I'm the Poorest Student at the Elite Academy

[Highlight: An unconventional business-management story with a strong plot, featuring business, food, and adventure.

My next novel, Because I'm Too Fragile, I Put All My Points into Healing [Infinite], is being drafted. Please add it to your favorites!]

[Blurb]

Game architect Xia Lai transmigrates into the body of the only student at Saint Pulis Noble Academy admitted on a full scholarship: a desperately poor girl.

She arrives on the first day of the new semester. In the mirror is a girl with thick black hair, a pretty face, and... a pair of pointy ears.

Xia Lai: Isn't this Leslie, the protagonist of the business game The Elf General Store, a game I created that's now popular all over the internet?

As the academy's only elf (crossed out) desperately poor student, Xia Lai can't afford a uniform (too ugly), can't afford the cafeteria food (too awful), and has no private transport (too slow), so she becomes the center of everyone's attention (not really).

If nothing unexpected happened, this would be a story about a poor little girl making her way through school. But

When a clique of girls corners her, Xia Lai pulls out a specially made face mask and fixes the skin problem that has plagued the richest heiress for years. The clique instantly turns into her fan club.

When the student council gives her trouble, Xia Lai casually takes out a box of homemade pastries. The president, who has barely eaten for days, suddenly gets her appetite back and gives Xia Lai the green light on the spot.

When a rival academy comes to provoke them, Xia Lai dazzles the whole crowd with perfect scores in design, fencing, cooking, medicine... and wins a huge following.

Watching Xia Lai act as if she has mastered every skill under the sun, the students of the academy cry: What the heck? Weren't we told the poor kid was the easiest person to bully?

Xia Lai: Sorry, I forgot to tell you. My water magic, healing magic, self-defense, cooking... and 10,086 other skills are all maxed out.

*

A shabby little general store appears overnight in a prime location on Academy Road.

At first

Nearby shopkeepers: Isn't this an illegal building that ruins the look of the neighborhood? Call the municipal complaints hotline!

The students: As if any of us would shop at a place like that.

Later

Nearby shopkeepers: City hall, we strongly protest your brutal demolition! It's our landmark, and it brings us good fortune!

Student A: The general store has new stock! Get my top-tier speed gear, quick, or I'll miss out again!

Student B: The general store even has food! I could eat their spicy hot pot for three days straight!

Student C: I heard someone saw the mysterious shopkeeper. Their outfit alone could buy all of Saint Pulis!

Xia Lai, keeping her role under wraps: I'm also the owner of this store, where rare goods are worth their weight in gold. We still have invisibility cloaks. Students in the back, please put down those damage-reflection scrolls.

*

Xia Lai finds a poor little fellow who has been ambushed and badly injured. She casually gives him a healing potion, never expecting him to stay by her side afterward.

Xia Lai, fussing over him like a mother hen: It's all right, don't be afraid. I'll protect you from now on.

Then one day, she sees him in full military dress beside a duke at an imperial central agency...

Xia Lai: Uh-oh!

My next novel, Because I'm Too Fragile, I Put All My Points into Healing [Infinite], is in progress!

The dungeons have arrived, and the entire world has been swept into them.

Qi Jiuqi has suffered from butterfly skin disease since childhood. While other players scramble for SR cards like [Harden], [Intellect], and [Speed], she puts every point from her only SSS skill card into [Healing].

After years of suffering, she feels tremendous sympathy for all patients and even has a mild case of a saintly complex.

So as soon as she enters a dungeon, she starts treating every patient she comes across.

She meets a patient wandering around clutching their eyeballs and begging for help. She uses [Grafting] to restore their sight.

She meets a patient dragging their legs along the ground. She uses [Rehabilitation] to cure their years of paralysis.

She meets a patient clutching their head and darting around. She uses [Realignment], and their neck, broken for years, heals in an instant.

Qi Jiuqi walks and heals, and without realizing it, becomes an honorary dean in the dungeon.

Wherever she goes, a hundred monsters bow their heads and a thousand demons flee. After all, nobody wants to offend the only SSS-rank healer in the dungeon.

-

The haunted dungeons have been appearing for years, and their resentment grows ever stronger. The dungeons are overrun by ghosts, until a bandaged player arrives.

She looks more like an evil spirit than the NPCs, but with a single move, she heals an NPC who spends every day weeping and begging players for their eyeballs.

What's more, she helps NPCs with their rehabilitation and sets their bones.

Even the Nightmare, whose resentment is off the charts and which hasn't slept since the dungeon first appeared, comes to her for help with its insomnia.

Naturally, she puts it to sleep with a flick of her fingers.

More and more patients come to see her, and she turns none of them away.

Gradually, the players begin to notice that the dungeons have taken a bizarre turn.

When they're being drained of blood with needles thicker than their heads, Qi Jiuqi is nestled in an NPC's arms as they coo at her.

When an evil doll turns them into lollipops, it transforms into a clingy little boy and calls Qi Jiuqi big sister.

Even in the ultimate dungeon, known as the Burial Ground, Qi Jiuqi moves freely. The final boss, whose dream means certain death, personally and reluctantly escorts her to the exit.

The players: ??? Wait, is this right? Why are you NPCs playing favorites?

Theme: Live toward the light. Everyone can make their life shine in their own way.