Pondering the inexplicable discrepancy in her academic credits, Huang Xiu clicked into the secondary details page for her credits.
The moment she clicked, a pop-up window appeared.
[Credit detail statistics are provided by the AI system for student reference only and are not guaranteed to be entirely accurate.]
“Well, well, they’ve already stacked all their disclaimers!” A dark line appeared on Huang Xiu’s forehead.
She closed the pop-up window, then meticulously examined the credit details.
She had witnessed the AI system’s formidable power countless times before, and this time, the system once again lived up to its reputation.
Every single credit was accounted for with meticulous detail and precision.
[Completed regional clearing mission: Team awarded mission completion credits; individual awarded credits.]
[The team collectively eliminated Soldier-rank Dragon Abominations, receiving reward credits, with individual credits granted.]
“Exactly!” Huang Xiu murmured. “I recall killing at least a hundred and twenty of them.”
Huang Xiu confirmed her initial assessment was correct through the data, but a new wave of confusion swiftly arose.
She had earned a certain amount of credits, so why was so little left? Where had the others vanished?
Her slender, fair fingers glided across the screen, as the square characters scrolled upwards with the page.
A new data entry suddenly appeared.
[Environmental Restoration Costs: Total team destruction included the walls of several regional houses, meters of concrete pavement, streetlights, one thirty-year-old roadside tree (a Sophora tree), and numerous green belts… This damage severely exceeded the team’s maximum environmental restoration allowance, resulting in a total credit deduction.]
The dense stream of text bombarded Huang Xiu’s eyes.
As she stared at the two-page bill, scenes from the battle she had never truly noticed suddenly flashed through her mind.
The Sophora tree giant, its blade-like arms creaking as it swung its twin blades, while slaying the Dragon Abominations, had silently severed and toppled several streetlights.
Vines and branches, capable of piercing anything, flew past and through the Dragon Abominations, leaving behind massive, puddle-sized craters in the concrete road.
Perched atop the Sophora tree giant’s head, she had excitedly shouted, “Archers and artillery, hit them with everything you’ve got!”
The saturation strike, covering the entire area, had obliterated a swath of Dragon Abominations, but it had also brought down the exterior walls of several houses, destroyed cars, and damaged various public facilities…
“I was truly foolish, truly!”
Dreadful!
Huang Xiu covered her face with her right hand. Just then, Chi Xue looked over, and asked with unconcealed curiosity, “Sister Xiu, your battle record was so outstanding, just how many credits do you have?”
Boom! Critical hit! True damage! Percentage damage! Execution!
Huang Xiu fell silent for a moment, then, with her head tilted back and her hand still covering her face, she said mournfully, “Don’t ask me. It’s a sorrowful number.”
‘Wait a minute,’ she thought, ‘didn’t that sound familiar?’
“???”
Bu Chenghua’s face was a canvas of question marks. At this moment, he merely wanted to exclaim aloud, “Like a familiar swallow returning home…”
Don’t ask him why he only recited that one line.
In short, he’d forgotten the beginning, and he’d forgotten the end.
Bu Chenghua said, half-jokingly, “Senior, if you steal my lines again, I’ll have to apply for intangible cultural heritage status, *smecta*!”
“Hahahaha… *cough, cough, cough*.”
Upon hearing this, Ying Zhiyu tried to suppress her laughter, but failed. She laughed so hard she nearly choked on the rice in her mouth.
She swallowed the rice in her mouth, narrowed her eyes, and asked with a mischievous grin, “So, how much is it, then?”
Huang Xiu sighed tragically, “312.”
“How many?!” Everyone reacted with exceptional intensity.
Bu Chenghua, in particular, had he not realized he couldn’t defeat her, would have eagerly stood up to grab Huang Xiu by the neck and shake her vigorously.
“If *your* pathetic total is a sorrowful number, then what about *my* credits?!”
“That’s a hundredfold difference!”
Despite this vast difference, not a trace of jealousy stirred within Bu Chenghua’s heart.
After all, academic credits were the epitome of fairness; one received credits commensurate with their abilities.
He quickly adjusted his mindset, and even proactively made a joke.
“Since this wretched senior is *Versailles-ing* again, I’ll just crawl.” He adopted a crawling posture while still seated.
This sent Ying Zhiyu beside him into fits of uncontrollable laughter, while Jia Qianrou also couldn’t help but crack a smile, her lips curving upwards.
With the strength she usually reserved for playfully unscrewing her younger brother’s skull, Jia Qianrou managed to suppress her smile, and asked curiously, “312? Why is that a sorrowful number?”
The others, hearing this, also turned their heads in curiosity.
“Because I originally had 534 credits!”
Huang Xiu’s tone was as desolate as a winter wind.
“You’ll understand when you see!” She placed her phone on the dining table, turning it towards Jia Qianrou.
“They deducted 222 points for environmental restoration fees.”
“How much was deducted?!” Everyone was startled once again. Their gazes shifted from level with Huang Xiu to an awestruck upward stare, as if beholding a magnificent mountain and flowing river.
They all leaned in, craning their necks to peer at the phone, eager to understand what astounding event had transpired to warrant such an outrageous deduction of 222 credits.
“Heh heh, just let it all be destroyed!”
Bu Chenghua didn’t lean in. Instead, he wore an expression that screamed, ‘Just let the world end already!’
‘So the difference isn’t just tenfold, but seventeenfold!’
Fortunately, he had already grown quite accustomed to such blows, and his mindset adjusted with unusual speed.
“Sister Xiu, these environmental restoration costs of yours…”
Ying Zhiyu hesitated for a moment, before deciding to speak candidly, “I actually think they deducted too little.”
Huang Xiu: “???”
“Exactly!” Jia Qianrou chimed in, supporting her.
“Your 740 credits only amount to 74,000, but the economic losses from your destruction probably start at 500,000.”
Listening to these words, which seemed like teasing but were actually comforting,
Huang Xiu, who had been burying her head in a slice of watermelon to calm her nerves—to prevent herself from collapsing due to excessive emotional agitation—also nodded thoughtfully.
“It seems so! If they deducted too little, then it’s still a profit! In conclusion, I still profited, and quite handsomely at that!” she joked.
“Alright, I can be discharged from the hospital now!”
After a burst of playful banter, everyone finally recovered from the sudden joy of receiving a sum of academic credits.
Huang Xiu also briefly tallied the credit situations of those around her.
She undoubtedly had the most. Second was Song Rou with 98 credits.
Following them were Chi Xue, Liu Lu, and Yang Qu; their credit totals differed by only a few points from each other.
Most unexpectedly, Ying Zhiyu sprang a surprise.
Her credits were only slightly more than Bu Chenghua’s, at 52 credits, placing her last.
Huang Xiu, curious, checked Ying Zhiyu’s credit details.
Only then did she discover that it wasn’t just their D2 squad; the D1 squad’s environmental restoration costs had also exceeded their allowance.
After inquiring with the senior female student involved, she learned that the culprit was none other than the senior female student’s ultimate move, [Ultra-high Pressure Water Jet].
“What a pity I didn’t get to see that move.”
Huang Xiu’s face was filled with regret. She was quite curious about what kind of ultimate move could cause destruction comparable to her own saturation bombing.
Pondering this, she sighed once more.
Huai Nannan was the main culprit for the D1 squad. And for the D2 squad, wasn’t she herself the chief offender?
Had it not been for her saturation bombing, relying solely on Wen Erya and Yun Ning’s melee-based, single-target combat,
unless they deliberately went out of their way, specifically targeting and demolishing houses to the extreme, it would have been difficult to exceed the allowance.
“It’s all my fault, sigh! I need to be more careful next time. For now, I should apologize!”