Chapter 148: Socializing Is Hard

"7? Maybe 8?" Magna answered, trying not to give the man much to go on.

He looked around that age anyway, though the man just narrowed his eyes as if trying to see through his lie.

Thankfully, he didn’t push the matter. He straightened his back and said. "Choose a hut to spend the night in. Take a good rest. Your trial will begin with sunrise."

Saying those words, he walked to one of the huts with slow steps, entered, and closed the door.

Magna could only watch him leave just like that, leaving him behind. He definitely wasn’t expecting some kind of camp treatment, but the man’s indifference still caught him off guard a little.

He had at least expected the man to offer him some food or tell him something about the place.

Turning his attention to the structures, he looked around for a place to stay. There were only 7 huts, and with 10 people in total now, including Magna, it seemed that some of the huts had to be shared by 2 people.

Luckily, the huts looked fairly big from the outside, so he decided to try his luck, thinking someone might be willing to share their space with him.

"Is there any place for me? Maybe some food as well?" He asked a little awkwardly with a friendly smile on his face.

He was also trying to seem nice, since he knew how useful it could be to make friends in places like this.

But unfortunately, none of them looked very friendly.

Still, while all of them were still sizing him up, one of them stepped forward and walked closer to him. "Isn’t that rude? Asking for something before even introducing yourself?"

The boy didn’t look much older than the rest of them, but he was incredibly tall, almost twice Magna’s height.

He was also very thin, the black training clothes hanging loose on him, making him look less like he was wearing a uniform and more like he had thrown a bedsheet over himself, completely out of proportion.

Despite his strange, mismatched build, his face was quite refined, handsome enough even.

With his dark brown hair, matching dark brown eyes, sharp features, and that smile of his, he had a quite noble look about him.

"Oh, sorry, my bad." Magna, realizing his mistake, introduced himself. "I’m Magna."

The boy gave him a strange expression. "Magna? Is that all? Which family are you from?"

"Winterborne." He didn’t hide where he came from.

The tall boy paused again and turned around to look at the others. "Has anyone heard the name Winterborne?"

Judging by the blank, thinking expressions on their faces, the others apparently didn’t know either, until one of them spoke up in a thoughtful tone.

"I think that’s a family governing a small city, situated on the south side of The Black Forest. The head of the family is probably a 12th, at most a 13th Trial Witch. I’m not sure what their specialty or bloodline traits are, though."

Just from that, Magna realized one thing.

It looked like the Winterborne family wasn’t much of a big deal among these kids.

While Magna started to feel like a poor scholarship student who had been accepted into a prestigious rich kids’ school, the tall boy turned back to him.

He still kept that noble smile on his face, but his eyes had narrowed slightly, making him look quite displeased. "Tell me, what’s so special about you that you got to come here?"

Magna shrugged his shoulders. "I’m strong?"

Hearing that, all the other kids suddenly burst out laughing, like they had just heard the biggest joke of their lives.

The tall boy was the same. After laughing for a second or two, he looked at Magna with amusement. "Do you even realize what kind of place you’re in at all?"

That was exactly what he wanted to know. "Please tell me."

The tall boy looked at him strangely. "You really don’t know."

Every gaze on Magna suddenly changed. They were all now looking at him like he was some country bumpkin who knew nothing about the world.

Luckily, the tall boy was kind enough to explain at least part of it. "Look, all of us are here because we’re all strong. Physically or mentally. That’s the main requirement to be able to be here anyway."

He then leaned down, putting a hand on Magna’s shoulder, and started looking deep into his eyes. "I heard Master talking about your eyes. Are they the reason you’re able to be here? What powers do they have?"

Magna could feel a surprising weight on his shoulder, enough to make him nearly lose his balance.

The boy’s arms were very thin, like a thin tree branch, but for some reason they felt incredibly heavy.

At that moment he shifted his gaze downward, looking at the ground where the boy stood.

The earth beneath his feet looked like it had caved in, crushed under the weight.

’Is this his bloodline trait? Making his body heavy?’ Magna thought as he quickly calculated that for the ground to give such a response, the boy’s weight had to be at least 400 to 500 kilograms (880–1100 lbs).

He then looked at the boy’s face again, answering casually. "They give me a good look, I guess?"

Of course, he didn’t want to reveal the actual power of his eyes.

But his words apparently made the tall boy feel like he was being mocked, his eye twitching slightly. "So you were chosen because you look handsome?"

Magna realized he had accidentally hit a nerve, and quickly said. "I mean, I think I’m above average. Not saying I’m the most handsome guy here, it’s just..."

As he kept talking, he realized he was only making it worse. The looks he was getting were growing more and more hostile, so he decided to just stop talking.

’Man, socializing is seriously so hard.’ Only then did he realize that his trial seemed to have already begun, and it was already at hell rank difficulty.