I couldn't believe my eyes. The beast we were all struggling to deal with had been defeated. The black scimitar had to be a beast crystal weapon of a high tier to be able to slice through the minotaur's hide. All our weapons, even with the use of Ki, were practically useless.

  There was one more thing that had happened as soon as the beast had been slain. I received another notification.

  Mana eater was a skill similar to mana drain. Where mana drain consumed the mana of beasts and people, mana eater consumed their elemental attributes. An example of this would be the minotaur. The minotaur had an elemental attribute of lightning. If I were to touch the minotaur, it would allow me to strengthen my lightning-based skills.

  Although this seemed pretty useless as I currently had no skills that required elemental attributes.

  I had a few theories of my own on how I could use this skill, but there was no time to worry about that.

  At the moment, there was something else we had to worry about. Sir K was currently heading towards us and none of us knew how he would react. The rules were clear: no one was allowed to enter the red door unless given explicit permission. The punishment was immediate expulsion from the academy.

  Sir K walked up to the three of us. His chest piece had several streaks of blood on it from the fight.

  "As soon as you arrived, the horned wolf ran away sir," I said.

  While Sir K was busy fighting the minotaur, I had unsummoned Noir. I gathered enough strength to now stand on my two feet. I could perhaps come up with an excuse for Gary and the others about Noir, but if a master knight were to find out, it would create a whole heap of problems.

  Sir K handed each of us a light crystal and strode over to where Jasmine was laying. He threw her over his shoulder and simply said, "Follow me."

  Sir K started to head back in the direction we had come from without saying a word to any of us. I could see that this was just making Monk more nervous until he finally blurted out.

  "Are we going to be expelled from the academy?"

  Sir K stopped walking and turned around. He looked at each of us closely examining our bodies.

  "You are all lucky enough to still be alive, never mind being expelled from the academy. For some reason, the beast didn't have much magical power left otherwise even I would have struggled greatly."

  "Does that mean…" Monk was still clearly worried about being expelled.

  Sir K sighed.

  "In any normal case you would be expelled on the spot. But honestly, we need knights like you guys. To be able to survive against a king class beast, you are all really special. It would be a waste to expel such excellent students as you four. We shall keep this a secret between us."

  "how did you know we were down here?" Gary asked.

  I was quite interested in this question too. I had my suspicions of Jasmine, but looking at her now it was hard to imagine it was her.

  "The lurker informed me."

  "Who's the lurker?" Gary asked.

  "You students have learned too many secrets for one day. Once we pass the red doors, not a word to anyone. Even with my position, there is only so much I can do."

  We carried on walking until we eventually reached the giant iron door. Sir K stopped again.

  "Which one of you opened this door?"

  Before the others could answer, I quickly said

  "It was open when we got here." I looked at the others and they quickly understood that I wanted to keep this a secret.

  Sir k then told us to wait on the other side of the doors. We weren't able to see what he was doing, but the giant iron doors started to close. He briskly ran through the doors before they shut, locking and resetting until they appeared like we had first encountered.

  As we began to walk off, I heard a soft gentle voice.

  "Come back when you are stronger."

  Judging by everyone's reaction, I was the only one who had heard the voice. I carried on walking to not raise any suspicion. The voice was a familiar one. It was the same one as I had heard in my dream.

  After heading back up the spiral stairway, we finally reached the red door. There were still no guards like when we had first arrived. Sir K put a new lock on the door so it looked like we had never broken in. He then handed Jasmine over to us and instructed us to take her to the hospital. He also recommended the rest of us get checked up at the hospital as well.

  Before Sir K could leave, Gary had one last thing to ask.

  "Do you think we could perhaps have the minotaur's beast crystal?"

  Sir K had extracted the beast crystal as soon as he had defeated the beast. I was hoping the system would have obtained the crystal, but luck wasn't on my side today.

  "This is my prize. I didn't get injured just for you little twerps."

  After that, Sir K was enveloped by shadows and disappeared from our sight.

  We did as Sir K instructed and went straight to the hospital to get checked up. Jasmine was still unconscious and we were told she would have to stay there for a few days. Gary had to wear a cast while waiting for his arm to heal. Monk had been hurt the least out of all of us, getting away with a few burn marks here and there.

  I, on the other hand, had a peculiar experience at the hospital. Originally when I checked in at the hospital, they said that I needed to stay a few days similar to Jasmine. Although I didn't have any serious superficial wounds, they said there were many internal injuries they needed to be taken care of. After a few hours had passed, the doctors ran a few more tests and were baffled by the results: no internal injuries. They just chalked it up to faulty medical supplies used during the initial inspection and after a day or two, I was free to go.