Nine Star Burden

Chapter 57: News

Three days later, Jiang Xiao’s team qualified for representing Class 2.

More specifically, the crew cut brothers were the ones who won them the right to do so.

Zhu Wen and Zhu Wu were really fierce and unparalleled. During the class selection, Jiang Xiao and Yi Lianna barely launched any attacks. After two games of 2 VS 4, everyone was convinced.

Jiang Xiao and Yi Lianna managed to obtain the rewards since they were pulled up by the two brothers in their team.

After all, the members would still obtain rewards regardless of how incompetent they may be, so long as their team won.

The reward was said to be a White Ghoul Star Bead.

That made Jiang Xiao a little excited. The reward for participating was a White Ghoul Star Bead. What about getting in the top three, then? It would definitely be a prize that was even more attractive, wouldn’t it?

According to the seniors from Year Two who emerged as champions the previous year, every member of the team received a Star Bead while the rest of the most outstanding students received an additional Silver Quality Star Bead.

Moreover, the additional Silver Quality Star Bead was not the Lava Ghoul Star Bead that could be bought on the market but the rarer ones.

Xia Yan’s Flame Arc Star Technique was rewarded to her by the school after their team obtained first place.

In Year One, Xia Yan led the team to rank first in the military training and was subsequently selected as the most valuable student, earning herself the Flame Arc Star Technique.

Not only were rewards given for the military training tournaments, but there would also be a major competition for the final exam every year.

Han Jiangxue also benefited from this. In the final exam of her first year in High School, she led her team through the battle and came in first place in the Year One cohort. Finally, she was selected as the MVP and was awarded the extremely precious Barren Wind Star Technique.

Those Star Techniques were hard to acquire, even from merchants.

In the second year of high school, Han Jiangxue and Xia Yan failed to come in first place during the team field missions because of conflicts within the team and disharmony between members.

It was only in the final exam that the disharmonious team was lucky enough to win the first place.

Han Jiangxue managed to clinch the MVP title and was awarded a rare Star Bead.

However, this time, even Han Jiangxue, who had credible qualifications, did not manage to absorb the Star Techniques in the Star Beads.

Han Jiangxue did not have any financial resources and could only live in the house left behind by her parents while enjoying the benefit of accessing the snowfield free of charge. She only managed to maintain her livelihood by selling the corpses of White Ghouls.

Hence, obtaining rare Star Beads through proper channels like being rewarded by the school was the greatest guarantee for enhancing her own strength.

Although Xia Yan could purchase such rare star beads, it also required plenty of financial resources and connections. If she could get the Star Beads awarded by the school, she would, of course, be elated.

Most importantly, some glory could not be bought with money.

Glory was the cornerstone for her to win a place in an elite university and embark on a better life. She definitely couldn’t tolerate having a team of divided individuals because it concerned her future.

This year, Xia Yan and Han Jiangxue were bent on winning the final exam of Year Three and emerging victorious in the final college entrance exam.

There were still nine months left before the college entrance examination. If Jiang Xiao succeeded, Han Jiangxue would finish teaching Jiang Xiao everything he needed to know about the cultural lessons in nine months and help him prepare for the final exams of Year Three, as well as the final college entrance exam.

That was the main difference between the Awakened and the ordinary students. Ordinary students were unequipped and had to face the college entrance examination scripts all by themselves.

Apart from a written exam, the Awakened would have to undergo practical exams in teams of four.

So far, Jiang Xiao still had no idea that he was working hard towards hell.

Jiang Xiao was full of confidence in his team and had another agenda of winning himself some pride and glory after attaining first place and advancing to the School Tyrant in Year Three.

If it were a full-blown battle, Jiang Xiao would never be able to rival Han Jiangxue even if there were ten of him.

There was already a difference in their abilities and there was no way they could battle each other at all, especially since their circumstances and roles were different.

However, since there was already an exchange of information and there was a clear issue in Han Jiangxue’s team, there was some hope for Jiang Xiao’s team.

Regardless, Jiang Xiao had to exhibit his value.

Putting aside Star Techniques, Jiang Xiao felt that the Year Three students could not compare to the Zhu brothers in terms of martial arts.

Of course, the Year Three students had been practicing for two more years compared to them. Even if they had already exchanged information with Han Jiangxue beforehand, an arduous battle would be inevitable.

While anxiously preparing for the battle, Jiang Xiao received an interesting piece of news before the competition even began.

In the past two days, a major piece of news had been published in Beijiang Province and even made it to the real-time hot search column of Weibo. A White Ghoul Witch’s baby had suddenly appeared in Ruifeng Business Firm…

Of course, everyone coveted it and the prices rose madly. Until this morning, someone had already offered a price as high as 400,000 yuan, which really shocked Jiang Xiao.

A White Ghoul’s cub was worth only a few thousand and was rather priceless.

Yet, the price of the White Ghoul Witch’s baby soared like a rocket. It was simply incredible.

At this stage of high school, Jiang Xiao rarely saw any students who owned Star Pets.

On one hand, the children were still lost in the Basic Techniques and were not strong enough to acquire Star Pets.

On the other hand, the most important reason was that Star Pets were absolutely rare and acquiring them would be extremely difficult.

Acquiring a Star Pet and keeping a living creature of another dimension in one’s Star Map was a very difficult task. Without enough abilities, it would be impossible to accomplish.

There were strict requirements for a Star Pet to be embedded in the Star Map too. It was a hundred times tougher to acquire a Star Pet than to absorb Star Beads to obtain Star Techniques.

Everyone knew that only the offspring of creatures of other dimensions could qualify to become Star Pets.

It seemed to be a customary requirement. No one was 100% sure that adult creatures of other dimensions could not be acquired as Star Pets, but no one had succeeded in doing so.

The lucky ones who had acquired Star Pets had all obtained the offspring.

A premium-grade Star Pet could change an Awakened drastically and increase his abilities, mainly the quality of his attributes.

Firstly, Star Pets could be carried around easily, for they could all be kept in the Star Map, be it an offspring or a Star Pet that was slowly growing into an adult.

It sounded incredible, but that was indeed the case.

Even a majestic and large creature could be embedded in one’s star slot, so long as it was tamed and trained from a young age. It could still be drawn into one’s body regardless of its size and mass.

That was a concrete truth that made others respect the mystique of the Star Map even more.

Although everyone had their own Star Maps, there was a heterodimensional attribute of the Star Maps of all Awakened, regardless of their profession, be it a warrior or a mage. That was also a field that the Awakened were actively trying to research about.

Otherwise, where would such a huge Star Pet go?

How did it go in and out of one’s body so casually?

Hmm…

The Star Pets could be brought around easily and could also support its owner.

It was just like a resource pool. This reminded Jiang Xiao of a comic about a migrant worker.

A nine-tailed fire fox was sealed in the body of a blonde-haired teenager, who then acquired endless energy since then.

The idea was similar.

When one had exhausted his Star Power, his Star Pets could provide sufficient support.

That was the second benefit.

The third benefit was that Star Pets came with their own Star Techniques. If properly trained and domesticated, the Star Pet could become a strong and loyal teammate.