Harvest

The wind in Ash Canyon still carried the smell of smoke and blood, but the murderous intent was gone. The sunlight struggled to pierce the thin dust above the stone forest, casting mottled shadows.

An Changqing dragged his exhausted body over. Seeing that although Chen Guan was covered in blood and had a weak aura, his eyes were bright and his life was not in danger, and that Su Yuehe, despite her pale face and the undried tears in the corners of her eyes, was safe and sound, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's good that you're both okay." An Changqing's voice was clear, carrying a hint of exhaustion from the great battle. "Student Chen Guan, thank you for protecting Yuehe. That power just now..."

He looked at Chen Guan, his eyes probing but not asking too deeply. "It was very special."

Although An Changqing hadn't had the time to pay attention, up until now, the presence of that special power of his lingered in the air. An Changqing could clearly feel that his own spiritual energy strongly disliked Chen Guan's special power.

Chen Guan leaned against the coffin and shook his head slightly. "Just a fluke. Student An's sword strike was the real..."

He paused, not knowing how to describe that unconventional sword strike. "Miraculous."

Truly worthy of a Mythological-type Esper ability, it was absolutely astonishing.

An Changqing smiled bitterly. "The consumption is too great. Unless it's a matter of life and death, I don't dare to use it lightly."

Despite saying this, An Changqing still looked energetic, as if he still had the strength to fight.

He looked at the Wolf King's corpse. "We shouldn't stay here for long. Let's process the loot as quickly as possible; we need to leave immediately."

The three of them roused their spirits and began to clean up the battlefield. Although Chen Guan was weak, his Tenacity and the pile of pills Su Yuehe had just stuffed into him were taking effect, and his stamina was slowly recovering.

An Changqing was responsible for dealing with the Wolf King's corpse. He carefully cut off the tuft of silver fur that had lost its luster, the gleaming claws and fangs, and a pigeon-egg-sized, entirely dark crystal core that seemed to have shadows flowing within it.

That was a Tier 3 Shadow Wolf King's monster core, which was quite valuable. He also cut off some of the Wolf King's unique fur with dark gold patterns.

Although he wasn't short of money, wasting things was shameful, and besides, academy points were quite useful.

Chen Guan and Su Yuehe collected some claws and relatively intact fur from the elite Shadow Wolves, as well as a small amount of materials from ordinary Shadow Wolves as proof of the mission.

Su Yuehe also carefully helped Chen Guan simply treat a few of his most serious wounds, applying hemostatic and anti-inflammatory powder.

After doing this, An Changqing activated his personal terminal and uploaded the necessary evidence of the mission's completion, as well as some material sample information.

Soon, the mission status was updated to "Completed, under review. Preliminary assessment: S-rank over-completion."

"S-rank evaluation?" Su Yuehe was a little surprised. "Is it because of a mistake in the mission rating?"

"Probably." An Changqing nodded and checked the estimated rewards. "The base C-rank mission reward is 200 points. With an S-rank over-completion, the extra reward is estimated to be between 800 and 1000 points, plus a high amount of contribution points and one B-rank resource exchange permission. In addition, the Wolf King's monster core and materials belong to us personally and can be sold at the academy's exchange office or to the outside world."

Chen Guan's heart stirred. Over a thousand points, plus contribution points and a B-rank exchange permission? This harvest could be called abundant. Of course, the most abundant of all was...

He glanced at the corner of his vision.

Popularity: 11257

It had broken the ten thousand mark!

He reopened the bullet comments, wanting to see what those viewers had said to crazily provide him with so much popularity.

Chen—Guan—

Wuwuwu, Bro Coffin wake up, don't die...

Bro Coffin I'll never write fanfiction about you and Dean Situ again, please wake up.

Fighting to the death without retreating! Just standing there and dying right in front of Su Yuehe, he's at the level of a white moonlight.

Holy shit, Bro Coffin came back to life.

Bro Coffin: Kids, I tricked you, I actually went to watch an ad to revive.

Damn, there really is an ad inserted, go away immediately, don't come back.

What in the world is all this... Who is Bro Coffin?

Chen Guan's face darkened. The bullet comments were as unhinged as ever. However, dying a little seemed to be beneficial for increasing popularity. He would continue next time, but he had to pay attention to the frequency. If he tricked them out of their tears too many times, the viewers would probably develop a resistance.

Over ten thousand popularity points! Enough to exchange for a lot of good things. Chen Guan's heart was burning, and he wished he could return to his dorm immediately to properly plan how to use this huge sum of money.

"Let's go, let's leave here first."

An Changqing packed up his things and signaled to evacuate.

Chen Guan hoisted the black iron coffin back onto his back. Su Yuehe tried to help, but found that she couldn't move the thing at all, so she had to let Chen Guan carry it himself.

An Changqing led the way, and the three of them supported each other as they quickly left in the direction they came from.

The journey back was even more difficult than the journey there. All three of them were heavily injured, but without the threat of the Shadow Wolves, their moods were much lighter.

Occasionally, there were sporadic low-tier mutated beasts attracted by the smell of blood, but they were easily driven away by An Changqing.

When they finally walked out of the Ash Canyon area and saw the light of the teleportation array in the distant town, they all couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Stepping onto the teleportation array, the light flashed, and the familiar sights of the academy came into view.

The fresh air, the orderly buildings, the coming and going students... Everything felt like a lifetime ago.

"Let's go to the medical center first." An Changqing said decisively. "Our injuries need professional treatment, especially Student Chen Guan."

Chen Guan didn't object. Although he had an immortal body, the pain was real, and the wounds needed time to heal. This trip was absolutely necessary.

The Huaqing Academy's medical center had advanced facilities and extremely high efficiency. The trio's external injuries were quickly and properly treated. They took special healing pills internally and were arranged into a recovery room with a weak spirit-gathering effect for short-term observation.

There was no need to worry about money. As students, most of the items were free, and the occasional few paid items were all covered by Su Yuehe, the rich woman, directly aiming for the highest standard.

Chen Guan had his own private room. Lying on the soft bed, feeling the medicine dissolving in his body and repairing the damage, he finally completely relaxed and began to carefully examine the changes in himself.

First, the panel.

Name: Chen Guan

Identity: First-year student of Huaqing Academy

Esper Ability: Tenacity

Special Skills: Basic Physical Arts Proficiency (White), Heavy Weapon Mastery (Green), Basic Scythe Techniques (Green)

Attributes:

Strength: 10.2

Stamina: 7.1

Agility: 1.5

Intelligence: 2

Spirit: 15.3

Popularity: 11257

His Spirit had surged to 15.3, even higher than his Strength. This was obviously related to the gray energy he had sensed in the desperate situation just now.

The increase in Spirit had significantly improved his perception of his body, his control over the gray energy, and even the clarity of his thoughts.

Gray energy... Chen Guan closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to sense that faint, bizarre energy in his body.

It was like a mass of extremely thin gray mist, hovering between reality and illusion, entrenched deep within his consciousness.

He tried to use his willpower to channel a sliver of the gray energy. The process was incredibly strenuous; the power felt extremely inert, or perhaps his compatibility with it just wasn't high enough yet. It took a tremendous amount of effort to finally coax a wisp of the gray, mist-like energy to flow into his fingertip.

His fingertip didn't glow, nor did any energy radiate from it. Yet, he could sense the air around his finger distorting ever so slightly. The temperature seemed to drop a fraction, and even the ambient light grew a little dimmer.