"May I know what fellow student Pang Jing has for us?" Muyou turned as he forced out a smile on his face.

"Oh it's nothing much, I just wanted to ask if you want to join my faction?" Pang Jing gave a warm smile.

"Faction?" Yiqi was puzzled at Pang Jing's invitation.

Before Pang Jing could reply, Hai Cheng immediately replied.

"Young master Pang Jing is inviting you two to join his faction in Panther Academy! If you join his faction, you will have his protection and backing. After graduation, you will even be in his unit. Young master Pang Jing's father holds the status of Knight and has the title "Protector of the South" conferred by the royal court. The Pang clan has been one of the leading noble clans in the Southern Province and his father is the indisputable military figure in the Southern Province. If his father says one, no other general dares to say two. So the military unit formed by young master Pang Jing after graduation is going to be the top military unit in Southern Province. Following him, your future as a Panther Guard is going to be limitless."

Hai Cheng said all of this in one breath, and the more he said the more excited he became. It was as if he believed Pang Jing to be his God or his saviour.

Pang Jing obviously kept quiet and simply closed his eyes as he listened to Hai Cheng rambled on. If he was to say such stuff about himself, he would appear to be shameless. However if Hai Cheng was the one to say such stuff about Pang Jing, he would not refute it and just appreciate these praises. This was what made Hai Cheng such a good underling.

"So you want us to be your underling?" Muyou asked as he raised his eyebrow.

"No no no... Underling is such a distasteful word. I am simply asking if you are willing to be my follower? I assure you if you two were to join my faction, you two will only stand to gain and not lose out in anyway." Pang Jing courteously replied.

Before Muyou or Yiqi could reply, Hai Cheng added in, "Do not forget his father is the Protector of the South, the most powerful general here. Moreover, Young Master Pang Jing is the heir of the Pang Clan, sooner or later he will achieve the title of the Knight. His faction already has more than 40 people and many students are still requesting to join."

Muyou rolled his eyes when he heard Hai Cheng's shameless promotion.

"Sorry young master Pang Jing, we are not looking to join any faction. We appreciate your kind intentions but we are afraid we..." Muyou rejected politely.

"No rush no rush." Pang Jing interjected. "Go back and take a few days to think about this. You will soon see that joining my faction will have its benefits even in the Panther Academy."

"Thanks then, we will consider about it." Muyou and Yiqi then swiftly turned and leave. This time round, they were relieved that nobody stopped their departure.

"Young Master Pang Jing, I am so sorry for failing the task!" After Muyou and Yiqi's departure, Hai Cheng hurriedly went before Pang Jing and knelt down.

"It is alright, at least we managed to scout both of their strength. We have an unexpected harvest instead." Pang Jing let out a sinister smile.

"Hai Cheng, from now on do not create any trouble with the both of them. If I were to find out that the two of them join other factions because of you creating trouble for the both of them..." Pang Jing's face became stern as he stared intently at Hai Cheng.

"I understand! I understand!" Hai Cheng frantically tried to assure Pang Jing. Although he had some enmity with Muyou and Yiqi, he would never dare to disobey Pang Jing. He was not so dumb to incur the wrath of Pang Jing over some personal conflicts. All he had to do was to avoid Muyou and Yiqi until they joined Pang Jing's faction. Then as the "senior" he would gladly discipline them.

Muyou and Yiqi who had already departed, were relieved that they could finally start hunting for the balls.

They spent a few hours searching for balls, but could only find a few balls. They searched high and low, but only found 5 balls in those few hours.

"All of the balls must have been taken by other students. It is all Hai Cheng and Pang Jing's fault. If they did not delay us, our result would not have been so miserable... Even that 10 balls are not enough for compensation." Muyou was quite gloomy.

"It is alright, we still have a few more hours. Let's just speed up the pace of our search." Yiqi tried to be optimistic.

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Just as they were conducting their search, they saw a small group of 3 students.

"Hey fellow students! How are the both of your search?" One of the students called out when they saw Muyou and Yiqi.

"Not bad not bad." Muyou gave a short reply. He was very cautious with his words around unfamiliar faces now. Who knew if they were another noble student or some petty student, if Muyou were to say anything more than necessary, he might be embroiled in another complicated situation.

"I see, which faction are you in?" The student asked.

"Oh?" Muyou was surprised the student would ask about faction. Was this student going to invite Muyou and Yiqi to his faction? It seems like faction was the hottest thing in Panther Academy right now.

"We are not in any faction." Yiqi calmly replied.

"I see..." The student muttered as he slowly revealed a sinister smile.

Suddenly the 3 students dispersed and surrounded Muyou and Yiqi.

"Since that is the case, then we will have to ask that you hand over your balls. If you hand over your balls, we will let you off." The student threatened Muyou and Yiqi.

"Weren't we just supposed to hunt for balls? Isn't this against the rules of this event? Just let us go our separate ways, this will make things less complicated for both parties" Muyou tried to reason with the students.

"Rules?! Hahahaha! Didn't you hear Head Instructor Wang's briefing? There are only two rules and none of them consist of fighting. As long as we don't kill you, nothing will happen to us." The student scoffed at Muyou.

"Moreover, I don't think that things are complicated at all. In fact, the situation is pretty simple. There are 3 of us and 2 of you. So hand over your balls and you can go away unharmed." The student was very confident in their numerical advantages.

"Hmmmm..." Muyou started to rub his fist. "Since you put it this way, we do not have to hold ourselves back then. Yiqi lets go!"

With this shout, Muyou and Yiqi sprang towards the students.

This action caught the students off-guard. They had always been the ones to seize the initiative to attack. Furthermore, they had saw Muyou and Yiqi diligently searching for the balls in every nook and cranny. Thus, they were confident that Muyou and Yiqi were not fellow robbers like them.

Within a few minutes, Muyou and Yiqi had already sent the 3 students sprawling on the ground and letting out miserable groans.

"Well, thanks for your kind donation of 15 balls!" Muyou said gleefully as he counted his harvests inside the bag he seized from them. Muyou and Yiqi had 30 balls now, 10 from Pang Jing, 5 from searching and 15 from these robber-students.

This bountiful harvests of 15 balls made their searching effort seemed futile. In just a few minutes, they gained 3 times the harvest of their hours of searching.

Muyou and Yiqi had their principles though, they would not rob other people. It was only if other people were robbing them, then they would seize the robbers' balls. If not, they would continue to search.

"Please let more robbers target us..." Muyou prayed silently as they continued to search for balls. Unlike Yiqi who was calmly searching every corner, Muyou was getting impatient.

Luckily for Muyou, in the next few hours several groups of students actually targeted them. Needless to say, the robber-students found out the hard way that Muyou and Yiqi were no mere lambs waiting to be ambushed.

It was going to be sunset and Muyou and Yiqi started to proceed back to the entrance.

"Hahaha, looks like we have quite a bountiful harvests... 104 balls. Hahahaha." Muyou was overjoyed at their harvests, and how they spent more time beating up the robber-students than searching for balls.

"It was all because of you, making so much noise, attracting all the attention." Yiqi sighed. He would prefer to avoid conflicts as much as possible, but with Muyou it seemed like an almost impossible task. He had a feeling that this event caused them to make several new enemies. Although the robber-students were in the wrong and had their just desserts, they would certainly not let Muyou and Yiqi off just like this.

"Aiya Yiqi, didn't everything end well? Look 104 balls hahahaha." Muyou was in a celebratory mood.

One was gloating over the harvest, the other was worried about the implications.