“[Shield]” Both of the mages said under their breath. Their body were enveloped in an invisible, skin-tight force field. Since casting a spell in one’s mind is significantly harder than doing it verbally, most mages would whisper out their spell. Due to the nature of Shield that constantly drains one’s Mana, it is risky to use it from the start of the battle, which explains why neither of the mages wanted the other to know they’re using it.

“火球, 五!” Five fireballs appeared above Rey’s head and were directed by his finger to fly towards Jay. Although whispering out the spells would ensure the enemy wouldn’t know what to expect, it would definitely reduce its power. The explanation behind this is that the clearer the deities can hear you, the more power they can give. It might sound ridiculous, but when everyone believes it, it became real.

“Earth wall!” A big chunk of earth suddenly shoots out from the ground in front of Jay and stopped the fireballs, which took only one second to travel from Rey to him, “Han, huh? I’d never bothered myself to learn that. [Earth Spike]” Big, sharp cones jutted out from the ground around Rey. It didn’t manage hit him as he was already moving when the veteran started talking.

This was very bad for the youngster. He has strong affinities with air and fire, both of which are almost useless against the earth element. However, as long as he hovers in the air, the veteran would have a hard time hitting him. That was exactly what he did, he casts [levitation] and [速 (speed)] while propelling himself even closer to Jay.

The A-rank mage noticed Rey’s tactic, but it won’t matter much to him. If they were in an open field, this would be a problem. But because they were in a room, a specially designed one no less, he can use earth-based spells as freely as he wants. “Earth--”

“火龍!!!” Five meters away from Jay, at the angle of 45 degrees from his eyes, a gigantic, flaming dragon came into existence in front of Rey, cutting through the air and going straight towards the veteran with incredible speed. It completely startled the experienced mage for one whole second before he quickly dodged the dragon.

To use such a powerful and Mana draining spell at the beginning of a fight is a bad decision in many scenarios. But when facing a kid he knew nothing of, it was a pretty good tactic to catch him off guard. The kid didn’t know he didn’t read his aura in order to play it ‘fair’, yet he put a smile to make him looked like he did. Now, his bluff has become ineffective as the kid definitely noticed his slow reaction.

The dragon continued to pursue him as he moved around the arena. He didn’t immediately use earth wall again because he would need to spend a lot of Mana to directly block the attack. He won’t use the earth dragon either as it was considered to be a ‘final attack’. He tried to locate the kid but he didn’t see him anywhere. The human might be using an invisible spell or hiding behind the dragon, trying to perform another surprise attack.

Alright, running around to deplete the dragon’s Mana would take too much time, and trying to damage the dragon bit by bit through intermediate water spells would be a risky move because there was no telling if the dragon has Mana absorption capabilities. He halted his movements, with the dragon closing in up front, and cast two spells.

“Earth Spear! Drilling Water Spear!” A large spear rocketed out from the ground, aiming at the incoming fire spell. Then, a layer of water materializes around the rock spear and began spinning around the smooth surface. Just before the dragon came into contact with the sharp spear, Jay’s peripheral vision caught sight of Rey’s body dashing towards him at his left. Before the kid’s air spell could hit him, he turned his body to the left and summoned multiple earth spikes to pierce his body. However…

Before he could mentally say ‘oh shit’, in a split second, the moment Rey’s body vanished, he felt his feet being tied down to the ground by metal bands, his senses were all suddenly taken away, a strong gust of wind behind his back and the dragon came crashing down, leaving a huge cloud of smoke.

Rey swiftly jumped from the lower right corner of the arena to a safer area before using another wind spell to clear out the smoke. As he anticipated, Jay was gone, but when he took a look at the numbers on the wall, his HP dropped to 70, which means the veteran managed to partially dodge a practically point-blank attack under the circumstances of having mostly all of his movement restricted.

“I have to say, that was a pretty good attack. You knew the water and earth spear spells are streaming spells, so I can’t cut off the Mana supply fast enough to switch or instantly cast another spell to shield myself from the ambush. Should’ve guessed you might use a mirage spell,” His disembodied voice echos through the room, yet his body could not be spotted.

“Although, you shouldn’t have used the fire dragon spell, considering you just cast three non-affinity spells simultaneously. All of that must’ve drained at least half of your Mana. Well, I hope you don’t regret your decision. And now, we go into phase two.” Balls of rock suddenly blasted out from the ceiling and the ground.

Rey’s HP was brought down to 90 due to the tiny rock bullets hitting him at high velocity, which originated from all the hovering rock balls. He didn’t feel any pain because of the Training Challenge; it turns all the damage taken into HP deductions. The novice quickly set up a wind barrier to deflect all incoming projectiles. As much as he wanted to use the metal barrier, it would consume three times more Mana than someone who has an affinity for it.

“You know what I want to see, Rey. Stop wasting your Mana on the pointless barrier. Also, you should really spend some time increasing the strength of your Shield.” Rey knew what he was talking about. He didn’t want to do it because he only had a short amount of time practising it before coming to the Academy, plus, he always uses his Ingenium while doing it.

The young mage sighed, closed his eyes and cast two spells before bringing down the barrier, “風式: 感知結界” A very thin layer of air grew into the size of the barrier, “火式: 吸魔火球, 六” Six baseball-sized fireballs appeared on the boundary of the barrier and began to move towards the rock bullets. When the bullets touched one of the fireballs, it immediately dropped to the ground whilst the fireball grew bigger insignificantly.

Rey almost dropped to his knees after casting the fire spell. It was Mana consuming, but it would come in handy later. Once he stopped the barrier spell, he regained some stamina back, but the rock bullets rained down on him mercilessly. When one of the bullets almost hit the back of his head, he swerved his body to the left, his left hand brushed against the bullet (for the audience, it might seem like that, but it was actually a few centimeters apart), and instead making a dent on the ground, it just ‘dropped down’. The thin layer of air gave him the exact coordinates of everything within its range, allowing him to precisely react to each individual stone bullets.

His body moved nearly as fast as the bullets, sucking up its Mana whenever it came close enough with his hands. Obviously, there was no way he could do that for all the bullets, which was why he willingly summoned the fireballs to lessen his load.

As he slowly filled up his Mana ‘storage’, he sensed even more bullets coming in faster and larger. His HP slowly inclined as the bullets did not give him a breathing space to cast any other spells and were getting more and more hits on him. He wanted to use his Ingenium so bad, but he resisted the strong temptation.

“Hey, wait a minute. The pendant around your neck is a Mana container! That counts as a magic tool!” He tried to scare the kid, but it didn’t elicit any sort of response at all. Either his mind was too busy reacting to the next bullet or he already called off the veteran’s bluff. Looking at his aura, it seems to be the latter, “I guess I should’ve stopped my attacks to make it more real. You know, even if the container is empty and is practically a decorative item, you should be glad that I allow the test to continue. If it’s somebody else, you won’t be so lucky.”

“Playtime’s--” That word was the moment Rey has been waiting for. He opened his eyes, deactivated the air sensory spell and sent all six, now big fireballs towards the ceiling. As it flew to its destination, the fireballs aligned itselves into a straight line, with equal distance between each fireball, from one end of the room to another. Right before it touches the ceiling, Rey shouted a command.

“爆!” BOOM! The fireballs exploded and the entire ceiling came crashing down, along with a familiar face. Rey already ‘scanned’ the ground beneath him and found no trace of the veteran, hence he must be hiding within the thick ceiling, escaped when the smoke cloud was created. Jay quickly retreated to the other end of the room, but Rey was getting closer by the second.

“Sleep powder!” A bunch of vines broke out from the ground with conspicuous flowers grew on it. Then, a huge amount of visible blue spores were shot out from the flowers. The amateur halted his advancement and used an air spell to create a safe breathing space around his head. However, the spores were too much, so he had to slowly burn off those. The A-rank mage bought some time for his next spell to be fully activated.

“Phase 3, Rey. Earth armor!” Chunks of debris fell from the ceiling attracted itselves to Jay’s body. As the rocks merged with each other, the shape changes to better fit the mage’s body; not too thick to be slowed down, but not too thin to be easily breakable either. When Rey could finally breathe safely, the veteran’s armor has been completed; only his eyes were not covered to allow him to see clearly.

“Alright, Rey. If you can maintain at least one HP for ten seconds after I cast a speed boost spell, I’ll give you a B+ rank, okay? Speed boost!” His movement was so fast, it was as if he teleported to right in front of Rey and punched the young mage’s stomach with all his might. Luckily, Rey was fast enough to focus all his Mana on his stomach (Shield spell). Unfortunately, it did not stop Rey from flying backward and hit the not-so-invisible wall (arena boundary) hard. His HP instantly fell to 40.

When his eye caught vision of the armored mage leaped into the air and prepared to deal another round of damage, he tried to flee under the mage. It was a failed attempt, however, when a huge pillar of stone extended from the veteran’s feet, and another huge pillar burst out from the ground squeezing Rey in midair. After Rey’s HP dropped to 20, he used Dispel to break the pillars and fell to the ground, facing upwards.

Jay was faster than Rey, using earth spells to bound the kid’s body onto the ground tightly. Rey used Dispel again and again, but Jay’s casting speed was faster. As the veteran jumped very high directly on top of Rey, he prepared to unleash his final attack. The amateur gave up escaping and consumed all of his remaining Mana on his last spell as well, at least this way he could cut down a few more of the veteran’s HP, possibly increasing his chance to achieve a higher rank.

“火龍卷風!” A massive flaming tornado came into existence and was aimed towards the veteran. He smiled and roared his spell, “Aqua Blade!” A long and sharp blade made with water appeared in his hand before using it to slash the tornado in perfect half and driving Rey’s HP down to zero.

Jay plummeted down to the ground, deactivated his armor spell and earth spell that was restricting Rey, and offered a hand to lift him up. After Rey stood up on his two feet, the tester called off the Training Challenge and the two spectators sprinted towards their friend.

“That was awesome Rey!! You’re so cool the entire time! Especially when you attack him while the fire dragon hits!! That was epic!!” Eli acted like an innocent child after watching an action cartoon, his eyes glinted with respect, excitement, and awe. Rey couldn’t stifle his wide smile after seeing Eli’s adorable reaction.

“I’m amazed, Rey. I certainly did not expect you to have such proficient skills.” Said Aster with a proudful expression. He knew Rey was good, but he still greatly underestimated the training his junior received.

“Hello~? I’m still here, you know?” Jay put down his waving hand after the trio had paid their attention towards him, “I understand you guys wanna have a heated conversation about the battle just now, but I have some things I want to say first.”

“Rey, our battle just now was very refreshing, and I want to thank you for that,” Aster and Eli was a little bit confused, but Rey doesn’t seem to be surprised, “I have been in charge of this particular test for newcomers since last year’s summer. And let me tell ya, it was boring as hell. SO! Thank you very much for that battle, and now we move on to the analysis. Usually, we don’t do that, but I found you quite fascinating, so there’s that.”

“First off, the fire dragon. I had to be honest, I did not expect you, a person who seems to rely on smart strategies, to use that powerful spell right off the bat. Usually, it would be the dumbest move during a battle. However, since I didn’t read your aura and know practically nothing about you, it was a good, yet quite risky, ploy. Then, when you drive me into a corner, you used a light spell to create an illusion, a metal spell to limit my movements, a dark spell to obscure my senses, the fire dragon to temporarily distract me and a finishing wind spear for the ambush attack. That was definitely great. If you had been trained even more, I wouldn’t have escaped with more than 50 HP.”

“Next up is the, hmm, I shall call it ‘Mana absorption part’. Yup. That part really blew my mind. I was expecting you to use other methods to absorb the Mana from those rock bullets. But you sir, you used the physical absorption method splendidly. You must’ve had one hell of a master training you. Did you come from the Outer Regions? It’s hard to believe any kid from the city or the Residential Region would be willing to undergo that kind of intense training.” Rey nodded. He didn’t really like letting outsiders know he came from the Outer Regions, but he didn’t mind in this situation.

“And for the final part, heh heh, I went a little overboard. It was originally supposed to be CQC spell battle with me using partial earth armor, but after witnessing you performing the physical absorption, I decided to skip an entire section. However, fear not fellow challenger! It only affects your ranking in a positive way. The fire tornado was executed pretty well too.”

“Now, the ultimate question! What rank should I bestow upon you? The answer is----B-!” Eli didn’t understand what the rank actually mean and Rey was impassive as ever. Only Aster has a significant emotion changes, “Wait, really? I mean, it’s a fantastic thing for Rey, but--”

“I know what you’re trying to say. I was supposed to give him a C+ rank, but this boy here really impressed me. Although I’ll probably get scolded for this afterward, nevertheless, I believe that he can reach the rank I gave him in a short amount of time, given that he has good and consistent training. One more thing before you leave,” He stared down at Rey’s eyes, “I understand that your affinity with fire and air would not be very beneficial to you when facing someone which has strong affinities with earth and water. In order to counter those attacks, you’ll need to draw massive amounts of Mana to cast spells you do not have an affinity with. Hence, I would like to teach you a special skill to overcome that problem.”

“Whenever you use a spell that is not fire or air in nature, add ‘Vincit’ after the spell and it will reduce the Mana cost. Of course, at the beginning, you won’t see any substantial difference when you cast a non-affinity spell. However, as long as you kept on using ‘Vincit’, in training or battle, one day, no matter what category the spell belongs to, you will find no difference, in terms of Mana consumption, when casting those very spells. As a side note, this would only work for traditional spells. Your affinity would increase the intensity but will not affect the Mana consumption of modern spells. That’s all I have to say. I hope we have the chance to meet each other again.” He winked.

Rey bowed slightly at Jay before he and his friends exited the room. They walked back to the counter and waited about a minute for the automaton to process his license. After that, they went back to the dorm to have their lunch. Although Aster suggested Rey that the three of them should go to a restaurant outside the Academy to celebrate his success, Rey insisted they go back to the dorm for lunch to save money, and because he thought this wasn’t that kind of a big day.

“What do you want to do now? Continue exploring the Academy? Play some games? Or do you want to spend some time outside the Academy? If you want to do that, I’ll need to call my friend. I’m still not fully familiar with the city...” He proceeded to gulp down another spoonful of ice cream. Since they didn’t go to some fancy place to eat, Rey agreed to have ice cream as dessert. So now the three of them were enjoying their delicious sweetened frozen food.

“I want to meet with Alan.” He then scooped up a half spoonful of matcha ice cream and enjoyed it in his warm mouth, “Why?” Eli asked. He wonders how Rey felt to have an underling. If he was Rey, he would just not care about the thug, he’s still a bad person after all.

“To save him.” Now both the non-human was confused. He noticed the expression on his two friends, put down his spoon and let out a small sigh.

“From what I can tell, he must’ve only recently joined their group, presumably since the incident last year Ada mentioned. I did a little digging around and I found that he didn’t commit any crime prior to the incident, so that was probably a test to proof that he got what it takes to join a gang.”

“Remember those guys following behind Alan? They are a part of an infamous gang called The Skull. Those individuals are most likely his ‘superiors’, from what I can tell from their aura. The reason they followed him around was either because they got nothing better to do, which I highly doubt, or that they were observing him up close on how he works due to the fact he was still relatively new to the gang and they were probably thinking whether or not they want to let him into their inner circle.”

“But, after seeing him failed twice in a row, they’re definitely giving him a hard time. They’ll either pester him, bully him or do something even worse to him. It’s pretty safe to assume that they invested a great amount of money and time on him, considering the skill he had to hack into the dorm’s system. If so, I don’t think they’ll be willing to let an asset go just like this, hence the reason why I need to ‘save’ him, help him cut his ties with the gang.”

“Before you two go ahead and praise me like I’m some sort of saint, I would like to say that half of the reason I’m doing this is for my own selfish gain. After I am officially a Solver working under the Analytical Mind, I would indefinitely need some technological help to tackle a few problematic cases. I might have a lot of knowledge in many fields, but technology is absolutely not one of them. Until I had spent enough time mastering this field of study, I need someone like him to help me out. Plus, maybe I can learn more about how different technology works from him if he can and is willing to teach me.”

“As for the other reason...I know for certain that he didn’t choose...to walk down this path, otherwise, he would’ve had go ahead and challenge me again already. Heh,” Wow. Just…wow. That must be the first time they saw Rey said so many words in one go and the first time they hear such a sensitive sentence came out of his mouth. The both of them were thinking how to react with...all of this while Rey just casually finished the rest of his ice cream. The non-human duo silently emptied the contents of the freezing cup in front of them.

“Hey, do you know the name of an old manga which tells the story of a boy goes around the world to collect some magical stone for his sword? I think?”

“Yeah, I know that one. It has a really good story and a satisfying ending, unlike the author’s new manga which he completely butchers the final story arc. Seriously, I wonder what is in the guy’s head to mess up an ending to a super popular manga.”

“Dude, you’re getting off track. Tell me more about the old manga, I’m wondering if I should spend some time reading it.”

“Let’s see...Within the time of the story, fifty years ago, when the original owner of a legendary sword tried to destroy a powerful and evil crystal, he fucked things up and accidentally destroyed an entire kingdom. After fifty years, the MC, a teenager living on a faraway island, got a visit from the now old sword wielder. Some bad guys from the mainland show up, then the MC found out he was the second sword owner, which explains why the original owner can’t use the sword’s power after arriving at the island. They fight, the good guys win, the original owner tells him he needs to collect four stones with awesome power that is the good counterpart of the evil crystal to save the world and then the adventure officially starts.”

“Wow. I’m pretty sure you just spoiled the first story arc for me, but whatever. Now I’m really interested. So, what’s the title?” At this point, Aster and Eli had finished their ice cream and Rey began to speak once more.

“We go to his room right now, see if he’s in there.” The three of them got up and sauntered towards the elevator, “Rey, are you sure you can trust him? I don’t doubt the part where you say he didn’t choose to become what he is today, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be trying to--”

“Aster. Don’t worry about the future. Now, we just focus on making Alan get himself as far away as possible from The Skull.” Rey’s words were always reassuring. The goat Demi put away his skepticism and composed himself. His junior was right, even if Alan turned out to be a problem at the end, they’ll find a way to solve it.

Knock, knock, knock. Rey stood before the door to Alan’s room whilst the other two were right behind him. They waited for awhile but there was no response. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK--

“ENOUGH!” The door slide opened and Alan, his words laced with fiery rage, appeared in front of the youngster, “What are you doing here?! Wait, let me guess. Let. Me. Guess. Are you finally here to order me to do your bidding? Oh wait, you’re a ‘good’ guy, you can’t possibly want to force me to do something I don’t want. If that’s the case, SEE YOU LATER ASSHOLE!” And the door shuts back again. Knock Knock Knock. No response. Knock--

“Well hello there, who do we got here?” Rey heard the deep but soft voice and turned his head to the left. The individual was a very handsome and charming elf. He was older than Aster, has a quite muscular body and a tall height, and wore expensive, trending clothing with the shades of black and purple. Behind the elf stood three of the people who were seen following Alan during his previous encounter with Rey.

“AHA!” The door slid open again and Alan jumped out screaming at Rey, “You have fallen into my trap and you aren’t going anywhere! You--”

“I know you still have your drones watching me, dumbass,” Said the youngster while clearly expressing his discomfort due to Alan’s shouting, “And I know for sure you will give them a call in order to try and make the best out of this chance, hence the reason I’m visiting you, to save an extra trip to meet your boss.”

“Nice to meet you, Reynard. You can call me Zed.” The muscular-looking elf reached out his hand. Rey didn’t even bother to greet with the elf and get straight to the point, “A formal Challenge. If I win, your gang, no matter who it is, will not come into contact with Alan anymore, no matter the circumstances unless I said otherwise.”

There was a moment of silence before Zed spoke, “Very well, then. If you lose, however, not only you will work under my orders,” His attention shifted to the other boy, “Your little friend here will join you too,” His eyes went back to meet with Rey’s, “How about it? Are you willing to take up the Challenge? Of course, I shall allow you to choose any type of Challenge you prefer.” His overall gentle demeanour and the soothing, thick accent voice would make anyone hard to imagine that such a person is one the leading figure of a crime syndicate.

“What?! Are you kidding me?! Just Force him and--” A furious glare from his boss interrupted his sentence and he was forced to stay silent, however angry he was. A few minute passed as Rey was focusing hard on coming up with a Challenge that would benefit himself but wouldn’t make the intimidating individual felt like he got an ace up on his sleeve. After all, just because he gets to choose doesn’t mean his enemy would agree instantly. He also doesn’t want to risk anything by using his Ingenium.

“May I provide you a suggestion? I’m sorry if it appears as if I’m going against my word, but I am an impatient man and my time is precious. I wish to resolve this...problem as fast as possible.” The youngster thought for awhile before nodding. If the Challenge Zed suggested was acceptable, he could modify a little bit of the rules so it would be advantageous to him.

“Seeing that the both of us are individuals who are talented in the art of knowing the characteristics of people, hidden or not, by simply observing them, the Challenge will involve the two of us telling each other one thing the opponent might not know about our mutual acquaintance here, Alan.” No one expected him to declare a Challenge that includes observing Alan, especially the man himself.

“What?!” “Would you mind keep your voice down, Alan? Or do I need to give you another round of the Special Treatment you love so much later?” Zed then plastered a sinister smile on his face for Alan to see, but changed it back to his regular smile when looking at Rey again, “So, Reynard, would you like to hear more about my suggested Challenge or do you finally have one in your mind?” The boy didn’t say anything, so the elf continued.

“It is as simple as it sounds, we observed Alan and tell each other one thing the other might not know about. We cannot have any interaction with Alan himself, and he cannot do the same to us, but we can observe him. However, since I know him much longer than you do, we shall hold the challenge within his room. I would only be allowed to study his room with my eyes while you can inspect it however you want, to make it more ‘fair’, but, you can’t access his computer. You do not need to worry about cheating, the Challenge can be set to prevent that. So, what do you say?” It didn’t take ten seconds for Rey to think it through and said,

“Agreed, but with one more rule. After one of us pronounce a fact, if the other doesn’t know about it, he can have five minutes to find evidence, either an item, the state of an item or his reaction to certain things and say it out loud to know for certain that the fact is true.”

“No. Five minutes is too long, it’s simply not exciting enough. How about thirty seconds? After all, your reputation precedes you.” The youngster pondered the counter for a few moments before nodding.

“Oh, and one more thing. The both of us won’t be allowed to use any Mana related tricks, no magic, no Ingenium, no aura reading. And definitely, no Circulum, okay?” Another nod, though this time with a tinge of annoyance, “Very well, let us proceed to enter Alan’s room then.” Alan was clearly unhappy about their decision, but it’s not like he has a choice anyway. He stepped aside and let everyone into his room.

The room, unlike Rey had imagined, was awfully clean and tidy. The room was almost identical to the one Rey lived in, except the bunk bed was a fancy bed for one person, there were no windows, the walls had a few posters on it, the table beside the bed sits a high-grade PC, the table right to the door had a lot of mechanical tools on it and two extra receptacles horizontally below the bed. The room was also very dim due to the darker shades blue as the colour of the wall and the fact that the brightness of the light was very low. Rey absolutely detests dark rooms when the Sun is still hanging in the sky.

“Now, should we start?” The two of them set up the Challenge after getting into the room. Obviously, Alan was also dragged into the Mirror Dimension. Once they had initiated the Challenge, the three of them vanished from the room. All of them were still in the same room, but the three of them can’t see the others, the same goes for those who were not involved in the Challenge. There were two floating spheres at the side of Rey and Zed.

“Who should start first? You? Or me? I will take your silence as my cue to start first.” And indeed the silence followed, “Here we go, then.”

“He has a fetish for a woman wearing a skirt during sex.” Rey remained impassive, Zed showed a wicked smile, and Alan…After five seconds, Rey has completed the analysis he needed and the transparent sphere emitted a bright red light.

“Although the blushing hasn’t occur, the indication of the upper half body stiffening while trying not to shake his legs, which he, unfortunately, failed to do so, coupled with the biting of the lips and directing high exertion of force from his fingers to the palm is enough evidence to support that he indeed have that fetish you spoke of.” The bright light went off and Zed gave him a smile as a sign to continue.

Rey took a look at all the posters on the walls. There was a poster of a magitech* tournament, a few astoundingly beautiful game posters and a poster with the scenery of Section 8 of Astral. He walked towards one of the receptacles and gandered at the clothes and items inside it. He spotted a peculiar suit, almost like a whole body swimming suit but with signs on it. It seems to be magic repellent. Rey made his way back to his original spot.

“Despite having a passion for magitech, Alan has been losing interest in it and has been hesitating to quit. He wanted to join the Magitech Tournament, but couldn’t bring himself to do that.” Zed’s expression turned curious. He quickly took a look at the posters then glanced at the table beside the door before the sphere lit up.

“The poster of Section 8 and the magitech poster was enough to indicate that he had a passion for magitech. However, the latter poster wasn’t on the walls which the two table faces, it was instead placed beside the door to the kitchenette. He still had the poster, which means he is, or was, enthusiastic about the tournament, but he didn’t place it in front of the desks where he works with magitech, which means he is indeed hesitating.

The tools on the table were arranged in perfect order and nothing else was on it. No completed or in-progress machines of any kind were there. This indicates he was readying himself for the tournament, but he hasn’t even begun to try and create something that would fit the theme for this year.” The light in Zed’s sphere vanished. Rey knew it was stupid to do what he did, but he didn’t have much choice. There was no telling what the elf might know, he can only count on his intuition.

“You know, what you said technically count as two facts, but, I am very forgiving. Now, my turn. Alan misses his father.” The blonde’s expression immediately turned from ashamed to anger. He furiously glared at the grinning elf. He wanted to punch him in the face, but he held back because he didn’t want to cause any more trouble for himself, and also because the Challenge wouldn’t let him.

Rey began to panic for a little. The Challenge system didn’t react with Zed’s statement, which meant what he said was true despite Alan’s complete opposite reaction to it. He hated his father, not missed him. His wish to meet his father again must be lying within the subconscious level, hidden deep within his heart. This was not a positive situation, most people wouldn’t display their innermost desire outside their heart, especially when someone was consciously suppressing that very desire under a mountain of rage.

Rey’s mind was racing. Since it’s pretty much impossible that Alan would keep a picture of his father, it’s most likely he would keep some sort of memento that would remind of his father. Maybe something his father gifted to him or something his father used to own? None of the stuff on Alan’s body right now were older than five years, so it couldn’t be his father’s. Rey was making two assumptions:

One, what Alan’s father did must’ve been on the news and not something like cheating on his mother or simply ran away. Zed knew when he said that sentence it would enrage Alan, which meant that what his father did was obviously public knowledge. If his father didn’t appear in the news in any way, Alan definitely won’t tell anyone about his father and Zed couldn’t know about it. He highly doubts The Skull would look that deep into someone’s background, especially someone new to the gang.

Two, what Alan’s father did must’ve happened a long time ago and it probably happened in the Residential Region. Think about it, if it had happened in the city, there is no way not one person would not mention about his father when they see him. The people who lived in the city never forgets terrible things that happened. It definitely didn’t happen in the Outer Region as well, because nobody would care even if he killed someone. Next is the incident which caused Alan to hate his father. If it had happened recently, or rather, it if had happened during the time when Arthur was already in the Academy, he would definitely tell Rey about it. Arthur is eighteen this year, so anything in this room that was younger than five years absolutely does not belong to Alan’s father.

Rey was unquestionably certain that anything he saw in the room with his naked eye at that moment wasn’t older than five years. He bolted to the nearest receptacle and frantically searched for any evidence. The older human wanted to stop him from rummaging through his stuff, but the Challenge system, once again, forbids him to interrupt whatever the real Challengers were doing.

When Rey finished looking around the receptacle, he quickly dived into another receptacle. Then another, and another. He found an entire section of the receptacle was dedicated to games. It’s funny that game companies still sell games by physical copies instead of their customers just downloading it. They were paranoid about piracy and hackers, but doing this increased the price of the games, which was just stupid. Unfortunately, none of the cases seemed to be older than five years old. He determined the age by shoving all the cases to the ground and see if any of it have signs he was looking for.

Before he dived into another receptacle, he noticed something about the games. He took a fast glance at the game posters, then to the setup of the PC, then back to the games. The sphere lit up with just four seconds before the times up. Now, both of his hands were holding few of the games he shoved onto the ground. A glimpse at Alan’s face confirmed his theory.

“Reynard, I almost thought you lost. It would be quite a disappointment if you did. Now, I look forward to your explanation.” Rey was once again back to his original position.

“When I first saw the posters and the setup of the PC, it was obvious that Alan plays famous MMORPGs, professionally. However, when I discovered his stash of games, it was apparent that he also play games of other genres. At first, I didn’t pay much attention to the games because all of them definitely doesn’t belong to his father,” Alan’s face twitched at the mention of that word, “I was certain he would keep something his father once own to remind Alan of him. But, I didn’t consider another option until I took a better look at all the games sprawled out on the ground.”

“The games were all ‘open world games’, except for a handful of them. There’s nothing odd about it, people might prefer one genre but would sometimes willing to try other types of game. Still, I have my suspicions. When I place even greater thoughts into examining all the peculiarity of that small group of games, I found my answer. You see, my mother was someone who loves to play games, so, naturally, I had a lot of knowledge about them. The main point is not about the genre of the games I have in my hand, it’s the year which they were released.”

“None of the games on the ground right now or the games in those posters are older than eight years old. However, the games in my hands are all release before Alan was even born. Now, why would someone play old games which aren’t even that great when they have other, better games? Not only that, the other same genre games are all somewhat similar to the ones I have in my hand. In conclusion, Alan’s father must’ve played these games before and now Alan plays it as a way to remember him because he misses his father.”

“Bravo, Reynard,” He slowly clapped his hands then stopped, “I am impressed by your ability. Just think of what we can achieve if you work under me. Now, please continue.” Rey grinned grimly.

“Alan 有一只狗.” Zed’s face darkened while Alan was confused, “You didn’t say I can’t use any language other than Elven to deliver the statement.” That devilish grin said it all. Seeing that Zed couldn’t understand one word of it, so ultimately, he lost. However, it was odd that he didn’t show any type of negative emotions. The three of them were sent back to the real world. Eli and Aster wanted to ask who won, but Zed spoke before them.

“Congratulations, Reynard. You defeated me. From today onwards, The Skulls no longer have ties with Alan. But, before I go,” He raised up his index finger then lets it down, “I want to know the answer. What did you actually say? Is it something hard to find?” Rey giggled wryly for a short second before answering.

“No. I said that he has a dog. There were quite a few indication of him owning a dog littered in this room, but too bad you couldn’t understand my delicate language. I’d love to fight fair, but I love winning much more.” Ah, there it was, Rey’s infamous victory smile.

Zed remained silent before saying, “Well played, Reynard. Well played. Let’s go.” He and his minions proceeded to left the room. After the room was a few meters behind them, the elf ordered his minions coldly, “Remember to tell the others about this. I don’t want Arthur Bell to come picking a fight with us.”

Back to Alan’s room, Aster and Eli were celebrating about Rey’s triumph. However, their celebration was cut short due to the fact that Alan was chasing them out of his room.

“Get out!! I don’t want to see any of your faces!!” Rey stood directly in front of Alan with a door in between them, “Hey, Rey saved you from those guys! Shouldn’t you be a little more appreciative?” Aster was unhappy with his attitude.

“Appreciative?! HA! Do you want me to also say thank you out loud?! Or even kneel before this brat because he just destroyed my future?!” The goat Demi wanted to lash out on the nasty human, but the cool human stopped him. Rey reached out his hand, with a sarcastic but sincere smile on his face,

“Hey, at least you got yourself a new friend today.” The blonde stared down at his hand before slapping it away, “See you at dinner, then.” He turned back into his room and the door slid back. The youngster knew his senior was going to speak again, but he was faster.

“Let’s not speak about this anymore, Aster. Right now, we talk about what we should do to pass time until dinner rolls by.” Rey turned to the left and ambled forward. The other two quickened their steps and caught up to him, Eli at his left while Aster at his right.

“Say, Rey, did you know there is an arcade in the Academy? Wanna check it out right now?” “Lead the way.”

The moment his dinner landed in front of him, Alan had three visitors plus a fox with their own meal in their hands occupied the seat beside him and the two empty chairs at the other side of the table. That must’ve been some effort to time this perfectly. Alan was preparing to leave but Rey gave him a command.

“Alan, stay.” The blonde felt his body was being forced down onto the chair. Words came out of Rey’s mouth before Alan thought to resist the command, “But, if you really want to leave, to eat your dinner somewhere else, all alone by yourself, feel free to do so. Just remember, we’ll be here for you.” Alan immediately tried to stand up again and he succeeded. The three of them didn’t bat him an eye when he left the table. Nevertheless, he still came back minutes later because he can’t find any empty seats and all of them ate together, awkwardly.

The three of them ate at the same speed as Alan so that they could act out the next part more ‘naturally’. The older human wanted to quickly get away from them after cleaning up his plate, but Rey stopped him, once again.

“Alan, wait.” It wasn’t a command as the younger human grabbed his hand to halt his movement. Alan pushed away Rey’s hand, annoyingly swerved to his back and leered at him, “I already ate dinner with the three of you, what else do you want?”

“Come with us to see the night sky together. There are no clouds tonight, the view is going to be amazing. You won’t regret it.” Rey didn’t use any commands, which meant that Alan could just walk away and don’t give a crap about him. But, what else was he going to do? He wasn’t in the mood to play games, and he definitely wasn’t going back to his room to study. In the end, he half reluctantly followed the trio to the roof.

The roof was really large and was pretty well decorated. It was a surprise that the entire floor wasn’t VIP reserved since it got a really nice scenery of the city and the sky. There weren’t many people alongside them, so it was quieter than Alan would have expected. He thought Rey was going to find a spot near the border for the four of them, but he just used the levitation spell and carried them towards the top of the elevator. It got nothing on the surface and it was sure as hell very clean. The dorm management installed an alchemical circle on the entire roof to easy it up the cleaning process.

Anyhow, the four of them plus a fox sat into their comfortable positions and just enjoyed watching the stars.

Alan wondered if he could ever understand what was in that kid’s head. He was his enemy, he hated him, but, in the end, he reached out his hand and called him ‘friend’. Maybe he’s thinking too much, the kid might just be doing all this to use him, after all, he is talented. Heck, he knows for sure the kid was definitely doing all this so he could get some benefit from his underling.

Still, in his heart, he hoped. He hoped that no matter the thousand reasons his mind came up with that was trying to convince himself not to fall for the trick, he can finally have friends, real and tangible friends. He always dreamt of this moment, watching the night sky with his friends. Of course, it was nothing like he imagined, he still hated the kid after all! But, maybe, one day, one day he could finally step out from the prison he created for himself. Until his dream really comes true, this would have to do for now.

He just relaxed and try not to get too emotional.

✵End of Chapter 8✵

Advisor: Jigoku Shounen

*Magitech--Like biotech, but it’s magic + technology.