As the two talked, a figure appeared on the road ahead of them.
The figure drew closer from the distance, seemingly about to pass them very soon.
The person was extremely fast by an ordinary person's standards, but this was Awakener Academy, so that kind of speed was normal. Wei He was not surprised. Both he and Lu Cheng had returned successfully from an expedition into the Ancient Wilderness.
But the next instant, Wei He felt Lu Cheng grab him and yank him to the side.
"Huh?"
Utterly bewildered, Wei He instinctively turned to look at Lu Cheng.
Then, to his surprise, he saw Lu Cheng standing rigidly beside the road, his head bowed toward it. Even the knuckles of the hand gripping him had gone a little white from the force.
Whoosh!
The running figure passed them, moving too fast for them to make out her face. All they could see was a black ponytail swaying in the wind behind her head.
She did not seem to have noticed them at all. Wei He found Lu Cheng's sudden behavior utterly inexplicable and frowned as he slapped his hand away.
"What the hell's gotten into you?"
Lu Cheng raised his head as though waking from a dream. Looking at the retreating figure, he murmured, "Wen Jing..."
"Wen Jing?"
Wei He raised an eyebrow and repeated the name, then suddenly realized something, his eyes widening.
"Wen Jing?! You're saying that person just now was Wen Jing??"
He had attended Second High on School District Planet, so he had never seen Wen Jing. Only Lu Cheng, who had attended First High, had seen her.
But it was fair to say that no student on School District Planet was unfamiliar with that name.
For the seniors in her year, that name was an ever-present shadow hanging over their heads. Even though Wen Jing was a winter student, the last intake to enroll, her strength completely overwhelmed the spring students who had studied nine months longer than she had, let alone the summer and autumn students who came after them.
Wei He tried to analyze it calmly. "Could you have mistaken her for someone else? If Wen Jing awakened, why would she attend the same academy as us? Surely she'd go to Xuanhuang. Even at worst, Qinglang would make more sense, wouldn't it?"
"There's no mistake!"
Lu Cheng spoke with absolute conviction. "It was definitely her. It even triggered my muscle memory! There's no mistake!"
What muscle memory? Muscle memory for an audience with the emperor?
Remembering Lu Cheng's instinctive actions just now, Wei He wore an indescribable expression. Still, he reliably opened his communications. "Hang on. I'll ask a junior right now..."
While they waited for a reply, Lu Cheng said nothing. His eyes looked as though flames were burning in them.
He recalled his one and only encounter with Wen Jing.
When he had first entered First High, he had provoked a top student whose score was twenty-five points higher than his. The student had beaten him up beside the road after class.
At the time, Wen Jing had happened to pass along that stretch of road.
And so, everyone on the road had stepped aside of their own accord.
The top student had held him by the roadside, his face battered and swollen, quietly waiting for her to pass.
Later, he had even forgotten what that top student looked like. But the humiliation he had felt upon encountering Wen Jing at that moment-or, more precisely, that resentment and jealousy... even now that he had become an awakened, he still remembered it when he woke from dreams at midnight.
"It really is Wen Jing..."
Having received a reply, Wei He spoke as though in a dream. "Her potential... is F-rank." The same as his.
F-rank!
At those words, the flames in Lu Cheng's eyes transformed into madness.
This time, he would definitely break free of this inner demon!
They were not the only two to receive the news. Word of Wen Jing's enrollment spread through Ochre Soil Academy like a hurricane.
Undercurrents stirred among the circles of new students admitted in every season this year...
How could Lu Cheng be the only one who wanted to vent his frustrations by trampling the genius he had once only been able to look up to?
Chapter 12
Following the navigation, Wen Jing found the free dormitory area. Naturally, the surroundings could not compare to paid rental housing, but the rooms were all singles rather than shared dorms.
To her surprise, even the dorm supervisor sitting in the duty office was an awakened.
But considering that Awakener Academy was also the hub of awakened activity on a planet, it was not all that strange.
The dorm supervisor was a woman with a mature air. After hearing the identity number Wen Jing gave her, she deftly operated her smart terminal, then instructed her:
"Your assigned room is 2023 in Building One. That's the building right beside us."
"There are only two requirements for living here: no fighting and no overnight guests. Also, you must pay the full replacement cost for any dorm facilities you damage."
Wen Jing raised her hand. "I also wanted to ask about my smart terminal..."
"A drone will deliver it to your room shortly. The same goes for anything you buy at school in the future. If you have any other questions, you'd best wait until next month to ask. I won't be on duty next month." The supervisor spoke rapidly, never taking her eyes off her smart terminal.
"...Okay." Clearly, she really did not want to be on duty anymore.
After leaving the duty office, Wen Jing climbed twenty floors without pausing for breath and reached her dorm room.
She opened the door to a square room she could take in at a glance, measuring a little over twenty square meters by her estimate.
White walls, a white floor, a desk and bed in pure prison style, and a private bathroom. Beyond the most basic facilities, there was nothing else.
Compared with the large villas she had just browsed, reserved for the top ten students in the year, the contrast was quite brutal.
Shaking her head, Wen Jing walked to the bed and sat down. Just as she was about to continue browsing the student handbook, she heard the doorbell.
She opened the door to find a metal sphere hovering outside.
The moment it saw Wen Jing, the drone completed its identity scan and opened its giant egg-like shell, revealing the package inside.
"My smart terminal's here!"
Somewhat excited, Wen Jing took the package back into her room and opened it. Besides a square piece of metal, it contained an Ochre Soil Academy uniform.
The uniform was fitted and exactly her size. It was mainly black, with some streamlined red accents-the style of Ochre Soil Academy.
She felt it, finding that its material was rather unusual and resistant to damage. The label also stated that it had a self-cleaning function.
As expected of something only awakened could obtain, it was both a school uniform and everyday combat wear.
Wen Jing then put down the uniform and pressed a finger against the square piece of metal. The next instant, a translucent screen appeared in her vision:
[Terminal appearance can be adjusted...] [You have selected appearance 3]
The square piece of metal flowed like liquid, quickly taking the shape of a wristband.
Wen Jing removed the old communicator she had used for years and put on the wristband-shaped smart terminal.
As she did so, the metal softened again, fitting snugly against her skin.
Retinal projection, pupil tracking... and more were all basic features. It was far more advanced than her old communicator, which could only project holograms, like the difference between an old brick mobile phone and a smartphone.
Of course, more importantly, back on School District Planet, Wen Jing had heard from her principal that these smart terminals were exclusive to awakened. No matter how wealthy they were, non-awakened could only purchase similar models. Only terminals used by awakened had special functions and access privileges.
[User: Wen Jing] [Identity number: 9407691] [Compatibility: 1% (updatable)] [Wilderness Body rating: F] [Enrollment: Ochre Soil Academy - Small Body Type Wilderness Body Major - First Year - Winter Class] ... [Credits: 620] [Points: 20]
After identity verification, a very comprehensive list of personal information appeared before Wen Jing.
Spotting "points" again, she hurriedly opened the student handbook, wanting to understand their purpose.
Judging by Dean Bai and Old Xie's conversation at the time, twenty points seemed to be worth considerably more than two million credits, and two million credits was nearly half her life loan!
Although the student handbook contained a great deal of information, its sections were clear and straightforward. As she read, Wen Jing gradually came to understand the situation.
Awakener Academy naturally put grades above all else. After all, "grades" equaled "strength."
But unlike School District Planet, grades here were not assessed through repeated exam scores, but through academic credits.
First, as an awakened's "basic attribute," every 1% of compatibility earned one academic credit.
All new students automatically started with a base grade of one academic credit upon enrollment.
When their compatibility improved in the future, they could visit the testing center at any time to update their data.
Wen Jing checked her current academic ranking-
[Academic credits: 1] [Class rank: 1] [Year rank: -]
"New students don't have a year ranking. Class ranking... looks like it's calculated using the unified exam results," she mused.
Besides improving her compatibility, she could also earn academic credits by taking classes. Completing a course earned the corresponding number of academic credits.
So it seemed she could improve her grades simply by attending classes diligently? Of course not.
Wen Jing opened the course list, scanned it, and was dumbfounded.
Of the courses currently available to her, only two compulsory general courses were free. All the others were electives, each with a little yellow shopping cart beside it. She had to buy them herself!
And she could not buy them with credits... That was right: they cost the very "points" Dean Bai had specifically reminded her about earlier.
[Basic Academy Algorithm (compulsory), +3 academic credits] [Introduction to the Ancient Wilderness (compulsory), +1 academic credit]
Compared with the paltry academic credits awarded by compulsory courses, the paid electives were far more generous.
[Secret technique: Energy Amplification Method (elective), +50 academic credits, price: 10 points] [Combat technique: Level One Energy Shield (elective), +10 academic credits, price: 5 points] [Combat technique: Weapon Energy Infusion (elective), +5 academic credits, price: 5 points]
Wen Jing also spotted the ability Tainuo had used when teaching everyone the algorithm aboard the spaceship.