su Ye shook his head. He couldn't bring himself to do that.
He'd have to find another way.
"If nothing else works... I'll check the Patrol Bureau for any jobs."
Su Ye picked up his phone and began searching the Patrol System.
The next day,
Su Ye arrived at school with red eyes from staying up all night.
He'd spent half the night browsing the Patrol Bureau's system and read plenty of wanted notices, but he hadn't found a single job suited to making money.
Once he reached school, though, a huge surprise awaited him.
"A'Su, did you hear? The school's taking us on a field trip!"
Zhang Xuan sidled up to him as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"What field trip? It's supposed to give us some combat experience."
Seeing Su Ye's puzzled look, Zhang Xuan grinned and explained.
"The school can't set up an Elite Class and just have us train all day. They've got to mix things up."
"Word got out this morning. They're taking us to the Suburbs to kill Mutated Demonic Beasts and get some combat experience."
Now that sounds good.
Su Ye perked up.
"But... if Mutated Demonic Beasts have appeared, shouldn't the Patrol Bureau handle them? Why send students like us?"
"Because the ones that mutated are field mice..."
After Zhang Xuan explained, Su Ye finally understood.
For some unknown reason, the field mice on a farm in the Suburbs had mutated. They weren't particularly strong—not even close to Extraordinary.
Their attacks were only on par with a human Martial Artist at the fifth or sixth level of Kaiyuan.
But the mice were fast and agile, diving underground at the slightest disturbance. That made them a real nuisance.
Having the Patrol Bureau deal with Mutated Demonic Beasts like these would be overkill, so Principal Zhang had taken the matter on as a chance to give the Elite Class some combat experience.
There was even a reward for killing the mice: three hundred yuan each.
Field mice at the fifth or sixth level of Kaiyuan...
Each one should be worth five or six Slaughter Value. He could earn some extra cash, too.
This trip was looking better by the minute.
The farm in the Suburbs stretched as far as the eye could see.
Xia Zhiqiu stared, mouth agape.
"This has to be a hundred mu, right? It's huge."
Zhang Xuan walked over carrying a long blade and shook his head.
"A hundred mu? You're way off. This farm covers more than two thousand mu. That whole stretch behind it is part of the farm."
"Blue Star has a huge population, and Martial Artists need even more food than most people. That's why every city has large farms around it. It's the only way to keep everyone fed."
Xiao Qiyue looked toward the fields in the distance.
A dark-gray field mouse nearly forty centimeters long flashed past, then burrowed into the soil and vanished.
"With a farm this big and only fifty of us in the Elite Class, can we catch them all?"
As it turned out, the school had prepared for that.
It had already divided the farm into sections.
The fifty Elite Class students could form their own five-person teams.
Each team would be responsible for the field mice within two hundred mu.
To motivate everyone further,
the school had announced another rule.
At the end of the following day, each member of the team that had killed the most field mice would receive Cultivation Resources worth fifty thousand yuan.
Fifty thousand yuan might not mean much to many Elite Class students.
But this was the class's first activity together.
For the sake of pride,
plenty of them were already raring to go.
Su Ye's eyes lit up even more.
Another fifty thousand?!
We have to win this.
Xia Zhiqiu, however, was clearly more interested in forming a team. He asked hopefully,
"A'Su, what do you say we team up with the campus belles?"
Xiao Qiyue looked over instinctively.
Su Ye nodded. "Xiao Qiyue, Mu Wanrou, would you like to team up?"
Xiao Qiyue and Mu Wanrou exchanged a glance.
"Sure. Sorry for the trouble."
Xia Zhiqiu beamed. "No trouble at all!"
Zhang Xuan sidled over again.
"You need one more for a team of five. Count me in."
Their five-person team came together without a hitch.
Su Ye and the other three went to Principal Zhang to get their assigned section.
The farm stretched out endlessly before them.
Mu Wanrou pulled Xiao Qiyue over to a patch of lavender.
"Qiyue, Qiyue! Take a picture of me!"
Click!
"Let's take one together, too. Make it a cute one."
Click!
"Wow, this angle looks even better! Qiyue, come here. Let's take another!"
The two beauties were so absorbed in taking photos they couldn't stop.
Xia Zhiqiu watched with obvious delight.
Su Ye glanced over.
They were out for combat training today,
so neither girl wore her loose school uniform.
Xiao Qiyue wore a fitted white T-shirt, light-purple athletic pants, dark-purple sneakers, and a white baseball cap. She looked full of youthful energy.
Mu Wanrou wore a pale-green athletic tank top and dark-green yoga pants that outlined her long, straight legs.
Standing together...
Yeah, they do look good.
But Su Ye looked away after only a moment.
Pretty girls can't beat making money.
Just then...
A gray field mouse poked its little head out from the edge of a field ridge, seemingly distracted by the girls' beauty too.
Su Ye reacted at once and charged over,
the long blade issued by the school in his hand.
But...
Thud!
The blade struck the ridge hard, but there was no mouse head beneath it.
The field mouse was too slippery. It had ducked back into its hole a split second before the blade landed.
Then it poked its head out of another hole six or seven meters away.
"Squeak, squeak, squeak~~~"
It sounded as though it were laughing at Su Ye.
Su Ye: ...
You little pest. Now it's personal!
Before you continue