On the way home, in a driverless taxi.
“Brother Fang, you’re not working at the martial club anymore?”
“I remember, didn’t you submit your application to become a formal employee last month?” Xu Chenyang looked astonished. “Don’t tell me Manager Huo called you upstairs just now to fire you?”
Xu Chenyang knew the rule: a teaching assistant who was not made formal within a year had to leave.
“That doesn’t make sense.” Xu Chenyang shook his head in confusion. “With your performance and skill level, you’re more than qualified to be a junior coach. How could you not pass?”
“Haha, Big Head, you’re overthinking it.” Fang Yu laughed. “I wasn’t fired. Manager Huo was telling me my promotion to formal status went through—but I turned it down.”
The less trouble, the better. Fang Yu did not intend to tell him the truth. It would only add to his worries.
“You quit?” Xu Chenyang grew even more bewildered. “Martial junior college may be four years, but the entire senior year counts as an internship. You can apply to graduate early and sign with a company... Isn’t it good to be able to formally join Tieshan Martial Club?”
In Xu Chenyang’s eyes, Tieshan Group might not be one of the Eight Great Martial Artist Groups, but its founder was at least a Star-Sky Martial Artist... Tieshan Martial Club, as part of Tieshan Group, counted as a big company too.
A martial junior college student’s status was even slightly higher than that of an ordinary cultural undergraduate. But being able to join a company like that was already the dream of many martial junior college students.
Salespeople like them did not even count as formal employees... For clerical jobs at a big company like this, campus recruitment would absolutely never go to cultural junior colleges. Without a degree, you were blocked at the very first step.
He had never imagined Fang Yu would refuse to become a formal employee.
“I’m going to apply for the junior-college-to-undergraduate upgrade,” Fang Yu said. This was not a lie to Xu Chenyang; it was true.
To apply for the upgrade, naturally he could not formally sign with a company in advance.
In fact, if he had not accidentally overheard Supervisor Gao and Manager Huo’s conversation at the club last time, and used the vital-energy potions the club distributed to students to verify it himself—finally confirming that Supervisor Gao and Manager Huo were selling vital-energy potions bought from small factories as authentic products of the Eight Great Groups—he might have submitted his resignation half a month ago.
It was precisely because he knew their “dirty secrets” that Fang Yu had pretended to probe Supervisor Gao casually, deliberately drawing his suspicion... In the end, just as Fang Yu expected, they used the formalization process as a pretext to kick him out of the club.
And he had taken the opportunity to earn a little extra on the side.
To Fang Yu, even if the plan failed, he would lose nothing. He had already intended to leave anyway. The only risk was that they might “silence him for good”... But Fang Yu believed that since they only suspected him, and he had “Senior Brother Dong” as a backer, they would not go so far as to take such a desperate risk.
“Kill someone over such a small matter?”
“This is Xia Country, where the Blue Moon Alliance’s martial artist laws have been in force for fifty years and Sky-Eye surveillance reaches every corner—not the Primordial Star,” Fang Yu thought. “I only got the maximum compensation the law allows.”
As for exposing them? Fang Yu asked himself, and he did not have that kind of ability yet... The vital-energy potions Manager Huo and the others sold reached eighty or ninety percent of the genuine product’s potency. Never mind the students—even an Advanced Martial Artist might not be able to tell the difference.
Not everyone possessed Fang Yu’s special talent.
Xu Chenyang naturally did not know the reason and simply took what Fang Yu said as the truth.
“The junior-college-to-undergraduate upgrade?” Xu Chenyang was stunned for a moment, then said, “Brother Fang, I remember martial junior colleges have very few upgrade slots, right?”
“Mm, it’s hard. Our school only has twenty recommendation quotas for the upgrade.” Fang Yu nodded. “If I fail, I can only try to compete for the other thirty additional quotas.”
Compared with the five thousand students in each cohort, Wuling Martial Junior College’s upgrade rate was only one percent. Far lower than the upgrade rate at cultural junior colleges.
“Only fifty in the whole school? That really is hard!” Xu Chenyang sighed. “That makes sense, though. After a martial arts student upgrades, they can study two more years at the undergraduate level. During those two years, the state guarantees an investment of three hundred thousand Star Coins in resources every year, and they also have a chance to compete for various scholarships and special resources at the undergraduate university.”
“Mm.” Fang Yu nodded slightly.
Why were there so many cultural students in society? Because the state—or rather, the Blue Moon Alliance—had to invest very few resources. In most cases, there was not much difference between the resources cultural junior college students and cultural undergraduates consumed each year.
But martial cultivation consumed an enormous amount of resources... Every Star Coin bought a measure of results.
For example, a martial junior college student directly received guaranteed cultivation resources worth a hundred thousand Star Coins each year, not including the various scholarships the school established, all kinds of expensive cultivation facilities, faculty development, and so on. If all of that were counted, the total would be absolutely staggering.
And for martial undergraduates, the resources invested were even more astonishing.
Because of this, even at the martial junior college level, Huguang Province could enroll only a hundred thousand people each year... Martial undergraduates were capped at ten thousand. Any more? They simply could not support it.
After all, the Blue Moon Alliance also had a vast number of civilian martial artists who had already graduated. The enormous resources those civilian martial artists needed for cultivation were the real bulk of the spending.
One could say that it was precisely because the entire Blue Moon Alliance, from top to bottom, spared no expense to cultivate martial artists and encourage the martial path that it forged a century of glorious martial development and advanced the life evolution of the whole civilization. Sixty years ago, Intermediate Martial Artists were rare; now Advanced Martial Artists were very common.
“Haha, Brother Fang.”
“The upgrade is hard for other people, but with your skill level—even without having awakened a Void Star Aspect—you will definitely succeed.” Xu Chenyang chuckled. “I’ll be waiting to drink at your school-advancement banquet.”
Fang Yu smiled.
His leaving Tieshan Martial Club was a bad thing for Xu Chenyang... After all, for sales to perform well, they relied heavily on the coaches. Many coaches at martial clubs spent extra time and effort contacting students and their parents themselves, giving sales no chance at a commission.
But Xu Chenyang did not show the slightest displeasure.
“Big Head, don’t worry. I’ll have a word with Manager Dong. When the time comes, you can go straight to the Changsha South Road Branch Club.” Fang Yu smiled. “I’ll ask him to look out for you.”
“It’s just that your commute will be a bit longer.”
If Xu Chenyang stayed at the Xinjiekou Branch Club, he might well end up targeted by Manager Huo and the others... Xu Chenyang was not even a martial artist; he could not withstand that.
“Brother Fang, then I won’t stand on ceremony.” Xu Chenyang’s eyes lit up.
He knew what kind of influence the “Manager Dong” Fang Yu mentioned had... He would not dare dream of such a connection.
“What’s there to be polite about between brothers? It’s a small matter.” Fang Yu laughed. What let him and Big Head become brothers and friends was not mainly their being classmates, but their matching temperaments.
So-called classmates were merely people forced to spend a few extra years in the same classroom; they were not necessarily truly compatible. Good friends and brothers from one’s youth were rare and precious.
Xu Chenyang was someone who would truly go all out for a brother, and just the same, he was never awkward about accepting the benefits Fang Yu gave him.
A short while later, Xu Chenyang got off first, leaving Fang Yu alone to continue toward home. He rolled down the window and let the lingering light of the setting sun fall across his face.
The afterglow of a summer sunset was beautiful.
“The upgrade?” Fang Yu looked at the trees along the street, thoughtful.
“If I want to get the recommendation, it would be best to awaken a Void Star Aspect... But that blurry star aspect I’ve visualized—when will it finally awaken?”
At that thought, Fang Yu gently closed his eyes.
Hum~
In a daze, Fang Yu felt his consciousness arrive at a mysterious place.
All around stretched a vast, unfathomable expanse. Only in the center was there an incomparably huge figure.
Gazing at it from afar, he saw it lying quietly, as if deep in sleep. The edges of its form were blurred. He could only tell that it resembled a hairless black sheep, and vaguely make out a pair of enormous mouths covering more than half its body.
Its face was even more indistinct.
“This is my star aspect. It seems that after my technique reached Great Accomplishment of Entering the Minute, it has become a little clearer.” Fang Yu’s consciousness murmured. At the same time, through that enormous, blurry star aspect, he faintly sensed several streams of information coming through:
——
Aspect Observer
Life Level: 15.9 (Primary Martial Artist)
Martial Technique: High Entering the Minute (vital energy)
Soul Level: 18.4
Void Star Aspect: Unknown (Please strive to achieve a higher Life Level)
Innate Divine Ability One: Devour (After consuming all kinds of rare treasures, digestion is faster and more effective)
Innate Divine Ability Two: Unknown (Please strive to achieve a higher-level life form)
Chapter 4