After snooping around near the principal's office for a while, several disheartened classmates brought in a more in-depth version of the perfunctory explanation given by the class teacher.
The J. J. Foundation was managed by a trustee group that had a few internal conflicts in the past, and the principal of their school, one of the trustees, eventually had to pick a side in this conflict.
However, the other side held more sway over the grantor of the trust, and after convincing him that Principal Seriqe was involved in certain corrupt practices in managing his funding, they managed to snatch away the entire scholarship project.
Now, the benefits of the project would be given to Yellow Sun School's final year students, as the director of that school was in the other faction's cohort.
"Rich people and their absurd games... Did they even think about the feelings of so many participants who won the scholarships yesterday?"
"Aren't they afraid of being investigated for malpractices?"
"Don't they fear an ill reputation?"
After the class ended, Euri listened to the naive exclamations of his lamenting friends without a word. As someone interested in a corporate career, he had a shallow understanding of the matter, but it was already higher than most students here.
The trust fund had done nothing illegal, and the little administrative irregularities that might be born from their preliminary investments in this school could be taken care of with a few calls and lawyers' meetings.
For a project that had multi-million credit funding, even a compensation figure at hundred-thousands wouldn't be a big issue. The trustee faction who took it over would pay for it gladly.
Everyone knew that these projects were filled with misappropriation of funding in various phases. Euri doubted that Principal Seriqe had lost the project just due to such accusations.
"Also, did you hear that those smug assholes from Yellow Sun School had the audacity to challenge us?" A guy in the back shouted, slapping his table emotionally. Jaakie gave him a suspicious look and leaned over to whisper to Euri.
"That guy didn't even pass the test yesterday. Why the hell is he riled up?"
Others did not care about his motives. They cared more about what he had to say.
"What challenge? When did that happen?" The crowd of students swarmed towards the back of the class.
"Hahaha! It looks like you guys don't have enough connections to be aware of this. Some of us had already guessed that a conflict between our school and Yellow Sun School was approaching. That's why I didn't even try to ace that test!"
"Who are you kidding? You haven't gotten a 60% score since enrolling in school." The class monitor, who had an excellent memory, ruthlessly cut in. But it wasn't enough to deter the other guy.
"You can say whatever you want, Shenna. I understand you must be feeling more frustrated than the rest of the students here. After all, you've always dreamt big. But big dreams don't seem interested in accepting you, hahaha!"
"Ignore him, just tell us how you knew."
"And what is this challenge even about?"
The crowd pressed him to elaborate, but he shook his head decisively, putting on an air of mystery.
"I'm telling nobody! Hmph! I saw how you guys made fun of us after getting a good score on that test, riding high on your cloud of daydreams. Keep daydreaming about those beautiful futures, hahaha!"
Everyone seemed to be considering whether to beat the information out of him, but he was too busy gloating at them to discern the crowd's rage. Fortunately, the entrance of another teacher for the next period's class saved his back.
As they were seated pretty close, Euri heard several students still trying to coax him. The guy told them he could sell the information for a modest payment, which killed their interest as well.
"Another failed entrepreneurship venture, tsk~ tsk~. This guy wants to sell a product to poor sods who don't even need it. What did he expect?"
Clicking his tongue in disapproval, Euri focused on the lecture that was about to begin.
In the middle of the lecture, his miniscreen vibrated, and Euri logged into the game to see what was going on. Priestess Sol-Wa was standing near the ambrosia pool with her hands on her hips, staring back at him angrily.
[ Wasteful Administrator! How could you let a good piece of resource like this get spoiled? If Sol-Wa didn't warn you, you'd not even realize your mistake, right? ]
"What did I do?" Confused, Euri zoomed in towards her and discovered a shrunken rabbit corpse lying at her feet.
Then he realized, after extracting the beast core of this rabbit to produce ambrosia, he had been so frustrated by the pool's refusal to accept the body that he had just ordered his familiars to throw it away.
"Dammit! Why didn't I think of this? If the ambrosia pool didn't accept the corpse before because it already accepted its core, can't it accept the corpse now? The core has already been used up!"
Slapping himself in the forehead, Euri broke Scout Dog out of cultivation and ordered him to return the rabbit's corpse to the ambrosia pool.
[ Raw ingredients detected. Assessing...]
[ Due to the ingredient's bad quality, it cannot be used in creating ambrosia. Rejected. ]
"...." Euri scratched his head, feeling enough regret to slap himself a few more times. But then he noticed the dog take a curious bite out of the rabbit's neck.
"Ah, I forgot that these familiars can eat as well."
It was extremely difficult to communicate with the dog in the quiet-ish classroom. Euri noticed several interesting glances from his classmates while barking at the audio slot of the miniscreen.
The dog let him know that it did feel like taking a few more bites, although its interest wasn't very strong. So Euri invited the rat duo and Dread Spider to come over for a feast.
He also tried whispering to Sol-Wa, even though she never seemed to hear him, unlike the beasts. As expected, when he asked whether she wanted to share the meal with the four beasts, she ignored him.
Recalling her temper, he suddenly felt thankful that she didn't hear him. Otherwise, she might just crawl out of the game to bonk him.