As the first rays of morning light gradually dispersed the chill of the night, they spilled over the streets, buildings, and roadside benches.
The rays of light slowly lengthened.
The city known as Ikerite seemed to awaken beneath the tender grace of the gods.
Before long, shops lining both sides of the streets began opening their doors, and warmhearted shopkeepers called out cheerful morning greetings to their neighbors.
Beneath the open-air canopies of cafes, faint wisps of coffee aroma drifted into the air, mingling with light, energetic jazz that floated down the bustling thoroughfare.
Early risers heading to work grew in number, shuttling with hurried steps through the crowds in central Ikerite.
Amid this morning breeze, which still held the lingering freshness of fruit and flowers, Lanqi walked the streets of Ikerite alongside Talia, a faint smile on his face.
Bathed in the morning sun, his expression was serene, radiating a bright and wholesome aura from head to toe.
Lanqi was clearly in a fine mood.
He had come to find both the school's examinations and the Shadow Worlds quite intriguing.
Talia, on the other hand, looked as if she were heading to a funeral instead of work.
She was deeply reluctant to accompany him to Ikerite Academy again.
The last time she had walked out of the academy with Lanqi, several people had stared at her, making her skin crawl.
Fortunately, the third round of testing would not be broadcast live to the public.
Only the academy's faculty would watch it from behind the scenes.
Otherwise, Talia would have called in sick rather than follow Lanqi there today.
"Tata, are you in a bad mood?"
Lanqi felt she had spoken far less over the past two days.
Today, she was visibly resistant to even being around him.
"..."
Talia ignored him.
She simply kept her eyes fixed forward and walked straight ahead.
So Lanqi picked up his pace, trotting ahead slightly, and sneaked a backward glance at her face.
Her expression remained icy, and she still paid him no mind.
Yet in that brief instant, Lanqi caught the look in her eyes.
It gave him the distinct impression that Talia seemed to loathe him...
His footsteps faltered, and he stopped in his tracks, scratching his head in utter bewilderment.
He had felt like their relationship had improved at least a tiny bit lately.
Why had her attitude taken such a sudden turn for the worse?
A demon's mind was truly impossible to decipher.
Especially an old woman who had been single for centuries.
Or so Lanqi thought to himself.
"..."
Talia happened to catch up and walk beside him.
She turned her head, fixing her gaze upon Lanqi.
For some reason, she felt an inexplicable urge deep inside to murder him.
And yet, he hadn't even opened his mouth just now, and his expression looked perfectly normal...
"What is it, Tata?" Lanqi asked gently, giving no hint of the disrespectful thoughts that had just crossed his mind.
"Nothing."
With that, Talia paid him no further attention and marched ahead.
"*Chasing the cloud away~*"
Lanqi hummed a cheerful little tune, lengthened his stride, and followed after her.
...
Half an hour later.
Ikerite Academy, Learning and Education Building, seventh-floor atrium.
Sunlight refracted through the immense glass dome, casting soft arcs of light across the interior and lending the entire atrium an air of serenity.
As the play of light and shadow danced on the floor, Lanqi walked forward, observing faculty and staff bustling back and forth along the surrounding corridors.
Arriving according to the examination schedule, he stepped once again into this spacious, brightly lit exam hall, unable to help admiring the architect's ingenious craftsmanship.
Looking into the distance, the colossal magical apparatus—the artificial Shadow World activation terminal—seemed to have already been repaired.
Except that in a prominent spot, there was now an additional sign:
[Forced Restart Strictly Prohibited]
Judging by the aggressive lettering, whoever had posted the warning had been thoroughly enraged.
Unlike the second round of testing, not many students and faculty were waiting here today.
The third round was dispatched by instructors from the School of Sages, and the chief examiner for each trial would appear directly inside the Shadow World.
Dean Loren was absent as well.
Word had it that he had duties tied to the Church of the Goddess of Fate and frequently left the royal capital of Ikerite.
Skirting past the marble balustrade into the waiting area, Lanqi saw two figures looking toward him.
One was Teacher Teresa, holding a tablet-like magical device and serving as the guide for the testing grounds.
She and Lanqi had already met back during the entrance aptitude testing.
Teacher Teresa was very gentle; the moment their eyes met, a warm smile appeared on her face.
The other person was wearing an examinee bracelet identical to Lanqi's, clearly his teammate for the third round.
Lanqi had seen the explanation in the exam notice he received yesterday—
The theme of the third round was "Combat and Survival."
In this mode of testing, healers and support mages often struggled to fight alone.
Thus, the academy adopted a team-based evaluation model, pairing offensive mages with healers and supports.
In most cases, teams consisted of three people.
This also allowed the academy to test the students' teamwork and coordination.
After all, in a real Shadow World, a team rose or fell together.
If an accident occurred, the outcome was almost certainly a total wipeout, with no second chances.
Yet when Lanqi got a clear look at his teammate—the noble young lady of extraordinary bearing—both of them seemed somewhat surprised.
Two days ago, at the end of the second round, she had asked Lanqi how long he had taken to clear the trial.
Lanqi had given an extremely conservative answer: under fifty minutes.
"Under fifty minutes?" Hyperion asked him, sounding faintly amused and thoroughly exasperated.
Two days ago, after leaving the exam hall, she had heard the news.
Someone with black hair and green eyes had cleared the trial in a mere ten minutes.
At the time, she had wondered whether it could possibly be the fellow beside her who claimed to have finished in "under fifty minutes."
Now, she was entirely certain.
It was this sneaky bastard.
Lanqi rubbed the back of his head with slight embarrassment.
Back then, he hadn't expected the third round to group students like this either.
"Do you two know each other?" Teacher Teresa asked curiously, noticing their subtle reactions.
Both shook their heads.
Then Lanqi spoke up, introducing himself candidly. "I'm Lanqi Wilfort, a white mage. But compared to healing, I specialize more in utility."
Between teammates, honesty was what mattered most; there was no need to hide anything.
After a brief pause, the duke's daughter hesitated slightly before giving her name. "...Hyperion Aransal. You can treat me as an assassin-type role."
Her words cut off abruptly, her introduction brief to the point of curtness.
Evidently, she did not trust Lanqi very much.
Lanqi nodded, having no intention of pressing further.
He glanced toward the entrance of the testing hall, seemingly waiting for their third teammate.
"No need to wait. He's almost certainly not coming," Hyperion said.
Her sudden remark instantly drew puzzled looks from both Lanqi and Teresa.
"Why?"
"Unless something unexpected happens, we'll get a notification when the exam starts saying he can't participate for some reason. As for the exact reason, that depends on whether they used threats or bribes," Hyperion said, spreading her hands with a chilly gaze.
Though resignation predominated in her tone, the fierce anger in her eyes was hard to conceal.
She knew all too well what those high-and-mighty nobles who loved manipulating things from behind the scenes were capable of.
"Uh... Student Hyperion, that's... that's just your speculation, isn't it?"
Hyperion's demeanor was the polar opposite of Lanqi's, sending a slight chill down Teresa's spine.
If Lanqi was like the pure, warm sunshine of a spring day, then Hyperion resembled an ominous specter trapped in the depths of a cold, filthy pool of blood, beyond salvation.
Teresa glanced at Lanqi.
Lanqi looked as calm and unruffled as ever, his expression entirely devoid of emotional swings.
Since Lanqi said nothing, Teresa felt it improper to voice any further opinions as a teacher.
...
Sure enough, not long after, as the exam was about to begin, a notification chimed on the magical device in Teacher Teresa's hand.
Their teammate had decided to apply to a different academy and voluntarily withdrawn from the exam.
"This..."
Teacher Teresa grew troubled.
Deep down, she understood that what appeared to be a coincidence was not necessarily coincidental at all.
After all, even Hyperion had predicted it in advance.
"Should I consult with the dean or vice dean?" Teresa asked, hesitating deeply.
She knew that the practical combat test administered by Ferrat would be far from easy.
What was worse, Ferrat himself was among those who did not want Hyperion admitted to the academy.
With just Hyperion and Lanqi—a white mage with pitifully weak mana—the two of them stood virtually zero chance of passing...
Hyperion shook her head.
When her cold eyes turned toward Teresa, they softened slightly.
Although she had rarely experienced kindness in her life and had grown up surrounded by mutual malice, she could still discern good people from bad to some degree.
"Those noble lords love crafting seamless coincidences. They would never leave behind any handle for others to grasp," Hyperion sneered. "Even if today's exam isn't being publicly broadcast, plenty of eyes are watching this stage from the shadows."
To be even more ruthless, they could have had Hyperion's final teammate show up as normal, only to deliberately sabotage her or outright backstab her during the test.
Yet if they made it too obvious and Dean Loren noticed even the slightest clue, he might thoroughly investigate the fairness of the exam.
Therefore, the puppet masters preferred orchestrating a mere coincidence.
"Then why didn't those people approach me?" Lanqi rubbed his chin, furrowing his brows as if lost in serious contemplation.
Hyperion was silent for a moment.
She couldn't tell whether Lanqi was truly clueless or just playing dumb.
"Those people care about saving face. If they bribed two candidates at once, it wouldn't look like an accident anymore," Hyperion explained simply.
Naturally, she believed an intelligent person like Lanqi would easily grasp the real reason:
Those powerful figures didn't believe Lanqi possessed any combat ability.
Not only that, Lanqi's presence allowed the exam to proceed normally, turning him into deadweight to drag Hyperion down.
If Hyperion had truly been left as the sole candidate, the academy would not have been cruel enough to force her into a solo duel against the chief examiner; they would more likely have reassigned her to another team and slightly raised the overall difficulty.
"I see... What a pity, then..." Lanqi nodded slightly, letting out a regretful sigh.
His expression looked exactly like that of someone who had just missed a golden opportunity to make a fortune.
"Did you want them to bribe you that badly?" Hyperion stared at Lanqi's brazenly regretful face, finding it utterly absurd.
What had she done to deserve such blatant disrespect from him, to the point where he wouldn't even bother pretending?
Even if this fellow had some unique talents, in the end, he was no different from those malicious scoundrels.
"Of course!" Lanqi scoffed, nodding emphatically. "Hah! If they dared make trouble for my exam, I'd make sure to gather evidence on the spot, donate the bribe money to the Church of the Goddess of Fate, and report them for bribery and disrupting the order of a national examination! At the same time, I would invoke the Clerical Intervention Clause on page 675 of the *Hutton Codex*, requesting the temple to use divine arts to trace the illicit funds back to their source and launch a full investigation. The clerics of the Goddess of Fate would rule that I had no subjective intent to extort, only to collect evidence. Afterward, I'd receive commendation and protection from the church, which might even make me a trainee cleric in one fell swoop..."
He spoke with such righteous indignation that if he had a copy of the legal codex in hand, he would likely have flipped it open on the spot to lecture Hyperion.
Hyperion: "..."
Beside them, Teresa's mouth fell slightly open, unable to utter a single syllable for quite some time.
Hyperion realized she had completely misjudged him.
She decided to take back her earlier thought.
Compared to those unscrupulous scoundrels, this Lanqi was a true piece of work!
Chapter 21