Being a little careful was always the ultimate rule of survival.
Jeremy only filtered out a massive amount of currency and neutral crafting materials. As for magical items bearing heavy family marks, no matter how priceless or rare their value, he absolutely didn’t bother touching them.
After the "looting" and asset division process was completed, Jeremy took each empty storage jewelry piece and returned them to the owners of the skeletons. Finally, he found a flat piece of land brimming with spiritual energy but located far from the magic dragon’s territory, and used dirt and rocks to manually build a mass grave for them.
This island was a land of extreme Yin; the souls of the lives lost here were shackled, forever unable to step into the cycle of reincarnation. They either degenerated into wandering phantoms or condensed into vengeful spirits brimming with hatred.
From the degree of erosion on the bone surfaces, this group of people had basically all lost their lives dozens, even hundreds of years ago. When digging the soil to build the grave, Jeremy had tried shooting a soul-detecting magic ray to verify, but absolutely received not half a point of feedback.
This proved: these remnant souls had either been swallowed by the magic dragon as food, or the erosion of time had exhausted their soul power, causing them to dissipate into dust on their own, leaving no trace of existence.
Having properly buried everyone’s bones, Jeremy was too lazy to waste another neuron thinking further. He stood up straight, shouldered his blade, and signaled his four teammates to continue marching deep into the small forest.
The scope of this forest was actually not large, but perhaps due to its "forbidden ground" nature, no one had the guts to wander in all year round. The amount of spiritual plant treasures growing densely inside was no less than that at the mouth of the magic dragon’s cave out there.
Jeremy followed the doctrine of sweeping, taking whatever he saw. Wherever the toes of his shoes passed, aside from leaving a few fallen seeds on the ground to maintain the cycle of rebirth, not even a blade of grass of value remained. Seeing this, the other four, without needing to be told, immediately joined the ranks of "bandits," scavenging just as enthusiastically as their captain.
But what truly astonished them the most was... in the deepest hidden corner of the forest, a Star Marrow Fruit tree actually stood towering.
The branches and leaves bore a semi-transparent pale yellow color, exactly as if carved from colored glaze. The Star Marrow fruits clustered on the branches, looking from afar like sparkling white pearls, radiating a gentle halo of magic power.
The Star Marrow Fruit was a heaven-and-earth treasure with an incredibly powerful effect of fortifying and amplifying the spiritual power threshold. For their currently battered condition, this was a once-in-a-millennium serendipity.
Unfortunately, this arrogant plant species only bore fruit exactly once in its entire lifetime. Even digging up the mother tree’s roots to take away wouldn’t squeeze out any additional benefit.
Gathering with his four teammates to cleanly harvest every single Star Marrow fruit on the branches, Jeremy’s sharp gaze swept down to the base. He discovered and decisively dug up three young saplings still hiding in a hidden corner. He carefully dug up the entire soil ball encasing the roots and tucked it neatly into his storage ring, intending to bring them out to try breeding when he had free time.
After completely sweeping the abyss floor area, confirming no lucrative items were missed, the group did not linger any longer to avoid unforeseen troubles during a long night. They followed the old path climbing out of the forbidden cliff, retreating back to the cave on the outer perimeter of the island.
With the lightning-fast support of the Star Marrow Fruit, the damaged spiritual power of the entire group recovered and fortified at a terrifying speed. Three days later, all five of them finally reached the required standard threshold.
The surrounding spatial scenery twisted in the blink of an eye. And finally... they were teleported back to the academy.
Anima Faculty, classroom for freshmen of class 659.
The man lazily leaned his back against the velvet-cushioned chair on the podium. His long blue hair, like jellyfish tentacles, casually draped over his broad shoulders. Griffin seemed to be immersed in some calculation, his narrow, light purple eyes slightly lowered, his expression faint and extremely indifferent.
If one had to use an image to describe his outward appearance, "an orchid tree of jade"—beautiful but untouchable—would be the most fitting phrase.
Amidst the silent space, Griffin slowly lifted his eyes. His nonchalant gaze swept over the five students who had just scrambled to appear below the podium. The corner of his lips was clearly drawing a smile, but for some reason, it radiated a pressure that made one inexplicably feel a chilling dread:
"The lesson I set a limit for just a single day, you lot soaked until exactly seven days to drag yourselves through. The progress of this class truly rivals that of crawling turtles."
The five people below the podium had just painstakingly survived dragging themselves back from the deserted island, and before they could even let out a breath, the first welcoming sentence was a sarcastic bucket of cold water. Pressure weighed heavily, and at the same time, a sense of defiance swelled in everyone’s heart.
But no matter how arrogant or crazy they were, they still fully understood: Snapping back at this monster right now would bring absolutely no benefit other than taking a beating. Therefore, all five extremely tacitly chose the method of keeping silent as clams.
Griffin clearly didn’t give a damn whether they responded or not, or how they were cursing him in their hearts.
He unhurriedly flipped open his pure white lesson plan, calmly dropping his judgment: "For the next training category, I am only giving you a time limit of exactly two days. If you cannot pass it, then for the upcoming freshmen combat tournament, you can just automatically scram, no need to show your faces to participate and lose face for the faculty."
Not waiting for the five to open their mouths to react or mentally prepare, the surrounding scenery was once again forcibly twisted.
Jeremy was already all too familiar with this jellyfish-head’s unannounced ambush tricks.
But this time, what awaited them was not a deserted island or a dense forest, but a pitch-black, closed-off space, bone-piercingly cold.
The fourth lesson: [Adaptation and resistance to extreme elements].
Jeremy immediately snapped his fingers, intending to condense a streak of magical fire for illumination. But it was hopeless; the magic power in his body was once again thoroughly sealed.
Almost simultaneously, within that pitch-black space, dense elemental specks of light suddenly appeared exactly like a swarm of bees breaking from their hive. They carried an explosive energy source, frantically lunging forward and rushing straight into his body through every pore.
Jeremy’s current realm was only at the Novice two-star level. The volume of his soul sea was limited; his capacity to absorb natural magic elements was fixed at a certain threshold. But the massive amount of magic elements out there didn’t seem to care about his capacity.
Even after stuffing his entire sea of consciousness full, they still showed no signs of stopping, instead becoming even worse by forcibly squeezing and crushing one another to drill inside.
The elemental energy continuously squeezed, compressing so tightly that Jeremy’s soul felt like a balloon about to be stretched to its bursting point. The tearing pain from inside his marrow shot straight to his brain, making even breathing become a torture.
Surrounding him was only a boundless void. Accompanying the intense pain clawing at his body was a spinning sensation of dizziness, as if thrown into the eye of a tornado. His internal organs felt like they were being churned and rolled by an invisible hand reaching inside.
Jeremy was in so much pain he bit his lower lip hard, cold sweat pouring out and soaking his entire back. His two knees lost their strength, collapsing onto the cold floor of the space.
Following the sensation of being torn apart, a disgusting wave of nausea struck, exactly like extreme seasickness, his stomach spasming wanting to vomit but unable to throw up anything other than bitterly astringent gastric juice.
Originally, he could still faintly see the tiny magic element specks of light, but gradually, before Jeremy’s eyes, only a deadly thick black remained; his vision was completely robbed.
From the surrounding darkness came the intermittent sounds of his teammates—groans of pain suppressed until they were hoarse in their throats.
Jeremy knelt prostrate on the dark ground, bracing his hands on his knees, hunching over and coughing out a mouthful of fresh blood that had just surged up from his throat with a metallic stench.
When his nerves were about to snap from the pain, the elemental particles outside became even more frantic, disregarding all defensive barriers, directly tearing and rushing straight into every segment of blood vessel in his body, forcing his body to assimilate that explosive violence.
Under the brutal agony surpassing the limits of words to endure, Jeremy’s vision went black. Awareness gave way; his consciousness sank straight into a deep coma...
"Jeremy... Jeremy..."
"Please restrain your grief."
Jeremy slowly woke up amidst a chaotic jumble of noisy sounds. When he heavily opened his eyes, what hit his vision straight on was the gloomy scene of a mourning hall draped in mourning flags. And sitting squarely in the center of that freezing space, was a solemn wooden coffin.
What the hell kind of situation was this? Why did he appear in this unlucky place?
Jeremy frowned slightly, striving to reboot his brain to remember what had happened previously, but it was completely hopeless. His memory seemed to be obscured by a thick curtain of fog; the previous segment was blank without a trace.
He looked up, his sharp gaze quickly sweeping around the room. Both sides of the mourning hall were filled with visiting guests, everyone draped in pitch-black mourning attire, their expressions sorrowful. He himself was also wearing a similar mourning outfit, and currently... maintaining a kneeling posture right in the center of the mourning hall.
Perhaps because he had been kneeling for too long, a stinging, numb pain transmitted from his knees.
And when his gaze collided with the memorial portrait frame placed on the incense altar, the black-and-white photo carefully encased inside unexpectedly turned out to be the memorial portrait... of his eccentric old master from his previous life.
His body felt stifled, suffocated as if a thousand-pound boulder was pressing heavily on his chest. Jeremy raised his hand to press hard on both sides of his temples, which were throbbing continuously from an aching pain.
The funeral...
That’s right. Master passed away due to a tragic traffic accident. Today was precisely the day of his funeral...
What the hell was wrong with his brain? To be so delirious that he completely forgot even this crucial matter.
The man standing beside him took a slight step forward, reaching out intending to touch his shoulder, dropping words of comfort with a gentle voice:
"Jeremy, do not be too heartbroken. Master has passed away, but you still have us. From now on, Aunt Cynthia and I will officially become your legal guardians, we will always be by your side to take care of you."
The tone was incredibly mild and warm. But for some reason, the exact moment that hypocritical sound entered his ears, deep in Jeremy’s chest, an unnamed, sinister fire exploded, an uncontrollable, absolute disgust.
He slowly lifted his head, his cold gaze pinning onto the man. When he saw that refined yet nauseatingly fake face, Jeremy’s previously sluggish, chaotic brain suddenly seemed to be jolted awake by a bucket of cold water; everything became clearly coherent in the blink of an eye.
He remained kneeling there, but the tone of his voice carried a bone-piercing coldness: "So, you are my Master’s adopted son... named Charlot, right?"
"Of course. Didn’t Master mention it to you before, why did you suddenly forget again?" Charlot maintained his mild smile, his hand patting his shoulder, patiently advising: "Is it because you’re too exhausted from handling the funeral affairs these past few days? Why don’t you go inside and rest for a bit. Tomorrow we still have to go to the ward office to process residency and transfer paperwork. Just leave the rest of the trivial matters here for me to handle."
"Leaving it for you to handle makes it too easy to line your pockets."
Jeremy let out a sneer. He pressed his hand against the ground, dusted off his knees, and unhurriedly stood up straight. The youth’s tall physique and broad shoulders immediately radiated an oppressive aura.
Then, under the astonished stares of all the visiting guests in the mourning hall, he straightforwardly swung a heaven-shaking slap right into the face of that refined man.
Slap!
The crisp, decisive sound of the slap echoed throughout the vast space, carrying a terrifying force that shocked everything to the point where all the surrounding whispering and chattering snapped off, halting for a moment. The atmosphere instantly froze.
"Are you insane?!"
A gaudily dressed woman, standing not far away, seeing her husband get slapped, immediately roared. She lunged like flying right in front of Jeremy, gritting her teeth and swinging her arm intending to retaliate with a slap to his face.
But who was Jeremy? How could he obediently stand still like a meat shield for this kind of person to trample upon?
In the extreme horrified gazes of everyone, he decisively reached out, accurately grabbing the woman’s swinging wrist, twisting it back. Then, without any mercy, he used his other hand to unleash a barrage of slaps onto her face.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
The crisp sound of continuous slaps rang out, accompanied by bright red, bleeding five-fingered marks imprinted on her cheeks. Seeing the woman beaten dizzy, seeing stars, Jeremy roughly shoved her hard, sending her flying to the floor.
At that exact moment, his sharp intuition warned of danger from behind his back.
He didn’t bother turning his head, decisively twisting his hips, borrowing momentum to unleash a powerful back kick, striking squarely in the chest of Charlot, who was stealthily intending to launch a sneak attack from behind.
The kick carried his entire muscular strength. Charlot’s body was lifted off the ground, flying far backward. The moment his back slammed heavily into the stone pillar in the middle of the mourning hall, his internal organs shaking violently, he opened his mouth and spat out a massive mouthful of deep red blood.