Chapter 26

The memory of swimming in vomit surged back, and Tan Wenshan clapped a hand over his mouth, hastily looking at his older cousin.

"All right, Wen Jing, let's have a proper talk."

Tan Junhao set down his wineglass and took charge.

He looked at Wen Jing, the teasing gone from his expression. "Let's forget what happened before. It was just a little scuffle between young people. We chose this place for our team-building event because we came to invite you to join the Student Council."

After a pause, his expression grew more serious. "And we're inviting you to join the Operations Department, not the Personnel Department."

"The Operations Department..."

At those words, everyone present, including the restaurant manager, had a change of expression.

Everyone there understood what joining the Operations Department meant: access to the very best training Red Earth Academy had to offer.

More importantly, the Operations Department had only recruited the best of those with E-rank potential in the past. This time, they were willing to make an exception for Wen Jing, whose potential was only F-rank. Wasn't that an acknowledgment of her strength?

"Cousin..." Tan Wenshan was stunned and shocked.

Tan Junhao smiled at him. "Come on, let's all be more magnanimous. A fight can be the start of a friendship!"

Hearing this, the restaurant manager felt his tense body relax all at once. Good, good, good. Everyone should get along and make money!

Tan Wenshan's head buzzed. At first, he simply nodded out of habit, but then he slowly caught on...

His cousin had intended to recruit Wen Jing into the Operations Department from the start. But because of their earlier conflict, he had let Tan Wenshan play the bad guy without knowing it, then stepped in as the good guy when things reached an impasse, making her more likely to agree.

He had seen such methods of handling people at home, but it was only today, seeing his cousin use them so smoothly, that he realized the gap between them.

Thus, Tan Wenshan's brief displeasure was completely replaced by admiration.

He relaxed just like the restaurant manager, even thinking about how to get closer to Wen Jing.

However, things didn't develop as they had expected.

As if she hadn't heard Tan Junhao at all, Wen Jing looked at the restaurant manager. "You've seen me, so I'm getting off work."

"Don't go, Wen Jing. Stay."

Tan Junhao assumed Wen Jing felt she couldn't back down just yet. He shifted aside and pulled out the empty seat next to him, inviting her warmly. "We can eat and talk. I guarantee your contract will offer the same terms as the other Operations Department members."

The plate at the empty seat was covered with a cloche, and the cutlery and drinks were all laid out. It had clearly been prepared in advance.

Faced with the Personnel Department team leader's offer of a graceful way out, Wen Jing turned a deaf ear and kept her eyes on the restaurant manager.

The restaurant manager felt every gaze fall on him and didn't know what to do. "Uh... well..."

Tan Wenshan frowned at the sight. He glanced at his cousin, and inspiration suddenly struck. He stepped forward to play the "bad guy."

"Wen Jing, give us a straight answer. Do you agree or not?"

Wen Jing looked at him. "Agree to what?"

Tan Wenshan was baffled. "To joining the Student Council!"

Wen Jing said, "No."

"It's the Operations Department we're asking you to join," Tan Junhao added, his smile stiffening.

But Wen Jing acted as though Tan Junhao didn't even exist. She turned and walked away.

"Wen Jing, don't be ungrateful." Tan Junhao dropped his smile, his expression turning icy.

Wen Jing was already two or three meters away.

"Hey! Wen Jing!" Tan Wenshan grew anxious too.

This time, Wen Jing reacted to his words and stopped. "What now?"

Everyone understood what they were seeing: Wen Jing was completely ignoring Tan Junhao, the highest-ranking person there...

A few subtle glances fell on Tan Junhao.

Even Tan Wenshan, who admired him more than anyone, had a somewhat strange expression.

Didn't Tan Junhao like to show off?

From beginning to end, Wen Jing had spoken to the restaurant manager and even to his lackey Tan Wenshan, but she had treated Tan Junhao as if he were invisible.

And the one thing a show-off couldn't stand was being ignored.

It was the first time Tan Wenshan had seen such a furious expression on his cousin's face:

"Enough! Do you really think I can't deal with an F-rank like you? I just didn't want to bully someone younger."

The red wineglass in Tan Junhao's hand shattered. At the same time, he activated his ability.

A concealed, snake-shaped shadow made of energy rose behind him and shot toward Wen Jing's unguarded back with lightning speed.

The snake shadow was so fast that most of the Awakened present failed to notice it. The restaurant manager, an ordinary person, noticed nothing at all, feeling only what seemed to be an ominous chill.

That was, of course, no illusion.

Tan Junhao was a third-year summer student whose Wilderness Body was a venomous snake. After developing it, he would be able to release its venom in the form of energy.

Because it was energy, formless and intangible, a target could only defend against it by projecting energy of their own. Once the energies made contact, the neurotoxin could spread through the target's energy.

The only alternative was to dodge rather than defend as an initial reaction. But if the enemy dodged, Tan Junhao could make the snake shadow erupt a second time, turning it into a poisonous mist to attack.

This move was extremely difficult to counter. Even his instructors had praised it as unusual.

Its only two shortcomings were that its toxicity was not particularly strong among the many toxins of Ancient Wilderness, and it couldn't even kill most creatures on contact; it also came with a kind of "toxin recognition," which caused it to disappear outright, accomplishing nothing, when it encountered a target with a stronger toxin or one against which its own toxin was ineffective.

This toxic ability sounded as though it "bullied the weak and feared the strong," but Wilderness Bodies and abilities were just that mysterious, possessing rules that restricted themselves.

Sometimes people could turn those rules to their advantage. Tan Junhao, for example, had been invited by quite a few instructors to take part in toxin research because of his ability.

"One, two, three..."

In the dead silence, Tan Junhao stood with his back to Wen Jing and counted coldly, waiting to hear her fall. From what he sensed, she hadn't dodged the attack, so he didn't need to trigger the second explosion.

The neurotoxin in his move was enough to paralyze ten large creatures the size of elephants. Wen Jing's Wilderness Body was merely an insect, supposedly the smallest kind. What could she use to resist it?

When he reached three, Tan Junhao saw a tiny change in the expression of his cousin, who stood opposite him and had always admired him greatly.

It was... how to put it? The expression of an admirer whose idol had completely lost his luster. And it wasn't just Tan Wenshan; the other Student Council members present also wore strange expressions.

Because to everyone else, the snake shadow flying toward Wen Jing had vanished in a flash.

That wasn't a figure of speech. It had really "vanished."

While Tan Junhao was still counting to three, Wen Jing had already walked out of the restaurant.

If she hadn't been traveling alone, she might have been unable to resist asking Tan Junhao, "How did you know I'd just obtained Abnormal Status Immunity?"

Chapter 26: Chapter 26

His attack had failed, and Wen Jing had walked away without a scratch, so Tan Junhao could hardly chase after her.

He would really lose face if he chased her. Was he, a third-year student, going to stop a first-year freshman and pick a fight?

Even if the Student Council had the authority to punish fights between students, minor scuffles between students of the same year were one thing. If he bullied someone younger and Wen Jing made a big issue of it, they would have a hard time explaining themselves to the academy authorities, especially with the president away at Azure Jade Academy on an exchange.

After the incident at the welcome party, Tan Junhao had made no moves for days because he had been gathering information on Wen Jing to decide how to deal with her.

They had learned that Wen Jing was not only a particularly capable fighter thanks to the foundation she had built before awakening, but had also gained an instructor's favor. More importantly, she seemed to know Dean Bai. Only then had they decided on a strategy of "bringing her into the fold."

Tan Junhao hadn't expected that, even after he had humbled himself so much, she would still refuse the invitation and trample on his dignity in front of so many people.

This was beyond tolerating!

The team-building event ended under a strange, oppressive tension.

After it broke up, everyone else left as if granted a reprieve. Tan Junhao, his face dark, was the last to leave the restaurant, together with Tan Wenshan.

"Team leader..." Tan Wenshan started to speak, then hesitated.

"Hmph. She refused a toast only to drink a forfeit." Having suffered such a humiliating loss of face, Tan Junhao could no longer maintain his earlier air of composure.

He hadn't expected Wen Jing's obscure Wilderness Body to have toxin resistance. No wonder an instructor had invited her to take part in an experiment.

But that was as far as it went. He had completely abandoned the idea of taking Wen Jing under his wing.

Then Tan Junhao opened his smart terminal and found the contact information for the boss behind Deep Space Vortex.

Early the next morning, the restaurant manager came to see Wen Jing in person.

"...That's what happened. I'm terribly sorry, but we can no longer continue working with you."

Looking at the visibly nervous and embarrassed restaurant manager, Wen Jing remained calm and unsurprised. "I understand."

Not only was she unsurprised, she might even have overestimated these people's abilities. She had thought that after the welcome party, there would be a situation like the kind in a novel's

overbearing CEO

declaration: "I'll make it impossible for you to take a single step in Red Earth Academy," and that the next day, no student in the entire academy would dare speak to her.

Yet things had been peaceful for so many days before these people finally found her workplace to recruit her. That showed Tan Junhao and his group didn't have much power even within the Student Council.

Now they had finally come to "blacklist" her. The Skill Points she could earn at the restaurant had nearly reached their limit anyway, and she had earned enough credits to cover this month's expenses.

As for next month... that was next month's problem.

Wen Jing's strength was currently in a period of rapid growth, changing by the day. In her eyes, this bit of obstruction was like a pebble by the roadside; she could step over it as she walked without even deliberately lifting her foot.

She had gone through a similar phase when she first entered the School District Planet.

Being from a population factory put her at the bottom of the pecking order everywhere. When she had just entered elementary school, the children in her class from middle-class and wealthy families had already finished studying a semester's textbooks in advance.