I looked at her.
"So, what did you actually want to talk to me about?"
Nyx was still thinking about everything I had said.
After a moment, she finally answered.
"I want you to become my partner."
I raised an eyebrow.
She continued.
"I used to be a noble."
"But my family was killed."
"And it wasn’t an accident."
"It was orchestrated by those shitty nobles."
"They took everything from me."
Her hands clenched slightly.
"I know you don’t have any hatred toward them yet."
"But you can’t survive in this academy like that."
"They’ll come after you."
"Especially because you’re ranked second."
"That alone is a massive humiliation to them."
"So whether you want it or not..."
"You’re going to have to face them eventually."
I remained silent and thought about her proposal.
After a moment, I finally answered.
"First..."
"I don’t work for anyone."
"And I don’t fear those so-called nobles."
"I have nothing to lose besides my worthless life."
I looked directly at her.
"If staying alive means constantly living in fear of them and allowing them to walk over me..."
"I’d rather die fighting them head-on."
Nyx remained silent.
"Second..."
"I don’t need anyone."
"I’ve lived alone my entire life."
"And I can continue living like that for the rest of it."
"But..."
I paused.
"If your proposal benefits me..."
"I won’t turn it down either."
Nyx looked at me.
I continued.
"So here’s my condition."
"I won’t become your subordinate."
"I won’t become your follower."
"If we’re going to form a partnership..."
"It will be on equal ground."
Nyx studied me for a moment.
Then she nodded.
"Alright."
"I agree."
"Neither of us will follow the other’s orders unless it benefits us both."
I nodded.
"Then it’s a deal."
I extended my hand.
Nyx looked at it for a moment before extending hers as well.
Our hands met.
I shook her hand.
Then I suddenly blinked.
"Whoa."
"Your hand is really soft."
Nyx stared at me like I had suddenly grown another head.
"You’re doing that on purpose."
She looked at my hand.
"Your hands are rough."
I grinned.
"So what if I am?"
"My new partner."
"See you later."
I turned around and walked away.
Behind me, I heard her lose her composure for the first time.
"You... You..."
I couldn’t help but grin as I continued walking.
Teasing her was surprisingly fun.
Maybe I should do it more often.
Eventually, I returned to my room.
I stood outside the door and examined it.
"How do I open this thing?"
I stared at it for a few seconds.
With my great intelligence, I figured it out in—
About ten seconds.
Cough.
I mean...
It only required placing my bracelet against the door.
The door opened.
"...That was easy."
I stepped inside.
The first thing I noticed was a package sitting inside the room.
I walked over and opened it.
Inside, I found my academy uniform, a chip containing the academy handbook, and—
My eyes widened.
Monster cores.
Lots of them.
I immediately sat down on the bed.
If the academy was giving these away...
Why would I waste them?
I picked up the first core.
"Devour."
The core disappeared.
Energy flowed into my body.
Then another.
"Devour."
And another.
One after another, I absorbed the monster cores.
My attributes slowly increased.
My senses became sharper.
My muscles felt stronger.
My mana grew denser.
I continued until the final core disappeared from my hand.
Then—
A notification appeared.
[Congratulations!]
[Level Up!]
[Level: 9 → 10]
[Reward: 5 Free Attribute Points.]
I froze.
Level 10.
But before I could celebrate—
More notifications appeared.
[Body recalibration initiated.]
[Reforming the body and breaking current limitations.]
[New Affinity Unlocked: Fire.]
[Bloodline restraints have been partially released.]
[All Attributes +5.]
My eyes widened.
A barrage of notifications appeared one after another.
"Wait..."
I immediately opened my status.
My eyes landed on my new affinity.
Fire.
A grin slowly appeared on my face.
"Nice."
"Another element."
Then I noticed something else.
Something far more interesting.
I opened my bloodline information.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BLOODLINE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Primordial Devourer Bloodline
Rank: Unknown
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BLOODLINE EXCLUSIVE SKILL
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Devour
New Effect:
The user can now absorb fragments of the target’s mastery, including mastery of magic, swordsmanship, combat techniques, and other abilities.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
My eyes widened.
"Wait..."
"So I can absorb more than attributes now?"
I stared at the description.
"If I kill someone who’s extremely skilled with a sword..."
"I could absorb a fragment of their swordsmanship?"
"And if someone has incredible control over magic..."
"I can potentially absorb part of that too?"
A grin slowly spread across my face.
That was an incredible discovery.
My growth wasn’t limited to raw attributes anymore.
If I continued defeating powerful opponents...
I could potentially improve my own mastery by taking fragments of theirs.
I immediately opened my status again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ATTRIBUTES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Strength: 30
Agility: 30
Vitality: 30
Mana: 30
Spirit: 30
Intelligence: 30
Perception: 30
Luck: ???
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
FREE ATTRIBUTE POINTS: 5
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I looked at my five remaining free attribute points.
I could use them whenever I wanted.
A satisfied smile appeared on my face.
Level 10.
New element.
A stronger body.
A partially unrestricted bloodline.
And a new ability for Devour.
Things were finally getting interesting.
I looked away from the status panel and turned my attention to the uniform and the other things inside the package.
I picked up the chip containing the academy handbook and inserted it into my bracelet.
A screen appeared in front of me.
I opened the handbook and began reading through the rules.
The more I read...
The wider my grin became.
There was a rule prohibiting students from killing each other.
But there was nothing that specifically said I couldn’t disable someone.
Or remove a limb or two if they decided to come after me.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
I continued reading.
Another thing caught my attention.
Attendance was mandatory.
Being late or missing lessons would result in merit points being deducted.
And apparently, merit points were the academy’s real currency.
I could use them to purchase food, skills, equipment, resources, and various other things within the academy.
I leaned back and stared at the handbook.
"So that’s how it works..."
A grin slowly spread across my face.
This academy was far more interesting than I had expected.