Chapter 2807 - 1028: One of the Candidates
"Fishmen are only weak, not stupid."
The Big Fox stopped pretending to sleep, raised her head to look at the two little cats, and spoke in a clear, pleasant voice: "—A truly stupid race wouldn’t have survived to this era, much less maintained such a large reserve in First University. Besides, that one was an experienced old Diviner. Clearly, it saw your potential, so it chose to keep quiet. Compared with the compensation it can calculate right now, the invisible debt you owe them is obviously more valuable."
The black Gem Cat hesitated at once upon hearing this.
"So should I主动 just shove the money into their hands?" It really didn’t want to leave any hidden trouble for its future self. Many big troubles in this World started out as some inconspicuous little loose end like this.
"No need for that."
Four fluffy big tails swayed slightly in midair, expressing their owner’s attitude: "If they don’t open their mouths, no matter how much money you give, it’s useless. After all, what you destroyed was their sacrificial spirit—something that can be priced, but also can be priceless. If you don’t主动 compensate, you might still have room to play dumb in the future; if you主动 make it up to them, given the Fishmen’s flawed nature, who knows how they’ll cling to you down the line."
The White Jade Cat nodded like a pecking chick, extremely in agreement with the Big Fox’s explanation.
The black Gem Cat slanted her a sidelong glance.
"—I only just realized, when did you become independent?" it suddenly asked, the topic jump so big that the Big Fox and the White Jade Cat both froze on the spot.
"What?" The White Jade Cat blinked, utterly confused.
The black Gem Cat lifted its paw and gestured at the distance between the Cat Fruit Tree and the teaching building, reminding her: "I mean when your main body is awake, you still have the ability to move around freely. For avatars like us, isn’t that basically independence? When did you reach that level?"
The Big Fox curled her lips and rested her head back on her paws, going back to feigning sleep.
A hint of realization showed on the White Jade Cat’s face.
"A few days later than you." She said it lightly, as if it was nothing at all.
The black Gem Cat looked somewhat melancholy.
Sometimes, it really did admire Jiang Yu’s Magic Talent. Compared to the level he’d only reached by practically cheating, Jiang Yu had refined the White Jade Cat to this degree in just a few days, which was truly impressive.
"That’s amazing." Its cat paw laboriously drew a thumbs-up.
Tch!
It could vaguely hear the Big Fox’s disdainful voice by its ear, and she seemed to mumble something under her breath, but when he turned his head toward the sound, he saw her pillowing her head on a fluffy big tail-blanket, paws under her chin, looking fast asleep.
Couldn’t look more fake!
"No, I’m actually not that amazing." The White Jade Cat shyly shrank back a little, shaking her head repeatedly: "...It’s just that the jade I used happened to be very spiritual, that’s all."
Zheng Qing fell silent once more.
He didn’t think the ’very spiritual’ she mentioned was just ordinary Spirit Jade. Considering her usual low-key "modest" style, he had reason to suspect that the piece of White Jade she used to fondle all day long had, even before turning into a cat, already surpassed the level of a Psychic Spirit Jade—bordering on taking form itself, which wouldn’t be impossible.
As expected.
Being rich is the greatest Magic Talent.
Whoosh!
A light breeze brushed over the treetops, gently sweeping past the one fox and two cats under the Cat Fruit Tree.
The Big Fox snapped awake from her pretended sleep, raised her head, and warily looked up at the night sky. Only after confirming there was nothing unusual did she slowly let out a breath and turn her gaze to the black Gem Cat.
"That kid just sent you a message?"
Seeing the black Gem Cat in a dazed stupor, she quickly figured out what that subtle Magic Power fluctuation just now had been, and flicked her tail lightly: "Class meeting’s over?"
The black Gem Cat soon came back to itself and glanced at the teaching building in surprise.
"No," it shook its head, with a trace of strangeness in its tone, "but something went wrong... halfway through the class meeting, someone from the TA group showed up and took him away. Then he sent a message telling me to go back early tonight."
"Was Old Yao there?" The Big Fox’s ears pricked up warily.
"A projection of him showed up... he agreed pretty readily, like he knew exactly why the TA group was looking for him."
"Then it’s fine."
The Big Fox’s ears flopped down with a soft snap, and her head lazily sank back onto her paws: "—If anything goes wrong, I’ll just have someone smash his office!"
This fox really doesn’t hope for my good at all!
The black Gem Cat grumbled inwardly, but in the end didn’t dare bristle to her face.
...
...
The one who took Zheng Qing out of the class meeting was Zhang Yu.
Acting leader of the TA group.
Although Zheng Qing was quite sure that this young Wizard serving as his Guard couldn’t possibly harbor any bad intentions, when he followed behind Zhang Yu out of the teaching building, a subtle feeling still rose uncontrollably in his heart.
Last time, he had followed Thomas out just like this.
Thinking of Thomas, his previously restless mood suddenly calmed down.
And this was precisely the strange wonder of Magic—at the very moment the name Thomas flashed through his mind, Zhang Yu, walking in front, turned back and brought up that name as well.
"Previously, Thomas—" when he mentioned this name, Zhang Yu’s voice very obviously paused for a moment, then he continued quite naturally, as if those three syllables had no effect on him at all: "—after he defected, we went through his work logs. Most of it had nothing to do with you, but there was one thing... did he ever have you sign an application form?"
"Application form?" Zheng Qing didn’t react for a moment.
After all, this semester he had signed way too many of this form and that form.
"Uh, the one about the Edge Academy’s special project registration." The TA group leader carefully glanced around, then raised a shielding barrier before giving Zheng Qing a slightly more concrete description.
The boy suddenly understood.
"Oh, right!"
He subconsciously touched his arm—when he’d signed that registration form, Thomas had even cut a small piece of flesh off his arm. Thinking back now, he strongly suspected Thomas had pocketed that piece of flesh.
"Did something go wrong? Did he swap out my piece of flesh?" His long streak of bad luck made Zheng Qing inclined to think in the worst possible direction.
Zhang Yu led him into the Lakefront Corridor, quickening his pace slightly. He shook his head at Zheng Qing’s question.
"He didn’t swap it... as for something going wrong—"
His tone was a bit hesitant, but considering the seriousness of the matter, he ultimately gave a brief explanation: "The application form Thomas had you sign back then was the final Executor selection form for that special project... Originally, because of your age and rank, you weren’t even within the school’s scope of consideration. But somehow, he managed to slip your name in. Now the selection results are out, and you’ve become one of the seven candidates... The project team is a bit unsure whether they should trust this round of selection results, so they asked me to bring you over for another review."