Wen Jing pursed her lips. "The price of a dish made from it..."
The restaurant manager gave Wen Jing a mysterious smile. "Of course, it can only be purchased with points."
Just as I thought!
Wen Jing sighed inwardly.
The common term for nonhuman life-forms in the Ancient Wilderness was Wilderness Beasts. However, since the Ancient Wilderness contained many non-beast life-forms, and even life-forms not made of flesh and blood, the term was not precise enough to be a scientific designation.
The restaurant manager proudly explained to Wen Jing, "Many Wilderness Beasts aren't flesh-and-blood life-forms at all, so Wilderness Beast meat is extremely hard to obtain. And the vast majority of Wilderness Beast meat is highly toxic even to the Awakened. Only a tiny portion is edible. We only offer this menu to the restaurant's premium members."
"The reason we're hiring a chef is that Master Zhang doesn't have the energy to handle the other dishes on the menu after processing and preparing this beast meat."
"But now, with you being Awakened, we can get the most value out of it."
She gazed at Wen Jing with burning eyes-Wilderness Beast meat prepared by an Awakened chef would have all the selling power they could ask for!
Master Zhang's expression stiffened when he first heard this, but he soon thought it through. Wen Jing was Awakened, after all. She was working here to improve her cooking, not for the wages. She would not stay long and would not cost him his job.
In the end, Wen Jing negotiated her part-time pay: 500 credits an hour, with processing Wilderness Beast meat paid separately at 10,000 credits per session.
She wore a thoughtful expression as she walked out of the restaurant.
The Wilderness Beast meat she had just seen had opened up her thinking and given her an evolution goal for the next stage.
Not the next step, but the next stage.
After spending so many evolution points on the Gravity Silk Gland, she had not yet considered where to spend her next "fortune" on evolution. She had only planned to grow the organs she needed first, such as eyes, and strengthen her body's ability to survive so she would not suffer another ridiculous death like "getting stepped on by a passing creature."
Now, she had the idea of evolving her digestive system.
The evolution offered by her cheat could be described as "wishes coming true." She could choose any direction she liked. It was incredibly heaven-defying.
But if she wanted to grow and become stronger, evolving through her cheat was not her only option.
The Ancient Wilderness was a land of opportunities to begin with. Examples of the Awakened whose strength had soared after a single fortuitous encounter were everywhere. Wen Jing could absolutely use the resources of the Ancient Wilderness to strengthen herself naturally, then use her cheat to achieve breakthroughs nature could not.
And nothing could make better use of resources to strengthen herself than digestion.
The broader the range of things she could digest, the more resources she could use.
Eating most Wilderness Beast meat causes poisoning? That's because you can't break down the toxins. Your digestion isn't strong enough!
Only special heavenly materials and earthly treasures can strengthen the body? Dirt is a resource too, and it contains energy. Why can't you eat dirt? Still because your digestion isn't strong enough!
It all comes down to digestion!
The next day, the freshmen of this year's first-year winter class attended their first compulsory general course since enrollment-Introduction to the Ancient Wilderness.
All 532 students in the class were present, including those who had returned injured from the Ancient Wilderness. The Awakened already had strong recuperative abilities, and this compulsory course was a theory class, so attending was naturally no great problem.
Unlike electives, however, compulsory courses were not booked by appointment and had attendance requirements. If this affected their final grades and cost them credits that were practically free, that would be disastrous.
...And so quite a few people appeared in the lecture hall carrying IV drips.
Wen Jing arrived five minutes before class began. The moment she appeared, she drew everyone's attention.
Unlike the strange "vacuum" that had surrounded her in the past, however, this time a round-faced boy immediately approached her when he saw her. Then he could not help pausing and called out somewhat tentatively:
"Wen Jing..."
Wen Jing turned her head and recognized her classmate from the School District Planet in a second. She greeted him brightly and cheerfully. "Hi! Thirty-Seven!"
Thirty-Seven immediately looked embarrassed. "We're not on the School District Planet anymore. You can call me by my name..."
At Wen Jing's questioning expression, the corners of his mouth twitched as he added, "My name is Yu Yang."
"All right, Yu Yang." Wen Jing nodded to show she remembered.
After a pause, Yu Yang asked with a complicated expression, "I wanted to ask, are you going to the welcome party tonight?"
"Yes."
Wen Jing remembered receiving the notice that morning. It started at dinnertime, so presumably there would be a feast. She had no reason not to go.
Seeing her nod so readily, Yu Yang could not help growing anxious. "But-but if we go, the previous autumn class will mess with us!"
Not just Yu Yang, but the people sitting nearby wore much the same worried expressions.
"What's going on?" Wen Jing's eyebrows rose.
Who wants to bring bullying into my positive, uplifting college life?
Chapter 16
Wen Jing's question made Yu Yang and the worried students nearby feel as though they had found someone to rely on.
Yu Yang hurriedly spilled everything he had heard like beans pouring from a sack. "It's a welcome party tradition. Every season, when the new students enroll, seniors from the previous season come to 'test' their strength. Whether you can't beat them or surrender outright because you don't want to get beaten, you have to obediently let them mess with you at the welcome party!"
"The autumn students have all gone on at least one proper expedition into the Ancient Wilderness, and some have gone more than once. They've also had three more months than us to learn secret techniques and combat techniques. Even if we've been into the Ancient Wilderness once, that was an emergency evacuation. So many of us were injured there. How are we supposed to fight them? With our heads?"
Once Yu Yang got things started, the two students closest to them could not help chiming in:
Student A: "The summer class two intakes before us was made to cut each other's hair onstage, with both the floor and the chairs electrified. Afterward, they had to keep those hairstyles for ten days without changing them. Later, they just shaved all their heads. Now practically the entire summer class has buzz cuts."
Student B: "The worst was the welcome party for the previous autumn class. Their punishment was to authorize their smart terminals to pull up their entire private browsing histories on the spot. They not only had to read them aloud in public, but had them sprayed onto their uniforms in special pigment. It took a whole week of running the self-cleaning function to wash it off!"
As soon as Student B finished speaking, everyone around them looked terrified.
Too horrifying! Too vicious!
Students on the School District Planet who had been given suppressants were relatively "simple." They just beat people up and were done with it. How could they have imagined such horrifying tricks existed in the world?
Wen Jing's eyes were opened too. Puzzled, she asked, "Then can't you just not go?"
But her words only made them look more anxious. "That's even worse! If we don't go, we'll offend the student council! The student council organizes the welcome party. If we go, the worst that happens is getting messed with once. If we offend the student council over this, we won't be able to take a single step in the academy afterward!"
"Not a single step? Is it really that bad?" Wen Jing frowned, recalling the student council recruitment advertisement she had received earlier.
In a campus environment like Awakener Academy, where you can freely buy courses and attend classes, the student council actually has that much influence?
"Of course." Yu Yang explained rapidly, "The student council runs its own foundation, and that foundation reaches into every aspect of the academy. It holds shares in all kinds of research projects and industries. From the missions and bounties issued by the academy to decisions about academy events... the student council can influence all of it!"
He was not like Wen Jing, who had packed every day full as soon as she enrolled, challenging the Trial Tower, attending electives, and even finding a part-time job.
Adjusting to campus life, browsing forums for information, and building a circle of friends were what freshmen with F-rank potential generally did at this stage.
As she listened, Wen Jing suddenly thought of something. "Wait, didn't the student handbook explicitly say that fighting between students is forbidden and punishable? Doesn't this welcome party business count as fighting too?"
Yu Yang's expression grew even more sorrowful. "The student council is responsible for handling those punishments..."
"Tsk, that's a nuisance." Wen Jing understood.
When a fight broke out, the student council ultimately decided how severe the punishment would be. Naturally, their own people would get off lightly, while anyone who offended them would receive a super-sized punishment. It was a case of "Who stands before this court accusing me, the judge?"
"What are you going to do?" Yu Yang and the others beside him all looked at Wen Jing.
Although they knew Wen Jing was now only an F-rank Awakened with the lowest potential, no longer the absolute genius surrounded by glory on the School District Planet, when faced with this kind of collective crisis, they still instinctively wanted to know what she thought, just as people instinctively looked for someone tall when the sky came crashing down.
From another angle, if even Wen Jing backed down, they could comfort themselves when they chose to lie flat: Look, even Wen Jing is doing it. This is beyond our control, so I should just obediently back down too. Everyone's doing it. There's no shame in it.
Instead, Wen Jing's expression remained unchanged. "Then we just have to win, right?"
"Huh?"
Everyone nearby abruptly widened their eyes. They had mainly been looking for reassurance; none had expected Wen Jing to still be thinking about winning.
Even though she had cleared the first floor of the Trial Tower, they also knew her rating had only been D. That result certainly made her a one-of-a-kind genius among the freshmen, but it was not enough compared with the autumn class.
Besides, the autumn students were not idiots. Since they already knew Wen Jing's strength beforehand, they would definitely choose someone stronger than her to cause trouble.
"But..." Yu Yang instinctively opened his mouth, only to be interrupted immediately.
"Class begins."
It was already time for class.
The gathered crowd quickly dispersed, and everyone obediently returned to their seats.
The student council was not the only group one could not afford to offend at Awakener Academy. There were also the instructors.
When Wen Jing saw the instructor slowly walk up to the lectern, she looked surprised-the instructor for this class was actually Old Xie, the man she had sold materials to.
"I'm Xie Ming, your Introduction to the Ancient Wilderness instructor." Old Xie briefly introduced himself and swept his gaze around the classroom.
When he saw Wen Jing sitting near the front, he paused slightly, clearly recognizing her as well.