Return, and an Unbelievably Massive Credits Reward

Leaving the small courtyard, Li Qinghe smiled warmly as she looked at Lu Yuan.

"Yuan, I'll be heading back soon. Want to come with your big sister?"

Lu Yuan blinked, then shook his head with a smile.

"I'll stay. I came out here on a Talent Camp assignment, and now that the Beast Tide is over, they should be sending transport for us soon. I'll head back with the others."

Li Qinghe gave a small nod.

"Fair enough. Let me walk you back, then."

Lu Yuan agreed.

She escorted him to Camp 257, reminded him to return early once he'd rested in the capital, and then made her way back to the Fortress.

He hadn't even reached his dormitory when a Guard Corps soldier intercepted him with a crisp salute.

"Commander Lu! The Legion Commander requests your presence."

Lu Yuan nodded. "Understood."

He made his way to the Legion Commander's office and found that not only he, but Maige, Zhu Zhengyang, Yan Jing, and the other Talent Camp students had all been gathered there. Luo Xiu, Jiang Ming, and Tracy were present as well.

Every head turned when Lu Yuan stepped through the door.

"Legion Commander — you wanted to see me?"

Luo Xiu nodded, smiling.

"The Talent Camp has sent word. Now that the Beast Tide is over, they'll be picking you up shortly."

A ripple of surprise passed through the room.

Maige's eyes went wide. "We're already going back?"

Everyone looked a little caught off guard — they'd assumed they would be staying a few more days at least.

Luo Xiu confirmed it with a nod. "Should be any time now."

Beside him, Jiang Ming grinned. "We'll see you off, then."

Tracy glanced at Lu Yuan, her expression briefly complicated before settling into a smile.

"Lu Yuan — when you have the chance, come back and visit."

Lu Yuan nodded sincerely. "I will."

At that moment, Luo Xiu paused and pulled out his communicator. He checked the screen, then looked up with an easy smile.

"They've sent the notice — about ten minutes. Let's head to the airfield."

He rose, and with Jiang Ming and Tracy in tow, led the group outside.

When they arrived at the airfield, Lu Yuan found a crowd of Guard Corps soldiers already assembled. Groat and the rest of Squad 22 were among them, and Maige's group quickly spotted their own squadmates as well.

Everyone drifted toward familiar faces.

When Groat saw Lu Yuan approaching, he spread his arms and pulled him into a back-thumping embrace.

"I heard you spent last night somewhere with a bunch of gorgeous girls. We were going to throw you a celebration party, but you never showed up — ended up celebrating by ourselves. Pointless, honestly."

Lu Yuan laughed apologetically.

"Sorry about that, Squad Leader. Something genuinely came up. Next time I'm in the capital, dinner's on me."

Yang Qiu laughed beside him and clapped Lu Yuan on the shoulder. "You're holding yourself to that? When we muster out and come to find you in the capital, you'd better not wriggle out of it!"

"Never!"

They joked and laughed through their goodbyes. Before long, a black fighter craft descended and touched down on the airfield — the same Owldragon Fighter they had arrived in.

Groat and his squadmates watched with complicated expressions, each placing a hand on Lu Yuan's shoulder.

"Time to go, Lu Yuan."

Lu Yuan nodded. "See you around."

He smiled, turned, and walked toward the Owldragon Fighter. Maige and the others fell in behind him, calling their own farewells to their squadmates.

Before he stepped aboard, Luo Xiu's voice cut across the airfield: "257th Legion — salute!"

Lu Yuan and his group stopped and turned. Every soldier stood at rigid attention, faces grave, arms raised in unison.

Something tightened in Lu Yuan's chest. He and Maige and the rest straightened, their own expressions equally solemn, and returned the salute to the 257th Legion.

Then they turned and boarded.

Inside the Owldragon Fighter, beyond their own group, sat a number of other Talent Camp students — Second-rank and Third-rank Gene Warriors who had traveled to the frontline on the same transport ship. Some still looked pale, carrying wounds from the Beast Tide that hadn't fully healed.

When they caught sight of Lu Yuan, every face lit up at once.

"Holy hell, it's Lu Yuan!"

"Lu Yuan! Our whole camp has been talking about you for days! Those Lord Grade Mechanical Guardians of yours are absolutely insane — you practically held back the Beast Tide at six defensive camps all by yourself!"

"Honestly, out of every Talent Camp student on this deployment — including all the upperclassmen — I don't think anyone's earned more Credits than you."

Lu Yuan rubbed the back of his neck and gave the group a sheepish smile.

Just then, a hand went up farther down the aisle, and Si Tingfeng waved them over with a grin.

"Yuan, Maige — over here!"

The two brightened and made their way toward him.

As Lu Yuan passed, he spotted Si Tingxue seated quietly beside a window. She glanced up when she noticed him and gave a small, composed nod.

Seated beside Si Tingxue was a girl with striking features and a head of rare, short-cut orange hair. She stared at Si Tingxue with wide eyes, looked at Lu Yuan, looked back at Si Tingxue — her expression a portrait of absolute disbelief.

After Lu Yuan had passed, she leaned in close, voice pitched low with barely suppressed delight.

"Xiao Xue! You just nodded at him?! That has to be the first time you've ever acknowledged a boy! Not that I can blame you — Lu Yuan really is so handsome. And so impressive! He helped defend our Camp 306 for so long. I was going to try to make friends with him myself, but unfortunately... he only seemed to have eyes for you."

Si Tingxue's composed expression cracked. She shot the orange-haired girl a sharp glare.

"Not another word."

The girl flinched like a startled animal, let out a meek little "okay," and went very quiet.

Si Tingxue turned back to the window without comment. The tips of her ears had gone faintly, undeniably pink.

Lu Yuan and Maige settled into the row where Si Tingfeng had saved two seats.

"Specifically for you two. Sit down."

They sat. Si Tingfeng turned to study Lu Yuan with an odd look on his face.

The stare made Lu Yuan's skin crawl. He edged back slightly, crossed his arms in front of himself, and cleared his throat.

"Senior Si Tingfeng. For the record — I like girls. So I'm sorry, but you seem like a fine person, and that's as far as it goes."

Si Tingfeng's expression went stiff. He rolled his eyes, then laughed it off with an easy shrug.

"Yuan, I'll be honest — I'm a little envious of you right now. You really made a name for yourself this time. By military merit alone, you've probably earned more than every other student on this entire deployment. And you've only been enrolled for a month. I just... "

He shook his head and gave Lu Yuan a deliberate thumbs-up.

Beside him, Maige fixed Lu Yuan with an expression of profound suffering.

"Senior, please stop. I'm going to actually cry. During the entire Beast Tide, I was on logistics duty — all I could do was watch from the sidelines while Yuan ran wild with his Mechanical Guardians. My Credits this time are a complete write-off."

He exhaled in long, defeated despair.

Both Si Tingfeng and Lu Yuan looked at him with something close to sympathy.

Lu Yuan gave a dry cough.

"Senior, it wasn't your fault. It's just the nature of the situation."

After all, who could have predicted that an Assassin Type Gene Warrior would end up on logistics detail during a Beast Tide?

At any other camp, if Feral Beasts had broken through the walls, Assassin Type fighters would have had plenty of work. But not a single beast had so much as reached the base of Camp 257's walls, let alone breached them. There had simply been no opening for Maige to exploit.

He slumped back in his seat, face slack with resignation, and stopped talking.

As they chatted, the Owldragon Fighter lifted off to continue collecting students from the remaining defensive camps.

Once everyone had been gathered, the craft climbed into the sky and banked toward the capital.

The Talent Camp. The capital.

Five Owldragon Fighters settled onto the main plaza. Students and instructors filed out one by one — some talking and laughing, others grim-faced and silent, and a few with red-rimmed eyes and trembling lips.

Lu Yuan had learned during the flight that several Talent Camp students had, in fact, died during the Beast Tide.

Many more had sustained serious injuries, though those were less dire — with high-grade healing elixirs and Healer Type Gene Warriors available, even a severed limb could be reattached. Death was beyond any remedy.

Instructors had died as well, several of them. Unlike the students, every instructor had been stationed at the absolute front lines, facing King Grade and Emperor Grade Feral Beasts head-on. The danger they had endured was on an entirely different order.

When the full assembly had gathered, the gray-haired principal rose into the air and hovered above the crowd.

His face was pale, and his aura noticeably thinner than it had been when they had departed.

Maige muttered under his breath, "The principal looks like he got hurt. He should be at peak Battle Sovereign — and even he took damage?"

Si Tingfeng glanced over. "Word is he killed four Beast Sovereigns at the front."

"...That's terrifying. No wonder."

The revelation hit Maige with visible force. Lu Yuan looked up at the gray-haired figure with quiet awe.

Battle Sovereign — that was still a very long way off for him. He was still working his way toward Third-rank.

The principal's voice settled over the assembly with the weight of long-earned authority.

"This mission is concluded. With a few exceptions, you performed well during the Beast Tide. This is as it should be — you have not brought shame upon the Talent Camp's name. I trust that having lived through a Beast Tide firsthand, you now understand more clearly how brutal they can be, and how dangerous the Forbidden Zones truly are. You are the finest of the Red Maple Empire. Its future frontier defenses will rest on your shoulders. So I ask — do you have the resolve to carry that weight?"

After everything they had endured, a new edge had settled into the eyes of almost every student — harder and quieter, but unmistakably sharper.

Their answer rose as one voice.

"WE DO!"

The gray-haired elder nodded once, quietly satisfied.

"Regarding military merit rewards from this deployment — the Talent Camp has completed its tallies, and Credits will be distributed to everyone shortly. Before that, however, there is one student I wish to commend publicly."

The moment those words landed, nearly every head in the plaza turned toward Lu Yuan — a sea of complicated expressions: awe, envy, respect, and more than a trace of jealousy, accompanied by a rising undercurrent of murmurs.

Seeing the crowd's reaction, a rare smile crossed the principal's stern face as his gaze found Lu Yuan.

"It seems you already know. Yes — the student I wish to commend is our first-year student, Lu Yuan."

"Most of you are likely familiar with him by now, given that he entered the Combat Rankings at 25th place within his first month of enrollment. But what I am recognizing today is his conduct during the Beast Tide. He not only held Camp 257 against the full Beast Tide — not a single Feral Beast crossed its walls — and kept the casualty rate of the entire 257th Legion below three percent, but after Camp 257's Beast Tide had been resolved, he went on to assist six additional defensive camps in repelling their own assaults, indirectly saving the lives of a great many Guard Corps soldiers."

Several students who had caught only fragments of the story stared in stunned silence.

Every one of them had lived through a Beast Tide. They knew exactly what it meant to hold every beast outside the walls — to keep casualties below three percent.

It was beyond reason.

And that wasn't even everything — he had still had enough left to go help six other camps?

Was he even human?

"Conduct of this kind deserves recognition. Therefore, for this mission, student Lu Yuan will receive a reward of one and a half million Credits."

The plaza went dead silent.

Every eye in the crowd was wide, fixed on Lu Yuan in naked shock.

One and a half million Credits.

Even most King Grade instructors might never accumulate that much in a single deployment. And yet a first-year student was walking away with it all.

Then the silence shattered.

"What the hell — one and a half million Credits?! Do you know how much you could buy with that?!"

"Isn't that a bit excessive? Even given everything he did?"

"What are you talking about? That's seven defensive camps. He effectively saved tens of thousands of Guard Corps soldiers. And if those Beast Tides had pushed inland, the losses would have been catastrophic."

"Didn't Lu Yuan also sell a bunch of rare items when he first enrolled? Didn't he rack up a ton of Credits from that too?"

"If you add it all together... does that put him past two million?"

A buzz swept through the plaza, and more than a few sets of eyes drifted toward Lu Yuan with something almost covetous in them.

This first-year student, enrolled just one month ago, might well be the wealthiest student in the entire Talent Camp.

Lu Yuan himself was genuinely, pleasantly surprised.

He hadn't expected this much.

He had already held 892,500 Credits before the deployment. Adding 1,500,000 now put him well past two million — more than enough to purchase the spatial-type Flicker Transcendent Gene.

Once Flicker was inscribed, speed would no longer be a weakness. It would become one of his strengths.

All that remained was to wait for the Credits to hit his account.

Beside him, Si Tingfeng and Maige were watching him with barely concealed envy.

Maige especially — he could already tell his own tally was going to be grim, and with Lu Yuan's haul as the point of comparison, he was perilously close to actual tears.

"All right — you've all been through the wringer. Rest today. Dismissed."

The crowd began to disperse in small clusters toward the dormitory blocks.

Every person who walked past Lu Yuan stole at least a glance. Those who knew him well enough stopped to say a few words.

"Lu Yuan! Absolute legend!"

"Lu Yuan, with that many Credits, you're buying dinner for everyone!"

"Lu Yuan, what do you think — could this senior be your girlfriend?"

"..."

Lu Yuan bore it all with patient exasperation. *Still the same problem. Being too outstanding.*

Then Yang Ping came sprinting over.

"Brother Yuan! Senior Tingfeng! Senior Maige!"

"Hmm? Yang Ping — where were you just now?"

Yang Ping threw up his hands.

"My group flew back on a different craft! There are so many people in this plaza, I couldn't find any of you."

Then he turned to Lu Yuan, eyes practically glowing.

Lu Yuan's expression went flat the instant he saw that look.

"If you try to latch onto my coattails out here in front of everyone, I will personally make your life very difficult."

Yang Ping — who had clearly been on the verge of doing exactly that — froze mid-motion, then laughed awkwardly.

"Come on, Brother Yuan, how could I do something like that in public? But seriously, you really went all out this time — even stationed at the very rear of the defensive line, I was hearing stories about you everywhere. You have no idea how many Alchemist girls are your fans now. Oh, and for what it's worth — I am too!"

Carried along by Yang Ping's relentless enthusiasm, the group made their way back to the dormitories.