Chapter 278: Dragonfly Touch~
Chapter 278: Dragonfly Touch~
She suddenly crawled over to Hikaru's side. Under his confused gaze, she leaned in and planted a soft, quick kiss on his cheek.
It was just a brief touch, like a dragonfly skimming the water, but it left ripples in its wake. The soft, warm lips, carrying a faint fragrance, left Hikaru's pupils dilated in shock.
After the kiss, Sakura's mood instantly brightened. The smile at the corner of her mouth was something she couldn't suppress even if she tried.
"Big brother, I'm leaving now~ Don't do anything naughty at night~"
She gave him a mischievous smile, then grabbed the dazed Latias and slipped out of the tent, leaving behind a dumbfounded Hikaru.
It took him a good while to snap out of it. Touching the spot on his cheek where the kiss landed, he could only sigh helplessly...
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The night passed in restless silence.
When Hikaru finally crawled out of his tent the next morning, there were faint dark circles under his eyes. Clearly, he hadn't slept well.
Outside, Sakura and Latias were already up.
"Good morning, big brother!"
The girl greeted him cheerfully, as if she had completely forgotten what had happened the previous night.
Latias, seeing Sakura greet him, followed suit and greeted softly, "Good morning, Hikaru."
"Morning..." Hikaru waved weakly, letting out a sigh.
After casually eating some breakfast, Hikaru summoned all his Pokémon, fed them some energy cubes, and returned them to their Poké Balls.
Dreaming was paused for now, given the restrictions in the secret realm.
With breakfast out of the way, Latias once again became their trusty transportation, carrying both Hikaru and Sakura as they continued searching for more Changchun fruit trees.
The freshman training was said to last two days, but for some students, it effectively lasted less than a day.
They had to leave enough time to find the exit of the secret realm, since the entry points were random but the exit was fixed.
If they didn't make it to the exit in time, the school would confiscate 75% of their gathered resources.
As they searched, they finally found another red-flowered tree by noon.
Unfortunately, it was guarded by a group of Kangaskhan, many of which were at the master level.
Moreover, the tree was only 52 years old, with just a dozen or so fruits on it.
After a bit of thought, Hikaru decided it wasn't worth the effort.
By evening, about half an hour before the deadline, they reached the secret realm's exit.
Since they were early, the exit area was already crowded with people—mostly freshmen, with a few upperclassmen scattered around.
The exit was a vast open area, large enough to accommodate the growing crowd.
As Hikaru walked through, he couldn't help but overhear the complaints and grumbles from the gathered students.
"These upperclassmen are really scummy—just camping at the exit to rob us newbies. So shameless!"
"Right? I've been on edge the whole time, thinking I could finally relax when I got here, but no—they're right at the exit!"
"How much did they take from you?"
"About a quarter of my stash..."
"Consider yourself lucky. I lost half. Should I be thankful they left me with anything at all?"
"Man, I had a 50-year Changchun fruit, and they snatched it right from me!"
"Fifty years?! Lucky... and unlucky at the same time..."
"That sucks, dude..."
Everywhere Hikaru turned, he heard stories of frustration and loss.
It wasn't hard to understand—the gap between freshmen and upperclassmen was too vast.
Only a few of the most powerful or cunning freshmen managed to escape the grasp of the older students.
Ironically, Hikaru was hoping someone would try to rob him.
That would give him a legitimate reason to fight back!
He even had Latias slow down a bit, circling the area a few times to bait someone into making a move.
But to his disappointment, none of the upperclassmen dared to approach him.
Seeing that it was Hikaru, they all backed off without a word.
As the sun dipped lower, more and more students gathered near the exit.
The spacious flat area gradually filled with people.
Finally, as the last half hour passed, a Rotom flew into the sky, attracting everyone's attention.
"Beep! Beep! Connection established... Please pay attention!
All students, please prepare for evaluation. Teachers and the student council will now assess the collected Changchun fruits.
The group with the most collected fruits will receive a special reward from the school!"
The announcement left the students buzzing with excitement.
Right after, a group of students in black suits and a few teachers appeared from the exit.
It seemed they had a way to teleport directly to the designated spot.
Multiple Rotoms began organizing the students into dozens of long lines.
The evaluation process was simple: students would display their collected Changchun fruits, and the Rotoms would scan and calculate the energy value.
The student council members would record the data.
The whole process was efficient since most freshmen only had around a hundred fruits at most.
"Ye Tian, 450..."
"Han Feng, 563..."
Hikaru noticed that most freshmen's collections had fairly low energy values.
The rare 30-year-old fruits were few and far between.
The real impressive numbers were coming from the upperclassmen.
"Yue Ming, 35,236!"
"Wu Yu, 48,562!"
The upperclassmen were beaming with pride, chatting animatedly about their harvests.
"This year's freshmen are pretty good—I managed to snatch almost 2,000 fruits, half of which were over 30 years old! Even after giving 70% to the school, I'll still have a nice stash!"
"Heh, I didn't do as well this year—barely got 3,000. My total score's only around 54,000."
"Show-off! Get lost!"
"Hey... where's Shawn Quinn? Usually, he's the most ruthless with the freshmen. Didn't he say he was aiming to take the top spot this year?"
"Wait a minute... where's his space backpack?"
The mention of Shawn Quinn's absence made several upperclassmen look around in confusion.
Hikaru couldn't help but smirk, recalling how he had "relieved" Shawn Quinn of that very backpack.
If only they knew...
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