Chapter 74

Chapter 75: We fight for their lives!!!

Why did they work so hard to grow Magiplants?

Was it to get an Awakener University diploma and then join a Magiplant research institute as a researcher who makes three thousand a month?

Was it to learn how to raise valuable Magiplants and become a rich fruit dealer?

Or was it just to find a safe place and get through these four years alive?

Most students in the Magiplant Studies school came from poor families who could only afford to live near Dungeons. They didn’t have the money to attend a regular university, and they couldn’t afford an apartment in the safe city center. Some had even lost both parents. For many reasons, they chose the Magiplant school to shelter themselves.

It was safe and cheap. As long as they studied hard and finished their homework, they could live on campus for four years. Magiplants were dangerous, sure, but compared to being poor, plants with fangs weren’t that scary.

Poverty was the scariest thing.

“It’s for money,” someone said.

“To stay alive,” someone else answered.

“Right, for money and to stay alive,” Zhang Feng said, as if something clicked. “But they’re cutting off our way to live. We should hit back, so they stop thinking we’re easy to bully.”

Qian Qi paced the podium, looked over the class, and shook her head: “Wrong.”

“We don’t do this for money. And not just to survive.”

“Then what for?” a classmate asked.

“What else?” Qian Qi looked at the student. Her face turned serious, and a heavy sense of duty rose in her eyes, full of selfless compassion. She set down the stool, took a deep breath, and raised her voice so it rang through the room: “We do it for their lives!”

The class froze: “???”

What? Whose lives?

“You all know the Hemostasis Potion,” Qian Qi shouted. “It’s made from Magiplants. You know that, right?”

Magiplant 101 nodded. They knew. The school forum had blown up about it, and rumors said it came from a Magiplant recipe.

“Then you also know Defense Fruit is the fruit of a Magiplant,” Qian Qi asked.

They nodded again, hard.

She slapped the desk and scolded: “So when we study Magiplants and grow Magiplants, aren’t we trying to make potions like Hemostasis that help humans? Aren’t we trying to find Magiplants that can make Awakeners stronger?”

“On the battlefield, how many Awakener warriors die from blood loss because they can’t get treated in time? When Magibeasts swarm out of their nests, how many innocent people die? In Dungeons that haven’t been cleared, how many Awakeners die because they just aren’t strong enough?”

“Do we want to watch our fellow students from Awakener University graduate and walk down that same road?”

“Once you’re a student here, you should care about the safety of our alumni for life. Even if they’re from the Skills Department, the Beast Taming Department, or the Magibeast Department, we should hold a broad heart and a kind spirit and be the solid backing behind them.”

“So we bear the mockery and the misunderstandings and study Magiplants that people have criticized for hundreds of years. So we ignore the danger and face the Magiplants that bare their fangs at us.”

“All this quiet work is for one thing: to find ways, on this hard and risky road, to protect their lives.”

Her speech left the class stunned. They had never realized that growing Magiplants could be so generous and meaningful.

“So I’ll ask again,” Qian Qi said, raising her arm: “Classmates, why do we work so hard to grow Magiplants?”

“For their lives!” the class howled back, swept up in her energy.

“That’s right. For their lives. So they have more safety when fighting in Dungeons. So they can go to the battlefield with no worries.”

“But them,” Qian Qi said, angry and fired up, “they just destroyed their own support. How can we let such foolishness slide?”

“We can’t!” Magiplant 101 shouted.

“Good. After this class, we grab our stools and go find them. We will sternly criticize them for not valuing their own lives. Make them apologize to themselves, and apologize to our kind, selfless classmates.”

“Right, Qian Qi, we’ll go with you!”

“We will not tolerate people who don’t cherish life!”

“Our Magiplant Department won’t swallow this!”

Fueled by anger, Magiplant 101 started messaging friends in other classes before the lecture even began, asking them to join the march against the Skills Department students.

Other classes heard and got mad too. It had happened to them before, and they had swallowed it only because the bullies were from the Skills Department. With Qian Qi leading the charge, they were not going to miss out.

Sophomores, juniors, and seniors also said they would come for justice. The Magiplant Department had always sat at the bottom of the university’s prestige ladder. They were poor and often bullied. Before, they endured it. But now, even someone like Qian Qi, who had once smashed Magiplants herself, couldn’t stand it. They should use her momentum to reclaim peace for the Magiplant Department.

Their instructor sensed the unusual energy all period. When class ended, he watched students grab stools and pour out in a huge crowd toward one direction. From their shouts, it sounded like they were going to brawl with the Skills Department. Big group fights were rare on campus. The Magiplant instructor felt a jolt of worry and quickly contacted the Principal and Mo Yin Qiu.

Over in the Skills Department, Xu Jing was laughing with his friends about how hard those Magiplant girls had cried when the dorm room door got kicked open.

A voice growled: “Which one of you is Xu Jing?”

Qian Qi stood in the doorway with a hard scowl. Her sharp, cold eyes swept the room.

Xu Jing, still grinning in the middle, frowned and turned. He blinked when he saw Qian Qi, clearly not expecting someone like her to show up for him.

“I am. What do you want?” he said.

Before he could finish, Qian Qi grabbed a fistful of his hair.

“Come out. It’s crowded in here,” she said, dragging him toward the dorm entrance with a dark look.

“What?” Xu Jing was stunned. He clawed at her hand, but her strength was scary strong. The moment he tugged, a stab of pain shot through his scalp like hair tearing free, and he didn’t dare move again.