Chapter 471: A Small Request from Fool Dream
As the villa door was pushed open and I looked at the empty villa, a figure darted up to the second floor.
“Sister Xiao Han is not here! Hurry, hurry—set up the scene, we’re going to give Sister Xiao Han a surprise!”
Having confirmed that there was no one in the second-floor bedroom, Hong Chanyi immediately directed everyone to quickly set up.
Bang!
With the sound of an explosion, a bunch of streamers flew toward the ceiling and then fluttered down like snowflakes.
“Wow!”
“Who accidentally set off the firework cannon?” Hong Chanyi also looked down from the second floor, noticing that some of the falling streamers had reached the second floor.
“Sorry, it was me,” Dongli Yiren said apologetically. “It’s my first time seeing this thing… I was curious…”
“Then quickly clean up the floor, phew—there are still a few more prepared. Where’s Fool Dream? Did we scare Fool Dream just now?” Hong Chanyi sighed in relief and asked.
“I’m fine! It feels so fun!” At that moment, the petite figure by Dongli Yiren’s feet peeked out and said.
“That’s good! Just be careful, Sister Xiao Han should be coming soon. Didn’t she just pop into the group chat? Everyone get ready to celebrate Sister Xiao Han becoming a teaching assistant!” Hong Chanyi encouraged.
This time, there were two Fool Dreams that followed, brought by Guan Qiuling from the Witch Cat Café. Knowing the relationship between those Fool Dreams and Xiao Han, the bond between those Fool Dreams and Guan Qiuling was also pretty good, but this time it was the two Fool Dreams who actively requested to come along.
Soon, Guan Qiuling met up with Hong Chanyi and the others, who had just finished their class meeting, to carry out this simple celebration.
Due to the time constraint, they didn’t prepare much for this surprise. They just bought some celebratory fireworks on the way back, the kind that are disposable.
As everyone finished the simple setup, the enthusiasm that had been prepared moments ago quickly faded away.
“Dongli Yiren, I’m sorry; I was the one who set off that firework cannon…” At that moment, another Fool Dream, who had been helping clean up the scattered fireworks, hurriedly stepped forward to apologize to Dongli Yiren.
“…It’s fine,” Dongli Yiren paused, this was the first time someone had called her Sister Dongli Yiren, especially with that soft and tender way of saying it, which made her freeze for a moment. Then she squatted down and patted the little Fool Dream’s head, the two cat ears flattened down, forming a pitiful look for having done something wrong. “It’s just a small matter; today is a happy day. Don’t let Sister Xiao Han see you looking unhappy.”
“Mm! Right! Then… next time when Sister Dongli Yiren comes to the Witch Cat Café, I’ll treat you to a Fool Dream Drink.”
“Mm, I will.”
Dongli Yiren nodded and stood up. Their brief conversation didn’t attract the attention of the others nearby, or perhaps they pretended not to notice?
“Hey~ By the way, do you think we’ve prepared too little? If I had known Sister Xiao Han was coming back so late, we should have prepared more,” Hong Chanyi said, leaning over the railing on the second floor to look at the few people below.
“I think it’s enough. Don’t you think this kind of thing… um, doesn’t quite suit Sister Xiao Han?” Dongli Yiren picked up an extra fluffy decorative streamer and tossed it aside.
“Ah~ As long as the atmosphere is there, it’s fine—Sister Xiao Han just doesn’t like talking. It’s not like she doesn’t have normal human needs. As long as the surprise is in place, that’s enough.”
“Mm, should we send someone out to check when Sister Xiao Han is coming back? We can’t just wait here.”
“True, who wants to keep an eye at the window?” Hong Chanyi nodded and suggested.
“I will,” Guan Qiuling volunteered.
“Then it’s up to you, Qiuling ~” Seeing Guan Qiuling take the initiative, Hong Chanyi quickly expressed her gratitude. “Ah~ It’s about time, but… why do you think Sister Xiao Han hasn’t come back yet? Usually, if she’s coming back, it should be pretty quick, especially since she has a flying license and teleportation… wait! Don’t we have a summoning item for Sister Xiao Han? It would be perfect to summon her back directly, saving her the trouble of coming back.”
“What if Sister Xiao Han is inconvenient?” Guan Qiuling leaned sideways at the window and asked.
“How could she be inconvenient? Isn’t she already preparing to come back? Surely it can’t be inconvenient at a time like this?” Hong Chanyi replied, while also pulling out a business card. “Don’t say, Sister Xiao Han is really skillful; even a business card is an alchemical item. This summoning item is way more convenient to carry than the one we used before.”
“You’ve summoned Sister Xiao Han before?”
“No, Sister Xiao Han only taught me how to use it. By the way, should we use it or not? Hmm? What are you all looking like that for? Why does everyone…” Hong Chanyi was playing with the business card when she suddenly noticed that the group below had fallen silent.
She was just about to say something when suddenly a hand patted her shoulder.
“What are you all up to?”
“Small! Sister Xiao Han!” Hong Chanyi was startled by the voice, causing the business card in her hand to slip from her fingers.
“What secret are you keeping that scared you like this?” I smiled slightly, reaching out to catch the card that had been blown into my hands by a gust of wind. Then I handed it back to Hong Chanyi. “Hold it tight; you dropped it.”
“S-Sister Xiao Han? How are you here?”
“Why can’t I be here? What kind of question is that?”
“I clearly confirmed you weren’t in the bedroom… how did you make no sound at all?” Hong Chanyi still asked in disbelief.
“Of course, I just got back. Isn’t it normal that I have a space teleportation marker in my bedroom?” I smiled and looked down from the second floor. “Oh? You all are here; are you planning to surprise me? Thank you.”
Bang! Bang!
As I was speaking, two not-so-loud explosive sounds accompanied the fireworks that came towards the second floor.
“Sister Xiao Han, congratulations on becoming a teaching assistant~”
“Fool Dream? Did you bring Fool Dream into the dormitory?” I looked in surprise at the two petite Fool Dreams holding firework cannons below, then turned to Hong Chanyi, as if asking if it was her idea.
“No, no! Sister Xiao Han, we came back with Sister Guan Qiuling!” The two Fool Dreams hurriedly explained.
“Is that so?”
I made my way to the stairs along the railing, preparing to descend. However, I was also observing everyone, and from their gazes, I sensed a hint of subconscious distance, or perhaps it was a kind of distant probing.
“By the way, since you all prepared a surprise for me, let me treat you. How about going out for a simple meal? It’s on me.”
“Okay~ We won’t be polite with you, Sister Xiao Han! Really, you quietly became a teaching assistant without even letting us know. This surprise did not meet our expectations~”
“Right, we only found out about this from Teacher Ji before the class meeting started. At that time, when it was said that your student status was canceled, I was shocked and only then realized you directly became a teaching assistant,” Yu Yatian also chimed in.
“Is that so? I was afraid it might affect you all, worried you might overthink things,” I simply explained and quickly shifted topics. “By the way, you were discussing the joint examination during class, right? Could you tell me about it? I’m not too familiar with it.”
“Sister Xiao Han, you’re already a teaching assistant, are you still interested in the assessments?”
“Mm, though I won’t be participating as a student in the joint examination, I will be maintaining it as a teaching assistant, so naturally, I want to understand your situation in the joint exam.”
“Wow! Sister Xiao Han, you’re going to be an invigilator?!”
“Invigilator? It’s not to that extent. I’m just a teaching assistant supporting the instructor, at most just handling trivial matters,” I explained as I walked out of the dormitory with everyone, just as I had said before, going out for a good meal.
“That’s still pretty impressive. By the way, Sister Xiao Han, we’re just a few of us celebrating your becoming a teaching assistant. Should we call some other people to join the fun? It can be livelier that way.” Hong Chanyi suggested.
“More people is livelier… um… maybe not. Actually, I don’t really like places with too many people, and I don’t have many friends. I consider all of you my friends. Even if I became a teaching assistant, I haven’t changed that thought.”
“Haha~ Sister Xiao Han, you saying that puts our minds at ease! You don’t know; we were all worried that we might not walk the same path in the future.”
“Then you can only say you’ve worried too much?”
As I said this, I laughed and headed toward a nice restaurant nearby.
The five of us, plus two peculiar Fool Dreams, walked into a private room in the restaurant.
During this meal, we didn’t discuss anything else, only talked about the upcoming multi-school joint examination. Dongli Yiren and Guan Qiuling listened intently, as their class hadn’t assembled for a class meeting yet and wouldn’t start until the afternoon.
In the conversation, I learned more details about the joint examination. For instance, the practical combat part of the multi-school joint examination was not the type of indiscriminate battle royale I thought.
Instead, it was a resource point occupation scoring system encouraging teamwork within the same school.
They would be dropped onto the perilous Bobapop Islands, filled with various strange monsters wandering about. Danger loomed on the island, underwater, and in the air; killing these monsters would yield a small amount of points, while occupying resource points would grant a substantial amount of points. When facing grouped teams, points would need to be distributed among themselves.
Compared to the students from different academies, their main opponents would still be those monsters.
There’s a lot of operational space in this setup, and a gathered team can share points evenly or all be given to one individual.
This means a variety of situations could arise, such as inter-school cooperation, backstabbing, internal strife, and betrayal becoming commonplace.
Moreover, within these resource points, there are essential food and water resources needed for daily supplies, which is very crucial.
Also, this time scoring cannot be forcibly taken from others, significantly reducing the scenarios where students will fight to the death when they encounter one another.
This joint examination will last for a week, and the final results of the practical assessment will not be judged by actual scores but recorded as pass or fail. Currently, since the practical tests haven’t developed a systematic classification like the theoretical examinations, there are no failing grades, but pass/fail ratings will record personal information, which may affect the choice of instructors in the fourth year.
As for the judgment of pass or fail, the academy will conduct comprehensive data analysis through the Earth Vein System to ensure that no student is overlooked or mistaken.
I must say, whenever large-scale battles are involved, it’s always a headache. If battles are held one by one, it would no doubt be extremely tedious and time-consuming. The grand brawl is also too limited; it’s hard to make a comprehensive evaluation of a person, as combat power is not the only standard for assessing a person’s worth. Therefore, a team working cooperatively can maximize one person’s ability in certain aspects.
Undoubtedly, the leader of a team will naturally receive a higher score, as good and excellent remarks can be noted within the pass ratings. However, a leader is just a leading figure and has no instructive role in the division of labor within the team, so their score will also be appropriately downgraded.
Regarding this joint examination, the Witch Academy also reminded students that cooperation is best, since this is real combat. If one is not careful, it could be “fatal.” If one encounters unavoidable dangers, they can call their instructor to take them out of the examination area. If they voluntarily leave, the examination is completely over, and the results will be left to fate.
……
This celebration meal went quickly. Hong Chanyi and her group wanted to prepare for this joint examination, while Dongli Yiren and her group needed to head to the central teaching area for the afternoon’s impromptu class meeting. The bus schedule would be a bit tight, and even though they learned a lot of rules during this meal, they weren’t rude enough to skip the class meeting.
In the end, only the two Fool Dreams remained with me.
“How about I send you back? To your residence or the Witch Cat Café?” I crouched down to pat the Fool Dreams’ heads and softly asked.
“Sister Xiao Han, we actually have something we want to tell you.”
“Yeah, yeah, we didn’t have the opportunity to talk to you earlier, so we have to wait until now.”
“You have something to tell me? What is it?” I raised an eyebrow, surprised, but still asked.
“Sister Xiao Han, actually, the main reason we came this time is to tell you something; some of us actually…”
“Actually, Sister Xiao Han allowing us to work at the Witch Cat Café has let us support ourselves, and now we’ve been living in the academy for a while. But some of us might not like this kind of work very much; they want to follow Sister Xiao Han and help her with her troubles!”
“Actually… we want to go back to how things were at the base, where we could assist Sister Xiao Han… we want to become Sister Xiao Han’s support!”
“Ah?” Listening to these two Fool Dreams speak one by one, although the information was a bit fragmented, I roughly understood.
Now that they had settled down in the Witch Academy and no longer needed to worry about survival, after adapting to the academy, they wanted to do their part to help me, just like when I first came to Ninglan New City, where I needed the Fool Dreams to do everything for me while I conducted experiments in reality.
Upon realizing what the Fool Dreams wanted to do, my first instinct was to refuse, as their personalities and their unclear cognitive behavior were not ideal for being useful experimental assistants to me.
However, seeing the eager expressions on their faces… I also thought about the trial agreement I made with the academy head. I naturally couldn’t ignore the Fool Dreams, but I still had no idea how they could truly become life forms.
But a thought suddenly sprouted in my mind.
Perhaps… I could attempt to pass on the concept of extraordinary things to the Fool Dreams, allowing them to try for themselves and decide where the Fool Dream race should go. After all, becoming a true life race is their deeper inner desire.
Moreover, they are closely related to the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell, and there’s a connection between the Grand Wisdom Enlightenment Spell and the Great Knowledge Tree. Since I have the Great Knowledge Tree, I at least have confidence in teaching them the relevant extraordinary skills.
Furthermore… if the Fool Dreams could assist me in attempting to derive the abilities of the Great Knowledge Tree, then the layout of the Great Knowledge Tree could possibly expand even faster.
“Fine, I accept your suggestion, but at first, I won’t take too many Fool Dreams as my assistants. At most, only two or three, and the Fool Dreams following me must fully comply with my requirements.”
