Chapter 40: The Suspect

Seeing the letter with her name written on it, Leah completely froze. For several tense seconds, she simply stared at the letter as though she were in a trance.

Albert did not touch it. Neither did Victor, because both could see it had been left for her.

Finally, she extended her hand and picked it up.

Leah’s fingers were visibly trembling when she finally opened the envelope. The paper had yellowed slightly with age, but the handwriting remained perfectly clear.

At first, Leah’s expression remained relatively calm as she read through the letter, but when she reached the middle, her face suddenly changed.

"No..." she suddenly whispered, horror spreading across her face.

Victor looked at her. "What is it?"

Leah raised her head, obvious panic in her eyes.

"My mother... She knew she was going to die."

Albert’s gaze sharpened.

"What?"

Leah looked back down at the letter, then softly read a passage aloud.

"If you are reading this letter, it means I ultimately never had the chance to personally tell you the truth. The Astral Spirit Envoy is not a profession I discovered by coincidence. Our family..." Her voice suddenly stopped.

The next sentence silenced the entire archive.

"The ancestors of the Vane family... were the final generation of Astral Spirit Envoys."

Albert instinctively took a step forward, but Leah continued reading.

"The Astral Realm never truly disappeared. Someone simply... closed it."

Victor’s eyes narrowed sharply.

Closed it?

Who could close an entire energy system?

Leah turned to the next page. But there was nothing.

From that point onward, the latter half of the letter had been neatly torn away. It had not deteriorated with age. Someone had deliberately removed it.

The last trace of calm disappeared from Albert’s face. "Someone touched this ring."

Leah looked at him. "But it’s been inside the academy archive this entire time."

If the ring had been sealed here ever since her mother’s death, and if it had never been removed, then whoever had tampered with it could only have been someone with archive access.

...Someone inside the academy.

Victor did not rush to speculate. He was more concerned with the System screen that had popped up before him.

[Hidden Plotline Detected]

[True Fate Information of Investment Target Leah Vane Has Been Updated]

[Original Fate Understanding: Ordinary Failed Student → Accidental Contact With Astral Contamination → Death]

[Revised: Target’s Death Was Not Purely Accidental]

[Abnormalities Exist Regarding Target’s Mother’s Death]

[The World’s Fate Trajectory Actively Obscured This Information]

Victor’s brows furrowed deeply when he saw the words "actively obscured."

This was the first time the System had used such wording. That meant even the plot he originally knew might not necessarily be true. Or rather, the "original novel" he knew only represented the surface of the world that had ultimately been shown to readers. Many things the protagonist had never witnessed simply had never been described in detail.

And Leah was one of them.

"Don’t make this public yet," Victor suddenly said.

Leah and Albert looked at him at the same time.

"Why?"

"Because we don’t know who tampered with the ring," Victor replied. "If we openly investigate now, we’ll only alert them."

It was exactly like Cecilia’s curse. The enemy was hidden, and Victor did not even know whether they belonged to the same group. But if two consecutive incidents were both connected to the academy, the royal family, and some form of special energy, Victor refused to believe there was absolutely no connection.

The Abyss and the Astral Realm were two systems that had originally seemed completely unrelated. One had appeared on Cecilia, while the other had appeared within the research of Leah’s mother.

Albert was silent for a moment before finally nodding.

"I’ll seal everything related to this matter under the highest confidentiality level. Only the three of us know what happened here."

Victor glanced at him. "You don’t count yourself as a suspect, do you?"

Albert: "..."

Leah froze as well. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Victor’s bluntness.

There was probably only one person in the entire academy who would dare say something like that directly to the Vice Dean’s face.

A vein visibly throbbed at Albert’s temple as he fought down the urge to snap at him.

"If I were involved... you wouldn’t still be standing here, and I would have known that a compartment was there."

"Fair point, but then again... it could always be a facade. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt." Victor nodded.

The corner of Albert’s eye twitched. He was beginning to understand why so many people had disliked this young man in the past.

He really was irritating.

Leah suddenly gathered the private notebooks into her arms, then turned to Albert.

"I want to take these."

"You can." Albert did not stop her. "They were your mother’s personal belongings to begin with."

Victor looked toward the three dim Star Marrow Fragments, and the System panel unfolded.

[Star Marrow Fragment]

[Remaining Pure Astral Energy: 7, 9, 6]

This was twenty two in total, which was not exactly much. However, it was enough for Leah to take another small step forward.

"Take these three too."

Leah glanced at them. "There’s barely any energy left."

"There is," Victor replied. "I can extract it."

The girl immediately remembered what had happened during the awakening.

"They can still be used?"

"Mm."

Her eyes lit up.

Albert stood beside them and once again gave Victor a long, deep look. He had already found it strange how Victor suddenly knew these things and seemed to have a solution for everything. Now, hearing his conversation with Leah, that feeling had become even stronger.

’I wish I could know what’s going through his head,’ he thought. The only thing holding him back was Victor’s identity.

’I need to find a way to suppress this urge, or else I might just make an impulsive decision and provoke Duke Alves.’

"Why is the Vice Dean looking at me?"

Victor’s voice suddenly snapped Albert out of his trance.

"Nothing." Albert withdrew his gaze. "Are we done yet?"

Victor looked at the man for a few seconds, his eyes flashing sharply. Naturally, he could tell what Albert was thinking, as the latter practically wore his emotions on his face.

And only a single thought came to his mind.

’I need to deal with him.’