Behind them, Lu Qingshan pushed up his glasses.
"Would your girlfriend agree to that?"
Jiang Lan: "..."
Chu Yun: "..."
Glancing at Lu Qingshan, Chu Yun rushed forward and threw an arm around Jiang Lan's shoulders.
"Bro! From today onward, you're my own big brother."
Jiang Lan pushed Chu Yun away in disgust.
"Get lost, get lost..."
"Hehe..." Chu Yun chuckled foolishly, but the moment he raised his arm, he sucked in a sharp breath. "Hiss..."
Jiang Lan glanced at his arm. The wound was crimson and still seeping blood.
"Do any of you have something for wounds?"
"I do." Lu Qingshan pulled a tube of Hemostatic Ointment from his pocket and handed it to Jiang Lan.
It was made specifically for martial artists. Applied to a wound, it could stop bleeding, relieve pain, and speed up healing.
Jiang Lan took the Hemostatic Ointment and gave Chu Yun's wound a quick treatment.
"Hiss..." Chu Yun grimaced. "Bro! It hurts! It hurts!"
Jiang Lan rolled his eyes.
"Quit your damn howling."
Once the wound was treated, Chu Yun finally recovered enough to glance behind him.
Then he noticed Bai Yu and Liu Shiyu standing nearby.
The two girls weren't particularly conspicuous. What stood out were the enormous bull horns they each held in their arms.
Those horns were almost thicker than Bai Yu's thigh and over a meter long.
Chu Yun froze, then pointed at the two girls.
"What the hell are those?"
"Bull horns."
"...I'm not blind. I meant, where did they come from?"
Jiang Lan rolled his eyes again. "I stole them."
"Quit kidding. Those don't look like something an ordinary ferocious beast would have. A Black-Horned Savage Bull?"
Just then, Liu Shiyu came up from behind.
Although she struggled a little to carry the horn, that didn't stop her from speaking.
"It was a Black-Horned Savage Bull, and a third-tier one at that!"
The moment Liu Shiyu said that, the place fell so quiet that they could have heard a pin drop.
Chu Yun's mind buzzed for a while. Only after a long pause did he speak, his face filled with shock.
"Th-third-tier?"
"Yeah." Jiang Lan nodded. "Got lucky and happened to run into one."
Chu Yun: "???"
Hold on, bro.
What did luck have to do with this?
That was a fucking third-tier ferocious beast!
A third-tier ferocious beast that even an Astral-Condensing Martial Artist wouldn't dare face alone.
How the hell was that lucky?
Were you even human?
Jiang Lan looked around at their stunned faces and waved a hand.
"Come on, let's go. It's almost time. We'll be late if we don't hurry."
With that, he turned and headed toward the Rally Point, showing no intention of continuing to show off.
Mostly because showing off in front of his classmates wasn't much fun.
Chu Yun and the other two stood dazed for a moment, then hurried after him.
Mo Han raised his head and watched Jiang Lan's retreating figure, his gaze completely changed.
Before, he had still harbored some resentment toward Jiang Lan, but now even the last trace of it had vanished.
This was no joke. That was a third-tier ferocious beast.
If it had been him, never mind killing it-he wasn't even sure he would survive an encounter.
The six of them headed toward the Rally Point.
Chu Yun quickened his pace and came up beside Jiang Lan.
"Bro, did you take that Black-Horned Savage Bull head-on?"
"Yeah."
"A strength-type beast like that has at least seven or eight thousand kilograms of strength, right? How did you withstand it?"
"Thick skin."
"...Then how long did you fight?"
"Hmm..." Jiang Lan thought for a moment. "Five or six minutes, I guess."
The actual fight really hadn't taken very long.
That was how combat worked. A single instant could decide victory or defeat.
Prolonged battles lasting half an hour or an hour were generally unrealistic.
After another twenty minutes or so of walking and chatting, the six finally left the outskirts of the Wilderness Zone and spotted the Coach Bus parked in the distance.
Xiao Feng stood beside the bus, checking names off a list.
Seeing the six emerge together, Xiao Feng raised his eyebrows slightly.
His gaze first swept over the bandage on Chu Yun's arm. Once he confirmed that the injury wasn't serious, he relaxed.
But soon, Bai Yu and Liu Shiyu caught his attention.
It was nothing else-the two bull horns were simply far too conspicuous.
His expression changed, and he strode over to the two girls.
"What are these?"
Although he asked, his experience had already given him a fairly good idea the moment he saw the horns.
"Horns from a Black-Horned Savage Bull," Jiang Lan said.
Xiao Feng's breath caught.
He reached out, took a horn from Bai Yu, and examined it closely.
After studying it for a while, he confirmed that it really was a Black-Horned Savage Bull's horn.
And judging by its appearance... it didn't seem to belong to a second-tier Black-Horned Savage Bull.
If it wasn't second-tier...
Then it was third-tier?
Only after a full five seconds of silence did Xiao Feng raise his head to look at Jiang Lan.
"You killed it?"
Naturally, Jiang Lan had no intention of hiding it. He nodded.
"Yes."
After another silence, Xiao Feng asked, "...Third-tier?"
"Yes."
Looking at Jiang Lan before him, Xiao Feng's mind churned.
Was this some kind of joke?
A third-tier Black-Horned Savage Bull?
Jiang Lan had only enrolled a little over a month ago!
He had taught at the martial academy for so many years that he thought he had seen every kind of genius.
But wasn't this just too fucking absurd?
So much so that he even wondered whether he had fallen asleep and was dreaming.
Even he couldn't claim a hundred percent chance of victory against a third-tier ferocious beast in a head-on clash.
Had this little monster really grown this much in just over a month?
Taking a deep breath, Xiao Feng forcibly suppressed the turmoil inside him, returned the horn to Bai Yu, and restored his calm expression.
"Get on the bus."
Jiang Lan nodded and called the others aboard.
But Xiao Feng didn't follow them onto the bus.
Jiang Lan looked over and saw him walk aside, take out his phone, and dial a number.
"Director Lin, this is Xiao Feng."
He kept his voice very low.
"...There's something about the assessment I need to report. It concerns Jiang Lan from the Rocket Class."
Jiang Lan couldn't hear what followed.
But he wasn't interested in listening, either.
Once aboard, Jiang Lan found a seat, leaned back, and closed his eyes to rest.
Today's haul had been pretty good.
A dozen or so first-tier ferocious beasts, two Second-Tier Red-Scaled Lizards, and one third-tier Black-Horned Savage Bull.
As for the essence blood, he would work out the details once he got back.
The Beast Cores and savage bull materials alone would fetch tens of thousands of credit points once he sold them.
Although the Academy had organized the assessment, everything the students obtained from their kills belonged to them.
The Academy wouldn't stoop that low.
As for Xiao Feng's phone call, Jiang Lan could more or less guess what it was about.
The fact that he had killed a third-tier ferocious beast couldn't be hidden, and there was no need to hide it.
If the Academy gave him more resources because of it, he would gladly welcome them.
Being noticed had never been what he feared.
What he feared was attracting the attention of someone far stronger than him who harbored ill intentions.
But from how things stood, the Ultimate Dao Martial Academy's intentions toward him were mostly good.
As for what happened later, he would deal with it later.