Chapter 16

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

“???”

“Are you that realistic, my brother?”

Wang Qilin was shocked.

“Focus on the lesson.” Bai Ye shook his head, motioning for him to concentrate on the lesson.

Wang Qilin lay his head on the table, looking bored.

“I may go to the central city of the Obsidian Planet in a year.” Bai Ye thought of his sister.

“Go to the central city?”

“Yes.”

“The central city seems very far away. We’re in the 36th Satellite City in the south. The southern core city is above us. There are also the east, west, and north core cities. The central city is located at the highest altitude,” Wang Qilin murmured.

In fact, he had never thought of having any association with the Obsidian Planet’s central city.

His family had paved most of the road ahead for him.

In the future, he would inherit his family’s farm and run this family business for life. It was hard work, but there would be a pay-off so long as he was willing to put in the effort.

Perhaps he would become like his father in 20 years.

However, he felt a little indignant about following the footsteps of his ancestors.

“Brother Bai, what if I went to the central city with you?” Wang Qilin said in a low voice.

“You’d definitely be beaten to death by your father.” Bai Ye cast him a sideways glance.

“But you’d be there for me, right?” Wang Qilin’s face turned pale.

“If I was your father, I’d beat you up even harder,” Bai Ye said with a smile.

“Get lost! You’re making fun of me again.” Wang Qilin was speechless.

“If you really want to go, go home and talk to your dad. There’s no use telling me this.”

Wang Qilin wimped out.

…

“The lesson will end here. You guys don’t like me to nag anyway,” Zhou Xia said with a smile. She opened the thermos and took a sip of tea.

“The middle school entrance examination is coming soon. I would like to wish all of you a bright future and good luck with topping the examination.”

Some of the students in the class stood up. One after another, many other students followed suit.

Everyone bowed deeply before Zhou Xia.

Bai Ye was one of them.

He bowed because Teacher Zhou had shown a great deal of care and concern for him in the past three years. Although he had not signed a soul contract with a tamed beast, Zhou Xia had constantly helped him think of ways to do so and encouraged him.

Such a teacher deserved his respect.

“In the past two days, the school has opened up the meditation room to all students of the graduating cohort at no cost. At the same time, there will be an additional bunch of concentration grass in the meditation room. Everyone can meditate, but you can’t take away the concentration grass,” Teacher Zhou said with a smile.

“Is that true?”

“The school is really generous!”

A lot of the students in the classroom felt extremely excited.

There had originally been four pots of calming grass in the meditation room.

Now, there was concentration grass.

By nature, concentration grass could secret more elements conducive to meditation than calming grass. The price of a pot of concentration grass could be as high as millions of stars in the market. In addition, there was a shortage of it because there was no lack of demand for this kind of meditation treasure.

In the meditation room, a light, pleasant floral scent engulfed everyone.

The scent was just nice. It was not too strong or extremely fresh.

The students’ minds became much clearer.

On top of the podium in the meditation room were three small pots of green plants in iron cages.

They resembled orchids a little based on their exterior appearance.

Nevertheless, there was a bunch of light-yellow fruits that were bilateral and symmetrical on top of them.

Some of the students wanted to touch them out of curiosity.

The teacher’s expression turned cross. “You’ll need to compensate the school if you ruin them.”

The students sat down cross-legged and meditated.

On this occasion, there were obviously many more elements beneficial to meditation in the surrounding air.

The speed of meditation was faster and increased the efficacy by 20%.

“If we’d had this when we first entered the school, it would have been great.” Yang Zhou, who was sitting to Bai Ye’s right, lowered his head and muttered to himself.

His five fingers were clasping his trouser legs, and his knuckles looked a little white.

Seemingly noticing Bai Ye’s gaze, he turned his head away and looked out of the window.

Bai Ye had heard that Yang Zhou’s family was very poor.

He had gotten into this school entirely by relying on his own effort.

Both his academic performance and meditation talent were fairly good.

Yang Zhou had adopted the third-generation meditation technique passed down by the school. According to what he’d said in class, he had already attained the bronze seven-star cultivation level when it came to his mental strength.

This was comparable to many students in the class who had good family backgrounds.

“The first meditation room in our school didn’t even have calming grass. It only had ordinary sandalwood.” Liu Legao, who was sitting behind Bai Ye, was very cheerful. “Furthermore, it’s not usual practice to provide a graduating cohort with something they’ve never had.”

“Right.” Yang Zhou nodded.

He seemed preoccupied.

At the end of the afternoon meditation class, a teacher secretly brought in a brand-new device.

“Students, please don’t leave yet.” The teacher stepped onto the podium and clapped his hands.

He yelled loudly, “Students, I have something to discuss with you! The middle school entrance examination will be held the day after tomorrow, so I think there’s a fairly good opportunity you can consider. This is the latest device imported by the Obsidian Federation this year. It can be used to measure one’s meditation cultivation level.”

“It’s the latest device.”

“No wonder it looks brand new.”

“Great. We will get to try an advanced measurement device.”

The students’ eyes lit up.

One after another, they surrounded the device.

“The same type of device will be used during the exam. Therefore, you guys can use it to measure your mediation score now. This will prepare you mentally, and you’ll also have a better estimate of your score. Those of you that have encountered a bottleneck can also find a way to break through in these two days.” The teacher clapped his hands. “Any students who want to get measured can come to me to register.”

“Bai Ye, do you know that the method of measuring meditation cultivation in very remote places is very backward?” The tall, thin Yang Zhou put his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “In some places, they put a monkey with a transparent crown in a box and then cut two holes on the surface of the box for the monkey to stretch out its hands. The person will go over and sit down with their back facing the box. The monkey will put its hand on the person’s head. The higher the person’s meditation cultivation level is, the brighter the crown of the monkey will be.”

“Are you messing with me? Which kind of tamed beast is that? The monkey’s crown emits light? Do you think it’s a lightbulb?” Liu Legao interrupted him when he heard these words.

“Why are you telling me this?” Bai Ye glanced at Yang Zhou.

Yang Zhou did not answer Bai Ye’s question. Instead, he continued. “People will hunt for a monster called Sunlight Spirit Monkey. Although the Sunlight Spirit Monkey is a monster, it does not attack humans. It can relate to people. It is born with strong spiritual power and affinity power. This is precisely why it is so pitiful.

“People from these remote places will cut off its scalp, remove the skull, and install glass on it. They will then lock the four limbs with iron chains to prevent the monkey from escaping or hurting people.

“Following that, they will become a tool for people to measure mental strength with until they die. The humans will use another batch of monkeys afterward. Due to the large number of killings, the monkeys have become hostile to humans and have fled from the places where humans live… Humans will pay for this cruelty one day,” Yang Zhou finally said. “Bai Ye, can we go somewhere to talk?”

“No.” Bai Ye looked serious.

“…”

Yang Zhou looked like he was about to cry.

“Forget it. What do you want to talk about?” Bai Ye turned around and walked toward a more isolated place.

Yang Zhou followed him.

“I know that the two of us have the same background. We’re both members of the lower class of society. Both your parents died a few years ago, leaving you and your sister to depend on each other. You relied on your own talent to enter this school,” Yang Zhou whispered.

???

Both his parents had passed away?

This moron had investigated him, but his investigation was inaccurate.

Bai Ye narrowed his eyes.

He had never told others about his family’s situation.

When his parents had left the Obsidian Planet five years ago, it had been a very low-key affair, so not many people knew about it.

Had Yang Zhou mistaken him for an orphan because of that?

“Do you feel that this world is unfair to you?”

“No,” Bai Ye said from the bottom of his heart.

‘I have a tamed beast that may be more talented than your hair.’

Bai Ye glanced at Yang Zhou’s head pitifully.

The sparse hair on it reflected stress that was not meant to exist at such an age.

The reason his parents had left him and his sister temporarily was to pave the way for them to return to their ancestral land.

He also had a sister who doted on him.

“No, this world has treated you unfairly,” Yang Zhou said stubbornly.

“Alright, alright. I think I’m doing well. We’ll leave it at that.” Bai Ye patted Yang Zhou on the shoulder. He then turned and left.

As he was staring at Bai Ye’s back, Yang Zhou was stunned for a long time. He lowered his head in disappointment and muttered, “I initially thought we were the same kind of people.”

“Old Bai, do you want to measure our mental strength? Just now, Chen Guyi from the class next door measured his mental strength and got a silver three-star. You didn’t see the envious look of the people around him. I know your mental strength is very high. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be that smart. Do you want to measure it?”

Smiling, Bai Ye shook his head and declined.

“Forget it. This is not an exam. Whatever is measured now won’t be taken into account for our grades anyway.”

Although he also looked forward to knowing his score, he was looking forward more to the amazing people who would call him first after the examination the day after tomorrow.

If he were to measure it now, the surprise element might be lost later on.

When he returned to the classroom to get his schoolbag, Zhou Xia, his form teacher, was standing outside the door.

Zhou Xia quickly waved her hands at Bai Ye when she saw him coming over.

“Bai Ye, come to my office with me.”

He entered the private office of the form teacher.

After closing the door, Zhou Xia poured a glass of water for Bai Ye.

“Sit down, don’t be nervous. It’s nothing bad. Your teacher looked for you to seek your opinion on behalf of the school.”

“Teacher Zhou, please speak.”

“The school would like to ask you if you’re going to study in our senior high school.”

It was only then that Bai Ye discovered the reason his form teacher had looked for him.

Although the Obsidian City was dominated by the No. 1 Junior High School, there were three top senior high schools in the city.

Namely, they were the No. 1 Senior High school, the Independent Teaching Senior High School, and the No. 5 Senior High School.

There was a stiff competition between them.

When he’d measured his mental strength half a year ago, he had applied for the opportunity to do so privately through the form teacher. Therefore, others did not know about his mental strength, but the school certainly had this knowledge.

“I’ve not thought it through. I’m still undecided,” Bai Ye said ambiguously.

He had intended to attend the senior high school that would give him the most money.

Xiaodiao was still young and had a small appetite. However, sooner or later, it would grow, and the expenditures of grooming Xiaodiao would be high.

Zhou Xia struck while the iron was hot. “The school would like you to attend our senior high school. You can go to the top class directly, and you will also be awarded a scholarship of 100,000 stars. What do you think?”

“Shall we talk about it after I get my results?” Bai Ye said.

Although Zhou Xia was stunned, she subsequently understood Bai Ye’s thoughts and smiled. “Of course, there’s no problem if you are that confident. Your teacher also hopes you will do well.”