"Me?" Jin Manshan felt creepy when Cheng Qijiu looked at him. Although Cheng Qijiu was good-looking and even became the most beautiful woman in the Magic and Martial Arts Academy with his help, you are a man after all.

We are not suitable for each other!

Jin Manshan did not expect that Cheng Qijiu not only did not feel instantly moved, but found the problem hidden in his words. After talking for a long time

and preparing for it for a long time, in the end, he did not get any benefit at all, but instead had to lose himself? Just when Jin Manshan pinched his collar and was about to refuse with pain.

Cheng Qijiu said again, "You protect me in the academy, and I protect you after graduation. How about our cooperation?"

"Cooperation?"

These two words are very spiritual and attractive. Cheng Qijiu's word of cooperation did make Jin Manshan's heart move.

Cheng Qijiu's status was here, and he had a cooperative relationship with him. He was really marrying up. After all, there are two dukes now. And they are both over a hundred years old. They are not dead yet, so naturally it is not their turn to inherit the title.

One of the duke's sons is recognized as the most miserable. Now he is already ninety years old, and he doesn't even have half a title.

Because the old duke said that the future title will be inherited by him. Once he can't bear the loneliness and chooses another title, he will lose the qualification to inherit his father's title. If he wants to get the title of marquis, he must exchange it through his own efforts and military merits. Now there is only one empire left, where are the wars for you to fight?

Of course, as a duke, you have a lot of territory taxes every month, and it is more than enough to support a few or even dozens of parasites and prodigals, so as not to starve the children to death.

Therefore, the old duke's descendants just waste time, preparing to starve their father to death. Of course, some of them are unlucky and die first, after all, not everyone can live a long life.

As for the marquises, their situations are similar, and they live a long time. As for the earl, Jin Manshan doesn't care too much, because after the earl's death, his descendants inherited the title of viscount, which is not too high. Although

there are many nobles in this empire, there are only a few of them with high status.

Cheng Qijiu is different from those old guys. He is still very young and will inherit a large family business in the future. He and he are in the same school. If he builds a good relationship in the early stage, the benefits in the later stage will definitely be incomparable.

After weighing the pros and cons, he estimated the value of the benefits that Cheng Qijiu can bring to himself. In the entire empire, the only vacant and lucrative position now belongs to Cheng Qijiu.

Although many people are not optimistic about Cheng Qijiu, they think that a child like Cheng Qijiu will definitely not be able to keep such a large family business.

But what if Cheng Qijiu keeps it? Such a large territory, and absolute freedom. Cheng Qijiu is not very old, instead of going to those old foxes' territories to make a living after graduation, it is better to bet on Cheng Qijiu.

Cheng Jiujiu may be a poor little guy who could be strangled at any time, but as long as he can hold on and get through it, he will have a bright future.

Jin Manshan had said so much to Cheng Jiujiu before, but he didn't plan to put all his bets on Cheng Jiujiu. After all, from a businessman's point of view, it was too risky to bet on Cheng Jiujiu.

Originally, he was trying to fool the kid, let Cheng Jiujiu build a good relationship with the dean of the Alchemy Branch, and make some money.

Who knew that Cheng Jiujiu looked young and didn't seem to care about power, but he knew everything in his heart.

Even now, Jin Manshan seriously suspected that Cheng Jiujiu had been planning for his future since the first day he came to the academy and entered the Alchemy Branch.

Such a scheming guy has the potential to be a lord. The most important thing is that he was actually tempted. However, he did not answer immediately and planned to keep Cheng Jiujiu hanging for two days, lest Cheng Jiujiu think that cooperation came too easily and then did not cherish it.

As a result, Cheng Jiujiu was an impatient person. She saw that this guy was tempted, so she struck while the iron was hot, "If you don't agree, I will sell the old man's things to others."

"The old man's things are so expensive, ordinary people can't afford them." Jin Manshan was struggling. He felt that he could not be controlled by Cheng Jiujiu.

However, Cheng Jiujiu was not a thirteen-year-old kid. She was smart. If it was a threat before, then now it was an absolute temptation. "I believe that the Magic Guild and the Swordsman Association are willing to buy."

In this deal, he was at a disadvantage from the beginning. Jin Manshan knew that he could not get any other advantage from Cheng Qijiu, so he simply agreed, "Deal, deal, deal."

Just like that, Cheng Qijiu won the grandson of the dean on the first day of school, and got a bunch of small pearls from Jin Manshan for nothing.

Jin Manshan didn't know what Cheng Qijiu wanted the pearls for, and when he heard Cheng Qijiu said he liked them, he didn't care too much, after all, most of Cheng Qijiu's accessories were buttons made of pearls. In order to show his sincerity, Jin Manshan sent all the valuable and beautiful pearls to him. Not only round and plump white pearls, but also several black pearls.

After the opening ceremony, the dean of the Alchemy Department blocked Cheng Liujiu, and when he was about to snatch a few more beads, he found that Cheng Liujiu was holding a basin in his hand.

Moreover, this basin was made of pure gold, extremely gorgeous and luxurious, and it looked like the style of the Jin family.

The dean of the Alchemy Department, "???"

Although he was puzzled, he happily snatched the basin. But after taking it to check, he found that these beads did not have what he wanted, they were just ordinary pearls.

"What garbage!" The dean of the Alchemy Department stuffed the basin back into Cheng Liujiu's arms with disgust, and Cheng Liujiu raised his eyebrows.

Garbage?

Judging from the quality and color of these things, they are much better than the two that were snatched away from him before. But this gentleman actually said it was garbage?

Could it be that what he wanted was not the pearls?

What a mistake!

Cheng Qijiu wanted these pearls in the name of making a deal with the dean of the Alchemy Department, but who knew that he would be treated as trash.

Just when Cheng Qijiu thought that the negotiation was about to break down, the dean of the Alchemy Department pulled the two pearls off her wrist. Then, the old man ran away triumphantly.

Of course, he did not take Cheng Qijiu's things for nothing, and directly threw a token to Cheng Qijiu. He also kindly explained to Cheng Qijiu that seeing the token was like seeing the dean of the Alchemy Department himself, and Cheng Qijiu could move freely in the entire academy with it.

Huh?

Cheng Qijiu, "......?"

So, she was being forced to buy and sell again!

But then again, is there anything wrong with the pearls on your body?

Cheng Jiujiu had fiddled with the pearls on her cuffs when chatting with Jin Manshan before, and didn't find anything unusual. After Jin Manshan looked at them, he gave her some pearls of good quality, and he didn't find any problems.

Why did this old man want the pearls on her clothes?

Cheng Jiujiu couldn't figure it out, but she didn't panic. She went back and looked through the clothes in her space bag. Oh my god, there were hundreds of sets of these clothes.

Even if two pearls were stolen every day, she wouldn't be robbed of them all in a short time.

But, what was the problem.

Was there something wrong with the beads on her body?

After thinking about it, Cheng Jiujiu took the token, skipped classes on the first day of school, and then entered the building that everyone in the Magic and Martial Arts Academy dreamed of, but had been bombed no less than hundreds of times.

This is the territory of the Dean of the Alchemy Department. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh floors are for students to use when they are refining alchemy. Of course, everyone who enters needs to pay one hundred gold coins as an entrance fee. Every time the alchemy students enter, they are extremely serious and hardworking in refining alchemy, trying to earn back the money they spent. Because many students are also poor civilians, cheating is allowed here, but you must ensure that you can make something worth one hundred gold coins to fill the gap before leaving.

One hundred gold coins is a lot, so everyone in this building is covered in dust and dirt. Cheng Qijiu looked at it from a distance and thought it was some small commodity wholesale market.

Many dishevelled people had various daily alchemy tools beside them. In alchemy, besides talent, practice makes perfect.

When you first start alchemy, it is always easy to damage a lot of materials, and these materials are not free. Without enough time and patience, it is impossible to become a good alchemist. Many people use up the one hundred gold coins of alchemy materials included in the entrance fee in the early stage, and they may not be able to earn ten gold coins.

It can be said that the early stage is all about burning money. Here, daily life is dull and tedious. However, you can earn a lot. The greater the initial investment, the greater the mass production in the later stage. After mastering the skills, you can earn hundreds or thousands of times more in the end.

But the money is more. After missing the golden period of cultivation, you will not be able to make any progress in magic in this life. I have to say that this world is fair and cruel.

Unlike the group of people who like gossip outside, people here are all money-loving. Moreover, most of them are poor little debtors. How can they have time to pay attention to Cheng Jiujiu? They only want to make money. Many people even did not leave here for the whole holiday because they did not make enough money. It is really pitiful.

Cheng Jiujiu passed through a series of strange little "shops", and no one even took care of her. I have to say, this feeling of freedom is great.

The first floor is 100 gold coins, the second floor is 200 gold coins, the third floor is 300 gold coins, and so on. When you reach the ninth floor, the entrance fee is 900 gold coins.

But the really expensive place is underground. It costs 10,000 gold coins to go in once. Moreover, after entering, you can't move anything, you can only look and are not allowed to touch.

Whether you can take anything away depends on whether you have to spend more gold coins and your luck.

Because that is the territory of the dean of the alchemy department. Because of Dean Jin's suggestion, the Dean of the Alchemy Branch agreed to charge admission, but he didn't like being disturbed when he was doing research, so even if he went in, he could only look inside from the crystal window outside and look at those precious alchemy treasures from afar. Those

with bad luck couldn't even wait for the Dean of the Branch to come out.

As for why the Dean of the Alchemy Branch agreed to charge admission, it was because the academy couldn't afford the loss of labor and property, so he borrowed the academy's defense array and built a laboratory for the Dean of the Alchemy Branch underground.

With better defense and privacy, the cost naturally increased. Therefore, this place became a high-end consumption place for the entire empire, and entering depends on luck. It has to be said that this is no different from a profiteer.

However, there are always many people who come here to try their luck. They are not short of money, but they are short of people like the dean of the Alchemy Department.

Cheng Liujiu is different from everyone else, she is prepared to teach herself. People like the dean of the Alchemy Department, his knowledge is beyond Cheng Liujiu's understanding for the time being.

Therefore, Cheng Liujiu plans to start from the most basic.

So, Cheng Liujiu, who came in with the token and did not spend a penny, took the most basic books such as "Alchemy Encyclopedia", "Introduction to Alchemy" and "Do You Know Alchemy", and chose a place next to the window on the first floor with very good light, and started to read seriously.

Dean of the Alchemy Department, "?"

You took his token, and just... did this? Isn't it too wasteful!

In fact, when he first gave Cheng Qijiu the token, the dean of the Alchemy Branch felt a little regretful because he felt that he was too abrupt. If Cheng Qijiu did something with his token, he would have to bear the consequences.

Although the dean of the Alchemy Branch did not like to care about those things outside and ignored those rumors, he also knew his importance and understood people's hearts.

However, he still did not understand what was going on with Cheng Qijiu.

Because the token was made by himself, no matter where Cheng Qijiu was, he could sense Cheng Qijiu's location through the token. When Cheng Qijiu came to the building, the dean of the Alchemy Branch thought that Cheng Qijiu might be looking for him.

He thought that after so many days, this kid should know his identity and come to get close to him. He even thought at first whether he should leave Cheng Liujiu alone for two days. But he waited left and right. He

didn't see Cheng Liujiu at all. Where was he? Based on the token, he could be sure that Cheng Liujiu was in this floor. Since there were all kinds of alchemy materials here, the token was not very sensitive. The

director of the alchemy department, who had been waiting for a whole day, couldn't stand it anymore, so he prepared to go up and take a look. Because he was the director of the department, there were teleportation arrays that went directly to every floor.

So, the director of the alchemy department started looking from the ninth floor, but didn't find him. He went to the eighth floor, but still didn't find him. After going down floor by floor, Cheng Liujiu and his companions were not found, but other alchemists were alarmed.

As a leader in the alchemy world, the head of the alchemy department has a strong presence. He usually cannot leave the basement. Why is he out now?

Every time he goes down a floor, there are more people around him. By the time Cheng Jiujiu was found at the window on the first floor, they had already formed a large team and gathered hundreds of people here.

Seeing Cheng Jiujiu holding a few books in his hand, and the snacks and tea placed by the window, the head of the alchemy department felt a tightness in his chest for some reason.