Damn, I'm Broke!

Chen Yumo felt like he could barely watch.

They were all ancient monsters already, yet they still pretended to be young. They truly had no shame at all.

After the group trickled into the classroom, Chen Yumo found an inconspicuous corner and sat down. He fed the Ice Silkworm in his hand another Mulberry Leaf while waiting for the teacher to arrive.

Nuoding Academy's Spirit Master courses were quite simple.

Yesterday had been the opening ceremony. Today marked the official start of classes. Generally, they studied meditation and cultivation in the morning, then theoretical knowledge in the afternoon.

With the Meditation Method Xiao Chenyu had given him, Chen Yumo had no need for the academy's basic meditation method. That was why he had time to buy Cold Mulberry Leaves in the morning.

The teacher would not take attendance anyway. Whether you studied or not was your own business, and however strong you could become was also your own business. The teacher was only responsible for teaching; they would not crack a whip to push you along like compulsory education.

There was no need.

You had not tipped the teacher a single coin, and you were not close to them either. Why would they go to such lengths to nurture you?

So even if Chen Yumo skipped class in the morning, the teacher would not know. Or rather, even if they did know, they would not care.

Whether he studied or not had nothing to do with the teacher anyway.

And for Chen Yumo, the afternoon classes were just as optional.

He had the Four-in-One Encyclopedia provided by the system. It recorded all the basic knowledge of Douluo Continent. He only needed to read through it step by step, and the quality of its knowledge far surpassed what Nuoding Academy's teachers taught.

It was all theoretical knowledge. Before going to the Spirit Beast Forest for practical experience, there was not much difference between listening to a teacher explain it and studying it himself.

But he still needed the identity of a student to live peacefully for a while. The academy was safe and did not have much serious conflict, allowing him to develop steadily. Naturally, he could not act too differently from everyone else.

Now that he could increase his Soul Power by feeding his Ice Silkworm Martial Soul, attending class was not entirely a waste of time.

Before long, the teacher arrived. Without bothering to check whether everyone was present, he patted the lectern to signal for silence, then opened a textbook and began teaching.

Perhaps this lesson was meant to accommodate freshmen like Chen Yumo, who had only enrolled this year. The material was especially basic, covering things such as types of Martial Souls and the colors of Spirit Rings.

Chen Yumo had said there was little point in attending class. The Encyclopedia had all this information, and its explanations were far clearer and easier to understand than this teacher's.

Xiao Wu, meanwhile, had fallen asleep right in class, drooling all over her desk.

Chen Yumo could already see the teacher's face darkening. Fortunately, Xiao Wu was not snoring. Otherwise, he suspected the teacher might have thrown a piece of chalk straight at her forehead.

Not just Xiao Wu—Chen Yumo himself was getting sleepy from listening. He simply fed the Ice Silkworm while using the System Space to browse the Encyclopedia and study on his own.

The afternoon passed quickly.

After finishing the afternoon classes, Chen Yumo became even more certain that Nuoding Academy's teaching quality was truly mediocre. It simply could not compare to the knowledge Brother System had provided.

Sure enough, how could knowledge you slowly figured out yourself possibly be as comprehensive as the Encyclopedia the system gave me? Chen Yumo thought to himself.

Take knowledge about Spirit Beasts, for example.

If you figured it out yourself, there would be holes everywhere—vague here, unclear there.

System-produced material covered everything: from Spirit Beast habits and ways to identify their age, to their weaknesses and how to lure or drive them away, all the way to postnatal care, lifespan limits, bloodline strength, and food-chain counters.

Brother System, you were incredible!

[You flatter me, Host.]

Though the system was being modest, Chen Yumo somehow detected a trace of pride in that emotionless electronic voice.

His response to that was: Brother System, you deserved it!

As the afternoon classes ended, the sun at the horizon gradually sank toward the western mountains.

In the days that followed, Nuoding Academy settled into an oddly peaceful routine.

Chen Yumo did not immediately set his plan in motion. If Yu Xiaogang offended him one moment and got dealt with the next, Chen Yumo would inevitably be the first suspect. For bastards like Tang San and Yu Xiaogang, suspicion alone was enough for them to mark you as having chosen the Way of Death.

For his own safety, Chen Yumo had no choice but to let Yu Xiaogang enjoy a few more peaceful days.

After all, he only had a few peaceful days left to enjoy.

Without distracting himself by dealing with Yu Xiaogang, Chen Yumo could devote all his energy to nurturing his Martial Soul.

During the day, he fed the Ice Silkworm and observed what changes would happen to its body as it continued eating and eating and eating.

At night, he experimented with how to keep its feeding from affecting his own cultivation.

After several weeks of testing, Chen Yumo discovered that the Ice Silkworm had an astonishing appetite. It really could eat only one meal a day—and have that one meal last the entire day!

Twenty-four hours without stopping!

Even while Chen Yumo slept, as long as he placed enough Cold Mulberry Leaves beside it before bed, it could eat all night by itself.

Not only did it eat for a long time, it also ate a huge amount.

Take the ten jin of Mulberry Leaves he had bought. During the first week, the Ice Silkworm ate more than one jin every day. The entire ten jin was gone in a week.

In fact, it had not even lasted a full week. By the time the last Mulberry Leaf was eaten, it was only the morning of the seventh day. The seventh day had not even passed yet—it had lasted just over six days.

This forced Chen Yumo to try feeding Cold Mulberry Seeds to the Ice Silkworm as well.

He had never imagined that his Martial Soul would have such a huge appetite. The Cold Mulberry Leaves he had ordered from Baicao Hall had not yet arrived from the Northern Border, and all he currently had in stock were Cold Mulberry Seeds.

Fortunately, the Ice Silkworm was not picky. It even preferred Mulberry Fruit to Mulberry Leaves, completely unlike an ordinary silkworm.

Then again, it was a Martial Soul. Mulberry Leaves and Mulberry Fruit came from the same tree anyway, so there really was no difference to it.

With Mulberry Fruit holding things over, Chen Yumo finally received a new shipment before he ran out. Thirty jin of Mulberry Fruit lasted around half a month, because he discovered that the more he fed his Martial Soul, the bigger its appetite became.

At first, it could only eat about one jin of Mulberry Leaves a day. By the seventh day, it could eat roughly one and a half jin.

After switching to Mulberry Fruit, its appetite grew even larger, averaging two jin of Mulberry Fruit every day.

One had to know that the ice-element energy in Mulberry Fruit was significantly greater than that of Mulberry Leaves.

It was simply ridiculous.

But as the saying went, a hearty appetite was a blessing. With such a huge appetite, the Ice Silkworm Martial Soul naturally provided Chen Yumo with enormous benefits.

After the Ice Silkworm had eaten Mulberry Leaves and Mulberry Fruit for only three weeks, Chen Yumo could already feel his Soul Power stirring. He estimated that after eating twice as much more, his Soul Power would naturally rise by another level.

His own cultivation accounted for only one-fifth of that progress, not only because his talent was poor, but also because the Ice Silkworm could eat twenty-four hours a day while he could only cultivate at night.

Thus, most of his advancement came from the cultivation progress the Ice Silkworm provided through endless eating.

By that calculation, at his current pace, he could raise a level every nine weeks—sixty-three days, nearly two months.

Was that not absurd?

Raising a level in two months? Even Tang San, who cultivated the Mysterious Heaven Skill, could not do that. Yet Chen Yumo only needed to keep feeding the Ice Silkworm without interruption.

Only...

"This really costs a fortune!" Chen Yumo was genuinely at a loss this time.

He had once thought that the roughly ten thousand Gold Soul Coins on him was a huge sum, but now he only felt stretched thin.

Six hundred and fifty Gold Soul Coins had only lasted three weeks!