Chapter 72

Near the end of June, the academy elder calls Gu Yue Fang Zheng before the class and hands him a heavy bag of primeval stones, the reward for being the first student to reach upper stage. Fang Zheng takes it with visible excitement and returns to his seat. Fang Yuan sleeps through the whole presentation, worn out from a night spent feeding a fresh-killed wild boar to the White Boar Gu, refining primeval essence with the Liquor worm, and nurturing his aperture until morning. Around him, Gu Yue Mo Bei sits with arms crossed complaining that he lost to Fang Zheng, and Gu Yue Chi Cheng grumbles that his own hard training and his grandfather Gu Yue Chi Lian’s support still could not close the gap opened by Fang Zheng’s A grade talent. Other students mutter that Fang Yuan, asleep despite owning a Liquor worm, is wasting his advantage. ^{ch. 72}

After the rest of the allowance is handed out, the academy elder quiets the class and announces the mid-year exam, three days off, testing each student’s ability to hunt wild boars for their teeth, with group hunting allowed for students whose talent or Gu worm does not suit solo combat. He sets the reward at ten primeval stones per tooth, well above the twenty teeth a single primeval stone buys on the open market. Students recall that last year’s exam tested gathering wildlife honey instead. Fang Yuan privately reflects that the change is one more sign of how far his own actions since his rebirth, killing Jia Jin Sheng and claiming deeper treasures from the Flower Wine Monk’s inheritance than he ever did in his past life, have already reshaped events around him. ^{ch. 72}

Weighing whether to sell the wild boar teeth already stockpiled in his secret cave, worth a little over one hundred primeval stones by his own estimate, Fang Yuan decides the risk of drawing suspicion within the Gu Yue clan’s politics is too great. Primeval stones matter less to him than the chance to remake how the clan’s higher ranks see him. His current reputation, an unloyal, cold, untamable C grade talent standing outside the system, invites exactly the hard handed methods any organization turns on a member it distrusts. Fang Yuan resolves to appear to rejoin the clan’s system without truly submitting to it, using the mid-year exam as his opening move, and decides to begin with extortion. ^{ch. 72}