On the other side, while the girls were bathing…
Darkness wrapped around the corridors of the girls’ dormitory like a black silk blanket.
Dastan utilized his shadow ability with sheer mastery, enveloping himself and Lucian in a dense aura of moving darkness that turned them into two phantoms, invisible unless looked at directly.
“Is your Blink ready?” Dastan whispered.
“About one second.”
“Good. You teleport five meters forward, then grab me. We repeat this until the second floor… Room 26.”
They moved like living shadows.
Lucian blinked through the space with an eerie smoothness, pulling Dastan along with him in every leap.
They successfully reached the stairs leading to the second floor… but suddenly, they heard the voices of two girls approaching.
One of them was Nouf, a girl with exceptionally wavy hair and naturally rosy cheeks.
She stopped with her friend midway up the stairs, speaking enthusiastically:
“Nouf, did you see the two new students who fought Rex and Joseph in the cafeteria?”
Nouf’s cheeks flushed, and her eyes sparkled with admiration as she pressed her hands against her chest:
“I saw them… especially the one named Lucian. Oh my god, he looked so handsome! His muscles were so toned, it was… indescribable. He completely stole my gaze. If only I could see him up close…”
Her friend laughed softly, while Lucian and Dastan stood just a few steps away, cloaked in darkness.
The girls didn’t sense their presence at all.
Dastan flashed a subtle, mocking smile and whispered to his friend:
“Looks like you’ve become a womanizer, Lucian.”
Lucian looked at him coldly, then turned only to see Dastan’s face burning with obvious jealousy.
He would have laughed if they weren’t on a mission.
The two continued on their way quietly until they arrived in front of Room 26.
The door was closed but not latched.
Lucian gently pushed the handle… and opened the door.
Inside the room…
The light was dim, illuminated only by a small lamp beside the bed.
Jenika and Rosalyn stood in their soft bathrobes.
Rosalyn’s hair was still damp, draping over her shoulders, and her fresh tears glistened on her cheeks.
As for Jenika, she was gently cradling Rosalyn’s head, her own robe slightly parted at the chest due to the movement.
Lucian and Dastan froze in their tracks.
In an instant, Dastan assumed the absolute worst.
He said in a muffled voice full of shock:
“Jenika… control yourself! Yes, we are inside the academy… but sleeping with someone in less than a week, and with a girl on top of you?! It seems the Photon effect has completely changed you.”
Lucian chimed in, shaking his head slowly as his gaze shifted between them:
“Are you building a harem, Jenika? You have completely disappointed me… you woman-collecting deviant.”
A horrifying silence filled the room for a few seconds.
Jenika’s face flushed deep crimson from a mix of intense embarrassment and sheer rage.
As for Rosalyn, her face burned like an exploding rose, her golden eyes widening with a shyness she had never known before.
Jenika exploded with unprecedented fury: This story is hosted at g.com.
“What on earth brought you two here?!”
She gave them no time to respond.
A storm of slapping, kicking, and screaming erupted.
A few minutes later, Lucian and Dastan were outside the room, staggering, their faces covered in bruises and scratches, with the bright red imprints of Jenika’s fingers clearly visible on their cheeks.
Jenika stood before them furiously, her hair swaying with every word:
“What exactly is the reason you came here?”
Dastan whispered, clutching his aching cheek:
“…We found the Student Council President. We came to deliver the golden letter.”
Jenika looked at them in astonishment, then looked at Rosalyn, then back at them again, saying sarcastically:
“The Council President?! You two are truly idiots… it seems you struggled just to find out who she is?”
“She’s the one you just slept with for the first time…” Lucian retorted.
Startled, Jenika turned and said, “Are you really the Student Council President?!”
Holding her hair, Rosalyn replied, “I thought you knew.”
Jenika went to retrieve the letter from her drawer while everyone remained terrified of her, until she grabbed the letter and handed it to Rosalyn.
Rosalyn opened the letter and found a thin golden tablet.
The trio looked closely, but there was nothing written on it.
She informed them: “This golden tablet is meant specially for me, my brother, and a select few people who are capable of reading its contents.”
Silence fell…
Rosalyn held the golden tablet.
Slowly.
The dim light reflected off it.
As if it were not mere metal…
but something alive.
Silence.
Then she began to read.
“To my little diamond (his face flushes with embarrassment), to the best and sweetest sister, to the one who took my heart and my life, and the one who will choose my partner (she flushes even redder).”
The room suddenly fell dead silent.
Even the air grew heavier.
Rosalyn continued.
“She notes that it starts like any letter introduction he sends, so I will get straight to the point.”
Lucian stared.
No words.
“My brother says: More than a month ago, a small dragon reached me saying, ‘Reply to the messages on the phone.’ Only then did I find Cloud’s messages, which I hadn’t read. He was asking me to come at the appointed time, and fortunately, it is tomorrow. The small dragon said, ‘Prepare to face me…'”
Silence.
The trio, and even Rosalyn, react in shock: Narcreon against Cloud?
The tension escalates.
“A battle like this is forbidden; the planet might be destroyed, or they might have created a sub-dimension. Rosalyn resumes reading: I prepared myself well, and the next day I went straight to the meeting place. He was alone on a mountain, and I was on a mountain, looking at him. The clouds were beneath us, and the wind was swirling between us.”
The image forms in their minds.
Two mountains. This chapter is updated first at novelping.com.
Clouds beneath them.
The wind swirling.
“He said to me, ‘Are you ready?’ I accepted the challenge, of course. I headed with him toward his palace, dragons hovering above it. He opened a secret portal and said, ‘Even my sister doesn’t know about this.’ Here, the real challenge began.”
A deeper silence.
The trio cuts in, “Lyn, are they fighting in a space or a sub-dimension?”
Rosalyn says, “I will continue: Here, the real challenge began. We kicked it off with a game from the shooter genre.”
Confusion.
Everyone faceplants onto the floor: “Was all that commotion just for some video games?!”
Lyn snaps back: “If you interrupt me one more time, I won’t finish reading.”
Immediate silence.
Everyone shuts up.
She resumes reading.
“When we started the shooter, he was still blindfolded. I mocked him, asking if he was trying to insult me like this, but… it turned out he was a pro. He won 20 consecutive matches with a 30-kill streak. And that was against me while blindfolded! Then he switched us to an open-world survival game. While I was still preparing my gear, he speedran and beat it in 9 minutes. What a speedrun pro! I surrendered and admitted my defeat.”
Perspectives shift.
“But silence fell for a moment, and he told me that my dragons’ eyes had detected an unidentified entity that seems to be from another dimension. He told me his plan, and that’s why he asked me to help them and develop their abilities. He feels that behind them lies the truth that the Master has forbidden anyone from knowing! …So I agreed, and told him to use my name as a Unique Number higher than Ravena. I know Ravena won’t agree. I will back the academy with 10 million gold coins. What do you think?”
The figure of the gold coins shakes the atmosphere.
Ten million.
“He smiled at me and said, ‘I have already prepared the food, come let’s eat.’ I went up with him to the kitchen and sat on a chair. I saw him start to put on an apron—it was pink and had pictures of cats on it. I was overcome with laughter, but when he pulled the dish out of the oven…”
A brief silence.
“I apologize to my sister; after losing in the games, I am no longer the perfect brother.”
“My mouth watered. True, Talia is a master of cooking, and her own cooking is exceptional, but his cooking…”
An interruption.
Jenika responds: “Talia taught me how to cook!”
Rosalyn says angrily due to the interruption: “Jenny!”
Dastan asks: “Since when did you two get so close? Jenny? Lyn?”
They reply at the same time: “None of your business.”
Silence.
‘Women are truly terrifying.’
The reading continues.
“If I had paid a billion gold coins, it would have been too little for his cooking. Then Leviathan arrived, and I greeted her. I have always wished for you to become friends, but she is strange and way too blunt. We ate, he washed the dishes, then finally took off the apron and bade farewell to me and his sister. I went back, and that’s when I paid the academy this amount. Ravena agreed. Anyway, my little diamond, my request is for you to help them reach the Student Council and meet the Headmistress.”
A long silence.
Then, the end:
“For my sake, and for Cloud’s sake.”
Rosalyn closes the golden tablet.
A soft click.
But its impact is heavy.
The room does not stir.
But everything inside it has changed.
Rosalyn: “I will help you from this day forward!”