On the way to the canteen, more and more people greeted Garen enthusiastically, and most of them were people he had seen just once, yet they were greeting him automatically like they were the best of friends. Most of these came from families that were not particularly well-off, but not too bad either. In fact, the students with really bad backgrounds did not approach him at all.
When he reached the canteen, he grabbed some food and drink before sitting down. Lucianne-Kell sat down opposite Garen of her own initiative, and within half a minute, some students approached them, greeted Garen, and sat down beside him.
This situation was exactly the same as when those heirs and heiresses showed up. Some of the students sat down as though in awe of the great weather, and then began to talk among themselves. They would occasionally pull Garen into the topic, teasing him. These conversations looked very natural, but in truth all of them were instinctively observing Garen’s reactions.
Before he knew it, there were five or six other students sitting around him with Garen in the center, and they had formed a small social circle. This also allowed them to subtly block off the other students who wanted to approach him, so several students who had arrived late left quietly and rather regrettably.
Inwardly, Garen understood the reason.
He had demonstrated his potential, and then joined a powerful group such as the Blue Narcissus. Plus there were rumors that he was connected to Mondo, so of course his future was full of potential. He would definitely become a Field Level Officer or even Major General. To the normal students around him, someone like him should be approached before he fully developed, that was the best time to try and get in his good books.
Most of the students believed that opportunity came to those who knocked on its door, if you did nothing at all for yourself, even the biggest opportunity would eventually come to nothing. Sometimes you had to be slightly more shameless, and then maybe you would obtain a chance that others would need to work for years to reach.
These people truly chased after power, going where the tide did. They were shameless enough to be nothing more than grass by the wall, you could give them some small jobs, but Garen knew that they would be the first to run if anything serious happened.
Still, he could not act too independent in the academy, plus many of these people were also good-looking young men and women. At the very least they were eye candy, so Garen just let them be.
He sat in his seat and ate his mushroom braised chicken at his own pace. The way Garen ate was very strange, he would dip his bread and buns into the chicken soup and eat them like that. He would usually finish one fist-sized bun in three bites, and he never stopped. Within ten minutes, he had stuffed three peoples’ worth of food into his stomach.
After that, he picked up the napkin and wiped his mouth elegantly. When he was reincarnated into the Totem World, the combination of his lifelong aristocracy training and huge appetite gave him some strange eating habits. It looked very classical and gentle, but he ate a terrifying amount.
By the time the people around him noticed something amiss, they saw that nothing was left of the pile of things on the table in front of Garen.
“Did you always eat so much, Nono? No wonder you’re so good at Mech battles!” Kell, who was sitting opposite, was evidently there to purposely get closer to Garen, and now she asked in a small, tender voice.
“It’s not that much,” Garen replied calmly. He held up his watch to check the time. “It’s getting late, I plan to attend Professor Ser’s class on interference.”
“I’ll go too, I’ve nothing else to do anyway,” Kell said, taking the initiative.
“Me too! You don’t mind, do you, Nono?” The one who spoke was a pretty girl from Nonosiva’s class, her results were completely average, and her Willpower was only at Middle Basic Level as well, but her looks and her figure were very decent. She had a proper Eastern girl’s features, her black hair tied up, her skin fair and smooth. Her large eyes were black and bright, with the textbook almond-shaped eyes and cherry lips. She gave off an impression of a jade-white china doll, and when she sat quietly, she had the aura of a young girl in the spring of youth.
The girl was called Vera, she looked pure and innocent, but she was a well-known bootlicker in the class. Apparently, she was often seen going in and out of entertainment with the rich boys.
“If you won’t find it boring, sure.” Garen smiled and stood.
As soon as he got up, he saw Mina and Aier sitting not far away. Both of them looked at him slightly worriedly, and just happened to meet his gaze.
“If you’re here, why didn’t you come say hi?” Garen walked up to them, smiling. Only friends in need were friends indeed. He split the crowd, and walked straight up to them.
“Well, we saw you were surrounded by so many people, including some pretty girls, so we didn’t want to disturb you.” Mina was slightly unhappy, but seeing that Nono still greeted them the same way he always did, she heaved a sigh of relief inwardly.
“Isn’t that Aier? You guys are here too, sorry I didn’t notice you just now,” Vera said with a smile, walking out from beside Garen. She knew Aier, the little boy who had once written her love letters. He was very pure and innocent, but she had not thought that he would be this close to Nono, so that was a possible breakthrough.
“Vera…” Aier saw Vera standing next to Garen, and dejection flashed across his eyes. He had always had a crush on Vera.
Garen was lazy to bother with these soap dramas, the class was going to start soon. He had nothing to do anyway, studying more would never go wrong. The classes in the academy were all free to join, if you wanted to attend then go, as long as you pass the final test, nobody really cared how you studied anyway.
After becoming famous, a situation like this would also be very normal. There were many people who wanted to approach the powerful, and some students with good connections would surely also have found out that he was praised by the Blue Narcissus’ Britney. That was why this was happening.
After chatting with Aier and Mina for some time, Garen was practically pushed by the group into the students’ lecture area.
Kell and Vera had completely taken over the positions on his left and right. Garen did not really care right now anyway, this way he was no different from the other rich and powerful heirs, so he could use that to disguise himself.
The days passed by.
Soon, the second batch of white Rainbow Stones would be arriving as well, and the teaching time he agreed on with Celine was fast approaching as well.
Garen made some slight preparations, and then he went with Perry, the representative from Blue Narcissus, as well as Celine’s representative, Wade, to receive the cargo. This was the first time, so all three sides needed to familiarize themselves with the process. The car sending the cargo was a normal cargo vehicle from Celine’s family. There were five hundred pieces in this first batch, they were the first primary materials.
Garen used the several tens of thousands of units he had left after buying the training method to rent a small factory for distillation for a month. There was a fully automated production line to increase the purity of the flammable powders, to achieve the market’s minimal requirements.
But this was all beside the point, the main reason for his helplessness was how, after absorbing all of the more than five hundred White Rainbow Stones in this batch, he still showed no signs of leveling up. The progress of the Hellfrost Peacock Technique’s fourth grade rose from 11% to 78%, and it did not go any further than that. Evidently, that little bit was no longer enough for it to use up, and he needed more.
On the other hand, the high-energy fuel powder created from these five hundred or more stones was enough to fill twenty or thirty bottles. He had invested 1500 units, and 500 more units went to safe transport of the materials, so his main cost was 2000 units. In return, he obtained 25 bottles of powder, each 25kg in weight. Each kilogram cost ten thousand units at the very least. So his final profit would be about 2.5 million, and considering the split in profits, Garen would obtain 40% for himself, so that would be a million units.
Looking at the number of Universal Units in his watch, Garen finally relaxed as well.
He still owed Instructor Hamm more than a million in surgical fees, so now he finally felt like there was some hope for him to return it all. He would also need a lot of money for the training methods after this, but he needed to be wary of the speed and regularity every month.
Earning money too fast was not a good thing, it would be easy to invite the greed and envy of others.
Garen tried his best to control the speed with which he produced the powder, partly because he was afraid of attracting attention, but also because he wanted to control the demands of the market. As soon he tossed out the refined powders, there were already military factories and research centers taking them, they practically fought for it. This situation made Garen secretly glad that his plan was correct, if he had not first connected with the two powers and had them cover for him, then those waves of commercial spies would already be enough for him to lose big. Just looking at how thirsty those buying powers seemed to be, no one would believe him if he said he did not have any forces suppressing them.
He set his pace at buying five hundred pieces twice a month, it was not too much, and this way he would earn about 5 million each time. 10% of that was 500 thousand units. Celine was not interested in 100 thousand or so, but he had to perk up and pay attention if it was 500 thousand. If he was already like that, as someone from a family of merchants, Vivienne and Wade would be even more so. 500 thousand units in profits every month got their hearts palpitating slightly, then they would think about the 40% Nonosiva had, and both would feel even weaker.
In June, as their first time cooperating, Garen had a total profit of five million. Taking away the change, he paid 20% or one fifth in taxes. Of the remaining four million, he took 40% in profits, and ended up with 1.6 million more units in his account.
He used most of this 1.6 million to pay back his debt to Instructor Hamm, and then he used the remaining 200 thousand or so to pay for the factory’s rental and overhead, and he also gave some away as salaries for the people who had safely navigated the purchase and delivery of the White Rainbow Stones. He gave Kendall ten thousand as a bonus so he could send it back to his family, and then he gathered up the remaining hundred thousand units into a whole number.
These hundred thousand units were his true modal for him to set his foundations.
At the same time, as Nonosiva, he had officially entered the second year of university, becoming a second-year student at the academy.
As for his Willpower, as long as he could absorb the White Peacock Stone again next month, he should be able to reach the fourth grade. The Hellfrost Peacock Technique’s basics were divided into five grades, the first five grades were just setting the foundations. There were three more grades after that, and that was where its power could really be displayed. Garen had already vaguely noticed that the Peacock Technique was not very beneficial to his body in itself, it mainly increased his special abilities. This also made him look forward to the upcoming fourth grade, because that was a fundamental shift. Once he reached it, his Willpower would be forced to increase, and he would then properly be in Level One, so he would no longer have to rely on the Moonfang. He could be a mech pilot all on his own.
And just then, ripples finally began to spread through the Blackboard Region as well. Some rumors about the White Light terrorist organization began to spread through the region, apparently the White Light Organization’s Great Light Mech had already entered the Blackboard Region, breaking past the defense army and Black-Clothed General’s barricades.
So the three large states, more than ten provinces, several dozen cities of different sizes, as well as the several hundred villages and towns in the Blackboard Region all began to up their security at the same time. Thankfully, they did not overdo it, they just activated many more surveillance cameras and increased the number of mechs on patrol. Normal people would just find security slightly tighter, only the professionals could sense the subtle undercurrent of chaos in the Blackfield Region.
Nobody knew that the Black-Clothed General had actually already completely lost track of the White Light Mech, and it was already hidden somewhere in the Blackboard Region.