Berserk Gu.
"What do you think, elders? Personally, I believe we shouldn't implement something like that." Elder Shui Xin Xiao said to the other two people in the room with him. It was the middle of the night, after the alliance meeting had concluded. The three academy elders had gathered to discuss how to make the younger generations of the alliance work together more efficiently and avoid hindering each other in the future.
"Hmmm, yes, a competition among the youth within the same tribe helps to tighten their bonds because they already share the same blood and have an existing connection. While the competitions and rankings might create some tension, it won't significantly harm their relationships when they cooperate in the future. However, if we hold these competitions among the youth of the three tribes, it will be a disaster in the making. The conflicts and tensions from these competitions will eventually turn into hostility, and we don't want that. So, I agree with Elder Shui Xin Xiao." Elder Ma Ru Da analyzed and spoke, careful not to miss any point.
"So, what can we do to help them bond more and, at the same time, reward them for their achievements without making the other youth feel discriminated against?" Elder Lin Lou summarized their problem but provided no answer.
"Maybe we can put them into teams?" Elder Ru Da suggested.
"Go on." Elder Lin Lou gestured for him to explain.
"If we can't pit them against each other in competition, why not put them into teams? We can ensure that no team has all members from the same tribe." Elder Ru Da explained.
"Hmmm, that's a good idea. We could even expand on it in the future and create similar teams when they finish the academy." Elder Shui Xin Xiao added.
"What about the current teams? They won't be able to recruit any students that way. Won't they be mad?" Elder Lin Lou addressed the main issue in this scenario.
"Yes, but why keep the teams as they are? Why not implement this with the older generations too? Most of them won't reach rank 3 by the time of the war and will have to fight in mixed teams anyway. We shouldn't just focus on the younger generations, as the alliance leaders suggested." Elder Ru Da proposed, suggesting a complete overhaul of the tribes' teams.
"As absurd as it may seem, we should do that. However, we shouldn't implement it all at once like we will with the younger generations. The older generations already have a system and are content with it. If we change it suddenly, they won't cooperate with us, and worse, they may start to alienate the other tribes even more." Elder Lin Lou agreed.
"Okay, these are good ideas, but we should just suggest them to the other elders responsible for giving missions and managing teams. We should fully focus on the younger generations. After we distribute them into teams, what do we do next?" Elder Shui Xin Xiao brought them back to their main problem.
"Yes, now we should either give them missions, make them compete with each other, or consider other suggestions." Elder Lin Lou said.
"Why not both?" Elder Ru Da proposed.
"Oh, that would solve the problems that competition alone might bring and benefit all the teams, not just the winners. That's it, we should do that." Elder Shui Xin Xiao exclaimed in approval.
After discussing further and adjusting their plans, they agreed to implement these changes once a considerable number of students reached the middle stage. This way, the students would have had some training and would be stronger. Regarding the rewards for the missions and competitions, the alliance leaders had already agreed to go all out, especially for the students who showed remarkable skills and talent.
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In the middle of the forest, a youngster faced a beast. The beast was barely taller than him, its slender body swaying left and right with the wind. Its yellow-red fur blazed like the hot sun, and its deep black eyes stared at the youth in front of it. The youth's eyes were closed, and his short, messy black hair fluttered in the wind. When he opened his eyes, his blue irises shone with brilliance. He stared at the beast without fear and then began walking towards it.
The beast was startled for a second, but then, sensing the danger from the youth, it moved forward with inhuman speed. The youth stopped, seemingly reconsidering his choices. Suddenly, his blue irises turned blood-red. The beast reappeared in front of him and tried to bite his head off in one go. As if anticipating the attack, he dodged with a step to the side. The beast attempted to overwhelm him with speed again, but the youth was even faster now. With just one move, he was already in front of it. He retracted his hand and, with all his strength coming from his hips, delivered a simple punch to the beast's abdomen. It couldn't shake him off and had no choice but to stomach the punch, well, it thought it could take it. It couldn't.
Ma Rue Bu stared at the beast's body in front of him. There was a fist-sized hole in its abdomen, still twitching with blood pouring out profusely, until it eventually lay still like a piece of wood.
"Hmm, even though the red cheetah is just a regular beast, it's still a formidable opponent that mortals can't contend with. I might have been able to defeat it without the Berserk Gu's help, but I definitely wouldn't have been in such good condition afterward. It only used 10% of my jade green primeval essence, and that amount will decrease as I advance in stages. However, it doesn't last long—barely five minutes—and I have to activate it again. So, if I rely solely on the Berserk Gu, I would eventually run out of primeval essence in an hour or so, considering my regeneration speed. Of course, I'll be using other Gu worms in the future too, and I would run out of primeval essence even quicker, but that will be less of a problem at higher stages. All in all, it's a good Gu worm."
This wasn't the first time he had tried it today, he had been training like that all morning since there was no academy today, for some unknown reason. In the beginning, he was impressed and thought it to be an overpowered Gu worm, but it wasn't even close to that. Besides all the drawbacks in the time it provided or how hard it was to get used to the sudden outburst of strength, after repeated usage, he started to feel a headache.
"This Gu stimulates my whole body's muscles and even enhances my reflexes. With repeated usage, it must have caused some damage. That's why Rue Sa said I would need to use a healing Gu after intense fights, even if I wasn't injured. He must have known this drawback. But still, after using it like this all day, it just gave me minor damage. Maybe the higher its rank, the more damage it will cause, but for me right now, it's just fine. And besides all of that, its food is blood. While it can eat any blood, it's more efficient if you feed it your blood. Well, that's what the list of Gu worms said back then. I don't know how true that is exactly."
After he depleted all his primeval essence again, he collected the corpses of all the beasts he had killed and went back to the tribe. Even though the corpses were somewhat damaged, they were still mortal material, and materials equaled primeval essence stones.
"I won't say no to even a quarter of a primeval essence stone."
"Tomorrow is the final fight of the week. I wonder how many students succeeded in refining their Gu worms in time. It would be hilarious if there aren't more than 50. But it's already generous of me to assume 50 students are going to succeed. I bet the elder is going to be furious. I look forward to it." There were less than 50 students with C-grade talent and just 4 with B-grade. The rest of the 312 students were D-grades, and he wasn't confident any of them would succeed.
"Even if some managed to do it, they wouldn't have any time to train with it. I don't even think the C-grades will have the time I had, let alone the D-grades. Tomorrow is going to be fun. I bet Long Mei is going to challenge me, if he managed to win against whoever is going to win 4th place between Chen Cheng and Dong Min. I actually have no idea. If it was just close combat, it would definitely be Dong Min, but considering I don't even know what Gu they chose, it's hard to predict....." He started analyzing the situation of the final fights on his way to the tribe, attempting to predict the outcome of the matches in advance. The night was dark, and he walked through the forest with blood all over his body and a bag full of dead animals, painting a truly horrific sight in the forest.