Chapter 51: The Blood Moon Tribunal Begins

While turning the corner, Lawrence bumped into a human scholar walking quickly.

They steadied themselves after the light impact. The scholar's white coat was streaked with blood and water. His expression darkened at the sight. Just as he was about to say something, he looked up and recognized Lawrence. His expression softened, and he took a step back. "Lawrence? You're back from Shattered Lake Prison? Sorry about bumping into you just now."

"No problem. Where are you headed?"

"The bar. It's the 15th today. The Blood Moon Tribunal is only worth watching if we do it together."

"Have you not watched enough already while working at the prison?"

The scholar chuckled. "Guess who made the inmate list released this morning? Varkas Uhl, the former elf scholar from Caimon University!"

Lawrence froze for a moment.

Varkas? That's the patient I treated yesterday.

"Want to come along? It's been a while since everyone saw you. You'd definitely surprise them if you showed up at the bar."

"Sure."

The human scholar stiffened slightly. He had extended the invitation almost purely out of courtesy and hadn't expected the usually reclusive Lawrence to accept.

"Alright... then follow me. Oh, do you want to change your clothes and tend to your wounds first?"

Lawrence glanced at the blood covering him. "Don't they serve Blood Wine at the bar? I can use that to heal. Or would it be inappropriate to enter like this? Would it bother anyone?"

The scholar waved his hand. "No, not at all! Honestly, it looks pretty cool and very stylish. Must turn heads walking down the street like that..."

Lawrence sneered inwardly. As the institute's only blue-scaled fishman, he knew all too well how the other scholars had secretly discriminated against him behind his back.

He hadn't cared before and was focused solely on pursuing strength. To him, being excluded had even been a blessing, allowing him to remain uninvolved in group affairs. Under the Racial Equality Act, no matter how much resentment the others felt, they could only bottle it up. On the surface, they had to maintain an air of respect, or at least appear "not prejudiced." If Lawrence ever caught them and reported them to the Racial Committee, their careers would be over.

But tonight, Lawrence was in a foul mood. Faced with his colleague's insincere invitation, a mischievous impulse surged through him, and he accepted.

He quickly regretted it, as he had never been to the bar before. From the swirling blue and purple neon lights to the sultry, melodious music and the soft chime of glasses among the Blood Saint scholars, everything made Lawrence tense. His skin even began secreting mucus from the stress.

"Is that... Mr. Lawrence?"

"Mr. Lawrence, congratulations on completing the Blood Embrace Ritual!"

"Come on, everyone, this calls for a toast!"

After the brief cheer, the crowd returned to their circles. Even the human scholar who had brought Lawrence showed no interest in introducing him and slipped away at the first opportunity.

Relieved, Lawrence found an empty table and ordered a Melancholy Blues. Soon, the bartender placed a cocktail of deep blue mixed with crimson before him.

"You ordered Melancholy Blues, with 20% human infant blood and 30% blue-scaled fishman infant blood. Enjoy."

Lawrence drained it in a single gulp. As he licked his lips, the rotting wounds on his body began healing rapidly.

He scanned the bar. It was not much different from the fishman bars in the slums. There, pregnant women drank at the bar, while here, orcs and humans mated in booths. Some, having overindulged in Moon Candy, even rolled on the floor and twitched like dogs.

Yet the conversations here were unlike those in ordinary bars. People spoke of progress in their craft, plotted how they might one day slaughter the administrators, and complained about the life-or-death pressure of this year's promotions. These were all topics that made drinking a somber and uneasy affair.

Lawrence felt a little lost. With his Blood Embrace Ritual complete, he would now have to sign a Young Researcher contract with the institute.

Given his current Source Blood quality and the institute's environment, he would almost certainly have to take part in the "do-or-die" promotion competition. If he failed to meet the required results within the deadline, he would be denied promotion to associate professor and dismissed from the institute. By then, it wouldn't matter whether he ended up at the Heresy Court or started his own business. There would be no further opportunities for him to advance within the institute.

The problem was that only a handful of associate professor positions were vacant, while dozens of Blood Saint researchers competed for them. He had even heard of a more extreme institute in a city overseas, where thirty researchers competed for zero associate professor spots. Once the twenty-year probation period ended and everyone was deemed unqualified, the institute simply released the Blood Saint researchers into society, effectively exploiting two decades of their labor for free.

Lawrence took a slow sip of his drink and flipped the menu to the other side, discovering yet another familiar advertisement from the bar. It listed internal organ recycling prices for Blood Saints, handled by the Red Mist Organ Exchange Institute Center.

[Human Blood Saint]

Heart: 80 Silver Coins

Lungs: 50 Silver Coins

Kidneys: 40 Silver Coins

Eyes: 30 Silver Coins

━━━━━━━━━━━━

[Blue-Scaled Fishman Blood Saint]

Heart: 44 Silver Coins

Lungs: 23 Silver Coins

...

The prices for Blood Saints' organs were clearly below market value. After transforming into a Blood Saint, their organs mutated, making them sellable only to other Blood Saints, which limited demand. Moreover, since Blood Saints could heal themselves through Blood Therapy, the need to buy organs was minimal, keeping prices low.

For normal races, organ prices were at least two to three times higher, but regrowing them took a long time and severely affected daily life. Lawrence remembered the times when he had been at his poorest. He had sold his swim bladder and a few thousand milliliters of blood just to earn a bit of extra money.

He paused and thought,

Now that I no longer have prison work, the institute's subsidies will be much smaller. Things must be getting harder for Granny Ya'an. I should sell a few organs to scrape together some money to send her...

Granny Ya'an ran the Blue-Scale Orphanage and had raised Lawrence herself. The orphanage was one of the few willing to accept fishmen. Once Lawrence became an adult, he regularly sent half of his salary to Granny Ya'an to ease the orphanage's financial burden. After all, if the Blue-Scale Orphanage collapsed, hundreds of young fishmen would die each year.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

In a free-market economy, any infant left without an orphanage would have no chance of survival.

Lawrence had no real hobbies. He didn't invest in stocks or indulge in luxuries. He lived and ate at the institute, and his earnings weren't enough to buy him any fine spirits. It was far better to use the money to feed the little fishmen at the orphanage.

Just as Lawrence considered which organs he could sell, eight floating screens appeared in the center of the bar, where they were visible to all the scholars present.

"It's starting! It's starting!"

"Boss Snake, come open the market!"

"

Ah

, when will we get another Battle Royale mode? That one was thrilling."

"I still think the Computer mode is the best. Seeing the electricity jump out of their eyeballs is incredible."

"Tonight isn't a holiday. There won't be any special modes... don't even think about it. Tonight will definitely be classic mode. I love classic mode. It may be ordinary, but it's still exciting."

Even Lawrence, who wasn't particularly interested in the Blood Moon Tribunal, couldn't help but glance at the screens as they lit up.

The Blood Moon Tribunal had begun.