Chapter 124: First Impression of the Academy (2)
Su Yu's attention was still on the merit points. He asked, "Senior Sister, I heard you need to pay merit points for classes. Are those classes expensive?"
"Of course." Zhou Hui answered, "But not for all of them. Some basic classes are free. But the moment it involves specialized knowledge, especially willpower text writing, you need a scary number of merit points."
Zhou Hui continued with a look of heartache, "For example, the classes of those teaching assistants where they will write a willpower text during the class will cost at least 5 merit points per class. For junior researcher classes, you need at least 10 merit points per class."
"You won't be able to afford the classes of the intermediate and senior researchers. In truth, they don't conduct a lot of classes for new students either. For Mental Tempering Stage students, they won't waste their time on you unless you're a genius."
"The library and book repository also need merit points."
Su Yu asked in astonishment, "Those two are different?"
"Of course. You can only find ordinary books in the library. The book depository is where the truly good stuff can be found. The original texts and willpower texts can be found there. Some might have expired, but they are still much more valuable than ordinary books."
Zhou Hui sighed, "Library, book depository, classes, cultivating, pills, weapons, talismans...all those require merit points. And don't get me started on the secret grottos. The public grottos of the academy are scarily expensive. I've been here for six years and I've only entered a grotto once..."
Zhou Hui gnashed her teeth as she said, "And that one entry cost me a few years’ worth of savings. Why would I be here on this mission otherwise?"
Everyone sank into a melancholic mood. How pitiful. It almost felt like one wouldn't be able to survive without merit points. That was too scary.
One of them whispered, "Fortunately my father gave me 30 merit points before coming..."
Immediately after, Zhou Hui looked at him with her eyes brightly lit, "Student, consider loaning your merit points to me!"
They were all speechless. This senior sister was truly desperate for merit points.
When Zhou Hui saw that the student was staying silent, she sighed, "Forget it. What a miser. But 30 merit points aren't that useful. In a few months, you will see just how little that is."
Zhou Hui shook her head and said, "Also, you didn't earn those merit points yourself. Your merit tier is not up there so some things will still not be available for you. For example, the secret grottos. Even with merit points, you might not be able to enter.
"Even the most ordinary secret grotto requires at least 30 total earned merit points to enter.
"As for the better secret grottos, you need over 100 total earned merit points. Think about it. How are you supposed to earn that much before the Skysoar Realm?"
Upon hearing that, Su Yu started calculating his own total earned merit. From languages, he had earned 18 merit points. From the previous mission, he had earned 10 merit points. From the entrance examinations, he had earned 40 merit points. However, half of that was bonus reward and would not be counted as total earned merit. From the recent battle, he had earned over 40 merit points. As a whole, his total earned merit had reached around 90 points.
He heaved a breath of relief. Fortunately, he had earned a decent number of merit points himself. He nearly had 100 total earned merit points.
These requirements were actually put in place to help those from ordinary families. If everyone needed total earned merit points to enter, then everyone had a fair chance to enter.
Even someone from a rich family would not be able to enter without enough total earned merit. By the time those from the rich families made enough total earned merit, those from the ordinary families would have made enough as well.
"This rule is a restriction on those from big families..."
Understanding dawned on Su Yu. In the academy, students must rely on themselves. Their backgrounds and families could be helpful, but they weren't as big a help as he had imagined.
Zhou Hui did not know what Su Yu was thinking about. She continued her explanation, "It is still too early for you guys to learn about all that. You'll learn after some time in the academy. For now, your main tasks are to study the basics, pick your course, and pick your teacher. Of course, the latter is only available for geniuses."
Zhou Hui shrugged and said, "If you're not a teacher, be happy with public classes. Private classes would require merit points."
She then looked at the short girl and flashed a wide smile, "Liu Ke, you're a high-tier student. The researchers will definitely be willing to accept you as a personal student. Do you have anyone in mind? Do you want me to introduce you to one?"
The girl timidly said, "It's ok, Senior Sister. I already have a teacher."
"What a pity." Zhou Hui had a look of regret as she said, "I can get some merit points if the student I introduce ends up accepted."
She then smiled at the other students and asked, "There must be more high-tier students among you. Even a middle-middle evaluation and above will be enough. After all, high-tier students are too rare. With middle-middle evaluation or above, you can actually find a teaching assistant as your teacher easily. I can introduce some suitable teachers to you. If both of you find each other agreeable, I can get some benefits."
To Su Yu's right, a young man raised his hand and asked, "Senior Sister, I'm a middle-middle student. Can I get a suitable teacher?"
"Yeah, you might be able to find one." Zhou Hui nodded and said, "We'll talk further later. They say that this year, there are fewer new students. They say that we are accepting 500 less students. But in truth, students are still being sent into the academy through other channels. There are also those who have entered through the smaller cities. So this year, we ended up accepting around 2,000 new students, the same as the previous years.
"Most of these students will be low-tier students. There are at least 1,200 of them. As for middle-tier students, there will be around 500 to 600 of them. The rest are the high-tier students.
"The academy has a new rule this year. All the researchers are required to accept some students. There will probably be over 100 researchers coming out to accept students. A few hundreds of them will end up accepted. Thus, you have a decent chance as a middle-tier student."
Su Yu asked, "Senior Sister, for new students that aren't accepted this year, will they have a chance in the future?"
"Yes." Zhou Hui smiled and said, "I'll be trying my luck this year as well. I'll see if I can get myself a teacher. But those teachers don't like old students..."
Zhou Hui sighed and said, "They call us old foxes with no vigor. But what choice do we have? Since we haven't been accepted during our first year, we have no choice but to survive by ourselves. If we aren't old foxes, we won't be able to reach this far. That is totally uncalled for!"
She looked at Su Yu and said, "Su Yu, you're from Nanyuan. I heard there's a high-tier student from Nanyuan this year..."
Zhou Hui blinked. What was the name of that Nanyuan fellow? As old students, they rarely concern themselves with these new students. Only the new students would care a lot about the other new students. The other students were unclear, but Liu Ke suddenly looked at Su Yu curiously.
Su Yu? Was that him?
High-tier students would normally pay more attention to other high-tier students. As for the weaker students, unless they were close friends, who would care about them? As a high-tier student, Liu Ke was naturally curious about the other high-tier students this year.
She did not have the complete list, but Nanyuan only had one high-tier student. She seemed to have heard the name before. It was...Su...something. Was it Su Yu? The look in Zhou Hui's eyes changed as well. The other Nanyuan students had yet to arrive. In fact, not one ordinary student from Nanyuan's region had arrived. Su Yu was the only Nanyuan student to have arrived. In that case, this must be the high-tier student.
Zhou Hui's eyes lit up. Since Su Yu was staying silent, she didn't expose him. But her attitude still turned warmer than before as she said, "Student Su Yu, take my number. Feel free to contact me if you need anything. Like looking for a teacher, looking for information, asking about the genius students, the Top 100 Ranking and so on. I will charge you cheaply. I won't even take merit points. Cash is enough for me."
"The same goes for you guys."
Zhou Hui then fished out some books from her bag and said, "As new students, you should get yourself a student's manual. It is cheap and useful."
Liu Ke was interested. She asked, "How much for one, Senior Sister?"
"It's cheap. I'll take 500 dollars per book." Zhou Hui smiled, "This is the latest edition. The older editions are already outdated. Some dishonest senior students will sell it to you for 1 merit point. You will be too curious to say no. Am I right?"
Many of them nodded. She was speaking the truth.
That was especially true for the so-called Top 100 Ranking. Everyone was very curious about that. Zhou Hui opened the book and pointed at a certain page, "This is the list of the strongest teaching assistants. Look, occupying the first place is Xia Yuwen. Some of you might already know that. But what about the second place? Third place? Aren't you curious?
"We also have the latest student ranking. Under 30, which student is the strongest? And this is the ranking of the junior researchers. Who is the best among them?"
"This is..."
With each ranking Zhou Hui mentioned, the more tempted the new students were. Before long, they were pulling their money out to buy the student manual.
Su Yu was tempted as well. He was very curious about all that and he knew even less than the others. Thus, even though he loathed parting with his money, he still pulled out 500 dollars for one of the manuals.
All the new students in the group purchased a manual each. With money in hand, a wide smile bloomed on Zhou Hui's face. The manual only cost her about 30 dollars each. She had earned a massive profit selling them to these students.
Unfortunately, she wasn't in charge of too many students. And she was too kind to trick them. Like she said, she was actually a kind senior.
Not far away, a new student exclaimed in alarm, "Three merit points for one? That's too expensive!"
"Scram if you don't want to buy." A senior student indifferently said, "This is the market price. It involves the internal information of the academy. Do you think you can get it so easily? Do you know how much of a risk I took to get these books out?"
Some of the nearby senior students were speechless. What a scammer! Some of them only charged cash and some only charged one merit point. But this fellow was charging three merit points. He was too greedy. Of course, none bothered to expose him.
Although he was greedy and was obviously going to earn big, he needed to watch his back from now on. Some of these new students might grow strong in a few years and come back to settle scores. That had happened to some other students in the past.
One should not take only the short-term profit into consideration. Zhou Hui was envious of that student as well, but she wasn't too bothered about that. If he really encountered a petty but genius student, he would come to suffer a few years down the line. All that for a couple of merit points? Was that worth it?
Meanwhile, Su Yu and company looked at her gratefully. Su Yu even felt like he had made a profit buying from her. The other students had to spend three merit points per book. That was worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Meanwhile, they only needed to spend 500 dollars. With someone to compare against, they felt much better with the money spent. They carefully hid their books, scared that others would find out they had bought it for cheap.
Zhou Hui was giggling to herself. This was good. In her group, there were at least two high-tier students. It was good that they weren't holding any grudge against her. She might even be able to leave a good impression on them.
She was almost done with her job here. She had earned her money and left a good impression on them. It didn't matter if they would still remember her in the future. At the very least, some sort of connection had formed between them.
As for the greedy senior student, he probably didn't care about what these new students thought. He would take as much as he could from them. These new students would probably leave in a few years. Since they couldn't reach the Skysoar Realm, what was the point in staying in the academy?
"Go back and take your time reading the manual. I'll come for you guys tomorrow to show you the student dorms. By the way, high-tier students can stay in the Mental Tempering Garden. I suggest you stay there. Or else...hehe, the ordinary dorms will annoy you to no end."
She gnashed her teeth and said, "There, you’ll be sharing the unit with seven other students. When you are reading, the others are training martial techniques. When you are training, others are showering. When you are showering, others are reading. That will drive you crazy."
Su Yu's expression changed. Was it so terrible? Eight per unit? One ought to know that they were here to cultivate. And disturbance was what one feared most when cultivating. Su Yu felt gloomy. Would he need to stay in the Mental Tempering Garden as well? But he had to pay 50,000 dollars for that! He didn't even have that much money on him!
Zhou Hui was actually stealthily paying attention to him. When she saw her expression, she smiled at herself. Sure enough, this fellow was probably the high-tier student from Nanyuan. Not bad at all. There were actually two high-tier students in her group.
They might be new students, but if she could build a good relationship with them, she might benefit from it in the future.
Zhou Hui was feeling very good about herself. It would seem like acting cute in front of the researcher in charge of assignments had worked splendidly. She had been given a decent list of new students to welcome.