Chapter 12: School Starts
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
In the twinkling of an eye, it was the first day of school for third-grade high-schoolers.
Well, the first day of school for the Sprite stream. Ordinary Arts and Science stream students had long been buried in the sea of exam questions.
“Sprite stream campus, Cla.s.s Two.”
Su Hao’s high school was the best high school in An City. More than 90% of students made it into undergraduate studies in every batch, and almost half went to top universities… But those were all before the world changed.
Today, Su Hao arrived at a strange campus, right next to the ordinary campus, with a larger land area. But there were only third-graders here, and only less than 200 students.
It was no wonder that tuition and miscellaneous fees for the Sprite stream was more than 50,000 yuan per year. This was already after subsidies from the government and the Union of Sprite Trainers.
For the sake of the campus, I will bear with it.
From far away, Su Hao saw the big, round face of Liu Ren.
He waved, and roared with his loud voice, “Su Hao, you’re also Two1?”
Su Hao was so embarra.s.sed, he walked by rapidly, pretending that he didn’t know him.
“Hey, wait, slow down, I meant that you are in Cla.s.s Two. I’m also in Cla.s.s Two.”
“How did you know?”
Su Hao wasn’t Liu Ren, who filled his social media with all kinds of information about himself every day.
“Haha, it’s internal information. This is your Silkworm Baby, right? It’s so good-looking, indeed… Cuter than my tortoise!”
Little Charcoal Tortoise, pa.s.sing by Liu Ren’s foot, abruptly spewed out several fire sparks, marking his pants legs with dots of burnt black.
Liu Ren’s eyes widened, and he was angry…
“Sh*t, Master Tortoise, I’m sorry!”
Upon seeing the black smoke that came out of Little Charcoal Tortoise’s mouth and nose, Liu Ren immediately followed his heart.
Little Charcoal Tortoise left Liu Ren behind and walked forward casually, its steps looking like that of an old gentleman taking a walk in the park.
The fat and heavy Silkworm Baby rested on top of Su Hao’s head, like a light yellow hat.
It was enthusiastically greeting every sprite that it saw.
“Gurgle!”
“Gurgle, gurgle…”
Little Peas, Fluffy b.a.l.l.s, Gra.s.sland Wolves, Patterned Alligators, Little Rolling Stones, Mini Pigs, and so on. All of them were common and cheap sprites.
Su Hao had done a comprehensive study of sprite knowledge, with one look, he could name every sprite he saw.
Liu Ren’s attention was completely on the beginner Sprite Trainers.
“That guy is from Cla.s.s Three, that one’s from Cla.s.s Four. Oh, that’s Lin Zeyan from Cla.s.s One, the genius whose soul strength was 1.8 at the exam previously.”
“There are four sprite cla.s.ses?”
“Yeah, one more than the last batch. I don’t know if Sprite Universities expanded their enrollment this year. If they didn’t, cough, the difficulty of getting into Sprite Universities would be much harder.”
“You are still worried you won’t get into one?”
“I have to. My dad said, if after spending so much money I still can’t get into a good Sprite University, he’ll break my legs… How can I not find it difficult!?”
Liu Ren was extremely grievous.
However, he was only grievous for one second. In a moment, he started speaking again, mysteriously, “Do you know where that freak with a 2.1 soul strength from Cla.s.s Five back then went?”
“Where did he go? Can it be that he’s not in our school?”
Su Hao didn’t yet understand on that day. Afterward, he gained more knowledge. It was indeed rare for a high-school third-grader-to-be to have a soul strength beyond 2.0.
Perhaps their An City produced only this single one this year.
“He got invited to transfer to Yunhua University Affiliated High School. I heard the students there can go to Yunhua Sprite University through direct admissions in the future!”
There were two types of Sprite Universities.
One type was comprehensive universities with a sprite school. The other type was specialized sprite universities, usually named XX Sprite University, or directly named after a specific type of sprite.
Flamingo University, for example, was one of the top Sprite Universities. Although Dragon Capital University was a comprehensive university, the campus for its sprite school was larger than even its main campus, with a strong faculty. It had little difference from specialized sprite universities.
No matter which type of university, the number of students enrolled every year was really few, and there were also very few schools.
The whole Tiannan Province had only five universities with sprite-related majors.
Yunhua Sprite University was one of the best, which was evident through the direct admission scheme.
Even Liu Ren’s words smelled of jealousy.
Su Hao had only transmigrated for about a dozen days, and he had no clear sense of it.
“Is a soul strength above 2.0 really that outstanding? Besides… When one cultivates two sprites at the same time, can he attend to one without neglecting the other?”
Liu Ren explained sourly, “Yunhua University Affiliated High School will definitely help him plan. Even his initial sprites are gifted by the school. I heard it was a Little Stone Elephant and a Glowing Firefly. The battle power from having two sprites is not simply 1+1=2. Besides, after the feedback benefits, his speed of growth of soul power is twice that of ours…
“You’ve got to know that apart from contracting sprites, soul power can also be used to a.s.sist sprites in battles.”
He looked up at the blue sky and the white clouds and sighed pretentiously. “Sigh, high spending is no match for good natural qualities.”
“Get lost!”
Poverty made Su Hao mean.
As they spoke, they had reached the cla.s.sroom building.
There was only one cla.s.sroom building at the Sprite stream campus. Apart from it, there were buildings for equipment rooms, battle halls, etc. All the buildings together occupy only a small part of the campus, and most of it was built into different types of outdoor training environments, such as woods, water bodies, abandoned metal factory areas, rugged rocky areas…
Ordinary students may not understand it, but Su Hao knew that during sprite training, being in an environment of the same attribute during sprite training could bring some subtle benefits.
Well, but there were no environments suitable for Fire-Element Sprites, probably due to the cost. Also, few students owned Fire-Element Sprites on campus.
Those who could manage to get fire-element or even rarer elemental sprites, they probably would never worry about training environments.
All these could be settled by throwing in money.
Su Hao was not envious at all, hmph.
Third Grade…
The cla.s.sroom of Cla.s.s Two of Sprite stream was very s.p.a.cious, with vacant s.p.a.ces on all four sides of each seat. Those were s.p.a.ces reserved for sprites.
Sprites also needed to take cla.s.ses!
For many training methods, it was better to just let students and sprites listen to cla.s.ses together instead of teaching the methods to students and then making the students teach their sprites.
The intelligence level of the sprites entering adulthood was comparable to that of an 11 or 12-year-old child.
Su Hao spent much time walking about the campus. Currently, there were already quite a lot of people in the cla.s.sroom.
All of their chats were about topics related to sprites.
The appearance of the two immediately attracted attention.
The looks of most of the boys focused on Liu Ren’s sprite.
Su Hao glanced around and found that Liu Ren’s Little Charcoal Tortoise was still the only Fire-Element Sprite in the cla.s.s.
As for the girls, many of them stared at Silkworm Baby on top of Su Hao’s head with sparkling eyes.
It was so cute that the girls’ liking for him increased exponentially.
If Su Hao took the initiative, it would be far too easy for him to get the contacts of several of them.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t interested.
Was it not fun to play with the sprite, were novels not interesting?
Girls were the root of problems that got in his way!
Soon, the bell rang, and the form teacher walked into the cla.s.sroom, holding a name list.
It was a female teacher, not the easy type.
Her serious face and aura made the cla.s.sroom quieten down instantly.
Many excited cla.s.smates suddenly felt that the atmosphere wasn’t right, touched their heads, and obediently returned to their seats.
The form teacher knocked on the blackboard and wrote the words “Chen Fangjie” on it.
“I’m your form teacher of the year, my surname is Chen. I’m in charge of your coming studies and training.
“In the first and second years, you’ve already finished the academic subjects you’re supposed to learn. In the following year, the main cla.s.ses are sprite cultivation, training, and commanding sprite battles, etc… It also includes physical training for yourselves.”
Her right hand pressed on the surface on the teacher’s table, and her cold gaze swept over.
“Some students may think that with feedback benefits from the sprite, there’s no more need to exercise. Some may even think that battle is for sprites. Those are huge mistakes!
“Sprite Trainers are never commanders hidden behind the scenes, Sprite Trainers are comrades in sprite battles! A Sprite Trainer lacking in training would only drag the feet of their own sprite in fights! Don’t think that it’s an easy thing to become a Sprite Trainer!”
She paused for a moment, and then said in a slightly milder tone, “You can’t fall behind on ordinary academic subjects as well. Remember to do more exam papers and practice questions. In the college entrance examination, apart from sprite exam questions and fighting a.s.sessment, the weightage of academic subjects is also significant. Don’t lose your chance to enter sprite universities because of the marks you lost for academic subjects.”
After a series of words, the third-grade students, who were just in the excitement after contracting sprites, felt like they had cold water poured all over them. Even their heads bowed down.
They somehow felt that the days at Sprite stream would be different from what they imagined.
Miss Chen took the attendance and made the students do a self-introduction.
They got to know one another at the most basic level.
“That’s all for the cla.s.s meeting. Next… Well, scan this QR code, and join the cla.s.s group, change your group nickname to “name-sprite” format.
She picked up a remote control and pressed it, and the projector projected the pattern of a QR code.
Su Hao didn’t expect this at all.
The cla.s.s group in second grade… Why does it also seem to be created by the form teacher?
I didn’t say anything wrong, right?