Gu Ming hadn’t originally cared much about his ranking, figuring it was fine as long as he won a prize.

But the allure of the rewards changed everything.

Especially since, after being interpreted by the system, the school’s rewards had transformed into rare cultivation materials and Spirit Stones.

As Cyan Treasure’s Cultivation speed increased, its supply of Spirit Stones was no longer enough. Gu Ming was trying to find a way for it to wander outside and find more.

Even if this posed some risk to Cyan Treasure, how great could the risk mentioned by the system really be?

This was the city, not the wilderness.

Besides, with Ma Tianba now living with the Gu Family, Gu Ming came up with an idea: he asked Ma Tianba to secretly act as a protector.

Ma Tianba secretly stared at Cyan Treasure’s body every day, observing its Foundation Establishment Platform and Origin Power. It was so eager to uncover all of Cyan Treasure’s secrets that it wished it could be constantly by its side.

Gu Ming’s request was exactly what it wanted, so it agreed without any hesitation.

On the night before the friendly competition between the two schools began, Gu Ming had Cyan Treasure try going out to scavenge for Spirit Stones.

Cyan Treasure knew that Ah Kun had once found Spirit Stones in the river, so it also tried to go out and find some on its own.

It would bring back any stone, no matter how insignificant, as long as it had a ’feeling’ about it.

Early in the morning, when Gu Ming got out of bed, he saw several Spirit Stones placed by his bedside. They were all things Cyan Treasure had brought back.

Gu Ming glanced at the system’s history log. It showed that Cyan Treasure had returned at five in the morning after scavenging a batch of Spirit Stones from a "mysterious restricted area" and bringing them back to the "cave dwelling."

’Only five Spirit Stones in the whole batch?’

Gu Ming picked up a thumb-sized Spirit Stone. The quality looked a bit mediocre.

It contained some mottled impurities and was far from being as pure as the Spirit Stones Teacher Zhang had acquired for him.

However, they were still good enough for Cyan Treasure’s Cultivation.

After all, in this era, solid minerals like Spirit Stones were not yet circulating on the market.

Even Ma Tianba had never heard of them.

And this time, it was Ma Tianba who had accompanied it as a secret protector.

Gu Ming was awake now. If Ma Tianba wanted to ask for some Spirit Stones, it should be knocking on his door.

But he waited for over ten seconds and heard no knock. He guessed it hadn’t been spying.

’That’s good, too.’

The stones Cyan Treasure brought back only transformed into Spirit Stones later.

When Ma Tianba accompanied Cyan Treasure back, they hadn’t yet turned into Spirit Stones.

Just then, Cyan Treasure raised its head, flicked its tongue, and explained sheepishly.

Apparently, while Gu Ming was still asleep, it had secretly used the scavenged Spirit Stones for its Cultivation.

These five were what was left after it finished.

It had also given half of the other Spirit Stones to Ah Kun, and they had absorbed them together.

"So how many did you find in total?" Gu Ming asked.

"Fifteen."

’That’s still not much,’ Gu Ming thought.

Still, this was already more than his monthly salary from working at the community shop.

Speaking of salary...

Gu Ming started thinking again. Once the competition was over, he had to find a proper job and see if he could earn a larger salary in Spirit Stones.

The volunteer wage from the community shop was too low. To him, it was just a drop in the bucket.

If he could squeeze in the time for anything else, he would have taken on several jobs at once, become the king of the side hustle, and earned a mountain of Spirit Stones to pile up resources for Cyan Treasure’s Magic Power Inner Core.

But at this stage, the pressure from exams and studying was immense. In the eyes of others, he was a genius, but only he knew that without the anomalous resources provided by the system, he was just an ordinary high school senior, not much stronger than Lu You.

In fact, Lu You was even a little smarter than him. Sometimes, Gu Ming really envied her comprehension of Cultivation Techniques.

Over the past three days, he and Lu You had discussed their knowledge of Arrays, gradually refining and solving the difficulties of the Array Carving Technique in his mind.

Most of the time, Lu You would raise a question, and Gu Ming would find the answer from the system.

His own original thoughts were very, very few.

After Cyan Treasure’s Earth Shifting Technique reached the Master Level, the speed of its subsequent practice slowed down. Gu Ming had Achievement Points on hand and could add more training time, but the more he studied the Earth Shifting Technique, the more he felt there were still many key points he hadn’t grasped.

He wanted to dig up a bit more knowledge from everyone, so he would have something to ponder during his dream-state Cultivation.

Returning to the matter of the school’s rewards...

The school would give the first-place student in the friendly competition a cash prize of fifty thousand yuan and various rare Cultivation Resources.

According to what Teacher Zhang said privately, it was prepared for the students on a "genius contract."

If Gu Ming wanted to get it, he would have to claim the top spot with his real strength; otherwise, it would be very difficult to get the first-place prize.

However, Gu Ming had no intention of letting this batch of rewards go.

Because in the system, these rewards would become one hundred Spirit Stones and an Earth Core Essence from the Flood Dragon Race.

This was an extremely rare Earth Element Spirit Medicine, suitable for both Cyan Treasure and Mouse Treasure to use for their Cultivation.

Before long, Gu Ming arrived at school and saw his former deskmate, Wang Teng, walking over with his Dumb Flower.

"What took you so long? The competition started half an hour ago."

Today was the friendly competition day. All daytime classes were canceled, dedicated to battles or cultivation project contests.

The entire school’s athletic field and Dao Fields were filled with high school seniors engaged in matches.

The first and second-year students had the day off so they wouldn’t interfere with the competition.

Gu Ming’s tardiness wasn’t due to laziness. He had decided to strike while the iron was hot and have Cyan Treasure absorb the five newly found Spirit Stones, which took some time.

In any case, there were no classes today. It was a full day of open competition with a flexible schedule, so being a little late didn’t matter.

Gu Ming casually used "getting breakfast" as an excuse, then asked Wang Teng about the competition’s status.

Gu Ming’s information was a bit outdated. After chatting for a bit, he was shocked to learn that twenty students from their own class had already been challenged, and not a single one had won.

"The top-ranked students in our class have all been defeated?"

"No, they haven’t competed yet. They’re still observing."

"You should be careful, too. They’ll definitely challenge the number one student in the grade."

Wang Teng added a special warning. He didn’t want his class to get completely wiped out.

Within half an hour, nearly fifty percent of the high school seniors had participated in a match, with some winning and some losing.

The win-loss ratio was three to seven in the other school’s favor.

This was just the beginning. If one wanted to fight to the end, they could participate in several matches in a row.

However, Pet Beasts in their Juvenile Stage didn’t have such heaven-defying Physical Strength. Most of them needed to rest for an hour or two after just one fight.

"Tensions are running high today. People aren’t pulling their punches. Sigh, if my Dumb Flower wasn’t so tough, you’d probably have to visit me in the infirmary right now."

Wang Teng shook his head, looking as if he still had lingering fears.

He was actually one of the lucky ones. Someone at the scene had nearly beaten a Pet Beast to death.

If it weren’t for the teachers’ strong first-aid skills, which saved the Pet Beast, the first death of a Pet Beast might have occurred this morning.

You have to understand, if a Pet Beast is killed, the compensation alone could bankrupt someone.

People without a rich family or powerful background wouldn’t dare to fight to the death.

This was a civilized city, not an unsupervised wilderness.

If you don’t pay up, you can expect to pay with your life.

Beastmasters are immensely powerful, often possessing the ability to kill and having numerous ways to evade supervision.

Because of this, to maintain order among those with Extraordinary Power, the local law enforcement team had a strict policy: anyone who resisted an order would be executed on the spot. A life for a life, and their family’s assets would be auctioned off.

So, when Gu Ming learned that someone had actually gone all out and beaten a Pet Beast half to death, he was stunned for a good while.

The teachers from his school were also discussing countermeasures, gathering information, and sharing battle strategies with the top students.

Just as Gu Ming finished talking with Wang Teng, he saw his head teacher beckoning him over to listen to the strategy.

"Gu Ming, I’ve gathered some data on the Pet Beasts of the top students from the other school."

"They will definitely issue a challenge to you. You can’t avoid it."

"I know that with help from Teacher Zhang and Teacher Zhong, Cyan Treasure has improved by leaps and bounds. Its combat ability must have reached the standard of a Three or Four-star Snake Pet."

"I don’t know how many trump cards you’ve prepared, but at the very least, before the challenges begin, you can take advantage of their tendency to underestimate a Little Cyan Snake. Win a few decisive victories and help us regain some ground."

Ling Jun said, clapping Gu Ming on the shoulder.

Setting aside the school administration’s various motives, Gu Ming felt his head teacher, Ling Jun, was a decent person.

"Alright. I will defend the honor of being number one in our grade," Gu Ming nodded, taking the information his head teacher had collected.

He and Cyan Treasure lowered their heads together to look through the list of Pet Beasts belonging to the top-ranked students.

Most of their Pet Beasts had Four-star Potential, while a few had Five-star Level potential and were incredibly strong.

What caught Gu Ming’s attention the most were the two Sub-dragon Race Pet Beasts ranked in the top two.

One was a Red Flame Flood Dragon, the other a Turtle Wood Flood Dragon.

They were both in the One-star Realm. The Red Flame Flood Dragon had Five-star potential, while the Turtle Wood Flood Dragon had Four-star Potential.

From the monthly exams until now, Gu Ming had never fought against a Pet Beast from the Flood Dragon Race.

Considering the Dragon Elephant Illusion within its Foundation Establishment Platform, he needed to test whether Cyan Treasure could withstand the aura suppression from a higher-ranking species.

He even had a bold idea: release the Dragon Race aura from the Foundation Establishment Platform to, in turn, put psychological pressure on the two Flood Dragon Pet Beasts.

And what do you know, speak of the devil.

Cyan Treasure suddenly raised its head. It sensed the aura of the Flood Dragon Race approaching, filled with malice. The Cyan Snake’s tail went rigid, and it let out a sharp HISS HISS.