Chapter 48: First Day of Class
Generally, whether it was an aggressive plant or a defensive plant, the duration of the plant’s state was about fifteen minutes.
Other than that, to end it quickly, one had to use psychic energy to catalyze it and accelerate its withering.
But at this moment, the three of them couldn’t even enter the ability room, let alone use their perception to catalyze the rose.
Zhou Yuanshan could only lead the two of them to wait quietly at the door for fifteen minutes.
“Did you secretly add an attack attribute to it when you were summoning just now?” Zhou Yuanshan asked Jiang Ning.
“I didn’t,” Jiang Ning retorted quickly.
Zhou Yuanshan thought for a moment, and it made sense.
He hadn’t even taught the two of them how to give plants aggressive properties. It was impossible for Jiang Ning to know how.
This should just be an accident.
Thinking this in his mind, fifteen minutes later, the three of them returned to the messy fifth ability room. Zhou Yuanshan said to Jiang Ning, “Do it again.”
Jiang Ning did as she was told.
She released her psychic energy and, starting from the rose seeds, summoned roses of three different flowering stages respectively.
This summoning went very smoothly. The seed stage and seedling stage were perfect, and the full bloom stage also looked fine for now.
Just as Jiang Ning and Zhou Yuanshan were about to breathe a sigh of relief, an accident happened.
‘Swish—’
The rose in its full bloom stage detached from its stalk and flew straight towards Zhou Yuanshan.
Fortunately, he reacted quickly and dodged to the side, thus avoiding having his brains blown out.
The three of them returned to the corridor again.
Zhou Yuanshan crossed his arms, looking at Jiang Ning as if he wanted to say something but was hesitating.
“You…”
“Teacher, I’m sorry,” Jiang Ning said, prostrating herself.
“Forget it.” Meeting Jiang Ning’s sincere eyes, Zhou Yuanshan began to reflect on whether there was something wrong with his teaching just now. Otherwise, how could she make this kind of mistake over and over again?
After another fifteen minutes, the three of them returned to the classroom.
Zhou Yuanshan changed his approach and continued to demonstrate personally, then gave the floor to Jiang Ning and Xia Shi to practice.
Xia Shi still maintained the speed of his first time learning and easily completed three rounds of summoning.
When it was Jiang Ning’s turn…
The three of them returned to the corridor for refuge again and again.
Jiang Ning blinked, her big eyes meeting Zhou Yuanshan’s small ones.
This time, he had watched Jiang Ning summon the whole time. The method and steps were all according to the method he had taught her, but the problem still inevitably occurred.
Zhou Yuanshan also refused to believe it.
“Continue.”
As expected, the three of them came to the corridor for the Nth time.
Zhou Yuanshan’s brow furrowed into a deep line.
After a morning of back and forth, the morning quickly passed.
The bell rang, and Zhou Yuanshan had no choice but to end the class.
Semir Teacher Code of Conduct, rule number five: Do not hold students back after class!
“Remember to restore the classroom to its original state,” Zhou Yuanshan said, dropping that sentence and leaving.
Zhou Yuanshan didn’t even have time to eat. He returned to his dormitory and began to study Jiang Ning’s problem.
Summoning purely ornamental and purely practical plants was the simplest. Zhou Yuanshan had planned to just get through today’s class.
But judging from the current situation, it was probably not that easy.
After Zhou Yuanshan left, Jiang Ning began to clean up the classroom with a bitter face.
It was not until the mess on the ground was completely cleaned up that she looked up at the decorative paintings and curtains that had been destroyed by the rose petals.
These were definitely unusable now.
Jiang Ning made a phone call to Teacher Fang Li.
She reported all the damaged items in the fifth ability room to her.
Even the gentle and calm Teacher Fang Li lost her composure. “What were you all doing in the fifth ability room!”
“I told you that specific classrooms can only be used for specific ability types!”
“The school’s annual funding is so little. The plant department is being re-planned, and we need star coins everywhere. Can’t you be a little more careful when you use it?”
“If this continues, you can pay for the repairs yourselves.”
Fang Li gave Jiang Ning and Xia Shi a good scolding.
“Um,” Jiang Ning interrupted weakly. “How many star coins do the repairs cost?”
Teacher Fang Li paused and quoted a number. “Three thousand star coins.”
Jiang Ning hung up the phone and directly transferred three thousand star coins to Teacher Fang Li.
These were indeed damaged by the roses she had summoned.
The lunch break was only two hours. Half an hour was wasted on cleaning up the mess, leaving even less time for Jiang Ning and Xia Shi.
Xia Shi still planned to go to the cafeteria to eat, while Jiang Ning chose to go back to the dormitory alone and have a nutrient solution for a meal.
The practice in class had consumed a great deal of her psychic energy. Summoning a rose seed required the psychic energy of ten suns, a rose seedling required fifteen, and a mature rose required even more, twenty suns. In class just now, she had summoned at least no less than ten.
If she continued to consume at this rate, the suns she produced every day would not be able to keep up with her spending.
She had to summon some more sunflowers as a backup.
Jiang Ning, who had originally planned to increase the number of sunflowers at any time depending on the situation, did as she said.
There was a small inner courtyard in her dormitory, and a huge back garden behind the house.
This planting area was definitely more than enough!
The lighting in the inner courtyard was a bit poor, so Jiang Ning chose the back garden with sufficient sunlight.
Digging a hole, summoning, planting, watering, catalyzing.
After a series of operations, the number of sunflowers had increased from the original ten to fifteen.
Still not enough, far from enough.
But it was almost time for the afternoon class.
Jiang Ning could only temporarily stop her work.
The afternoon was a basic technique class.
The class was not in the plant department, but in the comprehensive building’s ability training room 001.
The location was a bit far, so Jiang Ning set off half an hour early.
There wasn’t even a car on the plant department’s side. She had to walk there.
Fortunately, room 001 was not difficult to find. It was the first room on the left of the first floor.
There were only three people in the classroom, including the teacher.
Wenren Chao, Weisheng Yu, and a male teacher with glasses.
There were only two 3S+ level ability users in the entire Federation, so Jiang Ning was honored to be assigned to the 3S class and be classmates with Wenren Chao and Weisheng Yu.
Jiang Ning walked into the classroom.
“Have you received the notice?” Wenren Chao asked.
Jiang Ning looked at him. “What notice?”
Wenren Chao: “The notice that the plant department will also be participating in this new student ability competition.”
Jiang Ning: “?”
She thought for a moment in her mind about the abnormality of today.
No wonder Zhou Yuanshan had directly skipped the theoretical teaching in the first class today. No wonder her class schedule was so tight.
Now she had found the reason.
Jiang Ning: “You did this?”
Weisheng Yu: “What!?”
The two voices landed at almost the same time.
One questioning, one surprised.
Wenren Chao glanced at the two and grinned. “Yes, didn’t you want to prove your strength? The new student academy competition is a good opportunity!”
“I never said I wanted to participate in some Federation ability competition,” Jiang Ning looked at Wenren Chao resentfully.
If it weren’t for his proposal, she wouldn’t have become a workhorse now, with nothing but classes every day.
And whether it was this academy competition or the Federation competition, it sounded like fighting and killing, which didn’t suit her temperament at all.
In her heart, she still wanted to learn how to summon ordinary plants as soon as possible, open her small plant shop, and earn some ‘peaceful and quiet’ money.
“You’re still letting her participate in the Federation ability competition!?” Weisheng Yu frowned.
Her reaction was even bigger than Jiang Ning’s.
“Don’t you know she’s just a plant-based user?”
It wasn’t that Weisheng Yu looked down on the plant department, but the Federation ability competition was full of experts, and the mutated beasts were merciless. Jiang Ning, as a 3S+ plant ability user, would definitely be the first to be besieged once this news was released.
She had no ability to protect herself now. What if she died in the Federation competition?
“Of course I know!” Wenren Chao looked at Weisheng Yu strangely.
“She said herself that her plants can attack. And the academy competition is a good opportunity for her to practice. It’s still another matter whether she has the strength to participate in the Federation competition,” Wenren Chao said.
“I don’t want to participate in any academy competition, nor do I want to participate in any Federation competition,” Jiang Ning interrupted the two and said coldly.
Wenren Chao asked, puzzled, “Why?”
In his impression, it seemed that everyone took pride in participating in the Federation competition and getting a ranking.
He was no exception.
Although he was unwilling to admit that it was indeed Batu who had lured him with benefits to come to Semir.
But one sentence from Batu had indeed touched him.
Batu’s original words were, “Wouldn’t it be a better proof of your strength to stand on the highest podium as a student from a last-tier academy!”
Everyone had the desire to show off. People thought it was a matter of course for a top academy to win first place, but what if this person was from a last-tier academy?
Moreover, among the new students of the various academies in the Federation this year, there were far more ability users with 3S-rank psychic energy than in previous years.
The Federation competition was a team competition in the end. If their academy had one more 3S-rank ability user, they would have one more hope of winning the championship.
So after learning that the plant department could also attack, he had the idea of pulling Jiang Ning into the team.
“What’s in it for me?” Jiang Ning asked in return.
Her sense of honor was strong at times and weak at others. Not to mention that she had only just come into contact with Semir Academy and did not have a strong sense of belonging. She didn’t even know how to use a few abilities.
And she had finally escaped the life of licking blood from the blade’s edge and hunting mutated beasts. Her life was gradually developing in the direction she had hoped for.
Wenren Chao thought for a moment and really couldn’t think of any benefit for Jiang Ning.
As for money, there was indeed a handsome prize for winning the Federation ability competition, but those who were in the plant business didn’t seem to be short of money.
As for fame…
Wenren Chao paused and met Jiang Ning’s dark eyes. “Don’t you want to break the stereotype that the interstellar citizens have of your plant department?”
Jiang Ning lowered her eyes and thought for a moment.
“That’s a good reason.”
She didn’t want to bear the stigma of a ‘useless’ ability for the rest of her life.
And, who said their plant department was very useless?
“You’re agreeing to him just like that?” Weisheng Yu’s brow furrowed tightly.
Jiang Ning nodded and smiled at her. “Yes.”
In the end, Weisheng Yu did not persuade her any further. Anyway, there was an academy competition in a month. It was still unknown whether Jiang Ning could pass.
“Excuse me.”
A polite and courteous voice sounded.
The male teacher with glasses had been standing on the side for a long time and finally had a chance to interject.
He asked with a smile, “Can we start the class now?”