3,700,000 Star Coins. The figure stopped Fang Yu's breath... It might look, from the past month, as though he spent freely, as though a few hundred thousand Star Coins were nothing to him.
But there were reasons for that.
Fang Ping'an had emptied the family's savings to buy treasures and drive Fang Yu's last sprint at the transfer assessment... and the Fangs counted as a household with a little put by.
The million Star Coins from Wuling Martial Arts Junior College was, at bottom, a form of encouragement from the school as well.
To test back up from a junior college into a university meant that, in a certain sense, your development value already exceeded an ordinary martial university student's.
The school hoped, too, that these elite students would grow strong and give something back to their old school; one Earth Warrior out of a few dozen would make it worth the money.
Fang Yu was in fact very short of money. There was less than a hundred thousand Star Coins on his bank card... A hard year as an assistant coach, not counting the final severance, had earned him only a little over a hundred thousand.
Warriors.
If they did not go and fight on the Primordial Star, earning on a normal salary was not efficient... The Blue Moon Alliance's internal order was stable, after all, and a warrior's great force had little use in it.
Most High-Rank Warriors, working ordinary jobs, earned somewhere around a million a year.
Of course, the main reason Fang Yu had spent five hundred thousand a year was that he could not absorb Star Force... Had he awakened an Aspect and tempered himself on Star Force, the same rate of progress would have cost far less.
3,700,000 Star Coins.
It was a staggering sum, enough to bring an ordinary person essentially to financial freedom, and more than enough to cover Fang Yu's training needs ahead — even, to a degree, to feed something back to his family.
But Fang Yu did not let the joy of it go to his head.
"Associate Professor Tang," he said. "May I read the contract?"
The female teacher beside him started to speak up.
It was a standard-form contract; reading it or not made little difference.
"Go ahead, read it." Associate Professor Tang did not mind in the least.
Fang Yu stepped forward and went through it quickly. There were not many clauses, and nothing in them was designed to mislead. Several caught his attention.
"During enrolment, absent major force majeure, the student must take part in the annual Primordial Star real combat, must meet the minimum requirement (see appendix), and must have his Civilization Points attributed to Huguang Martial Arts University. Should he fail to meet the minimum requirement, the additional development funding must be returned..."
"During enrolment, should the student awaken an Upper Aspect, he shall be unconditionally promoted to an Earth Contract and enter the Earth Academy."
"Before the end of the fourth-year final assessment, should the student break into the top fifty in any quarterly assessment and complete the Primordial Star combat requirement, he shall be promoted to an Earth Contract and enter the Earth Academy."
"Before the end of the fourth-year final assessment, should the student rank beyond 500th in the last quarterly assessment, the Elite Contract shall be terminated..."
"During enrolment, should the student be invited to join another martial arts university, a penalty of 50,000,000 shall be payable."
"During enrolment, should the student pass the university-to-postgraduate assessment and take a postgraduate place at New Moon Martial Arts University or one of the ten key martial arts universities, the contract shall be unconditionally terminated."
There were benefits: the annual development funding, better teaching staff within the school.
There were duties: he had to take part in real combat.
And the penalty was steep.
But equally, if Fang Yu performed well enough, the contract would upgrade further... From where Fang Yu stood, it was an entirely reasonable contract.
He looked up.
"Associate Professor Tang, the coming combat assignment starts on the 20th of August, doesn't it?" Fang Yu asked. "Do I take part as well? A great many of the courses aren't offered at a junior college."
"You do."
"And not only you. Every new transfer student who signs an Elite Contract fights," Associate Professor Tang said calmly. "If you fear taking part in real combat, you need not sign this contract. You would then enrol as an ordinary student."
"Huguang Martial Arts University invites any student it likes."
"Every contract we sign rests on fairness and free consent on both sides," she said.
Fang Yu thought it over.
Associate Professor Tang's words looked cold, and were somehow the more convincing for it.
She had no reason to deceive him, but Fang Yu hesitated slightly.
Real combat on the Primordial Star... was extremely dangerous.
In the training plan Fang Yu had drawn up for himself, he genuinely had not expected to meet real combat this soon.
"Associate Professor Tang." Jiang Wei, the middle-aged teacher, seemed to have seen the hesitation, and smiled. "Why don't I have a few words with Fang Yu alone?"
Associate Professor Tang glanced at him and nodded. "Fine. But we have only fifteen minutes; after that we're due at the next junior college."
"I know." Jiang Wei nodded and looked at Fang Yu. "Fang Yu, come with me."
Fang Yu followed him straight out of the office.
Before long the two of them reached another empty martial arts room a good distance from the first office, and the door closed again.
"Teacher Jiang." Fang Yu hesitated inwardly.
The man had most likely come to talk him into signing.
"There's no need to call me Teacher Jiang."
"By your mother's connection, you may call me Martial Uncle," Jiang Wei said, smiling.
Fang Yu's eyes went wide.
His mother? Martial Uncle?
"Teacher Jiang knew my mother?" he could not help asking.
He hardly dared believe it.
"I knew her, though not well," Jiang Wei said, smiling. "Your situation was told to me over the phone by your senior brother, Dong Xin. He asked me to come and look you over at your school, and see whether I could do something for you."
"If you don't believe me, call Dong Xin," Jiang Wei said.
At that, Fang Yu was mostly convinced.
Plenty of people knew he and Dong Xin were acquainted... but few knew he addressed Dong Xin as senior brother, and a teacher from Huguang Martial Arts University had no reason to lie to him.
"Fang Yu greets his Martial Uncle." Fang Yu bowed respectfully. "And thanks you for this."
He understood now.
It was hardly his talent the man had been admiring.
Without that connection through the school of his mother's line, he would never have been a direct-entry student.
"I bent nothing for you. If your blade work weren't at Subtlety I couldn't have used a special-approval slot, and Associate Professor Tang would never have agreed," Jiang Wei said with feeling. "Your mother and I weren't close, but she called me senior brother; having run into you, I give you a hand. An unused slot is a wasted one."
"Fang Yu will not forget your kindness," Fang Yu said gravely.
The man made it sound simple — but then why had none of the other teachers argued with Associate Professor Tang? Plainly, his so-called talent fell in the range of could-admit-or-not, and with the associate professor against it, most of them had no wish to offend her.
"Mm."
"You hesitated back there. Is it the combat that worries you?" Jiang Wei asked.
"Yes." Fang Yu nodded. "I've never been to the Primordial Star."
"That is genuinely a difficulty. An ordinary martial arts university student takes the combat assessment as soon as he reaches Level 15, so that when real combat comes he isn't hopelessly stiff about it..." Jiang Wei said. "Junior-college students are weaker in that respect, it's true."
"Even so, my advice is that you go."
Fang Yu listened carefully.
"There are privileges for a university student taking part in real combat," Jiang Wei said. "The starry-sky bases on the Primordial Star hold a great many special instruments and treasures that do not exist on Blue Star, or even on the New Moon, and you can use them now at a discount or free of charge... Once you graduate and become a civilian warrior, that advantage is gone."
"Instruments that don't exist even on the New Moon?" A flicker of doubt crossed Fang Yu's mind.
Weren't the starry-sky bases on the Primordial Star built by the Blue Moon Alliance? How could they hold what the New Moon did not?
"In short."
"The Primordial Star is marvellous beyond your imagining, and there is a great deal that neither I nor even an Earth Warrior like Associate Professor Tang fully understands," Jiang Wei said. "Going to real combat carries risk — and in a certain sense it is also opportunity."
Fang Yu was privately startled.
That young-looking Associate Professor Tang was an Earth Warrior? There was no telling by looking at her.
"You have four days."
"Sign, and tonight I'll enter your identity information into Huguang Martial Arts University's campus network ahead of time," Jiang Wei said. "Then I'll send you the course files you must study — an explanation of the starry-sky bases, an overview of the Primordial Star, the 《Illustrated Guide to the Myriad Beasts》, squad composition and so on... Work through all of it quickly, so you aren't going in blind."
"And beyond that."
"I'll arrange to find you a squad that suits you. Far safer," Jiang Wei said. "In combat on the Primordial Star, unless a man is exceptionally strong, people form small squads and divide the work between them. It keeps you as safe as anything can."
"New students, without special arrangements, are assigned squads at random by the school's system," Jiang Wei explained.
"Martial Uncle, I'm willing to sign the contract," Fang Yu said of his own accord.
The man had helped him this far.
To refuse now would be to know nothing of how things are done.
"Ha. You won't think it over? If the risk of real combat genuinely worries you, not signing is no great matter," Jiang Wei said, smiling. "Perhaps talk it over with your father first?"
"There's no need."
"I trust my Martial Uncle," Fang Yu said gravely.
"Good." Jiang Wei smiled. "This is my Civilization Fighter Code. Make a note of it... Once you've established your Civilization Fighter File at the starry-sky base, apply to add me as a contact and I'll transfer you 200 Primordial Points."
"Call it a first-meeting gift from your Martial Uncle."
Fang Yu noted it down quickly, though he was puzzled.
A Civilization Fighter File? Primordial Points? What were these... But from the man's manner, Fang Yu guessed those 200 Primordial Points were worth a good deal.
Soon enough.
The two of them returned to the office.
"Associate Professor Tang, I'm willing to sign," Fang Yu said.
"Good." Associate Professor Tang glanced at Jiang Wei, then stepped forward for the first time of her own accord and put out her hand to Fang Yu. "Fang Yu. Welcome to Huguang Martial Arts University."