CHAPTER 97: YOU'RE NOT GOING TO DONATE EVEN A SINGLE ONE?

The instructors of the academy had always made it clear to their students that they were just instructors, not teachers or masters.

It was almost a warning to themselves not to get too attached.

However, how could they not grow attached after guiding each batch of students for five years?

After so many five-year cycles, the instructor had thought that his heart had turned to stone, but it seemed that his heart was still one of flesh and blood, after all.

He was thankful for the storm as it made it impossible to discern his tears from the rain.

I would rather you were killed by the One Heart Church. That way, you would've died a hero, and your clan would've been well taken care of, but now...

The blood on the ground was quickly washed away by the heavy rain, and with that, a fruitful yet bittersweet night came to an end.

***

It was still pouring with rain even two hours after the departure of the initial unit.

All of the warriors hiding in ambush were thoroughly soaked, and complaints were ringing out from all directions.

"What the hell was the point of this? This is the dumbest mission I've ever been on!"

"All of us got pelted by rain for an entire night for nothing!"

"Over a thousand of us were assembled, yet a couple hundred people got the job done, while the rest of us had to stay behind and watch! Is this some kind of sick joke?"

Finally, the official order for retreat was issued.

"Well, so much for that! If there's another mission like this one, I better be part of the initial unit that actually gets to do some fighting!"

***

Shortly thereafter, Fang Che received a long-awaited message from Mu Linyuan.

“It's done! There were 166 people in total, and..."

Mu Linyuan gave Fang Che a rundown of how many warriors of each tier there were, then supplied him with the location of the branch helm.

"Don't tell them the location if they try to downplay your contribution and deduct your reward!"

"I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, Uncle-master Mu. I've prepared some fine wine for you."

"Make sure to keep the wine for me, and don't give it to anyone else!"

The correspondence concluded there.

As a precautionary measure, Fang Che had been instructed to stay in Old Man Shen's room at the academy this entire time.

Gao Qingyu and the others soon arrived, and all of them were looking very elated.

The branch helm had been a constant thorn in their side, responsible for thousands of homicides, and that thorn had finally been removed.

However, to Fang Che's surprise, Chen Ruhai and Fan Tiantiao had also arrived.

Theoretically speaking, they should've gone back to the Hall of Protectionists to assign rewards to all those involved.

That was presumably the reason why Gao Qingyu had come to see Fang Che, but why were Chen Ruhai and Fan Tiantiao here as well?

"There's something that we have to notify you of," Fan Tiantiao declared, looking even more depressed and sullen than usual.

"What is it?"

"The Huo Clan has been eradicated."

"That's good to hear," Fang Che replied, wondering why Fan Tiantiao was looking so concerned when this was clearly good news.

"However... Huo Churan was saved and taken away."

"???"

Fang Che's eyes widened in shock.

The entire Huo Clan was wiped out, yet a cripple was saved?!

Chen Ruhai was averting Fang Che's gaze out of guilt and embarrassment, and Fan Tiantiao was also very embarrassed, but someone had to break the news.

Even though all Fang Che had done was bully Huo Churan, the fact of the matter was that he had exposed Huo Churan and his clan.

Hence, Chen Ruhai and Fan Tiantiao felt an obligation to keep him updated on matters concerning the Huo Clan, especially seeing as Huo Churan was a sworn enemy of his.

If Fang Che were to end up in Huo Churan's hands someday, then a swift and painless death would be a blessing from the heavens.

In fact, if Fang Che really were to be killed by Huo Churan someday, the Hall of Protectionists would have to take the blame.

Li Changkong was very unhappy to hear this.

"Is the Hall of Protectionists a giant sieve? How could a cripple with his dantian destroyed have been allowed to escape? Just how complacent can you get? Did all of the guards keeping an eye on him fall asleep?!"

Li Changkong hadn't uttered a single profanity, but his words were extremely scathing, all the same.

Chen Ruhai and Fan Tiantiao were flushed with embarrassment.

"It's not as simple as it sounds," Chen Ruhai said in an awkward manner.

"It sounds very simple to me. You let me student's worst enemy get away!"

Chen Ruhai fell silent again.

The truth of the matter was that the Hall of Protectionists had gotten a little fancy. They had intentionally allowed Huo Churan to be rescued before pursuing his rescuers, essentially using Huo Churan as bait to lure out some bigger fish.

To their credit, they were able to take out close to twenty Divine Heavenly Church members, but in the end, Huo Churan was able to get away.

An exhaustive search had been conducted, but to no avail, and now that his disappearance had been confirmed, they had no choice but to come clean to Fang Che.

To say that the people sent out to pursue Huo Churan had already been sternly reprimanded by Chen Ruhai and Fan Tiantiao was a severe understatement.

"It's fine, I'll just kill him the next time I see him, and I won't trouble the Hall of Protectionists when the time comes," Fang Che said.

The conversation concluded shortly thereafter, and Chen Ruhai and Fan Tiantiao scurried away with their tails tucked between their legs.

"You've earned yourself quite a few merit points this time," Gao Qingyu said. "Thanks to your report, we were able to take out the entire branch helm. There was a fifth-rank King, two Warlords, eight Lords, thirty Generals, and 125 Great Grandmasters. Each Great Grandmaster is worth eight points, amounting to a thousand.

“The thirty Generals are worth sixteen points each, amounting to 480. The eight Generals are worth a hundred each, so that's another eight hundred. The two Warlords are worth four hundred each, so that's eight hundred yet again, and the sole King is worth a thousand merit points. In total, that's 4,080 points.

“On top of that, these are all future merit points. In addition to your original sum of 308 future merit points, that amounts to 4,388 in total."

Even the ever-composed Meng Hejun was stunned to hear this.

For a Hall of Protectionists in a city like Green Wave City, the prerequisite for deputy hall master was only fifty thousand merit points.

Fang Che was already close to a tenth of the way there, and he was only a first-year student that had been at the academy for less than half a year!

Even his current sum of merit points would be enough for him to secure an official post in the Hall of Guardians, one that would grant him at least several dozen subordinates.

"Seeing as the only role you played was in reporting the matter, we were originally planning to reduce your reward by half, but Dean Gao says that would be very discouraging to you, so we've ultimately decided to grant you the full reward. Do you have any plans on how you're going to use these merit points?" Li Changkong asked.

"Do you have any suggestions, Instructor Li?" Fang Che asked.

Li Changkong could feel Huang Yifan staring daggers into the back of his head, so he had no choice but to be comply as he said, "Well, your cousin, Fang Qingyun, also received over four thousand merit points last time, and he treated the entire academy to a meal, so..."

Fang Che immediately understood what they wanted from him.

Unfortunately for them, he was not a gentleman like his cousin.

"My cousin is a very admirable man, so I must strive to be like him," Fang Che declared.

Everyone was very pleased to hear this, but the smiles on their faces quickly faded after hearing what Fang Che had to say next.

"I'm going to spend some of these merit points on the spirit qi gravity cultivation chambers. At the moment, it's costing me twenty points per day. I'll keep a hundred days' worth, so that's two thousand points. As for the rest, I want to exchange them for the best cultivation arts for manifesting aura that the scripture library has to offer. Will that be enough?"

Everyone was astonished to hear this.

He's keeping everything to himself!

"You're not going to treat everyone to a meal?" Huang Yifan asked.

Fang Che put on a stunned display as he exclaimed, "Why would I do that? There are tens of thousands of people in the academy, and I barely know any of them!"

Huang Yifan scratched his head as he turned to Gao Qingyu, and the latter said, "It's his points, he's free to use them as he pleases. There are aura manifestation cultivation arts in the scripture library, but the ones of the highest caliber cost one thousand merit points per cultivation art."

"In that case, I'll take three," Fang Che said.

"I think this is a great idea!" Li Changkong said, while Huang Yifan was still looking a little disgruntled.

"It's still too early," the latter grumbled.

After receiving that warning from Dongfang Sansan last time, he had done away with all thoughts of Fang Che potentially being a good person, so he wanted to deprive Fang Che of resources as much as possible.