The Saint Freya Academy was usually bustling at night. Huge crowds could be found in the commercial street, and there would be a long queue of carriages waiting outside the finest restaurants. Youthful hormones seemed to be wafting in the air.

  Yet, in Building 1 Classroom 14, the atmosphere between a man and a woman felt oddly stiff.

  “Senior, what did you mean by that?”


  “I mean it literally. There’s no way for you to achieve a passing grade in the Mana Precision Class.”


  Lilian looked at the awful complexion on Roel’s face and further elaborated on the matter.

  “I don’t know what you’ve gone through in the past, and I’m not interested in it either. However, you have fixed habits when it comes to mana channeling, and attempting to achieve precise control requires changing all of these habits. This is equivalent to refuting all of the hard work you have put in all this while.”


  “!”


  Roel was appalled to hear those words.

  There were some habits that were nigh impossible to change, and this was one of them. His current style of mana channeling was created through the multiple life-and-death battles he had gone through, such that it was impossible for him to just ‘reset and start anew’.

  There was a moment of silence before Lilian continued on.

  “While you’re incapable of controlling mana precisely, your burst power is exceptional. You’re able to maintain a stable powerful output at a high frequency, and that’s an amazing ability.”


  “But it still doesn’t change the fact that I won’t be able to clear the Mana Precision Class. A Ringbearer can’t fail any of his transcendent classes,” replied Roel with a deep frown.

  While Ringbearers couldn’t be stripped of their positions, it was possible for their privileges to be rescinded if their examination results were to be unsatisfactory. Just thinking about losing his Azure Manor was more than enough to make his heart ache.

  What was worse was the impact on his reputation. If news were to go around that he failed a class, it would undermine his prestige and standing.

  Should I look for Chris to ask her to go easy on me? But that would be putting her in a spot too since it’d be equivalent to asking for preferential treatment.

  Roel’s face darkened as he felt deeply exasperated by the plight he was in. Unexpectedly, Lilian suddenly spoke up at this moment.

  “.…… It’s not entirely impossible for you to clear the examination.”


  “Hm? What do you mean?”


  “If it’s impossible for you to pull off the basics, you can just study for the more advanced skill to showcase at the examination. Mana control is a simplified version of spell compression, focusing solely on the ‘control’ while disregarding the more difficult ‘compression’. In your case, however, compression might just be easier for you to pull off.”


  Lilian began walking down from the podium as she manifested a white thread between the tips of her fingers. With a swift flick of the thread, she sliced the thick mana rope Roel had created into two.

  “Thickness serves no purpose here. What’s more important is skills.”


  Lilian raised her hand to display her undamaged white thread to emphasize what she had just said. The intrigued Roel leaned in to examine the shimmering white thread earnestly.

  “If you’re unable to control the quantity of your mana, the only choice you have is to compress your mana to the extremity. You lack the skill for it right now, so……”


  Lilian gazed at him impassively from above and uttered.

  “.…… more remedial lessons for you.”
……

  There was nothing worse in life than having to stay back after school for additional lessons.

  An exhausted Roel trudged out of the classroom into the dark streets as he trudged his way back to the Azure Manor.

  The earlier lesson had dealt a huge blow to him, not just due to his inability to control his mana but Lilian herself too.

  Her meticulousness in being able to deduce his history through observing his mana and her ability to sever his mana rope with just a mere mana thread fully displayed her wits and prowess. While he did know that she was a prodigy right from the start, he still couldn’t help but feel dismayed at the huge difference between them.

  On the bright side, he did benefit greatly from the earlier class due Lilian’s earnest teaching, and he was moved by that. He also never thought that Lilian would take the initiative to offer to take more classes with him.

  It was just that her attitude was still as cold as ever. When he thanked her for her help at the end of the class, this was her response.

  “Like I’ve said, I’m just fulfilling my responsibilities here, so I don’t need your gratitude. It’s due to your unsatisfactory performance that I have no choice but to increase the frequency of remedial classes.”


  “.……”


  Lilian turned around and left the classroom after saying those words, leaving Roel not knowing what to make of this situation. By their agreement, he had to wait in the classroom for another ten more minutes before leaving, and he spent this time pondering over this matter.

  Is she really that reluctant to get into any sort of relationship with me?

  Roel couldn’t understand why Lilian was so averse to him, and he sighed softly.

  In any case, it was a good thing to have a senior to tutor him, and her beautiful appearance was a huge bonus. Throughout the lesson, he couldn’t help but pay heed to her splendid figure……

  And that reminded him of his ancestor’s mission, which caused him to immediately shake his head bitterly. Honestly, he didn’t think that he stood much of a hope here.

  Lilian was simply too far away from him that the notion of them bearing a child was ludicrous, and that wasn’t the only problem he was facing at the moment.

  The Azure Manor happened to be located in the opposite direction of the student dormitories from the central district, so there was hardly anyone on the street where Roel was walking on. The chilly night breeze left him feeling a little cold, both in body and soul.

  After the nightmare he had, he couldn’t help but feel a little afraid of the academy at night. The sense of apprehension wasn’t as apparent when there was a huge crowd around, but once the surroundings fell silent, his unease would start oozing out.

  It was only when he entered a magic engineered carriage and heard the coachman’s voice that his heart finally calmed down a little. He leaned against the soft sofa and thought about the arrangements he had made tonight.

  From a rational point of view, he ought to continue exploring the academy in his dreams so as to figure out what the ‘guidance’ of the Blackrose Ring was. This was his goal for enrolling into the academy, and it could very well lead to a clue concerning Academic.

  But just thinking about the utterly barren academy looming in darkness and silence was enough to make his face pale.

  Empty schools and hospitals at night were classics in the horror movies in his previous life since the contrast between the bustle at daytime and silent eeriness at night felt unnerving, drawing out a person’s deepest fears.

  It’s all just a psychological game. The fear is all in the mind!

  The stiffened-faced Roel thought to himself as he wiped the cold sweat off his forehead.

  Understanding the reason behind one’s fear was one thing, but how one felt about a matter was another. A human’s mind isn’t capable of rationally deciding on how one ought to feel about a matter, and besides, unlike the horror flicks in his previous life, Roel’s dream did have real monsters.

  Those monsters had pale withered skin reminiscent of corpses, and their appearance looked even more terrifying under the dim, flickering light. To make things worse, the window between him and Grandar and Peytra were sealed in the dream.

  When he woke up earlier in the morning, he immediately asked Grandar and Peytra about the matter, but neither of them noticed any anomaly. This meant that he only had himself to rely on in that dream world, and this was precisely what that frightened him.

  Roel was a spellcaster through and through. He could dish out significant physical damage as well, but that was only through the powers of the ancient gods. Without them, he would lose a lot of his means, meaning that he would be far more vulnerable.

  He could compensate for that weakness to some degree through equipment like his Nine-headed Serpent Staff or Ascendwing, but the issue was that he couldn’t bring any of those into that dream world.

  The only thing he could really rely on was the glacier ability of the Crown’s Stone, but its severe side effects meant that he wouldn’t be able to sustain it for too long.

  Well, he had his physical prowess as an Origin Level 4 transcendent too, but unfortunately, the only physical combat skill he had learned was noblemen’s swordsmanship, which was only good for dealing with weaker foes. If he were to get surrounded by soldiers like he did last night, he would be a goner for sure.

  And speaking of goner, he still had no idea what dying in that dream world entailed in reality.

  Would his death be nullified just like how the side effects of Glacier vanished when he woke up, or would it really be the end of him?

  This question had been circling in Roel’s head for some time now, but he dared not to test it out. That was also the reason why he proceeded warily last night.

  Unlike the smooth carriage ride, his mind was in utter disarray.

  A long time later, the carriage finally came to a halt, and Roel alighted from the carriage and began making his way toward the Azure Manor.

  As he hadn’t started his recruitment yet, he was the only student residing in the Azure Manor at the moment. Due to that, the manor was completely dark except for the kitchen and the employees’ rooms.

  The mountain breeze was exceptionally cold at night, so Roel hastened his footsteps. To his surprise, there was a shadowy figure squatting next to the manor gates.

  Hm? What’s going on?

  Roel’s eyebrows shot up as he slowly made his way over. He couldn’t help but notice that the squatting figure looked a little familiar as he came closer.

  At the same time, the other party heard his footsteps and raised his head. Upon seeing Roel, he leaped to his feet excitedly.

  “Big brother Roel, it’s me! Paul Ackermann! D-do you still recognize me?”


  The other party pointed at his own face as he exclaimed.

  It’ll be hard for me to forget you, Roel thought in his mind as he nodded in response to the uneasy Paul’s question.

  “Of course. Shall we head into the manor first before talking?”