As long as he stayed at school, Su Cha was safe and secure. The chaos of the outside world couldn’t touch him.
Avoiding the sun, he moved along the walls beneath the eaves. When he reached the lakeside, he once again encountered the principal—still in the same spot, doing the same thing.
Su Cha walked over and stood beside him, his gaze drifting with the ripples on the water as he slowly said, “I’ve had an epiphany.”
Receiving no response, he continued, “The records say that strange beasts reproduce rapidly and often practice cannibalism. Because there are far more males than females, many beasts die each year fighting over mates.”
The principal’s expression finally changed slightly.
The raincoat shimmered faintly in the light, casting a glow over his porcelain-like skin. Su Cha looked like a holy figure straight out of a manga. “I can totally use this to my advantage—force them into heat early and let them fight each other.”
By the end, his eyes were sparkling. “It’ll be super effective—turning strange beasts into, well, beasts.”
A fish that had nearly been hooked suddenly splashed back into the water.
The principal turned his head and looked at Su Cha for the first time. “Who gave you that idea?”
Su Cha paused. “Didn’t you ask me to observe the lake yesterday? At the time, two swans were fighting over a mate. Same logic—the strange beasts may be a thousand times stronger, but they still can’t escape primal urges.”
Silence fell.
After a while, the principal said coldly, “Has it occurred to you that I was trying to show you that spiritual power isn’t only for fighting—that it can be used like a thread to fish. Similarly, it can be used to grow plants.”
“….”
Now it was Su Cha’s turn to be silent.
With a wave of his hand, the principal returned all the fish in the bucket to the lake.
Sensing that the principal wanted to talk more, Su Cha picked up the bucket and followed him.
“To the empire, your ability is extremely valuable—if it awakens successfully.” The two strolled along the lakeside. The principal wasn’t as tall as Yise, but he carried a steady presence, and his authority was no less impressive.
“Too much expectation can ruin you. Like Yise, I believe there’s no need to go around showcasing your talent before it’s fully awakened. On that point, you’ve done well.”
Whether or not his pharmacology skills would amount to anything remained to be seen, but at least he had the foresight to think outside the box.
But Su Cha picked up on something else—most people addressed Yise by title, but the principal used his name. He must hold a very high status.
And yet, such a person was the principal of the affiliated school, not the First Military Academy.
“If the mechanical glove identified my power as healing-type, does that mean the plants I grow could also have healing properties?”
The principal gave a faint smirk, as if he’d heard something a bit naïve or childish.
To be fair, this wasn’t Su Cha’s fault—the whole field was still new to him.
“The mechanical glove’s classification is relative. ‘Healing’ in this case refers more to something like a sedative—psychological comfort.”
Su Cha stopped walking and quickly caught on. That type of ability worked on emotions—if an enraged person were forcibly soothed, their fighting spirit and combat ability would sharply decline.
Taking it further, if that power was amplified enough, it might even force someone into a peaceful, detached mindset instantly.
By the time Su Cha came back to his senses, the principal had vanished, leaving only the stifling summer wind brushing his face.
Having had this breakthrough, Su Cha felt his vision expand. On the way back, he dropped by the library and realized his previous ideas had been too limited. The applications of spiritual power were broader than he had imagined.
For example, over a hundred years ago, the empire had a mystic-type awakened individual who could manipulate people with their singing. More recently, a student at the First Military Academy was beloved by small animals after awakening. Instead of using this for good, he trained rats to steal classified files and got expelled earlier this year.
“80YearOldBringingIllnessToTheBattlefield” was a reliable seller. While Su Cha was still reading in the library, he received a prompt from the platform: his items were ready for pickup.
He rushed back to his dorm, where the drone had been waiting on the balcony for a while.
After confirming receipt, Su Cha happily signed off.
Taking off his raincoat, a floral fragrance once again filled the air.
Maybe his spiritual power was still too weak—Su Cha tried several times before barely sensing anything. Compared to fighting, simply controlling spiritual power was even harder. The stronger the spiritual power, the harder it was to balance. Someone like the principal, who could form mental threads to fish without alerting the fish, had reached an incredibly refined level.
But Su Cha believed he could get there too.
He had a natural advantage—his spiritual power was already weak, like a “barely there thread.”
He replanted the seeds. This time, Su Cha decided to make changes from the very beginning.
Closing his eyes, he gently let his faint spiritual power cover the flowerpot. The careful control drained his strength—his hands trembled. He didn’t know how much time passed, but eventually, he thought he heard the faint sound of a sprout breaking through the soil. When he opened his eyes, a tiny green tip had emerged from the dirt.
It should have been an exciting moment, but Su Cha’s eyes dimmed a little. He had to steady himself on the railing to avoid collapsing.
“This body…”
So weak it was laughable, even to himself.
Still, Su Cha’s resolve to cultivate the Overlord Flower hadn’t changed. He was just going to wrap this incredibly toxic “Gu King” in a holy and peaceful disguise.
Highly poisonous, yet calming—what a perfect combo.
While resting, his attention turned to the tiger pelt grass that had just arrived. It was a plant known to have aphrodisiac effects.
Special plants needed to be registered, but tiger pelt grass didn’t—just like catnip for cats, it had no effect on humans.
Su Cha wasn’t the first to try using this method, but up until now, the results had been limited. Strange beasts, when trying to suppress their instincts, often became more aggressive and more dangerous.
Su Cha didn’t have that concern.
The Overlord Flower could be paired with the tiger pelt grass—whenever it got too agitated, the herb could be used to soothe it.
“What a pity,” he sighed.
If he were strong enough, he truly wanted to try using his spiritual power directly on a beast in a face-to-face confrontation. At his current level, he could only rely on indirect means.
After successfully triggering the seed’s growth, Su Cha went to the supermarket to buy some super-powered fertilizer.
In the interstellar era, this stuff was typically used for crops, but in small amounts, it had similar effects on flowers and plants.
The first to sprout was the Overlord Flower. Its leaves secreted toxic substances constantly; the sticky sap emitted a faint scent similar to Su Cha’s own, attracting a few mosquitoes from outside.
As soon as they got close, two mosquitoes dropped dead instantly. Their bodies melted into the leaf, which was already starting to absorb them.
Seeing this, Su Cha smiled. The stronger its devouring ability, the smoother the cultivation of the “Gu King” flower would go.
To further enhance its toxicity, Su Cha geared up and went downstairs with full protective measures.
Li Huai was reading a military newspaper. When he saw Su Cha wearing thick gloves completely unsuited for summer, he folded the paper and gave him an extra glance.
Su Cha spoke first: “Reporting to the instructor, I’m going to catch spiders.”
While out walking, he had noted the spots where several venomous spiders had spun their webs.
“……”
Su Cha dashed off, leaving Li Huai with an indescribable expression on his face.
Weak as he was, his body was still agile. Catching a spider was no problem. People naturally liked using familiar means—in the past, Su Cha had habitually relied on his thin demonic energy, but today he actively used spiritual power instead.
There was no telling when his demonic energy would return, but spiritual power—however weak—could grow with age.
Many of the empire’s high-tech devices required spiritual power to operate. Mastering its use would bring him only benefits.
Spiders moved quickly. Su Cha chased one with his spiritual power, missing several times before finally piercing the venomous spider’s abdomen. Victorious, he returned to the dorm. In the admin room, Li Huai glanced over and twitched his brow.
He’d actually gone and caught a spider.
Su Cha’s first act after returning was to use spiritual power to shatter the dead spider. This kind of brute-force manipulation came more easily to him than coaxing seeds to sprout.
The Overlord Flower seemed to prefer live prey; it took some time before it began to devour the spider’s corpse.
Su Cha loosened the soil in the other pots, preparing to sprout the seeds of more poisonous plants later. The sun had baked the soil dry during the day, so he picked up a spray bottle and began carefully watering each pot.
“You must grow up soon.”
Su Cha gazed tenderly at the Overlord Flower and the tiger pelt grass, the way a devoted father might look at his children.
The sunset cast long shadows. Ji Tianjin had just emerged from the combat room, every muscle in his body radiating exhaustion. There’s no such thing as a bloodless match—he swallowed the blood in his mouth and walked back without expression.
After a full day of training, even the soft glow of the evening sun seemed to turn to blood in his eyes.
As if sensing something, Ji Tianjin looked up. On the third-floor balcony ahead, Su Cha was bent over, watering the flowers. Without his raincoat, his silver hair fluttered lightly in the breeze.
When Su Cha straightened up and set down the spray bottle, he saw Ji Tianjin behind the building and smiled at him.
Ji Tianjin paused in his steps.
That gentle and peaceful scene seemed completely out of place in such a brutal world.
Many people at school looked down on Su Cha. On one hand, people from Galan Star disliked overly fragile individuals. On the other, Su Cha had entered through connections, and no matter what class he was assigned to, he was seen as a burden.
So they pitied Su Cha for being a test subject—but they also rejected him.
Ji Tianjin, however, had a favorable impression of him. Su Cha would hide in the stairwell to study his books and tended to the plants with great care.
When fragile beauty gains resilience, it’s no longer looked down upon.
This kind of deceptively serene image could easily fool people—and Ji Tianjin wasn’t the first to pause because of it. Not long after, Rong Shao, returning from the repair room association and fiddling with parts in his hands, looked up by chance and saw Su Cha carefully shielding his flowerpots from the wind.
Oh, mama—an angel!
