novelraw Chapter 294 - 285: A Sudden Accident
Chapter 294 - 285: A Sudden Accident
Gu Ming returned to school a little after nine in the evening.
News of him becoming the national competition’s Grand Champion Scholar was already flying all over the internet.
Everyone knew that Lanqi City had produced a national Champion Scholar.
The sound of firecrackers crackled and popped in Gu Ming’s residential community. It was his parents and grandfather celebrating for him.
But Gu Ming hadn’t gone home yet; he was still at school.
He had a brief call with his parents before hanging up to continue immersing himself in reviewing the competition’s exam questions.
After winning the title of Grand Champion Scholar, his next goal was the international competition.
It was important to remember that the examination cycle for these types of competitions was very long.
The national competition had been week after week of exams with almost no rest in between.
In the run-up to the international competition, however, there was a longer break.
This time, they had at least four days off. This allowed the candidates to get plenty of rest and gather information on their competitors. It also gave them a chance to recharge.
The short period of high-intensity exams had already squeezed every last bit of knowledge from the candidates’ brains.
The upcoming challenges would undoubtedly be greater, and the demands on the candidates would be higher. Gu Ming couldn’t guarantee what rank he would achieve.
He had already told his parents that he would be spending these four days at school with Lu You, cramming and catching up on their studies.
Meanwhile, the Ruan Family was helping behind the scenes, intercepting all sorts of invitations and dealing with certain undiscerning people with crooked ideas.
The school temporarily became his safe harbor. Although his classmates were curious about the Champion Scholar and wanted to learn from his experience, two teachers were posted in front of the study room Gu Ming had rented, so not many people could get in to talk to him.
Wang Teng was one of the few people who could get in to speak with Gu Ming during these four days.
...
"Gu Ming, aren’t you busy grinding competition questions? Ahem, how about you help me take a look at my Dumb Flower? See if there are any Cultivation Points that can be improved?"
Wang Teng said to Gu Ming with a "heh heh" laugh, shamelessly rubbing his hands together.
He was being quite forward, hoping to freeload off Gu Ming’s Cultivation Technique ability.
Gu Ming just looked up and glanced at him briefly.
Then, he released his Sword Qi Divine Sense, which drilled into the Dumb Flower’s body for a scan.
’Whether or not I can customize a Cultivation Technique for the Dumb Flower isn’t up to me,’ Gu Ming thought. ’It depends on whether the system is in the mood. If not, there’s nothing I can do.’
As Gu Ming scanned it twice, the system interface displayed:
「Having barely scraped by in the national competition, you return to school only to be met with a barrage of strange looks.」
「Whispers of "Why did that Old Deng win?", "Ha, I could’ve done that," and "Must’ve been a fluke" circulate around the school.」
「A disciple of the Wang Family couldn’t stand it anymore. He went home that night to speak with his grandfather, Wang Teng. An idea sparked in Wang Teng’s mind, and he came to see you the next day.」
「The two of you meet again and can’t help but share a derisive laugh. At fifty years old, he laughs at you for still being a student, and you laugh at him for having achieved nothing—a Three-star Beastmaster slacking off in a grunt’s job, growing flowers.」
At this moment, in the system’s eyes, there was no Cultivation Technique Study, no Gu Ming humbly asking for guidance, and certainly no absurdly twisted plot.
The system was being serious for once. After reading these few lines of text, Gu Ming felt as if time were a butcher’s knife, with every cut carving itself into his heart.
This was his future meeting with his high school friend. It was the pride his other timeline’s self couldn’t let go of, the internal turmoil of being unable to accept a failed life scorned by others. All of it now dissolved into a bubbly illusion.
It proved that his other self’s attempts to escape life were unnecessary. The people who truly cared about him wouldn’t care about his failures.
In the system’s eyes, the world wasn’t as completely dark and bleak as Gu Ming had imagined.
...
"So? Got any ideas? Any inspiration?"
Seeing Gu Ming dazed for a long while, Wang Teng’s face lit up with joy, assuming Gu Ming had indeed come up with something.
Otherwise, if Gu Ming was thinking for that long, wasn’t he just messing with him for fun?
Gu Ming shook his head.
"Sorry, I can’t think of an approach right now. Your Dumb Flower has a very good foundation, there’s not much to teach it."
"Oh, come on, my Great Scholar Gu, my Grand Champion Scholar! You’re number one in the national competition."
Wang Teng rubbed his fingers together with a "heh heh" laugh and said in an exaggerated tone:
"Was my attitude not good enough just now?
"Dumb Flower, come on, circulate your Breathing Technique! Let Cyan Treasure personally critique it!
"And circulate your other Cultivation Techniques too! Let the Great Scholar Gu, the Champion Scholar, give you some pointers!"
He spoke with great exaggeration, and the Dumb Flower began to frantically demonstrate every Cultivation Technique and move it had learned, one by one, right on the spot.
Wang Teng and Gu Ming had only been apart for a month.
’What could he have accomplished in just one month?’
’At most, he could have learned one more Cultivation Technique and practiced one more move.’
Besides that, he would have frantically supplemented his knowledge related to its Attribute, plus fed it all sorts of Elixirs.
The Dumb Flower was now a One-star Pet Beast, working hard in its Cultivation toward the Two-star Realm, but it still had a long way to go before it could advance.
Therefore, he would face a great number of trials in the upcoming college entrance exams.
To that end, he had also crammed a lot of knowledge about the Cultivation Element.
Gu Ming scanned it again with his Divine Sense, but still had no ideas.
But he had other ways to help.
For example, there was the Catalyst Cultivation Technique he had developed for Cyan Treasure during the national competition, one that combined the Earth and Light Attributes.
However, the Dumb Flower didn’t possess these two Attributes. He would need to make modifications to integrate its Grass Attribute Cultivation Technique into this one.
In truth, this modification wasn’t difficult.
After all, the system’s original technique was the Seven-Colored Holy Light Technique. It inherently contained a wide variety of cultivable content and wasn’t limited to just Dual Attribute Pet Beasts.
For now, Gu Ming just had Cyan Treasure casually give some pointers on the Breathing Technique before bidding farewell to Wang Teng and returning to his own Cultivation.
「The fourth day.」
Gu Ming, now fully prepared, stepped onto the celestial ladder that had appeared on campus, along with Lu You and Teacher Zhang.
This time, Teacher Zhong didn’t come along. He was tied up with company business.
Perhaps his family’s company discovered that the Ruan Family had blocked all avenues for them to interfere, so they stopped pestering him.
But it didn’t matter. As long as Teacher Zhang was there, it would be fine.
"Say, why isn’t this Golden-Eyed Dragon Gate opening?"
The celestial ladder had already descended, and Gu Ming had even walked right up to the Golden-Eyed Dragon Gate.
But the gate remained shut. Teacher Zhang didn’t know why either, so he made a call to ask the people in Tian Nan City.
However, the people in Tian Nan City sent a message back telling him to keep waiting.
’Did something happen?’
The thought flashed through his mind, but he didn’t say it out loud.
Gu Ming waited for a while. Bored, he glanced at the system and discovered that it had updated with a new line of text today, which looked suspiciously like a weather forecast.
「Abnormal weather today. Torrential downpour. The international competition venue has been flooded.」
’Maybe the last two competitions were too stable, without any major chaos, so the system decided to act up today?’
Less than two seconds later, all three of their phones buzzed, displaying a major news alert.
[News Agency Telegram: This year’s international competition venue has been sealed by an unknown power! It is plunged into complete darkness. The situation is unknown. The examination is suspended!]