Xie Ming hurriedly said from beside her, "An F-rank Empowerment Stone only costs around 100 points in the shop. Taking the points would be just as good!"
"Don't listen to him." Dean Bai swatted him aside. "The final auction price is around 120 points. More importantly, this isn't about points. Only the three academies can supply these things. You can't just buy one whenever you want."
"It's the most valuable thing in this circle because the enhancement it provides has no side effects and can stack indefinitely. Unlike certain Ancient Wilderness treasures that only work once, absorbing one Empowerment Stone won't affect the results of absorbing more in the future at all."
"As for what effect you'll get..." Dean Bai looked at Wen Jing, her eyes sparkling. "I believe in your luck!"
I'm actually not so sure about it myself...
Just as that retort crossed Wen Jing's mind, she looked at the thumb-sized Empowerment Stone and suddenly had a thought. "How do you use an Empowerment Stone? Do you eat it?"
"That's right."
The affirmative answer gave her an idea, and she continued, "Can an Empowerment Stone be taken into the Ancient Wilderness?"
"You want to take it into the Ancient Wilderness to use it?"
Xie Ming looked surprised and thoughtful at her words. "You can, but there's some risk involved... You should know that Empowerment Stones are just as powerfully attractive to life in the Ancient Wilderness. If you want to do that, you need to be confident you can protect it."
"Besides, with so many awakened throughout history, surely someone has tried it. If it did anything, there wouldn't be no records of it at all."
Matter from the material universe could not be brought into the Ancient Wilderness, but things belonging to the Ancient Wilderness could still be taken back by awakened, even after being brought into the material universe.
Although Empowerment Stones were technological creations, their energy properties came from the awakened's Ancient Wilderness energy, so they could be taken into the Ancient Wilderness.
But just as Xie Ming had said, most people would not attempt this. If an Ancient Wilderness creature stole the Empowerment Stone as a result, the loss would outweigh the gain.
Wen Jing, however, was not most people.
She had already begun establishing her own base in the giant tree in the Ancient Wilderness. With her "ant logistics," "glowing flower fields," and "lizard ranch," she had an environment where she could use the Empowerment Stone safely.
Next came trying to evolve digestive power capable of fully absorbing an Empowerment Stone...
Even if it failed, she wouldn't lose anything. If it succeeded, wouldn't that be like getting the entire pool in a gacha game?
Wen Jing immediately made her decision and looked at the two of them. "I'd like to try. Could I leave it here for now and choose when I come next time?"
"Of course, of course!" Xie Ming immediately responded enthusiastically. Time was money. Every extra day a treasure stayed in the vault was another day it could be used to generate interest.
Although Dean Bai regretted not getting to see the gacha result on the spot, she had no objection. "Of course. It's your reward, so you decide."
The three of them left the underground vault and took the elevator up.
Before they parted, Dean Bai glanced at Xie Ming and told Wen Jing, "Don't worry. Your reward is right here. I guarantee it won't go anywhere."
Wen Jing said goodbye to them both. "Goodbye, Dean. Goodbye, Mentor. I'll choose them together next month."
"Good, good, good... Huh??"
Only after Wen Jing had walked away did the previously satisfied Xie Ming suddenly catch on, breaking out in a sweat.
"Oh no. Together next month? It doesn't sound like she meant just this Empowerment Stone by 'together.' Is she going to break another record next month?"
"That's exactly what she meant!" Dean Bai speculated excitedly. "Does that mean we'll get to slap Mystic Radiance and Azure Jade in the face again next month?! That'll feel great!"
Xie Ming instinctively braced himself against the wall beside him, murmuring dazedly, "One Empowerment Stone a month... Every month..."
Dean Bai poked him. "Oh, come on. Our academy finally has a genius like her. Don't be so stingy!"
Xie Ming said nothing and simply kept sending her fiscal deficit reports.
Even the Federation government was essentially composed of financial conglomerates. Naturally, the three academies were not fully public institutions backed by government guarantees either. Apart from certain research projects eligible for government funding, most of the academies' internal finances were independently managed.
Red Earth Academy's vault might look well stocked, but in truth, half the treasures inside could not be considered entirely the academy's property. They were being used as collateral for various financial operations.
Advanced electives, exchange student programs... Why would anyone give Red Earth Academy the educational resources it now possessed but had lacked in the past? Naturally, it had to trade resources for them, and points alone were not enough.
Points were indeed a high-tier currency used by awakened, but an academy could readily borrow points against its credit and assets.
Only the various treasures of the Ancient Wilderness were hard currency that every faction needed-their true reserves.
Those reserves had been slowly accumulated through the academy issuing missions to faculty and students and trading Ancient Wilderness materials.
In the Federation, where achievement was judged by potential, the amount of resources an academy wanted had always required corresponding educational results.
The reality, however, was that the less willing an academy was to invest in educational resources, the fewer results it could produce, creating a vicious cycle of continual decline.
During Dean Bai's fifty years at Ocher Soil, the academy's circumstances had improved, and its annual league ranking had gradually risen. The price was that the academy was now spending more than it earned.
Xie Ming glared at Dean Bai. "If we aren't stingy, we'll become the first academy to go bankrupt!"
"..."
Dean Bai fell silent for a moment. "Then Ocher Soil really would be famous!"
Seeing that Xie Ming looked ready to pass out, she waved a hand and smiled. "All right, all right. I'll stop joking."
Dean Bai's expression turned serious. "I really do have a feeling this child will give me a surprise at the league competition in a couple of years."
Red Earth Academy needed a genius who could overturn everyone's perceptions. She now felt Wen Jing was that person.
Xie Ming's expression grew serious too. "I know you think highly of her. She really is the most talented student I've seen in all these years. But if she were D-rank, or even E-rank, she could become the standard-bearer you've been waiting for."
"But she just had to be F-rank. Look, she's clearly earned an S-rank evaluation in the Trial Tower, yet no conglomerate has come to sponsor her. What would things look like right now if her potential weren't F?"
By sponsorship, he meant investment based on confidence in Wen Jing's future. If it was a matter of signing away her life in an employment contract, plenty would approach her.
Students who had previously achieved S-rank evaluations in the Trial Tower had not only become widely known throughout the three academies, but also received overtures from numerous conglomerates offering investments that asked for no particular return, merely to build goodwill.
The two fell silent for a while before Dean Bai spoke softly. "Old Xie, thank you for all your hard work over the years."
Xie Ming went still. "...It hasn't been that bad."
Although he had been entrusted with managing the academy's finances, leaving him overwhelmed by deficits every day and having to devise research proposals to submit to the Federation to swindle funding, compared with Dean Bai's almost nonstop exploration of the Ancient Wilderness, he was merely a little busy. His life was not in danger.
"We'll think of a solution together. There'll be one. Stop relying on your 'luck' to explore the Ancient Wilderness without restraint..."
Before he finished, he paused. Dean Bai had already vanished.
After a moment of silence, Xie Ming rubbed his brow and returned to the laboratory, his gaze inadvertently passing over the two insect specimens Wen Jing had submitted.
Then he walked over to his seat.
He opened the Ancient Wilderness insect research proposal he had barely started and, using Wen Jing's Wilderness Body as an example alongside her latest Trial Tower results, lavishly extolled the project's prospects.
Chapter 37
After running back to her dorm from the research institute, Wen Jing finally opened her inbox, which was stuffed with unread messages.
When she had first emerged from the Trial Tower, her terminal had received many new messages. She had been heading to the vault with Dean Bai at the time, so after a quick glance showed nothing important, she had left them alone.
Now that she had a little free time, she began checking them.
After she used her smart terminal's one-click sorting function, the flood of messages was filtered.
The largest category consisted of recruitment contracts from various well-known companies on Red Earth Star. All were prominent local businesses, subsidiaries established on Red Earth Star by major Federation corporations, and came automatically verified by the system, making impersonation impossible.
The terms on offer looked particularly generous too. There were over a hundred employment contracts, and every company offered a base monthly salary of at least a million credits, plus additional profit sharing, commissions, and bonuses.
Since this was advance campus recruitment, quite a few companies also offered educational benefits for employees. As long as she signed, they would provide a million credits in subsidies each year throughout her four years at university, before she even started working.
If Wen Jing had been an ordinary F-rank, she would probably have found it hard not to be tempted by those terms.
Although awakened made good money, not all of them dared to enter the Ancient Wilderness as frequently as Wen Jing did. Otherwise, Genetic Collapse would not exist. Besides, there were all sorts of commissions on top of the base salary.
Even the academy only awarded fifteen points to the top student in each class every month. Though points were worth more than credits, three million credits could still buy fifteen points on the premium market.
Wen Jing ordered, "Sort by contract duration, shortest to longest."
The contracts were reordered. She opened the first one, with the shortest term. Its stated contract duration was: 100 years.
"..."
What could she say? All in all, it wasn't much of a surprise.
The brief interest sparked by the credits died completely at that moment, and Wen Jing chose to reject them all with one click.
Her unread messages were almost instantly cleared, leaving two.
One was from the human resources department of Kewo Life Company. The population factory where Wen Jing had been born belonged to this company. Since it was the creditor for her life loan, it had been marked separately.
It too had sent a recruitment contract. Its pay and benefits were much the same as the other companies', with the sole difference being that signing would immediately cancel her entire loan and all interest.
The other was Gaia.