A couple of minutes after Shang left the Wild Forest, Mervin caught up to him. Shang didn't ask Mervin how it went since there was no point to the question.
"Are you planning to sell the corpse or give it to the academy?" Mervin asked.
"Academy," Shang answered.
"What's your choice based on?"
"I have enough gold," Shang said. "Speaking of gold, I haven't paid the fee for the exam yet."
"You don't have to," Mervin said.
Shang's eyebrows rose in surprise. "What do you mean? I thought I needed to pay five gold."
"The fee is only there to stop weak warriors from wasting our time," Mervin explained. "Weak warriors have issues with getting so much gold. Of course, we still get some requests from some rich kids. That can't be helped."
"But when they inevitably fail, they will at least reimburse us for the time wasted. In short, you only need to pay if you fail the exam. You obviously didn't."
