A month passed pretty quickly for Ning as he didn't have much to do in the academy.
For now, he simply went to his classes, joined Tenn for some training, and spent his free time earning some credits.
He had spent his credits a few times in the academy restaurant to eat some good food, but aside from that, he hadn't been able to use it much.
With what he was taught in the classes, he didn't find the need to immediately go to the library either.
Ning's improvement in his Essence rank had slowed down a lot as well. With the absence of the fruit and the crystals, he could only rely on the moonlight to aid him in absorbing pure Essence, and that was never really that helpful at all.
With how slow the Twin Moon absorption technique was, it would take him forever to reach the next rank which was the Essence Manifestation realm.
Fortunately, he wouldn't have to continue absorbing the moonlight forever.
Ning heard a knock on the door of his dorm room early in the morning one day. "There's someone by the door, get it," he said half asleep.
He had been absorbing essence all night and had only fallen asleep close to dawn, so he was still in deep sleep.
However, after the knocking lasted more than a few times, he got up and looked at Kaleb who was snoring in his bed.
Ning felt the urge to choke him right then and there but quickly shook his head as the person outside continued to knock.
"Goddammit, this is my day off. Let me sleep," he spoke to himself before going over to open the door.
Outside was a middle-aged man that seemed to be from the academy based on the man's clothes.
"Is your roommate around?" the middle-aged man asked.
"Yes," Ning said, half awake without even turning around to look at Kaleb who was still snoring. "Do you need me to wake him up?"
He really hoped that was the case as that would give him permission to ruin his sleep.
"Yes," the man said. "You guys have a package waiting for you in the parcel room. Make sure to relay the information to your roommate."
"Alright," Ning said and closed the door.
He walked back into the room and looked at Kaleb with drowsy eyes. Without hesitation, he kicked the bed as hard as he could without breaking it.
Kaleb felt the bed shake like an earthquake and quickly got up.
"What? What?" he shouted as he looked around, only to find the disheveled Ning standing over him.
"What?" he asked.
"We have packages," Ning said. "It's in the parcel room."
After saying that, Ning went over to his bed and fell asleep. He woke up sometime later around noon and found the room empty.
Kaleb seemed to have gone to his class. Their breaks never overlapped so one would always be in class while the other had a free day.
"Gosh, I'm hungry," Ning thought. The cafeteria would still have food, but for some reason, he wanted the tastier food from the restaurant this time around.
He looked at his student card which had a number written on the back.
32.
That was the number of credits he had gathered in the last month, including the 20 free credits one got at the start of the academy.
He had performed multiple types of tasks to reach that number in just 8 free days he had had until now, so he was quite proud of it.
"I should treat myself to something tasty," he thought.
As he opened the door to leave, he remembered the package he had gotten. "Right, must be from Clara," he thought and left the dorm.
The package could wait, so he instead went over to the restaurant. He really wanted some rice this time around, so he got himself a bowl of rice with a variety of sides. It all cost him just 1 credit, so he was quite happy about it.
He took his time eating the meal and only left nearly 20 minutes later when he was finished.
By now, it was close to 2 from what he could tell. He wondered if he should go to get some mission so he could earn some credit to balance out the one he spent today.
'I'll decide that after I see what sort of package I've been sent,' he thought and went over to the parcel room.
"Ning… Ning… Ning… uh, here you go," a girl who was working in the room found the package that was for Ning. The package he was sent was wrapped in some nice-looking paper and was hard to the touch as well.
Just from holding it, Ning could tell that it was most likely some sort of wood on the inside.
Not only that, he could sense some Essence on the inside as well now that he was holding it. However, that wasn't very important from what he could tell as almost all of the packages in the parcel room had some sort of Essence in them.
Almost everyone who had a family member studying here wanted their child to have an easy time, so they sent some sort of essence treasure to help them.
Ning looked at the package in the room for a bit before noticing something weird. "Excuse me, was this how it was when it got here?" he asked, pointing at a portion of the package that seemed to have been ripped off.
"Hmm? Oh, the teachers open everyone's package to check if there is something on the inside that may be harmful to the student," the girl explained.
"Ah, I see," Ning said. 'Hope those bastards didn't steal anything inside.'
He went back to his room where he finally was free to open the package. He tore open the outer layer and revealed a wooden box inside, just as he had expected.
He opened that too and finally saw the contents of the box.
