Reassured, Ling Xueru went to the source of the voice and saw that Shen Zhe was sitting on Lu Zihan’s chest, bashing his face in the arena located at the playground.

They were truly “close”.

Satisfied and comforted?

Ling Xueru almost passed out in fury.

“Shen Zhe, what are you doing? Unreasonable fights are forbidden in the school. Do you want to be punished?” she scolded.

Shouldn’t Lu Zihan be the beater?

Wasn’t Shen Zhe a bad student?

What was going on?

It wasn’t until he heard her shouting that Shen Zhe finally noticed Ling Xueru. His face cramped.

That monitor had always been a snitch. If she reported it to the teacher, it was quite possible that he would be punished.

Thinking about that, Shen Zhe grabbed Lu Zihan who was half dead and declared angrily, “Monitor, Lu Zihan is determined to beat me up. I’m only defending myself…”

“He’s beating you up? And you’re defending yourself?”

Ling Xueru nearly choked.

“Bro, you could’ve told a better lie!”

“Even a blind person could see that you’re beating him up, not the other way around!”

“Wu! Wu! Wu! Wu…”

Lu Zihan, whose head was too swollen for him to see anything, almost vomited blood after hearing that, but he was unable to say anything and could only twist his body to show his discontent.

“Look, he just admitted it…” said Shen Zhe.

“…”

Lu Zihan cramped even harder.

After a long time, Ling Xueru was finally back to herself. Looking at Lu Zihan who had been deformed, she blushed and said, “Shen Zhe, you’ve heavily wounded a fellow student, which shows that you have no respect for the rules. I’ll tell the teacher…”

Whoever the victim was, she couldn’t condone such a violation!

If everybody fought each other every day, how could they illuminate their stars and become Mages or Martial Artists?

“You can do whatever you want, but don’t say that I didn’t follow the rules. Ask him if I obeyed the rules!”

Shen Zhe picked up Lu Zihan again.

He hated those who told everything to the teacher in his previous life.

It was as if keeping a secret would kill them…

“What could the teacher give you in return?”

“I…”

Struggling for a while, Lu Zihan came up with nothing.

He was the cause of everything.

He asked for more trouble after the failure, only to be crushed again.

He was depressed when he thought about it.

Ling Xueru frowned at Lu Zihan’s silence. She was about to ask further, when Zhao Chen and the rest of them approached.

“This is what happened…”

They soon explained everything.

After figuring things out, the girl’s eyes popped out.

So, that was a normal duel which was allowed in the school.

However…

The loser was Lu Zihan, a top ten student who had illuminated seven stars. Yet, he was smacked on the butt of the tailender.

Why did it feel so not right?

How could a bad student be so strong?

“Have you… polished your body?”

Ling Xueru looked at Shen Zhe after a brief hesitation.

There could be no other reasons.

Shen Zhe nodded.

“Body polishing…” Ling Xueru paused for a moment and continued, “…is only a trivial art. If you can’t illuminate the Seven Stars and pass the test at the end of this semester, it will be impossible for you to become a Mage or a Martial Artist. You can’t achieve much with body polishing. This is a world of Mages and Martial Artists after all…”

Even the Connate Body Practitioners were only on par with level-one Mages and Martial Artists, with a much lower combat ability.

Besides, it was barely possible to become Connate only with the physical body. Nobody had ever succeeded in the history of the Abyssal Ocean Kingdom.

That was the reason why people would rather study than polish their bodies.

The efforts were not worth it.

However, although she despised body polishing, Ling Xueru thought more highly of Shen Zhe at the moment.

He had been an unremarkable student, yet he reached such a high level in body polishing. Even she found it incredible.

“Alright, get it over with and come back to class! It’s Mr. Xin Qi’s class. He is always strict. You know the consequences if you’re late!”

She reminded them and left.

It was a fair competition. While Lu Zihan was terribly beaten up, Shen Zhe’s friends were not any better. They could call it even. It was no longer Ling Xueru’s business.

The arena fell quiet.

Lu Zihan almost wanted to kill himself after the girl he liked witnessed his embarrassment.

He might have had chances to win her favor before, but there was no hope after that.

Reduced to such a state by a lousy student… How could he live on if other people knew about it?

The top students had their integrity.

“I give up, and I will fulfill your requirements. However… Can I give you twice or three times more herbs instead of apologizing in public?” asked Lu Zihan, gritting his teeth.

After resting for a while, although his tongue was still numb, he was finally able to talk.

“Well…”

Shen Zhe frowned and looked at his friends.

He agreed to the duel exactly to avenge them.

“Shen Zhe, it was you who won the match. You can decide on your own. Don’t worry about us!”

“We have no reputation anyway. Apologies don’t matter to us!”

…

Knowing his intention, Zhao Chen and the rest of them spoke in a hurry.

Seeing that, Shen Zhe stopped hesitating and said, “Alright, apologies are not necessary. Here are the herbs I need. You will give me three… no, five pieces of each, or we will tell everyone what happened today. I’m always here if you want to ask for more trouble!”

Zhao Chen was quite right. They were bad students anyway. Nobody would believe it even though they claimed that they had beaten Lu Zihan up.

They might even think that those bad students had used dirty methods.

It was better to demand concrete compensations instead of apologies.

“No problem…”

Lu Zihan nodded in a hurry.

The Lu family had been involved in the herb business. While he had no access to the precious herbs, it wasn’t a problem for him to fetch a few body polishing herbs.

As long as the news weren’t leaked, he would still be the talented and gracious gentleman of the Lu family.

“I’ll have the herbs prepared and sent to you in the afternoon…”

“Alright!”

Shen Zhe nodded and said, “It’s over now. Let’s go back to class. We’re running late…”

Without any hesitation, he rushed to the classroom.

He had heard a lot about Mr. Xin Qi in the past four days.

The man was the only Druggist in the Abyssal Ocean Kingdom. Rigorous and bad-tempered, he punished students severely when they made a mistake during the experiments.

Shen Zhe didn’t want to be punished for being late.

“Drugs include both pills and the herb liquids made of chemical substances… So, it’s a profession related to chemistry!”

On his way back, he recalled the information about Druggists.

They were different from the Pill Makers in some of the novels he read.

Rather, they created medical liquids and pills through all kinds of chemical reactions. The knowledge involved was similar to the chemistry he knew.

Mages were mathematicians, Martial Artists were physicians, Body Practitioners were sportsmen, and Druggists were chemists!

Shen Zhe wondered if there were other disciplines.

Before Shen Zhe reached the classroom, the bell had already rung, marking the start of the class.

Xin Qi looked around from the rostrum and frowned.

The day before, Feng Gan, the director of the refining rooms, spent all night investigating but did not find out who the refiner was. He only found an eyewitness who saw a blackened guy running out in the school uniform.

The age and look of the guy were unknown.

Since he was in school uniform, he had to be a student. So, Xin Qi was hoping to find out whether or not the refining master could be in his class.

“We’re having a test today!”

Looking around expressionlessly, Xin Qi said, “You will melt the Masculine Sun Grass and the Purification White Lotus without any herbal catalysts!”

“Well…”

The classroom fell quiet, and everyone’s faces changed.

They all knew the nature of the two herbs and the difficulty to melt them.

“Write down the method to melt them and the tools you need. I’ll collect your answers half an hour later!” said Xin Qi casually.

“May I come in?”

Right then, Shen Zhe had finally made it to the classroom.

Seeing that someone was late for his class, and it was none other than the infamous student, Xin Qi squinted.