"Heh, I don't believe it."
Impossible, absolutely impossible!
Song Qinghang really couldn't believe such an absurd thing.
"There must be a problem here."
Song Qinghang's expression changed continuously.
He wanted to learn more about Yi Tian from Liu Zheng, but Liu Zheng indicated that he didn't know much about Yi Tian either.
The first place he had long reserved was gone just like that.
The first-place reward his dad had specially prepared for him was also gone.
Song Qinghang was on the verge of rage.
Just as he walked out of the office, he dialed a number.
"Hello, Uncle Ma, help me investigate someone. I'll send you his name."
"Yes, a student in the same grade as me at our school."
He wanted to see exactly who this Yi Tian was.
Thinking while walking, he soon exited the school gate.
Bang! Bang!
Two ceremonial cannons fired in succession.
The two friends who came with him rushed over, each holding a red banner.
"Congratulations Brother Hang on achieving First Place in the Breakthrough Debut, breaking the historical record since the school's founding!"
Immediately after, a girl holding a large bouquet of flowers stepped forward and handed them to Song Qinghang.
"Brother Hang~"
Her voice trembled charmingly.
To the surprise of the three, Song Qinghang didn't seem happy; instead, his face was somewhat gloomy.
Song Qinghang looked at the two banners, then at the bright red flowers, feeling nothing but immense irony.
Smack!
He reached out and knocked the flowers away, then walked off angrily, not even bothering with his car.
Leaving the three looking confused.
"Did Brother Hang take the wrong medicine?"
"Is getting first place such an unhappy thing?"
...
Yi Tian was woken up by knocking on the door.
The two books he bought yesterday had arrived.
Opening the door, he saw a black gorilla, which gave him a fright.
It turned out to be the delivery guy's Beast, helping him carry things.
Thud.
The gorilla placed the two books inside the door. Yi Tian signed for them, and they left.
Yi Tian looked at the two thick books that, when stacked, almost reached his waist, and fell into deep thought...
"Damn, this thick?"
He flipped both books to the last page. Looking at the page numbers, each had 20,000 pages.
Even more terrifying was that every page was densely packed with small text.
"The Last-Minute Cramming Plan is officially declared a failure!"
Yi Tian's eye twitched slightly.
"I finally understand why the internet says the exam is extremely difficult."
During the written test, random content from these two books would be selected for assessment.
Yi Tian estimated that let alone memorizing it, just reading it would take at least a few months, and that was with full-time dedication.
Biting the bullet, he thought since he bought them, he might as well use them.
He flipped to the table of contents, preparing to read a few pages to test the waters.
Just then, the friendly mechanical voice sounded.
[Detected Beast-related study material "Complete Encyclopedia of Beast Evolution". Do you wish to spend 50,000 Dragon Coins to simplify the learning process?] [Detected Beast-related study material "Common Knowledge of Beast Nurturing". Do you wish to spend 50,000 Dragon Coins to simplify the learning process?]
Yi Tian: !!!!
What a surprise!!
This money couldn't be saved; it had to be spent.
He chose "Yes" without hesitation.
Dragon Coins -100,000. Current Balance: 120,000.
[Simplification Complete] [Learning Process → Open book and space out]
...
[Simplification Complete] [Learning Process → Open book and space out]
A surprise, quite a surprise.
"By the way, the simplified plan only said to open the book and space out. It didn't say who has to space out."
"Let's try letting Great Sage do it."
When Yi Tian pulled Great Sage over, holding his staff in one hand, drinking wine, and staring blankly at the book...
Something magical happened.
Instantly, a stream of white light, visible only to Yi Tian, flew out from the book and entered Great Sage's head.
The most amazing thing was that the knowledge Great Sage learned was synchronized into Yi Tian's brain.
"It's feasible!"
Great Sage paused, looking at Yi Tian with some fear, almost on the verge of tears.
"Yi Tian, I feel like my head has a lot of weird stuff in it!"
As Great Sage broke through to Bronze, his intelligence had improved, and he could finally express a sentence clearly.
Yi Tian patted Great Sage's head and comforted him.
"Don't be afraid. This is called knowledge. Knowledge is like fine wine; it's all good stuff."
Yi Tian linked knowledge with wine, and sure enough, Great Sage immediately stopped resisting.
Instead, he looked expectant.
"Knowledge, I want more knowledge!"
Yi Tian nodded.
So easy to trick...
It was a pity that the progress of acquiring knowledge couldn't be seen in the data panel.
Here came the question.
In the past few days, Yi Tian had read other books but never received a similar prompt.
After thinking for a while, he found the distinction.
The books he read before were mostly to understand this world and had nothing to do with nurturing Beasts.
It seemed that only books directly related to nurturing Beasts could trigger the simplification system.
After settling Great Sage, Yi Tian lay back on the bed and turned on his phone.
Looking at the drastically shrunken balance, he felt helpless.
"If this goes on, it won't be enough."
The system was good in every way, except it was dead set on money.
He thought these few hundred thousand would be enough to nurture Great Sage to a level where he could pass the vocational exam.
Indeed, he had thought too much.
Now he had 120,000 left. It should have been less.
Yi Tian had tried to borrow money from Yi Ying earlier, intending to return it tenfold, but was rejected.
according to Yi Ying, she had enough money, so Yi Tian should use these funds to buy resources. Nurturing Great Sage was the most important thing.
...
On the other side, when Song Qinghang returned home, Yi Tian's detailed information had been compiled into a document and sent to his phone.
Opening the document, his frown deepened the more he read.
"Entered school at the same time as me three years ago, grades always lower-middle."
"Family background is extremely poor, can't provide any help."
"Contracted a Stone Monkey logically a few days ago."
"Looking at it any way, he's just a very ordinary person."
The ordinariness shown in Yi Tian's intelligence report contrasted too sharply with the terrifying results he achieved.
It was so great that if the event hadn't already happened and the facts weren't right in front of Song Qinghang, he would never have connected the two.
Unable to figure out a reason no matter how hard he thought, Song Qinghang decided to take the most direct approach.
Beep beep beep.
His fingers tapped the phone screen continuously, dialing a string of numbers. It was Yi Tian's phone number.
It connected quickly.
"Hello, is this Yi Tian?"
Song Qinghang maintained his usual politeness.
The loss of composure at the school gate this morning could be said to be the first time in his life.
"I am Yi Tian. You are?"
"I am Song Qinghang."
On the other end of the phone, Yi Tian was a bit confused.
He naturally knew Song Qinghang; after all, their class monitor mentioned him in the class group chat every few days.
He was curious why Song would contact him, as they shouldn't have had any interaction.
Immediately after, Song Qinghang explained his purpose.
"Yi Tian, when I went to register my results today, I found out you broke through with your Beast before I did."
"I'm not convinced in my heart, so I want to challenge you."
Yi Tian nodded.
Song Qinghang was quite a candid person.
A challenge?
For Beasts, actual combat is also a necessary ability. Since Song Qinghang could achieve second place, his Beast must be extraordinary.
It was a good opportunity.
But his time these past few days was precious...
Just as he was weighing the pros and cons, he heard Song Qinghang say:
"If you are willing to accept, regardless of winning or losing, I am willing to pay you an appearance fee of 100,000 Dragon Coins."
The words "Dragon Coins" firmly grabbed Yi Tian's heart.
Just a fight. It wouldn't take much time. He was short on money right now; this could be done!
Moreover, Yi Tian was also curious about what level of combat power Great Sage, possessing Mastery-level Eight-Direction Staff, had reached.