My starting summon is a small skeleton

Lu Wu had to exert quite an effort to calm his nerves before asking:

"What happened?"

"That," Zhao Kai Ming hesitantly began, "I just discussed the team leader position with Old Zhang, and we had nearly finalized everything when Old Li interfered, and the deal fell through."

Zhao Kai Ming was quite embarrassed, and even a little meek.

He started by shifting the blame, then explained the situation to Lu Wu.

Simply put, someone had already reserved the position of team leader for next year's university competition.

It wasn't about using connections to secure the position.

If anyone was using connections, it was actually Lu Wu.

Lu Wu had been scheming to become the team leader, whereas the person who had reserved the position was begged by Jiangnan University to take the role.

After all, Jiangnan University had been declining recently.

For several sessions in a row, their university competition rankings were too dreadful to watch, causing Jiangnan University's ranking to drop repeatedly.

Additionally, Jiangnan University was having financial troubles.

If Jiangnan University couldn't perform well in next year's competition and secure more resources, it could very well be absorbed by Jiangbei the following year.

So, to save Jiangnan,

Vice-Chancellor Li Mingrui had used countless connections and poured much effort into finally persuading someone he believed could help Jiangnan perform well in next year's competition.

How could they possibly offer the position of team leader to Lu Wu just because he said he wanted it?

Moreover, although they had confidence in Lu Wu, it concerned his future, and Lu Wu hadn't even started school yet. How could they entrust such an important position and task to him?

"So, Old Li's idea is, you train for one year, and then next year, the position of team leader will be yours!"

Zhao Kai Ming carefully explained all this.

Meanwhile, Lu Wu, having heard all this, had almost calmed his feelings.

"Alright, I understand now."

In fact, for Lu Wu, this matter would have been quite simple and straightforward if Zhao Kai Ming hadn't initially guaranteed he could handle it.

It was merely a stumbling block on Lu Wu's path to becoming the team leader of Jiangnan University's team.

Such things, Lu Wu had been aware of from the start.

Stumbling blocks, he could simply move away when the time came.

However, for now, Lu Wu's role as team leader needed to be put on hold.

He would at least need to wait until after school started and he had faced the stumbling block.

There was still some time before school started, and Lu Wu could use this period to deal with issues of debt evasion and plagiarism.

After hanging up on Zhao Kai Ming, Lu Wu leaned on his hand, his eyes shifting.

He thought about how he should handle these two issues.

Actually, these two issues seemed troublesome, but they were relatively simple for Lu Wu to resolve.

He had many methods at his disposal.

However, his current mood wasn't very good, so he decided to use the method that would be the most satisfying for him.

…

While Lu Wu was figuring out how to solve these two issues,

A thousand miles away at the Jiangbei Professional Training Center, someone was in a good mood.

This person, Shi Ying, was the director responsible for verifying cultivation plans at the Jiangbei Professional Training Center.

His job was quite profitable.

Moreover, if one was bold yet cautious, it was easy to find opportunities to advance and profit in this line of work.

Recently, Shi Ying had seized such an opportunity, and possibly, a bigger opportunity awaited him.

A while ago, his superiors had ordered him to suppress a cultivator from Jiangnan; this task was handed to him.

As an expert bureaucrat, Shi Ying might not do well with some tasks, but when it came to suppressing others, he had plenty of tricks up his sleeve.

Coincidentally, the target had submitted a cultivation plan, and Shi Ying immediately took it and left it unattended.

Initially, Shi Ying only intended to apply some pressure and create trouble for the person, but unexpectedly, the target was very patient. Even though the plan was withheld, there was no reaction, and when they looked for faults, the target didn't engage.

Even when the plan was eventually rejected and sent back, the person didn't immediately reupload it, giving Shi Ying no opportunity to continue suppressing him.

This made Shi Ying, who was already displeased with the insufficient suppression and poor task performance, quite uncomfortable.

So, he changed his approach and directly hired an amateur cultivator, uploading the other person's plan first.

He quickly approved it, seizing the rewards before the other person could react.

This approach was extremely disgusting and also a severe violation of regulations.

But Shi Ying didn't care.

On one hand, he was targeting someone already intended for suppression by a big shot.

Plus, he was well-protected, so even if the situation was thoroughly investigated, it wouldn't trace back to him.

Moreover, defending a cultivation plan was extremely troublesome; even if the person sued the Professional Center headquarters, without sufficient evidence there would only be futile arguments.

Even if there was enough evidence to bring him down, it wouldn't matter.

He would just take all the blame onto himself. After all, it wasn't considered a significant issue, and the headquarters would let their Jiangbei side handle it themselves.

Since he was performing tasks for a big shot in Jiangbei, the final outcome would surely be a concealed promotion rather than a demotion.

Shi Ying had thoroughly considered all the angles.

Whether the other party swallowed his pride or made a big fuss, Shi Ying wouldn't suffer, and escalating the situation could even provide him an opportunity to climb higher.

Therefore, Shi Ying was secretly hoping that Lu Wu would escalate the situation, which would allow him to demonstrate his loyalty to the boss.

And indeed, this thought of Shi Ying's was not lost on his boss behind him.

It was, in fact, deliberate that they turned a blind eye and let Shi Ying stir things up.

They even subtly helped things along from behind the scenes.

The reason was simple: they wanted to torment Lu Wu.

From Jiangbei's perspective, they had ample reasons to target Lu Wu. On the minor end, Team 001's failure to make it into the top eight was Lu Wu's fault; more significantly, it was Lu Wu standing in the way of Jiangbei University's scheme against Jiangnan University.

Adding another layer was the issue of the new stepmother that Lu Wu had recently gained.

And on the topmost level, there was the talent that Lu Wu had revealed.

Ever since Lu Wu emerged onto the scene, his information had been in the hands of Jiangbei's upper management.

Just a year ago, Lu Wu had been a poor student.

His grades had always struggled around the pass mark, but since he'd summoned Little Skeleton, he seemed to have had an epiphany.

In just half a year, he had reached the level of a Professional Cultivator.

The cultivation programs he developed for the goblin and Little Skeleton impressed all the educators in the field. Even more astonishing was that he seemed to have mastered Little Skeleton's evolution plan, which Jiangnan was still verifying.

If the evaluation plan succeeded, Jiangnan might take the opportunity to promote Lu Wu to the position of a Master Cultivator.

This was something Jiangbei did not want to see.

Therefore, they had to suppress Lu Wu.

They didn't need to completely crush Lu Wu, but at the very least, they wanted to ensure that Lu Wu achieved nothing next year.

For this purpose, Jiangbei had specifically tailored a complete scheme for Lu Wu.

What Lu Wu was seeing now was just the first step.

Inside the office of the Jiangbei person-in-charge, the relieved Jiang Beifeng outlined his entire plan to the Jiangbei University President and Jiangbei Cultivation Center Head, Lin Huai.

"According to the information we've received, Lu Wu has just returned from the Inheritance Land.

And he's just called to chase up on debts; he might have already discovered the plagiarism by now.

From what I know of him, he's surprisingly petty.

First, he was swindled by Jiangbei, and then this incident happened; given his character, he definitely won't let this go.

So he will definitely make a big fuss, and the bigger it gets, the better.

What he definitely won't expect is that I have already prepared a trap here, just waiting for him to make a big fuss."

Jiang Beifeng paused here, and the President across from him, Lin Huai, was a perfect foil, promptly asking, "What kind of trap?"

Jiang Beifeng, feeling pleased, smiled slightly.

"Imagine someone tells you that a young man has gone from being a poor student to a cultivator almost at Master Level within just one year. What would you think?

Besides shock, wouldn't you be a bit suspicious?"

"You mean to suggest?" Lin Huai also caught on.

Jiang Beifeng's smile grew, "I don't mean anything, I just want to offer the public a possibility.

Could it be that his genius persona is fake?

Could it be that much of his research is plagiarized?

Could it be that he grabbed all of these achievements through someone else's power and manipulation?"

Hearing this, Lin Huai couldn't help but gasp.

Jiang Beifeng's move was insidiously venomous.

He wanted to use Lu Wu making a fuss about the plagiarism to add fuel to the fire later.

By manufacturing evidence and shaping public opinion, he aims to throw the blame—Dirty Water—back on Lu Wu.

Rumors are easily fabricated with just a word, and clarifying them is not nearly as simple.

And right now, Lu Wu, still young and emotionally unstable, could be severely damaged by such rumors, and in the absence of clarification, he might never recover and could even be completely destroyed.

"From what I know of him, rumors won't completely destroy him, but they will definitely make him miserable.

It'll be difficult for him to move on from this incident anytime soon.

The most important thing is, with this scandal as a foundation, even if Jiangnan later verifies the evolution plan for the Little Skeleton Mage, we will have an excuse to obstruct Lu Wu's ascension to a Master."

Holding off just a year or two would suffice, by that time, Jiangnan would have already been absorbed by Jiangbei, and Lu Wu would be one of us. By then, his achieving the Master title would not only be inconsequential to us—it would even make us look better."

Jiang Beifeng's tactics were, as always, deviously underhanded.

The dirty tricks of the high school league were not enough; now he planned to tarnish Lu Wu further.

However, dirty as these tactics were, the bigwigs of Jiangbei still loved them.

Lin Huai immediately expressed that Jiang Beifeng should take full control of the matter.

And that was exactly what Jiang Beifeng wanted.

During his time in Jiangnan, he had botched the high school league and lost 50,000 points, causing many people in Jiangbei to criticize him.

Even losing his previous position as the head of admissions.

But momentary success or failure was irrelevant.

As long as Jiang Beifeng could handle this smoothly, he would not only rectify his previous mistakes but also further his career.

Thinking of this, Jiang Beifeng was rather excited.

As Jiang Beifeng wallowed in his excitement, his cell phone rang. Seeing the caller displayed, his face instantly soured and he cursed, "Motherfucker, Lu Wu…"