My starting summon is a small skeleton-Chapter 211 - 208 Tragic end

Lu Wu's livestream had just ended when Jiangbei exploded with activity.

Those who had purchased the White Bone Wild Boar Soup cultivation scheme in the past few days were targeting the Bronze Quality.

A Summoned Beast of Bronze Quality might mean nothing to Lu Wu or the geniuses who could qualify for the high school league provinces competition.

But for an average Summoner, a Bronze Quality Summoned Beast was the very stepping stone to unlock the door to their profession.

Now they'd heard that though the White Bone Wild Boar was indeed Bronze, it couldn't evolve into an Iron Bone Wild Boar, which was a deathblow.

The currently known evolution path for the White Bone Wild Boar was to become an Iron Bone Wild Boar. Without the ability to evolve, it would be stuck at Elite 0 Star. Who would be foolish enough to spend 800 points on an Elite 0 Star Summoned Beast?

So, in less than ten minutes after the livestream, Jiangbei received hundreds of return requests.

These were the easiest to handle.

Jiangbei tried to placate the customers, and if that failed, they would pinch their noses and accept the returns.

What really gave Jiangbei headaches were the various calls for complaints and claims for compensation.

After all, five days had passed, and the majority of the materials from the over 8,000 sold cultivation schemes had already been used.

It was too late to return them, so they could only seek complaints and protect their rights with Jiangbei.

After all, the cultivation scheme had been approved by Jiangbei itself.

Now that the scheme had issues, Jiangbei would undoubtedly have to take full responsibility.

Many people had staked their entire lives' savings on pursuing a profession, and now their hard-earned efforts had gone to waste—could they endure such a blow?

Some even dragged their pigs straight to the Jiangbei Cultivation Center.

Just dealing with these customers was enough to cause a huge headache for the Jiangbei Cultivation Center.

But what was more devastating was the military's reaction. The local military in Jiangbei was still manageable, just requesting cancellations.

However, the military from outside Jiangbei not only demanded cancellations but also demanded compensation for their losses from Jiangbei.

If these were merely customer-level disputes, the last one was organizational trouble.

In less than half an hour after Lu Wu's livestream, the Beijing Headquarters of the Cultivation Center called.

They informed Lin Huai that an investigative team from Beijing would arrive in Jiangbei overnight and requested Jiangbei to prepare for coordination with the investigation.

Upon hearing this news, Lin Huai was almost at the point of having his head explode.

Though the Cultivation Centers were highly autonomous, the authority of the headquarters was significant. If any issue was discovered, decades of Lin Huai's efforts could be wasted overnight.

And did Lin Huai have problems?

Well, the word 'problems' could be omitted; of course, he had problems.

Unlike Zhang Wentao, Lin Huai was an old bureaucrat who valued his interests greatly.

Naturally, he had many issues. Not to mention the distant past, he had just recently misappropriated the finances from Jiangbei University and Jiangbei Cultivation Center to purchase an Iron Armor Bull herd in his own name.

He was preparing to seize a goldmine.

But one livestream from Lu Wu turned the goldmine into a volcano that could erupt at any moment and burn him alive!

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Now, Lin Huai could only hope that what Lu Wu said in his livestream was all false.

The optimized cultivation scheme was perfect, with absolutely none of those defects?

But was that possible?

It was about as likely as a daydream!

The issues Lu Wu mentioned were not difficult to verify.

At least, the first two were quite easy to check.

In less than an hour, the verification data arrived at Lin Huai's place.

"Experiments demonstrate that indeed, there is a problem with bone structure linkage in White Bone Wild Boar after using the White Bone Wild Boar Soup, and vibrations do indeed cause the White Bone Wild Boar to fall apart.

Furthermore, the wild boar that had used the White Bone Wild Boar Soup is indeed showing a slight rejection reaction to the Undead attribute.

Last, regarding evolution, while we don't yet have the final data to confirm that the White Bone Wild Boar can't evolve into an Iron Bone Wild Boar after using White Bone Wild Boar Soup, based on the current situation, the success rate of evolution for those who used the optimized soup has indeed decreased.

We cannot rule out the possibility that it can't evolve!"

As the project leader stated the results of the verification, Lin Huai's face changed drastically, turning fierce and grim.

"Are you all blind? How could you have missed such obvious flaws and side effects?

How could you possibly have missed them?"

At this moment, Lin Huai was like a beast ready to pounce, furious and vicious, unable to stay calm.

Because he knew very well what these results meant.

They meant that decades of effort could be lost in an instant. How could he remain calm?

After berating the project director, he turned to Jiang Beifeng. At this moment, Jiang wasn't the sensible and clever subordinate who had brought him great profits anymore, but a harbinger of doom.

"Jiang Beifeng, you pride yourself on being smart, don't you?

Didn't you tell me everything was within your control?

Then tell me, how exactly did you take control? Tell me, how did we get to this point today? And tell me what we should do next!"

Jiang Beifeng was also not in a good state.

But he managed to keep calm, better than Lin Huai.

And he had already deduced what had happened.

"We have been outsmarted by Lu Wu. It's clear he has known about the aftermath problems of the Iron Armor Bull Milk cultivation scheme from the beginning.

He intentionally avoided mentioning it and led us to discover it ourselves.

He probably knew we had fallen into the trap when we started purchasing "Iron Armor Bull Milk" in large quantities, which is why he said he would reveal the secret of "White Bone Wild Boar Soup" the next day. His apparent attempt to prove his own innocence was actually forcing us to launch our product before him, leaving us no time to verify the scheme.

Then he delayed us for another five days, just so we would sell the flawed training scheme on a large scale.

When we had almost sold out, he would step forward and point out the shortcomings of the training scheme, putting us in danger."

In fact, Jiang Beifeng, upon careful consideration, didn't find Lu Wu's move to be particularly clever, it was just that Jiangbei had fallen due to greed.

If it weren't for the greed for the huge profits from "White Bone Wild Boar Soup," they wouldn't have been led by the nose by Lu Wu, nor would they have ended up in this predicament.

But it was useless to say these things now—no one wanted to hear it, including Lin Huai!

"I'm not asking you to be a Monday morning quarterback, I'm asking you what we should do now!"

Jiang Beifeng, true to his name, quickly thought of a solution.

"There's only one thing we can do now!"

"Speak quickly!"

"Push out Shi Ying."

Jiang Beifeng clenched his teeth and continued, "Expose the truth and push Shi Ying out, laying all the blame on his shoulders.

Tell the public that it was Shi Ying who plagiarized and stole Lu Wu's training scheme."

"What's the use of pushing out Shi Ying now?"

"It's useful. Once we push him out, we can turn around and bite back at Lu Wu, telling the public that Lu Wu had known about the flaws in 'Iron Armor Bull Milk' from the very beginning. He deliberately kept silent, intending to trap us Jiangbei and those summoners."

Jiang Beifeng was desperate, "Anyway, in our current state, no matter what we do, we can't escape our involvement. So, it's better to announce it ourselves and firmly latch on to Lu Wu, dragging him down with us.

If we're going down, we might as well splash him with dirty water and fulfill the task given by that certain person.

Only then might that person possibly reach out to save us."

Lin Huai, upon hearing this, felt this made sense.

At this point, his side had completely collapsed, and there was no point in persisting in denial of plagiarism, so he nodded in agreement.

And so, before the team from Beijing even arrived, the Jiangbei side moved into action without a second word and directly pushed Shi Ying forward.

That very day, Jiangbei released a statement saying that an exhaustive investigation into the plagiarism had yielded results.

It was Shi Ying, the head of the Cultivation Scheme Verification Department of Jiangbei, who conspired with the Cultivation Masters and plagiarized Lu Wu's "White Bone Wild Boar Soup" training scheme—a crime most sinister, and he had already been dismissed from his position.

Those who do the dirty work for their leaders are destined to take the fall, almost inescapably so.

Shi Ying, who had dreamed of rising to great heights—even if exposed, it would've been a blessing in disguise—soon after being made the scapegoat, news of his suicide at home from fear of punishment swiftly spread.

After Shi Ying was pushed out to take the blame, Jiangbei continued its operations.

A concerted effort was made to manufacture public opinion and douse Lu Wu with dirty water.

They claimed Lu Wu was cunning and had known about the "White Bone Wild Boar Soup" flaws all along but kept quiet, leading to the downfall of thousands of summoners' life's work.

From a certain perspective, this was also true.

However, at present, the hatred in Jiangbei was locked in more firmly.

Whether it was condemnation or claims, targeting Jiangbei made more sense.

Thus, although some people might bear a grudge against Lu Wu, the bulk of the firepower was still concentrated on Jiangbei.

Jiangbei was heavily tormented.

Lin Huai and Jiang Beifeng were both tormented no less severely.

Few organizations are monoliths, and Jiangbei was no exception.

When the walls fall, everyone is ready to push; when the drum breaks, everyone is eager to strike.

When Lin Huai was untroubled, he was the powerful Jiangbei University President and in charge of the Jiangbei Professional Training Center, with words that carried great weight. But when a problem arose, there were those below him ready to undermine him.

Once the team from Beijing arrived, Lin Huai's misappropriation of public funds to buy the Iron Armor Bull herd was reported.

To save himself, Lin Huai could only sell the bull herd.

But while the "White Bone Wild Boar Soup" was hot, the bulls were a treasure; once the soup lost its appeal, the bulls became worthless.

No one wanted the herd anymore at that time.

So he was unable to cover the financial hole, and even if he could fill the gap from the bull herd, there were those below him ready to dig him another one.

Quickly enough, Lin Huai was caught for corruption, bribery, misappropriation of public funds, and serious bribery and was taken down directly.

From beginning to end, the powerful figure Lin Huai had hoped for never intervened.

This made Lin Huai both angry and desperate. But even so, after being taken down, he dared not utter a single word about that person.

With Lin Huai taken down, it didn't take long for internal network people to come knocking on Jiang Beifeng's door.

He still hadn't repaid the 50,000 points.

With Lin Huai gone, there was naturally no way for Jiangbei to repay this sum for him.

So, the internal network initiated a liquidation process and forcibly auctioned off Jiang Beifeng's properties.

Jiang Beifeng had considerable assets, but not enough to cover the 50,000 points. After selling all assets, he still owed over 3,000, and the internal network immediately signed an Exploration Agreement for the Secret Realm with him.

The day after Lu Wu's live broadcast ended, Jiang Beifeng was sent into an extremely dangerous Secret Realm.

If he managed to come out alive, his debt would be considered settled.