Start With Contracting Sprites

At night, the holiday resort was as lively as ever.

Huang Ji, one of the well-known candidates from Affiliated High, was returning to the hotel.

The forms of a few people were constantly flashing past his mind. He was analyzing how high his chances of victory would be, should he enter a battle with them.

“There’s too little information available. There aren’t even any records of their sprites battling at all!”

All of a sudden, the Flame-Patterned Hound next to him let out a low growl. Huang Ji raised his head. He noticed someone who was wrapped snugly from head to toe and wearing a face mask standing in front of him.

A face mask… It wasn’t strange for people to wear that in winter.

However, Huang Ji found the other party’s behavior suspicious the moment he laid eyes on the person.

The masked figure spoke at this point. With a rather strange accent, the person asked, “Hello, are you interested in buying intel?”

“Intel?”

Huang Ji’s brows furrowed. He didn’t trust intel that was sold by someone who behaved so strangely.

Apart from a minority of ace students, he had information about the majority of students with even a bit of fame to their name. He even made an effort to gain an understanding of students who weren’t that strong, and whom most Affiliated High students overlooked, such as Su Hao and Liu Ren.

He merely assumed that the masked figure was an intel broker making use of the opportunity to earn some cash.

However, he didn’t expect the masked figure to list information on a few familiar names the very next moment.

“Liu Wen, Ding Jiaxu, Gu Mingrui… Do you have intel on their sprites? What I want is detailed information, not just the sprite species!”

The masked figure chuckled and replied right away, “Liu Wen, sprite species Silk-Cotton Owl, spiritual force of 120 and above. It has wings that are wider than other sprites of the same species by approximately 6 centimeters…”

Huang Ji listened carefully. And the more he did, the more astonished he was.

It was very likely that this information was real and not false information, which began with the name of a sprite species and then continued with lies. He could tell the difference!

But all of a sudden, the masked figure stopped.

Huang Ji panicked. “Why did you stop? Go on!”

While rubbing his thumb against his index and middle fingers, the masked figure simply stared at him. It was as though Huang Ji could see the mockery in his eyes.

‘No money? Do you think you can buy intel when you have no money?’

He didn’t get mad. Instead, he glanced around very calmly.

Good, no one was paying them any attention.

He asked, “How much?”

Liu Ren stretched out two fingers.

“20,000? I want information on all of the others too.”

“Excellent.”

They transferred the funds and exchanged the goods on the spot.

Both parties were very satisfied.

…

After Liu Ren left, when he looked at the extra 100,000 yuan in his bank account, even someone who came from a wealthy background like him couldn’t help but feel that this sum of money… simply came too easily!

“To rich kids like Huang Ji, even jacking up the price from 5,000 yuan to 20,000 yuan is letting him off too easily!”

This was Liu Ren’s revenge on Huang Ji for his malicious way of sounding out his competitors earlier.

He was also aware that Huang Ji could afford it. Compared to the difficulty in understanding a sprite, getting information on famous students’ family background was much simpler.

Liu Ren’s eyes narrowed as he contemplated over who his next target should be.

…

On the fifth floor of the hotel, a boy from Xingyuan High School closed the door furtively before he beckoned to his roommate. “Look what I just got my hands on!”

“What is it?”

His roommate looked over.

“Data on the top ten seeded candidates in the joint examination, and details of the sprites of 100 Sprite Trainers who are hard to handle… With this data, would we still need to worry about performing badly in the joint examination?”

The two of them exchanged a look. Sneaky laughter echoed in the room.

…

Su Hao returned to the hotel room after dinner.

He had already seen the sprites owned by the vast majority of his targets. Only a very small number of “reclusive” sprites had remained indoors, so Su Hao and Liu Ren didn’t manage to see them even after walking about a few rounds. This included the ones belonging to the two people who presented the biggest threat.

Fortunately, even with a few people fewer, the degree of perfection in their intel remained very high. There was absolutely no one who could compete with them.

Su Hao sat on the bed and glanced around—Silkworm Baby was hogging the computer.

On account of how he needed it to perform at its best the next day, Su Hao picked up his cell phone and started to read a novel instead.

All of a sudden, the cell phone vibrated. A message directed at the whole school appeared at the top of the screen. It was from Class 2 of the Sprite stream.

When he opened the message, he saw a somewhat familiar heading. It was a shared file titled “Joint Examination Intel, Collector’s Edition”. Listed in the file was data on the sprites of about 100 students taking part in the joint examination.

Su Hao tapped out of the file. It had already received a whole slew of “Impressive!” reactions from the group chat. Unable to resist, he also tapped on the “Impressive!” button.

Su Hao wrote, “Impressive.”

Classmate A wrote, “It’s Big Boss Su! Big Boss Su has appeared!”

Classmate B wrote, “Does Big Boss Su lack anyone clinging on for life support? Can you bring me with you tomorrow? Sob, sob.”

Classmate C and the rest wrote, “Gonna be honest here—this data is certainly detailed, but Big Boss Su is actually not listed in the list of top ten seeded candidates! They are looking down on us, An City First High!”

Su Hao chuckled sneakily.

It would be strange if he was really listed in there!

But this was clearly an information leak. Why was being listed in the intel a form of glory now?

Before long, Liu Ren came back as well.

Su Hao opened the group chat and showed it to him. Giving him a thumbs up, he said, “I’m impressed. Spreading all this information in such a short amount of time so calmly—as expected of an expert.”

Unexpectedly, there was a look of exasperation on Liu Ren’s face instead. “Do you think I’m dumb!? I clearly wanted to earn some money instead!”

For the very first time, Liu Ren, who had had a taste of the benefits, had thought of earning his own money. But…

“It’s all thanks to piracy! Toward the end, by the time I approached my targets, all of them already had the full set of intel!”

Su Hao opened his mouth but chose to close it in the end.

In any case, they had already earned quite a lot. They had also achieved their objective, and the effect was even better than what they had expected.

On the top floors of the hotel, where the Sprite Trainers in charge of the students were…

Coach Xiong took a look at the printout of the collector’s edition of the intel. After a while, he said with a hint of regret, “There are a few good seedlings in this batch of An City First High students, but there are even more in Affiliated High and Yunhua First High.

“Based on this information, there are already as many as 18 people in the case of students who have nurtured their sprites till they reached their spiritual force limits. It’s likely that the sprites owned by Bing Ning from Affiliated High and Lin Mingzheng from Yunhua First High have already reached entry-level. If nothing out of the ordinary happens, the champion and first runner-up will be the two of them.

“But champion and first runner-up aside, Su Hao’s chances of winning a spot in the top ten should still be very high.”

Coach Xiong had very high hopes for Su Hao.

It wasn’t that Su Hao wasn’t good enough. Rather, it was because the students from the other schools were simply too strong.

Pan Jingshan took the printout from him and took a look. “It isn’t just a matter about their abilities; it’s also a headcount issue. An City First High is at a disadvantage, no matter in which aspect. There’s nothing we can do about it, though. If it had been the previous batches of students, it would have been tough for high schools of An City to even come up with students who could make it to the top 50.”

Even though they didn’t hold high hopes, they weren’t depressed either. Winning and losing was very normal in school competitions. It was also very understandable that An City First High couldn’t match up to key high schools of Yunhua.

“On the other hand, I feel that the student who came up with this set of data is the one who’s truly something. There’s going to be a good show in the joint examination this time.”

8 a.m., the next day…

Su Hao and the other students followed their teachers and arrived at the north of Battle Preparation Village, where the entrance to the forest was.

Students from different schools assembled in different areas.

Right away, the disparities in strength were clear.

An City First High and Ping City First High had the lowest headcount. There were only 100-odd people.

There were slightly more people—about 200-odd—from Xingyuan High School.

There were more than 500 students from the Sprite stream of Yunhua University Affiliated High School.

As for Yunhua First High, which had the highest headcount, they had close to 800 people there!

Because Yunhua City was a big city, the ratio of third-year students opting for the Sprite stream in a single batch was far higher than normal cities like An City and Ping City.

This caused an extremely obvious disparity in numbers!