A Way to Earn Points

This school deliberately imitated the social environment.

By now, after observing and learning about it for some time, Mu Tianchen understood that very clearly.

So if he wanted to earn a large number of points in a short time, he couldn't rely on ordinary methods.

It was like society: working a job was stable, but unless you worked for a particularly generous large company or corporation,

there was no way to earn enough in a short time to buy a house or a luxury car.

If you wanted to buy one quickly, your only options were to start your own business or take a more extreme approach.

Starting a business was a viable option, but after giving it some thought, Mu Tianchen rejected the idea.

At this school, applying to open a shop was practically impossible. Starting a business carried some risk, but at this school, the risk was close to zero.

Under Advanced Nurturing High School's special rule that students couldn't leave campus for three years, shops were basically monopolies. As long as their products weren't too outrageous, they would earn a great deal. Going out of business was even less likely.

After all, it was nearly impossible to run out of customers here, especially for things people needed.

Mu Tianchen didn't think the school and the government would casually hand over the right to operate a shop to him. Even if they did, it would come at a steep price.

After all, he had never heard of a student running a shop here before. He didn't believe no one had ever thought of it.

There had to be some obstacle in the application process, or the school's conditions were too demanding. He didn't think he was capable of overcoming them, so it was definitely out of the question.

That left him with only one option: taking a more extreme approach to earn a large number of points.

An extreme approach meant exploiting loopholes in the rules or doing things in an unconventional way.

He had already proved that it could work when he used the leverage he had to threaten Ryuen and successfully get a large number of points.

But that had mostly been a matter of luck. Relying on that method was certainly possible,

but it was like waiting for a rabbit to run into a tree stump. Who knew when he'd get another chance? He had limited time and couldn't afford to wait long. Besides, there was a good chance he'd end up wasting his effort.

So he had to find another way. Given how unusual this school was, the things that ran counter to people's usual way of thinking were often exactly where the loopholes lay.

The ideas people detested and despised usually had something to do with "sex, gambling, and drugs."

But this was a school, after all. There was no way drugs would turn up here.

As for the first one, with his abilities, he could indeed use threats of violence or the promise of benefits, but there would still be some risk.

Haha, he was just joking around!

He didn't want to end up in juvenile detention so soon!

That left gambling as the best option, without crossing too many lines.

He could earn a large number of points quickly by making bets!

As for who to target, he'd have to pick the fat sheep with lots of points. And he had a natural advantage here: he was in Class D.

In a bet, that would often give his opponent the impression that he was weak, making them careless and preventing them from performing at their best.

And as for those fat sheep, Mu Tianchen had already picked them out. At the club fair, he'd noticed how many personal points the clubs were promising.

That showed the school gave clubs generous subsidies.

He'd also considered starting a club of his own. That would be much easier than applying to the school for permission to run a shop, but for now, it still wasn't an option.

Mu Tianchen didn't want to attract attention just yet. He also had to think about who would join his club. He couldn't just bring in a bunch of people whose backgrounds he didn't know. He wouldn't feel safe doing that.

Now, though, he could use this opportunity to fleece them and show them how harsh the world could be.

But since he'd be making bets, there would inevitably be some risk.

Mu Tianchen had to keep that risk to a minimum by taking his own abilities into account. He couldn't rush in blindly.

For example, if he went straight to bet against the Soccer Club, which Hirata belonged to, he knew he wouldn't stand a chance.

Their team had never won once over the years. How could he possibly beat them?

After thinking it over for a while, Mu Tianchen had a preliminary idea of which clubs to challenge: the Table Tennis Club and the Chess Club.

He chose those two because, as far as he knew, the table tennis players in the Island Nation were terrible. And it wasn't just that they were bad—they didn't know it and still loved to play. All they did was hit basic lobs and the like.

He'd seen this for himself at the club exhibition. Their level was worse than that of an elementary school student back home.

Mu Tianchen wasn't a professional either, but beating them handily shouldn't be difficult.

He chose the Chess Club because he was quite confident in his abilities there.

When he was little, he used to play chess with Arisu whenever he visited Uncle Itagaki's house.

She was incredibly good. They said she'd even beaten professional players before.

She'd only been around nine at the time. She was a prodigy.

Of course, Mu Tianchen couldn't beat her either, but she loved playing, and there was nothing he could do about it. After losing to her eighty-one times in a row, his skill improved noticeably.

He could even draw with her sometimes. And what did it mean to draw with her?

He had to be at least as good as a professional player!

There was no way every member of the Chess Club was better than a professional player. That just wasn't realistic.

So Mu Tianchen was confident that as long as he didn't run into Arisu, he could keep winning!

With his abilities, he could probably fleece a few points from other clubs too, but that would make him stand out too much.

These two clubs should earn him a million points or more, so there was no need to invite trouble for now.

And so, after enduring the long hours of class, the school day finally ended.

During that time, Mu Tianchen noticed that the teacher seemed to repeat some important material several times on purpose. He felt that the teacher might be giving them a little hint.

It was probably because exams were coming up. After all, they'd been attending classes for a while now. Exams were perfectly normal at a school.

The more observant students might have noticed that even Takagahara, unusually, hadn't slept. He'd listened patiently to the lesson for a while. As for those who were still slacking off, it didn't seem to affect them at all.

After leaving the classroom, Mu Tianchen didn't go to the library as he had before to spend time reading with his good books. Instead, he headed straight for the school's club building.