Chapter 78
Chapter 78: E-rank Magic Plants? Our Magic Plant Department Doesn’t Even Bother Using Them for Practice!
“No—!”
“You can’t stop selling! I still need magic potions! Last time I didn’t even get a slot!”
“My second aunt, third uncle-in-law, fourth aunt, fifth grandpa, sixth uncle, seventh grandaunt, eighth grandaunt are all waiting for me to buy the third batch of hemostatic medicine! If I can’t, my parents will beat me to death!”
“It’s just an apology, right? Fine! We’ll apologize!”
“We shouldn’t have destroyed the magic plants they worked so hard to grow. Doesn’t that delay hemostatic magic potion production?”
“Exactly! If you’ve got guts, go fight magic beasts in instances. Why smash someone’s homework? That’s weak as hell!”
The skills department students shouted over one another, angry and terrified at the same time. They hadn’t even left their dorms—but because of Xu Jing and a handful of idiots, they might lose access to life-saving magic potions.
It felt like being punished for breathing.
“Dean! Say something! We can’t live without magic potions!”
Fan Jing Hai still didn’t know the details about hemostatic medicine or defense fruit. Suddenly the students under him were turning on him, making him look useless on both sides, and that made his rage spike.
He sucked in a breath and roared, voice louder than the megaphone.
“All of you, shut up! Screaming like this—what kind of behavior is that?!”
The dorms fell quiet like someone had slammed a lid on a pot. Students swallowed their words, courage draining fast.
Fan Jing Hai pointed straight at Qian Qi.
“I’m not talking to you. If you’ve got guts, tell Li Hong Sheng to come talk to me! You’re a student—you don’t get to make decisions!”
The Principal, who had been watching the whole spectacle with a headache forming behind his eyes, hurried forward.
“Dean Fan—”
“Principal?” Fan Jing Hai’s anger eased a notch at the sight of him. Then he swung his arm toward the magic plant department students like they were evidence. “Look at this! What are they doing? It’s just a few magic plants! Skills department students taking magic plants for practice has been the rule for decades! Even their own dean has always allowed it. Now I’m the one getting splashed with filth?”
Qian Qi snorted.
“Oh, so you’re mad because you’re the only one covered in filth?”
She tilted her head, sweet as poison.
“No problem. Tomorrow I’ll go splash Director Li too. Then it’ll be fair.”
“You’re still talking back—?” Fan Jing Hai snapped, sleeves already rolling up.
“Oh my god—” the Principal blurted, lunging in to stop him. He leaned close and whispered rapidly into Fan Jing Hai’s ear.
Fan Jing Hai’s furious face shifted mid-listen—first confusion, then disbelief.
“You’re telling me that’s true?” he hissed.
“It’s true,” the Principal whispered back. “Otherwise why would the students react like this?”
Fan Jing Hai stared at Qian Qi, suddenly cautious.
“Your magic plant department developed a one-second hemostatic magic potion?” he demanded. “And you found a defense fruit that can block D-rank damage?”
Qian Qi raised a hand, expression blank.
“Don’t talk nonsense,” she said flatly. “Our magic plant department is a bunch of useless freeloaders. How could we possibly produce something so miraculous and world-saving?”
The Principal: …
Fan Jing Hai: …
Zhang Feng, Liang Yu Ting, and the others: “Pfft.”
The laughter rolling through the magic plant department students made Fan Jing Hai’s ears burn. He cleared his throat, trying to save face.
“I wasn’t informed about this,” he said stiffly. “Since your magic plant department has… contributions now, then about practicing on magic plants—”
Qian Qi picked at her ear like he was background noise.
Then she turned to her crowd, suddenly all earnest concern.
“Classmates, disperse, disperse. In the end, this is on us—we weren’t thoughtful enough. We should take the initiative to help skills department students improve their strength!”
She pressed a hand to her chest, voice full of staged heartbreak.
“Starting today, stop planting those E-rank magic plants that even we can’t be bothered to practice on. Switch everything to D-rank!”
The skills department students she’d just “helped” stared at her.
…What?
What did she mean, even they didn’t bother practicing on them?
Was the magic plant department… actually this arrogant?
“Classmate Qian Qi is right,” Zhang Feng said, sneering as he turned away. “What’s the point of planting E-rank? From now on, we plant D-rank.”
He paused just long enough to spit in Xu Jing’s direction.
“Trash. Practicing on magic plants is one thing, but you only dare practice on tame ones. The wild ones I grow? You don’t touch those at all.”
That line hit like a slap.
Xu Jing exploded. “Go to hell! Running your mouth won’t change anything! At the end of the day, you’re still trash! Without Qian Qi, your magic plant department is just a bunch of nobodies who eat for free!”
The words landed heavy.
The magic plant department students went quiet—because it wasn’t entirely wrong.
They were bold right now because of Qian Qi.
Qian Qi taught them how to grow magic plants. Qian Qi made the magic potions. Qian Qi found defense fruit. They were borrowing her momentum to stand here and shout at the skills academy.
Without her, they were nothing.
Xu Jing saw the silence and grinned, smug again.
“See? No one has anything to say now, huh? Weren’t you so tough a minute ago?”
He turned to Qian Qi, softening his tone like he was suddenly a gentleman.
“Qian Qi, I’m not targeting you. You can make hemostatic magic potion—that’s genuinely useful. I respect you.”
Then he pointed at the magic plant department students like they were debris at her feet.
“But these people? They’ll drag you down. They’re useless. From start to finish, they’re freeloaders. They don’t match you.”
His eyes narrowed, gleaming with certainty.
“And you’re a strength-type awakener, right?”
He’d sparred enough to know what that kind of strength felt like.
“So join our skills department,” he said, voice coaxing. “Making magic potions? You can do that alone. You don’t need them.”
His smile sharpened.
“Come to the skills department. We’ll protect you. Isn’t that better than staying with this bunch of dead weight in the magic plant department?”
Zhang Feng and the others looked even worse.
They wanted to argue.
They couldn’t.
They had always thought Qian Qi dragged them down—back when she smashed classmates’ magic plants, got into fights, and forced them to spend their tiny savings at the school clinic, missing classes because of injuries.
But somewhere along the way, the roles had flipped.
They’d become the ones slowing her down.
Now, when the skills department tried to poach her, they didn’t even know what to say to make her stay.
Qian Qi stopped walking.
She looked at her classmates—heads lowered, shoulders tight, eyes red with swallowed anger and helpless shame.
And something stirred in her chest, sharp and old.
Once, she had been looked down on like this too.