19 Academic Credits

The three friends sat down on the far right side of the classroom, halfway to the back. The main reason they sat there was the proximity to the main exit. They'd all been through enough large meetings like this to realize that if they weren't one of the first people out, they could waste half an hour trying to leave. They were so determined to get these seats that they'd arrived nearly an hour early completely negating the time saving by doing so, but at least they were sitting in comfortable chairs playing games on their phones and chatting instead of trying to force their way out of a sweaty, stinky crowd of overly loud teenagers.

They ignored the chatter around them as the room filled up, only moving to let people into the aisle and refusing to move over when asked. Finally, the hour passed and the recognizable squeak of Mr. Parker echoed through the room. "I'm sure you've heard about academic credits over the last few days, so we'll do a presentation on how to earn them, what you can buy with them, and the prizes for earning the most in your class."

As Mr. Parker spoke, the room slowly went silent as all the conversations came to an end and the lights dimmed. A deep voice John had never heard before started talking then. "Academic credits are what Gallandwell High uses as a currency in place of Federation Credits or mana stones."

The projection changed showing someone turning in several monsters at the hunter guild, putting his phone with an app opened on next to the cash register and the number displayed on the screen bumped up. "The fastest way to earn credits is to hunt monsters in the forest, however this option is not available to the vast majority of freshman. Members of the Hunter, Taming, and Defender Clubs can use their badge to get through the barrier surrounding the school at will, but everyone else can only leave when accompanied by sanctioned personnel on an approved trip. Like how during the Taming exam every examine was accompanied by an upperclassman."

As the voice spoke, the room erupted into loud yells of complaints until finally they couldn't hear the voice of the presenter. Mr. Donavon paused the presentation before yelling "QUIET DOWN!" the image of a massive dragon appearing behind him like it had during the orientation. The entire room went silent in an instant, before someone behind John whispered. "Damn, I think I shit myself."

John, Mike, Steven, and several others who'd heard burst into gales of laughter that were abruptly cut off when Mr. Parker glared at them.

"Good," Mr. Parker was back to talking in his normal squeaky voice. "No more interruptions!"

The video rewound thirty seconds and started playing again.

"Now, I'm sure most of you are wondering how you're supposed to earn credits if you aren't allowed to hunt in the forest. After all, less than 250 freshman are admitted to these three clubs every year, a small amount compared to the average of more than 1,500 students in every class. Worry not, there are several ways for you to earn academic credits without leaving the school grounds."

The screen changed again showing people taking tests, doing homework, fighting in a tournament, completing challenges at the Hunter's Club.

"The most obvious is exceptional performance in class. Any test with a 96% or higher will automatically earn you 5 academic credits. Every week there will be a tournament, with first place receiving 100 academic credits. There are training simulators in all the major clubs that reward you with credits for clearing each level. However, you only get credits the first time you clear a level and they become progressively more difficult the further you get."

The scene changed again to show a massive room with 5 different boards covered in forms. "This is the mission room, it's located in the administration building across the street. There are 5 boards, 1 for each year and a final one for the elites. Don't try to take a mission you aren't qualified to take, instead of allowing you to go on the mission the computer will instead dock you academic credits and notify your adviser of your overconfidence. If your adviser thinks you're strong enough to take a more difficult mission he or she will tell you themselves."

The screen changed again to show a page on a website, there were names with numbers constantly changing next to them. "This is the school ranking page, it can be found at www.gallandwellhigh.******.*****.*** here, you can download the app that'll allow you to buy and sell goods at school, find your overall rank, rank within your year, club, etc..."

"The highest person on the overall ranking will receive a prize from the principal himself, the prize is a secret. The 2nd place will receive a high-level spirit tool and potion of their choice from the Maker's Club. Third place will receive a high-level spirit tool or potion of their choice from the Maker's Club. The top person of the each grade will receive 5,000 academic credits, with prizes going to everyone on the top 100 list."

The image changed again, showing a shop within the Maker's Club. "Here, you can use academic credits to buy spirit-tools, potions, armor, ammunition, supplies, materials, etc... You can also sell your own creations to the store or by consignment through the store."

The image changed showing the first basement of the Hunters Club, "Here you can sell and buy monster parts."

The image changed showing the Tamers Club, "Here you can pay to have members of the taming club teach you about taming, or to enter special cultivation rooms usually used for elemental monsters to evolve that may help with your cultivation."

By this point John had learned all he needed too, so he stopped paying attention. Taking his phone out and went to the webpage and downloaded the app. Looking at his personal score, he was surprised to find that he'd already made 1,000 credits. Clicking on his name, it showed he'd earned 200 credits for successfully testing out of every history, math, science, and literature class, another 500 for making it into the Tamer's Club, and another 300 for reaching the 1st level of Body Refining.

Leaning over he showed his phone to Mike and Steven who quickly dug their own phones out. Steven had 1,000 credits like me, while Mike had yet to begin cultivation because he hadn't made his rifle yet only had 700. Looking at the list, John was surprised to find nearly 30 people were tied for first place with 1,000 credits. Looks like getting first place was going to be harder than he thought.

Half an hour later the meeting came to an end and thanks to their positioning they were out of the room in an instant. "What now?" Mike asked.

"I'm free for the rest of the day." Steven said, and John nodded in agreement.

"Want to check out the store?" Mike asked.

With nothing better to do, the three of them walked to the Makers Club, using their club badge's they were allowed in without the usual check to make sure they had credits. "These things are so useful!" John said.

"No kidding," Steven said, "I went over to the mission room last night and the only reason they let me in was I showed them my badge."

"Really, what where the missions like?" John asked in surprise.

"Most of the freshman ones are stuff around the school, like there was one to help set up a temporary shooting range yesterday for 40 credits. I would've taken that one just cause it's fun to set up a shooting range but it was already too late. Another was for watching the special cultivation rooms during the day, those are in 1 hour blocks so students can sign up for them between classes. Those usually go for 10 credits an hour."

"Any involve hunting?" Steven asked, uninterested in the chump change since he already had 1,000 credits and the ability to go outside the barrier at will.

"Yep, the best part being that we can check our weapons out at will now since we're in the Hunters Club." Mike had a giant smile on his face, happy to be reunited with his beloved rifle. "There are collection missions for specific types of monsters and monster cores. Usually they only offer missions for the rarer ones like elemental cores. Those go anywhere from 100 to several thousand credits. I saw that the Senior missions pay thousands of credits at a minimum."

"That makes since, look at that high-level spirit rifle it costs nearly 10,000,000 credits."

"Of course it costs a lot, that's a Core Formation level weapon." Someone said from behind, and we turned to find another freshman wearing the Maker's Club badge standing behind us. Despite being in Body Refining he still needed glasses for some reason, and his body was so skinny John was worried he was suffering from starvation.

"Are you alright?" Steven asked in concern. "Do you need some food? I have a energy bar on me."

The guy just glared at Steven before saying, "I'm fine, this is a side effect of my cultivation. I'll be back to normal in an hour or so."

John whistled at that, "I thought I had it bad with the full body sun burns and burst eardrums. I'm John." He said, holding out his hand.

"Chris," He said, pushing his glasses back up after he shook John's hand, "and you have no idea. I should never have decided to become a Body Cultivator, but it's almost required if you want to be a Spirit Forger."

"What's with the glasses?" Mike asked, "I thought breaking through to Body Refining fixed all problems with eye sight."

"Another side-effect of my cultivation, takes about an hour to get back to normal. Anyway, what can I help you guys with."

"We're just looking around, figured we should check out what's available before start hunting and accepting missions." John said, moving to look at a sweet pair of pistols that only cost 10,000 credits.

"These are upgradeable low-level Spirit Pistols. They are specially made for soul cultivators, able to fire both regular ammunition and Soul Energy." Chris said, still messing with his glasses.

"Damn!" John said, "How hard are these to upgrade?"

"Not bad, only costs 40,000 credits to upgrade to mid-level which should last until you reach the Core Formation stage if you gather all the materials. 250,000 if you don't."

"Got any gun-blades like these?" John asked, remembering how cool Sam's weapon looked.

"No, those are special orders and frankly they look awesome but function incredibly poorly." Chris said, taking his glasses off with a sigh of relief as his emaciated form suddenly filled out, looking as if he'd gained half an inch in height and 60 pounds of muscles. Folding his glasses, he pulled out a case to put them in as he said in a suddenly deeper voice, "The gun-blade is incredibly unreliable and expensive. It costs nearly 100,000 credits just to get a low-level one, and they have a tendency to break every other time you use them. Between repair costs and the special ammo you're forced to buy most wind up spending more money maintaining the weapon than they make hunting."