Lilian listened to Glint’s words quietly without expressing anything at all, which Glint mistook as a gesture of encouragement for Roel.

  Glint was taught from a young age that the purer a bloodline was, the nobler it would be. The purest bloodline of all was naturally the imperial family, especially the highly-talented Princess Lilian. She was impeccable in terms of appearance, talent, and bloodline, making her the one and only goddess of Glint’s generation.

  But as wonderful as Lilian was, she had a fatal flaw—her coldness. It felt like nothing could faze her at all. Even when Glint won another Rose Ring for the Austine Empire last year, she delivered her congratulations with hardly any expression on her face at all.

  Yet, this ice beauty suddenly displayed an interest in two of the freshmen, Paul Ackermann and Roel Ascart.

  While Glint despised Paul, he could at least understand why Lilian would be interested in him. Even if Paul wasn’t a pureblood, he had the Ackermann Bloodline flowing through his veins, so it was only normal for Lilian to show some care and concern for him.

  However, he couldn’t understand the situation with Roel.

  How could a barbarian from the Saint Mesit Theocracy catch Her Highness’ eye?

  “He’s no more than a freshman with an ancient magic tool in his hands, nothing worthy of note. I’ve already heard of the matter concerning Cron and Lyte, and it doesn’t seem like he has subdued them personally, right?”


  Glint reached for his wine cup as he glanced at Roel’s empty hands in the projection and chuckled softly.

  “What a pity for him that it’s forbidden to bring in intelligent magic tools into the dungeon. Without that trump card, he’s no different from any of the other freshmen.”


  The students in the First Grade thought that Roel had stepped forward and uphold justice, but Glint thought that Roel had simply made an example out of his seniors in order to build his reputation. His sense of superiority as an Austine noble had marred his judgment with prejudice.

  Lilian thought that it all looked so childish and hilarious even.

  She had no choice but to accept the Pureblood Theory as a member of the imperial family, but that didn’t stop her from being skeptical about the theory that had hardly any basis at all. As for why she was keeping an eye out for Roel, her interest in him arose from a sensation she felt while she was suppressing Roel earlier in the day.

  In truth, she was intending to send out a stern warning to Roel against approaching Paul, and the pressure she exerted was definitely not something one could simply shrug off. Even Glint would have crumbled before the might of her pressure.

  Yet, Roel was actually able to bear it with composure. On top of that, she also discovered something peculiar during that short confrontation.

  It was just a fleeting instant, but she felt like she had been eyed by something that was inside Roel’s body, something so powerful that even she had to be wary around.

  “Pride and prejudice will only dull your judgment,” Lilian reminded Glint.

  Her amethyst eyes keenly took note of how the black-haired young man in the projection was positioning himself, and a moment later, she added quietly.

  “And it seems like he already knows about the trees.”
……

  How powerful are wolves?

  Roel didn’t have a clear answer to that in his previous life. Most city-dwellers like him knew very little about wild animals, the bulk of their knowledge mainly coming from documentaries and online videos.

  It was only after coming to the Sia Continent that he started coming into contact with wild animals. During his time as the proxy fief lord, he had to scout out various areas in advance to know the wild beasts active in the area. One of the beasts he had to especially look out for were the wolves, which had a special mark of their own to warn the workers to try their best to steer clear of the area.

  A pack of Demon Wolves was far more terrifying and troublesome than bandits, a true nightmare for any fief lords to deal with. Roel would rather fight against an Origin Level 4 demonic beast than be faced with a pack of Origin Level 6 Demon Wolves.

  If it was an Origin Level 4 demonic beast, he simply had to toss a team of elite Origin Level 4 transcendents, and the matter would be easily resolved. However, if he were to send the same team to deal with a pack of Demon Wolves, he would really have to pray hard that there would as few casualties as possible.

  However, most of the other students seemed painfully oblivious to how terrifying these Demon Wolves were, and they were now paying the price of their ignorance.

  They had already been fighting for more than ten minutes now, and the number of students amongst them had been greatly reduced.

  “Let go! Goddamnit, let…… Kyaaa!”


  Yet another student had his sword bitten firmly in place by a Demon Wolf, rendering him utterly helpless as the other wolves pounced on him. He let out a cry of agony before his body suddenly vanished into thin air, leaving only his spirit guide behind to absorb the mana diffused from the demonic beasts he had killed thus far.

  A student’s score in ‘Night of the Demons’ was automatically tabulated through his spirit guide. The spirit guide would only absorb the mana released by the demonic beast killed by the student it was paired with, and the more mana it absorbed, the brighter it would become. The number of wolves and students had already been greatly reduced by now, such that the spirit guides of the surviving students were already glowing almost as brightly as light bulbs.

  Yet, Roel’s spirit guide still looked the same as before.

  With another bone claw, Roel smacked a Demon Wolf into a lump of meat as he assessed his surroundings once more. All this while, he had been on the defensive, only dealing with wolves who chose to come his way. His behavior was a little peculiar too, in the sense that most students were focused on the wolves on the ground level whereas he was eyeing the sky warily. His golden eyes were locked upon the massive trees around him and he felt the concentration of mana in the air gradually increasing.

  “It should be about time,” he murmured under his breath.

  The next moment, the forest suddenly began quaking. Before any of the humans and wolves could react, disaster had already fallen upon them.

  Gror!

  A hoarse cry reverberated in the air, signaling the start of a new phase in the war. Intense mana pulsation suddenly rippled from the trees some of the students were backed against as malicious expressions appeared on their tree trunks.

  Over a dozen thick tree branches smacked down on the ground in an instant, aiming specifically at the students with the brightest spirit guides. It was such an abrupt assault from an unexpected location that those students, despite being able to hold their own against the wolf pack and accrue decent scores thus far, ended up being wiped out in the blink of an eye.

  It was an utter mess, filled with miserable screams and the sound of squashed meat. The lips of the treants curled up eerily, as if mocking the foolishness of the humans. What they didn’t know was that their reactions had been taken into sight by a black-haired young man standing at a corner they had neglected, and the corners of his lips inched upward as well.

  Amidst his silent laughter, the mana he had channeled around him was set alight into a mixture of flames and lightning before eventually settling into a sinister crimson aura. An ancient silhouette finally made its appearance amidst the mist, and its fist smashed downward with force reminiscent of a comet.

  Boom!

  A treant exploded under the sheer force of the punch, and the only spirit guide which hadn’t really grown thus far suddenly began to expand at an unprecedented speed. Under the glowing bundle of light, the smile of the black-haired young man was finally revealed to the horrified treants.

  “It’s time for me to drop the act and go all out.”