“Hmm.” Eli felt it was odd that even though they now stood before the grand, ancient library which possesses millions, if not tens of millions of valuable books and tomes, a “Hmm” was all Rey remarked. He resisted himself for letting out a “Woah” in sight of such awe-inspiring architecture.

What the trio saw was a gigantic door, much similar to the gate on the borders of the Academy. However, no matter how hard anyone pushes the door in order to open it, it would be all for nought because those “doors” were merely drawn onto the walls made from the Bevara trees. The wood of Bevara trees has the ability to cool down what resides within the library and ensure the air is relatively dry so that the books won’t be easily destroyed. Of course, there is still a door for them to enter the library at the very end of the fake, but a realistically giant door.

“I got a friend who is a librarian. He might have a clue to what we are looking for. This way.” Rey was silent because he was already searching for clues on the Academy’s web as they entered the library. In his mind, he has long ruled out the possible locations from the book, Place of Interest in Yggdrasil Academy. Their first clue, “The Devil’s Well”, has no bold words, thus the reason why he was swimming through tons of discussions about obscure histories in the library which have the keywords of “devil” or “well” or, hopefully, both.

“Look out for suspicious individuals or drones. It’s doubtful that Alan won’t pull any dirty tricks.” Rey said mindlessly a couple steps after following Aster’s lead. Eli turned his head to the right while Aster rotated his body slightly to his back, both glanced at him for a second. They heeded his advice and began to casually observe their surroundings.

He could’ve just sat somewhere else and let Aster find his friend, but Rey preferred walking whenever he was utilizing his mind intensely. Although the screen in front of him encompassed his vision, he could grasp his surroundings through his trained senses. Minutes later, they arrived at a circular counter, occupied by several people at different parts of the counter. Aster went to greet his friend and left Eli alongside Rey a bit further from the counter. Rey paced back and forth in straight line, completely immersed in his research. Eli, on the other hand, figuring that he should do something to contribute to their goal, sat on a nearby chair and started searching for clues on the web as well.

After ten minutes or so, Rey began to feel irritated. Not a single lead that would fit the criteria of being ‘non-physical’. Most of them are just books or legends with unknown origins and no evidence to support its existence.

Maybe he was thinking the wrong way. He closed the screen and pondered what other possible meanings can “The Devil’s Well” have. ‘The’ obviously don’t have any ulterior definition; the word ‘Devil’ most likely act as the most important clue, but the difficulty lies within the fact that it wasn’t ‘physical’, implying that it couldn’t be a word, a painting or anything he could see. And now, it comes down to ‘Well’. ‘Well’ have various definition, not including the one which states it as a tangible thing. Perhaps it meant ‘The Devil’s region of minimum potential’ in the context of Physics? It’s probably not. Then, the only other definition which isn’t denoting a physical item is ‘a plentiful source or supply’.

“The Devil’s plentiful source or supply.” A source…He grinned. He now knows where to look for the clues. He brought back the screen and hastily punched the new keywords into the search engine. Seconds later, his theory proved him right. A few more minutes to filter out unreliable claims and the most satisfying answer appeared before him. He scuffed towards Eli to inform him his findings.

“Eli, tell Aster to go to 13.5.24 room. Both of you meet me there.” He immediately teleported to said room via the library’s Travel app without waiting or giving a care for Eli. Eli froze in shock for a few seconds before going to Aster and relayed Rey’s message in a tiny voice (because he’s shy).

Seeing that they haven’t arrived, he ordered Hinoko to sense what was inside the room and sure enough, the results were what he had expected. “What did you find, Rey?” Aster asked upon arriving. Rey gestured them to step into the room with him instead of giving a verbal answer.

The room they went in was an ordinary room used by students to take written tests given by the Circulum’s algorithm, hence only a chair and table was present in the tiny room. Rey took out the gem in his pocket, drew a square on it with his finger and frantically scanned the entire room after Hinoko jumped down to the table. At the end, his movements stopped when he aimed the gem at the middle point of the intersection line between the left wall and the ceiling. There, the screen showed him a ball of light that wasn’t present in the real room. The ball of light vanished from the screen, replaced by three words with an opaque background.

“The Solar Dragon. That’s our next hint.” Hinoko returned to Rey’s shoulder as he slid the gem back to his pocket and would have left the room if not for Aster’s inquiry.

“Rey, wait! You could at least tell us how did you know that this room is ‘The Devil’s Well’.” Rey halted, then turned to his back to stare at Aster, which he had his arm lifted, with the intention to stop Rey, but put it down after Rey met his eyes, and Eli, who had no idea what is going on just stood there.

“There was once a student who opened a portal, connecting our world with another dimension, to draw immense energy from it. One day, few creatures from that dimension jumped into our world and caused some ruckus. The portal was forced to close afterwards. There were other people that saw the creatures and was convinced they came from the Underworld.”

“And?”

A faintly annoyed expression surfaced, “The Devil’s Well. I made the assumption that it was a well where someone draws power from. I found this incident but it didn’t have any connection to the Devil until I saw the word ‘Underworld’. Most of the known mythology associates the Devil as the master of the Underworld.”

“So you formed the connection of the well to the Devil because it might also be using the portal, aside from the student who made it, to bring his minions to this world?”

“Yes. I asked Hinoko to scan the room for ‘stains’ in the Source Clouds within the room. Beings originate from other worlds tends to leave permanent traces. The most important reason that gem still acknowledges the existence of the well in this room is because the portal is still here, even though this side of the gate is closed. We can’t see it, hence fulfilling the point of not being physical.”

“You amazed me, Rey!” Aster skipped to Rey’s left and slapped lightly on his back, “You make The Avarice Wisdom looked like a piece of cake!” Rey didn’t respond to his compliment.

“Let’s go to a study room. I wouldn’t want to waste any more time.” He twisted his body towards the door and exited the room.

“Come on, Eli. Let’s go.” Eli nodded and followed Aster at his back. The feeling of uselessness bubbled up even more in his heart. He didn’t do much, but he refused to be a non-contributing member of the team.

Aster covered his mouth as he yawned then puts down his hand and continued to gather remaining information regarding “The Solar Dragon”. The three of them had been sitting in the study room, eyes fixed on the screen for hours. After the first stage has been cleared, they had left this room once to have lunch. Rey didn’t use the Scanner because he deemed physical objects was ‘easy to find’.

“I’m done.” Rey had finished his portion of the search. They separated the list of leads among themselves to speed up the process. They decided to assemble all potential leads first before filtering them out one by one.

“And…...finished. That was exhausting. Who knew there were so many Solar Dragons?” Before relaxing his body and slumped down on the soft and comfy couch, Aster sent his results to Rey for him to examine.

“What’s your progress, Eli?” Rey asked in such a way that it won’t evoke Eli’s anxiety. Even though, on the surface, Rey acts as if he was oblivious to other people’s feeling, in actuality, he just doesn’t care most of the time. Rey knew Eli was trying his hardest to catch up with him and Aster, but he doesn’t want Eli to aware his slow pace. Rey sensed that Eli was not one to easily handle his own anxiety.

“Just a little bit more.” He replied quietly. He sat right beside Rey, so even with that voice, Rey heard it clearly.

Another hour passed and now the three of them were sitting together with Rey in the middle trying to narrow down the clues the collected.

“Rey, what about this one that I found?” Eli pointed his finger at the top left corner of an enlarged screen.

“Hmm...It’s very likely.” Now all the rocks weighing Eli down had vanished.

“What about this, Rey? I think this statue might also be The Solar Dragon.” Aster stretched his arm towards the center to magnify his picture. Then, he continued to expand two other pictures.

“Possible, but the painting and the book are not.” Rey swiped the two pictures away.

“I guess you’re right.” He laid back to the couch.

“What do you two think about this one? These reflected lights will form a dragon on the ground when it’s noon.” It was ridiculous, sure, but Rey denied to push away even the most unlikely clues.

“Could be. Although, we’ll have to wait for tomorrow to see if it’s the one.” Aster strongly hoped this wasn’t the one.

“We’ll deal with the rest of them later if these ten weren’t the hint is referring to. On go.” The trio removed themselves from their sitting posture in unison as they brought up the Travel app. Rey took out the gem, drew a cross on it and,

“GO!” The ‘Confirm’ was pressed on simultaneously by the three of them. As soon as they arrived at the first destination, they teleported to the second location because the gem didn’t give off any sound. Then they went to the third location on the list, then the fourth, the fifth and stopped at the sixth because ten seconds have passed.

Rey drew a square on the gem again and scan carefully around the area of a wall painting. Half an hour later, they found themselves inside a coin collection room. The case display with the coins from three thousand years ago had a background of a dragon and the Sun. Unfortunately, that wasn’t their target either.

They arrived in front of a hall, similar to the one Rey entered yesterday, but with different colour scheme.

Eli was nervous. Of course he’s nervous. He was the one that proposed they should come here, and also because the other location he proposed (the third one) didn’t cause the gem to give off any sound. He almost prayed for Aether to help him because he doesn’t want to disappoint them.

Above the main door was a symbol of a dragon. They stood there, occasionally walk back and forth, for ten minutes or so until the light of the setting sun touched the dragon. Rey focused the transparent gem on the Solar Dragon and it returned to its opaque form with another three words on it.

“Yes! You’re awesome Eli!” As a result of Aster standing behind Rey and Rey raising the gem high enough to let the dragon symbol appear on the gem, he saw the three words emerged. He did a double-fist-hold-up while praising Eli, then he proceeded to hug him for a second before letting him go. Eli’s astonishment was suppressed as Rey turned towards Eli.

“Nice one, Eli.” He smiled faintly. Eli said nothing as he tried to hide his blush by staring at the ground.

“So, our next task is to look for the Maze of Heart, huh? Are you going to use the Scanner for every hint that doesn’t have a bold word?” Aster, through the video conference, asked.

“Yes. Activating the Scanner now.” The gem displayed the location of their third objective. “It’s in the Fifth Ring.”

“Hmm. I don’t suppose it would be hard to find for such a quite specific place or thing. I’ll send you whatever information I can gather. See ya.” He switched off the screen and place the gem on his desk. Once he grabbed his pyjamas, he took a glance at the bright moon hung in the sky, inhabited by thousands of stars, as he passed by the window. Hinoko leapt onto his shoulder in the process of sauntering his way to the bathroom.

“You were my clarity, I swear. Alone in a daydream~” Eli was enjoying his bath while singing to his favourite song but was interrupted when he heard the bathroom door sliding open.

“Hm-WAA!” He exclaimed and hurriedly cover his body when he directed his sight to the right and saw Rey ambling in emotionless.

“What are you doing in here?!” As much as Eli wanted to drive Rey out of the bathroom, he was too stupefied and embarrassed to do anything but watching Rey came to a stop after he practically screamed.

“Is there something wrong?” He kept on advancing towards the bathtub whilst Eli kept on covering and rotating his body in a way that his eyes wouldn’t leave Rey.

“Of course there’s something wrong! You can’t just walk in here while I’m taking a shower!” He closed his mouth upon completing his sentence. He can’t believe he just...scolded Rey. On the other hand, Rey pushed a button at the end of the tub. The tub was instantly filled with water.

“Is that the way city people takes shower? I came from the Outer Region, so excuse me for being ignorant to your habits,” He entered the tub and slowly lain down on it, “Either way, I’m not going to disturb you. But if this is making you really uncomfortable, tell me now. I will leave immediately and never do it again. If not, please be as quiet as possible. I need to concentrate.” After patiently waiting for her master to get into the tub, Hinoko hopped into the tub, made a big splash and began paddling in the water as Rey closed his eyes in order to delve into his mind palace.

It was really awkward for the first sixty seconds which felt like an hour, but a few more minutes after that Eli resumed his shower as usual. It was a weird experience, although he didn’t dislike it. He still had to exit the bathroom much earlier due to his inability to fully control.

“Are you alright?” Rey asked with concern, although in an impassive manner.

They both woke up nearly at the same time. When Rey dove down from his bed, he accidentally hit Eli with his hand, who was sitting outwards his bed, transitioning to a much-waking state.

“I’m-I’m fine. It didn’t hurt much.” Though Eli still caressed the painful spot on his head.

After all of them were ready to leave the room, Rey had a bad discovery.

“The door’s jammed.” Said, Rey, as he promptly activates his Circulum to call for Aster’s help.

“Who did this? Is it Alan?” Eli’s panic level rose up.

“Definitely.”

An hour later, the door was finally opened. Rey and Eli saw Aster and Ada stood side-by-side outside the room.

“We don’t have any clear evidence that Alan or his minions were the ones who practically glued the door and sabotage the anti-Source control. Still, it couldn’t be anyone but him, given that he is the only suspect with crystal clear motives. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again, because I’ll be personally strengthening the security system of this floor. I’ll look into the system’s hack, see if I could trace it back to Alan.” Ada didn’t say anything about collecting physical evidence for the tampering of the door. Whoever did it leave absolutely no trace to follow.

“Thank you for your help, Ada.” He shook Ada’s hand.

“If it’s for these two cute puppies, I don’t mind.” She gave a wink to the both of them.

“Boss! They got out from their room. Should we beat them after they arrive at the Academy?” Alan’s minion, who was monitoring the screen along with two other, relayed the message to him through a hidden device inside his ear. The screens in front of those minions projected continuous images captured by a few fly-like drones hovering down the hallway the trio was in.

“No, don’t do anything stupid. Keep observing them. You can do whatever you want that would slow down their progress only after tomorrow, when they won’t be expecting us as much. Unless they’ve reached the sixth stage before I do, don’t act without my permission. Got it?” Alan’s sight was constantly shifting around the large room. His gem was smaller than Rey’s, hence explaining the sweat gushing out from his body. In this immense room of sword collection, he had spent nearly half an hour to clear the fourth stage. Through his aptitude for technology, he had created programs to scan through the Academy’s public database and from the accumulated information, it deduced the most feasible targets. This was the reason why Alan was extremely confident he could win against Rey. It was a fight of technology against the human brain.

“Aurgh! At last!” Rey slouched down on the chair in front with the gem in his loose grip.

“I was afraid all the time spent searching through those rooms would all be for naught. It would be a nightmare if what you said about Maze of Heart is referring to the psychology club was wrong.” Said Aster while he and Eli ambled towards Rey.

“I’m tired.” He placed his arm across his eyes, trying to have some needed rest.

“Rey, can-can we go now? I’m starving. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you out, but I’m really hungry.” Eli couldn’t resist it any longer. He genuinely doesn’t want to disturb Rey and want to let him rest for awhile, yet the signals telling him he needs to fill his stomach with food were too overwhelming for him to suppress any longer.

“......What time is it now?” Rey still maintained his lazy posture. Aster took a glance at the Circulum’s clock and informed him the time.

“A little over two. Shouldn’t you be starving as well?” Rey sluggishly got up from the chair and stepped into the diagonal, gradual staircase.

“I don’t feel anything in particular when I’m focusing.” He activated his Circulum again, with the Travel app already on the screen, and clicked on the preset coordinates for the main entrance.

“Look, Rey, I apologize for not telling you that you need a permit to wander around the Academy from 8 in the evening till 8 in the morning. I thought you would know--”

Rey rotated his body towards his back and knocked lightly on Aster’s forehead with his knuckle. Aster blinked his eyes consecutively in a fast manner and his expression became puzzled as to what just happened.

“I’m not mad at you, Aster. I just got a little annoyed because I didn’t manage to clear this stage. Now that I’m sure the Chamber of Discovery is one of the labs, we can clear at least the fifth stage by tomorrow’s sunset.” He resumed his route to the cafeteria after finishing the sentence.

After the duo went back to their room, Rey invited Eli to play an online game with him since he had nothing in particular to do.

“You seemed intriguingly surprised. I know how to relax through gaming too.” Rey threw himself on the couch, simultaneously enjoying Eli's flabbergasted face. Nevertheless, Eli agreed and both of them get to their own desks, switch on their PC (the black box) and ran the game.

“Which world do you play in? Mine is D/I/E. I’m a casual gamer, so don't expect my character to be impressively powerful.” Rey typed in his username and password as he inquired.

After a few minutes, their respective characters met each other in a public location within the same server.

“Rey, you said you are a casual player, right? Why do you have so much expensive cash items on you??” Eli's jaw dropped hard. Those equipment were not only expensive, they were incredibly rare (limited time only).

“Hmm? These? I got them from other people. There are a lot of players that were easy to manipulate. Of course, they gave me those things willingly.” Eli was speechless. He had a vague guess that Rey could 'read’ people, but who could've known Rey would use it in a game.

They spent the next couple of hours doing random quests and raiding expedition bosses. Eli was a long term player, so he helped Rey catch up to his godlike level and explained a few new contents.

“Rey, do you want to try defeating the 16-player expedition boss?” Needless to say, that was what they did next. They gathered 16 players and they're off.

“Hey, don’t you think my character resembles that character from a manga?”

“You mean that one where the MC and his friends were forced to go to the future to defeat crazy ESP users? And the MC can use some sort of dark colored, super strong material?”

“Ya, that’s the one.”

“Could both of you stop talking and focus on the boss? We're not going to win at this rate.” Eli rebuked in the party chat. This is why Rey normally doesn't play these games. There will always be this kind of people in the community.

“Report.” Alan threw the gem up and caught it single-handedly when it fell down repeatedly.

“They are still in the fifth stage.” His henchman, Marty, a relatively tall dwarf, replied.

“That’s good to hear. You and Neto can start thinking what to do to those three tomorrow. I expect you both to put up a good show.”

“Don’t worry boss, we got this.” This time, he gripped the descending gem tightly and drew a circle on it. A string of binary codes swiftly flashed through the surface. It was 01001100 01100001 01110011 01110100 00100000 01010011 01110101 01110000 01110000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01010111 01101001 01110100 01101000 00100000 01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000100 01100101 01110110 01101001 01101100.

“Hmm. Interesting.” He grinned as his fingers danced gracefully on the holographic keyboard.

“Dammit! I was certain that House of Power was referring to a Source related field. Alright, Rey. You win the bet. Here're your Units.” Aster brought up the Trade app and transferred five Units to Rey.

“I warned you not to make a bet with me, Aster.” Eli, oddly enough, expected Rey to smile smugly after winning the bet. He was wrong. Rey was as impassive as ever. Eli found it hard to grasp a pattern to Rey’s reaction.

“Now, to the Seventh Ring.”

The Deity of Luck smiled upon Rey as he effortlessly found the glowing ball of light hovering fifteen feet off the ground, within their eyesight.

“You should be thankful that the ball of light was outside the office, Rey.” Aster stood with arms akimbo, a large breath exhaled through his nose.

“I don’t believe in luck, Aster. The gem must have known where its owner can or cannot go, just like what happened during the Chamber of Discovery stage. It probably has some algorithmic spells embedded to the gem.”

“I suppose I can’t argue with that.” Said Aster while Eli recalled the episode when they noticed a section of the labs were closed off mostly because the Academy didn’t want to leave any openings for thieves to steal rare materials. Rey eventually found the ball in an empty lab, not to mention in a stark spot too.

“Beholder of Greed.” Rey read it aloud for Eli and Aster to hear.

“I sure hope you won’t be needing an extra ‘Scanner’ for the final stage.” He commented whilst Rey learned that their target was somewhere in the Second Ring.

“Second Ring.” Without communicating with each other, they transported themselves to the same study room within the library for their fifth visit.

A couple of hours later, they were more exhausted than the past few days as they made their way back to the dorm.

“This is going to be a tough one, Rey. Virtually every club or guild in the Second Ring are all, one way or another, beholder of greed. What are we going to do, Rey? Rey? Are you listening?” He tried not to raise his voice too high or he’ll disturb the other passengers.

“......I have to use the ‘Sensor’.” He announced quietly to his two friends stood beside him.

“Are you--”

“Don’t, Aster. Whatever you say will not change my decision. You don’t have to worry, I learned a spell to slow the time of an item that could fit in my palm from one second to one-third of a second before coming here. Convenient timing? Yes. An Ex Machina? No. I taught myself this spell to avoid ice cream from melting too fast. If I hold the gem with both of my hands, the effect will multiply, giving me 90 seconds. There’s one flaw to it, however. It drains incredible amounts of my energy. But, if the spell is coupled with my precise calculations, I shall be able to pinpoint the target, granted, if I’m *grunt ‘lucky’ enough.”

“You’re so awesome, Rey.” Eli had overcome his fear and uttered out his genuine thoughts.

“Of course I am.” He turned his head towards Eli and gave him a prideful smile.

Aster helped open the door while Eli helped the fatigued Rey trudged his way to a nearby chair. Hinoko jumped down from Rey’s shoulder as he slumped down on the chair in a worn-out manner. Through his Circulum, Rey commanded his Personal Dimensional Storage (PDS) to hand him his water bottle. A small cube detached itself from his waist and floated towards his hand. After it’s in position, a water bottle appeared and maintained perfect balance on the small cube. Rey glugged down large amounts of water as soon as he opened the cover. He had to close his eyes due to the blinding sunlight.

Aster and Eli stayed silence. There wasn’t a need to say something that Rey don’t already know. After a few minutes, Rey regained his ability to walk properly and they departed to continue their search once more. That is, until twenty seconds later Rey accidentally bump into a person.

“Hey! The hell are you doin’?!” The person Rey bumped into roared at him as his companion on his left remained mute.

“Sorry.” Rey tried to get away but the person blocked his path and refused to let him go.

“Where do you think you’re going, huh?! You and I are going to have a little challenge. If you say no, I’m going to beat you up real nice.” Obviously, Aster and Eli was not going to let the guy have what he wants, but his companion stopped them and gestured that if they make a move, he would attack them without second thoughts.

“Is this really necessary?” Rey’s attempt to use an intermediating tone failed, his voice sounded weary instead.

“You think you can talk your way out huh boy?! Guess what? You’re not!” On the challenge invitation, Rey saw the name “Marty”. Rey found it pointless to decline the invitation after the threats had been given out.

“You’re going to accept all my conditions for this challenge, or my partner here will beat the crap out of your friends!” Aster was on the verge to punch the tall and skinny elf in front of him, but the thought was washed away when he saw Rey signalling him not to cause any more commotion.

“Fine. Any challenge will do, just not physical battles challenge.” After hearing that, Marty’s face had a grim grin. He instantly set the condition to win as “The First One to Knock The Opponent Out Cold”. He also added his ‘partner’s’ name, Neto, into the challenge, essentially making it a two-versus-one battle.

“You bastards. You better not take 1000 Units as your reward. I will tell the Enforcers about this.” Marty then proceeds to make the reward for the winner 1000 Units.

“You don’t scare me, freshman. Now, press the ‘Confirm’ button or your friends get it!” With no better option at hand, Rey pressed the ‘Confirm’ button.

It only took one second for the three of them standing to enter the Mirror Dimension and then came out with two of them lying down on the floor. Aster and Eli, with their mouths agape, were barely retaining their posture due to the unbelievable occurrence they just witnessed. Hinoko sauntered out the room they were in a minute ago and made its way to Rey’s comfy shoulder again. Rey tickled her a bit before Eli said he needed to go to the toilet. He branched off from the team, leaving Rey, with Aster’s company, to search nearly one hundred individual rooms.

“Do either of you care to explain what happened in the morning?!!!” Alan shouted at the two individuals before him.

“We have no idea as well, boss! The second after that brat press ‘Confirm’, we were knocked out instantly!”

“ARGHH!! Fuck!” His hand pushed his hair back as he turned his back to the two, “If not for the both of you dimwits, they wouldn’t have gone to the Consumer’s Association and completed the seventh stage!” He then mumbled to himself for a few minutes before striding for his receptacle and took out a few items.

“This,” With one hand holding a ring between his thumb and index finger in front of Marty and another against his chest, ensuring the other larger items do not fell down, “is a Briseur which forces your opponent to enter the Mirror Dimension with you. Until either you or your opponent is completely unconscious, you won’t be able to get out. Remember to hold hands when using it, the both of you, or the one not using this Briseur is going to be left out. Take it." Marty received the ring and shoved it into his pocket.

“These,” He displayed two oddly-shaped guns, “will make sure whoever got hit by its bullets won’t be going anywhere for a few hours, no matter which part of the body was shot. It has a wide range and shoots automatically so long as you hold down the trigger, it also doesn’t require reloading. Both of you will NOT be allowed to fail tomorrow. Understand?!” Both of them replied “Yes” at the top of their lungs.

“Dammit. I would’ve won by now if not for the stupid punishment that took away my Night Permit. Fuck!”

“Is Aster not joining us?” The both of them were leaving their room.

“He was summoned by Ada. She found evidence of Alan’s hack into the system. Since Aster told her that he knew Alan had ill intentions towards me, she is using him as a witness to file a complaint against Alan. She knew about my challenge with Alan as well, which is why she called for Aster and not me.”

“Oh.” The two of them proceeded to skip breakfast in order to secure their victory. The duo made their way to the Academy as fast as possible. However, the moment they arrived at the other end of the express lane, two individuals had been waiting for them.

“We meet again, you little punk!” The time taken for Marty to point his finger at Rey was barely enough for Rey to hold Hinoko in front of him.

“Battle!” “Rey!” The ring on Marty’s index finger broke and Eli instantly disappeared. Neto released his grip with Marty’s left hand and the two henchmen removed their gun from both of their waists.

As soon as both of them pulled the trigger, Hinoko escaped Rey’s hand and a huge chunk of flame burst out, not only neutralizing the bullets, but also confining the both of them within a circle of fire. As they were cursing and shouting, they could somewhat saw a blurry figure which resembled a young girl beyond the raging fire.

“Those idiots better get the job done.” Alan murmured to himself while exiting the room. When he entered the hallway and seek to advance towards the elevator, he saw Aster and Ada standing approximately one meter away from him.

“What the hell--”

“I’m sorry, Alan. You lose.” Aster pointed his index finger at the blonde in front of him. To Alan’s horror, he saw a familiar ring on that very finger.

“Force!”

✵End of Chapter 3✵

Advisor: Jigoku Shounen