Chapter 506 - 503: Team Expansion
Lin Xinghai was unaware of what was happening at the Military Department. In the days that followed, he spent most of his time cultivating, just as usual.
However, after a mission that gave Lin Xinghai a thorough understanding of his own strength, his urgency to improve had diminished. Now, he at least made time to personally attend most of the important classes.
He paid special attention to techniques for breakthroughs, as well as various methods for seizing the opportunity during the breakthrough to the Body Shaping Realm to reconstruct a powerful Physique.
That’s right, Lin Xinghai was already thinking about the Body Shaping Realm.
At his current pace, it would only be a few more days before he reached the Peak of Blood Qi Realm.
Although he might get stuck at the Peak of Blood Qi Realm for a while to accumulate Blood Qi Power, Lin Xinghai believed that what took others one or two years would take him one or two months at most.
Therefore, he needed to prepare some things in advance to avoid being caught unprepared when the time came.
Lin Xinghai basically kept to a simple routine, moving between the classroom and the Cultivation Room. Of course, he would sometimes visit Liu Miaomiao’s room, but overall, he kept a fairly low profile.
But in contrast to him, the Xinghai Squad was a different story.
More than a week had passed since the start of the semester, and most of the students in the class had already completed a mission.
For the vast majority of them, these missions were far from simple. Many couldn’t be completed in less than two or three days.
After struggling to complete them, the rewards, split among everyone, amounted to only a few thousand Huaxia Coins. Getting over ten thousand was considered a lot. If converted to Credit Points, it would only be a few hundred.
Of course, Huaxia Coins still had significant purchasing power, and even more so for Credit Points. But it’s the comparison that hurts.
When the other students learned that on a single trip, each member of the Xinghai Squad had earned an average of over 200,000 Huaxia Coins, plus over 1,000 Credit Points each, they were left staring in disbelief.
At first, no one believed it, of course. But as more and more details were revealed, and when the squad members even showed their combat footage and account balances, everyone had no choice but to believe it.
Immediately after, numerous students applied to join the Xinghai Squad.
After all, everyone knew that with Lin Xinghai around, joining the Xinghai Squad was basically like picking up free money.
More importantly, Lin Xinghai could also coach squad members on their Gun Technique, which was what everyone valued the most.
Everyone knew that as long as they improved their Gun Technique, they would be set. Even if they couldn’t reach Lin Xinghai’s level, just improving their current ability severalfold would guarantee they could earn a high number of Credit Points, even if they left the squad to go solo later.
Therefore, it wasn’t just the First Class Students in their class; even many of the Special Class Students were tempted.
Yan Feijie, in particular, sought out Lin Xinghai the moment he heard about it, wanting to initiate a collaboration between their squads.
Lin Xinghai rejected the offer without a second thought. After all, he had no desire to drag along another squad of dead weight.
Seeing this, Yan Feijie could only settle for second best and proposed merging their two squads.
But Lin Xinghai rejected that as well, telling him clearly that if his members wanted to join the Xinghai Squad, they had to apply one by one. And once they were in, everyone would be treated equally, starting as regular members.
He wanted a Xinghai Squad that was completely under his control. If the price of expanding the team was introducing a second voice of authority, he would rather keep things as they were.
Besides, with hundreds of students wanting to join the Xinghai Squad, he had more than enough people to choose from.
In the end, Yan Feijie left. Of course, he also returned the 10,000 Credit Points he owed. With that, Lin Xinghai’s Credit Points increased to 38,000.
Of course, Lin Xinghai wasn’t particularly fussed about those 10,000 Credit Points now. After all, Zuo Wenyao had worked quickly, taking only two days to handle all the paperwork. Lin Xinghai had compiled the cultivation method for the Investigation Technique into a manual and submitted it. Soon, other students would be able to purchase the Investigation Technique in the school library.
By then, his Credit Points would start rolling in continuously.
Of course, Lin Xinghai didn’t plan on using these Credit Points for the time being. At his current stage, Credit Points weren’t of much help to him. Whether it was the Cultivation Source or other items, he could buy them directly with Huaxia Coins through Little Fatty’s channels.
But it would be a different story once he advanced to the Body Shaping Realm. He had asked Little Fatty about it; Elixirs that could rapidly increase a Body Shaping Realm expert’s strength did exist, but very few were available on the open market.
Even if Little Fatty mobilized the entire Hongyu Conglomerate to acquire them, he wouldn’t be able to get many in a week.
As for Elixirs that were effective even for the Divine Demon Realm, those didn’t circulate on the open market at all.
But in the academy, as long as you had Credit Points, you could buy these things without restriction.
Moreover, it wasn’t just these items that could be bought at the academy. Basically, as long as it was a resource the country possessed, you could buy 99% of it at the academy if you had enough Credit Points.
For instance, the Hongyu Group had been gathering materials to build the Legendary Level Mecha for over a week, but they hadn’t even collected half of what was needed yet.
And the materials would only get harder to collect. Some might even take several months or half a year to acquire, which would further delay the mecha’s construction.
But if Lin Xinghai were to buy a few core materials here at the academy and send them over, it would undoubtedly speed up the process immensely.
For this reason, Lin Xinghai was saving his Credit Points, avoiding spending them whenever possible. He would hoard them until he broke through to the Body Shaping Realm, when they would become truly useful.
As news of the Investigation Technique was released, Lin Xinghai’s Credit Points balance skyrocketed. At the same time, the number of people wanting to join the Xinghai Squad grew even larger and more frantic.
It wasn’t just first-year students anymore; even some second and third-year students wanted to join the Xinghai Squad.
"Boss, too many people have submitted applications! Are we going to expand the squad or not? You have to give me a clear answer!" Little Fatty said, running up to Lin Xinghai for the third time, both excited and exasperated.
The previous two times, Lin Xinghai had just told him to wait. And while waiting had indeed brought in more applicants, the pressure on Little Fatty had also mounted, especially when dealing with the second and even third-year students.
"Expanding the squad is a must, but we can’t recruit blindly. How about this: for now, we shouldn’t increase the Xinghai Squad’s numbers by too much all at once. Let’s recruit another 8 members, bringing the total to 30. That should be enough."
"Since we have so many applicants, first select 100 of them. Then we’ll take them out to clear out some Zombies. We’ll pick the final 8 from that group. Just treat it as a practical combat assessment," Lin Xinghai said after a moment of thought, providing an answer.
Little Fatty was dumbfounded. He stammered, "Boss, isn’t that a bit over the top? I feel like some people might not be happy with that."
"If they’re not happy, they can get lost. Don’t forget, they’re the ones who asked to join. I don’t want anyone who’s arrogant. Remember, there can only be one voice in this squad," Lin Xinghai said with an unconcerned expression.