Chapter 27: Meeting an Old Acquaintance Again

Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Meeting an Old Acquaintance Again

Throughout the entire month since officially setting foot in the academy, the number of times Jeremy had visited the exclusive shopping district or set foot in the high-end cafeteria could merely be counted on one hand. Exactly twice.

Thanks to the frugal, cautious lifestyle of someone accustomed to surviving day by day in his previous life, he had managed to save a decent amount of contribution points within his academy account.

Jeremy typed a curt reply of "received" into the general group, then slid his finger across the virtual screen, opening the part-time commission mission interface to skim through.

The mission system at St. Aetherwing defined extremely strict acceptance limits based on levels.

Daily labor jobs such as internal delivery, basic herb gathering, assisting in shop tending, or working as a server... only required the qualification of a tier-one student to be eligible to register.

However, once a mission involved entering the academy’s spatial secret realms to hunt high-tier magic beasts or gather rare spiritual plants, the matrix system would automatically establish level barriers based on actual risk indices.

The vast majority of those required standard team combat. Next were dual-coordination missions. As for individual commissions, the quantity trickled like morning stars, and the difficulty lay at a deadly level, absolutely not a threshold first-year freshmen had the right to touch.

Meaning, when the time came that he was forced to accept commissions to earn resources, he still couldn’t avoid having to drag the freakish teammates in his class along.

Thinking of that scene, both sides of Jeremy’s temples began to twitch slightly.

Although at the present moment, Leon and Lucius were maintaining a fake, peaceful facade by treating each other as air, that absolutely did not mean those two lunatics would keep this stability forever. Just a small spark, and his team could entirely turn into an internal slaughter scene at any moment.

... Forget it, cross that bridge when he comes to it.

Having to continuously slaughter magic beasts for a long day in the secret realm, coupled with the backlash from the empathy effect when connecting magic power, caused the muscle bundles on his body to ache many times more than normal.

Jeremy decisively shifted his thoughts, switched off the magic ID card’s light screen, closed his eyes, and sank deeply into sleep.

---

The first floating island in the academy’s twelve aerial coordinate systems was designated ’Immortal Island’.

The island’s surface was scattered with countless spatial teleportation portals leading to every corner of the Sylvanor continent, while also serving as the place guarding the suppressive entrance to the ’Forbidden Abyss Rift’.

The island’s structure itself was the central core of the grand defensive matrix. The concentration of magic elements in the air here was so dense it condensed into a layer of natural elemental barrier visible to the naked eye. It simultaneously acted as an absolute fortress wall against all invasions from foreign enemies, and completely isolated the island from the sweep of harsh weather outside. On Immortal Island, time seemed to freeze in an eternal spring.

Also thanks to its sturdy terrain characteristics and abundant magic power concentration, the academy had constructed countless testing grounds and practical combat arenas right on this piece of land.

This freshman assessment tournament round was arranged by the school board at the Starfield Arena located on the west side of the island.

The Starfield’s grandstand was built in a white marble curved structure, stacked layer upon layer soaring straight up, with a capacity of tens of thousands of spectators at once while still maintaining absolute ventilation.

Throughout the space above the combat area, a magical crystal screen system was installed to closely track all movement trajectories. They possessed the capability to magnify every microscopic detail of the battle, achieving full-area focus capture with accuracy without a millimeter of deviation.

Jeremy’s competition area was allocated independently, not located in the same courtyard cluster as his four teammates in class 659. Under Griffin’s lazy guidance, he stepped through the magical teleportation portal to set foot in the waiting area, patiently standing and waiting for a few minutes until the random pairing matrix officially activated.

Jeremy’s amber phoenix eyes coldly swept over the continuously flashing light screen, finally locking onto his own name located on the fifth row from the bottom.

And the opponent assigned to him by the system in the opening match was... Raphael Clevein.

The exact moment the characters forming that name reflected into the depths of his eyes, Jeremy’s breathing hitched slightly for half a second. His chest suddenly constricted; an invisible chunk of pressure, exactly like a thousand-pound boulder, crashed down onto his lungs, causing the fingers hanging loosely by his coat lapel to twitch slightly in a chilling reflex.

What the hell was this...?

Jeremy immediately circulated his magic power, distinctly isolating the influence of empathy from his nervous system. After a few seconds of analyzing his body’s physiological reaction layers, he raised an eyebrow, concluding this was a primal emotional remnant left behind within the soul roots and muscle memory of this physical vessel.

After all, Raphael Clevein... was the original owner’s sole childhood friend.

At the same time, the other party also bore the identity of the youngest young master of the Clevein family - one of the four prestigious, Duke-titled noble families dominating the pillars of the empire.

The four great Duke families respectively guarded the four directions: East, West, South, and North of the territory; their root domains were naturally tens of thousands of miles apart.

According to the unwritten rules of high society, before the time of holding the coming-of-age ceremony, except for grand heaven-worshipping ceremonies or core banquets convened by the royal family, the descendants of the four great families extremely rarely gathered at the Duke mansions located in the capital.

Unless special military or political situations arose, they all grew up and trained right within their adjacent territories. Even after the age of six, when officially enrolling at the Imperial Primary Academy in the capital, during every holiday, they would also use private teleportation portals to return to their family territory.

The reason the original owner had such a deep relationship with Raphael was because when Raphael turned three, the forbidden rifts in the north suddenly increased in vibration, sparking a one-sided rebellion within the Clevein family.

Facing a crisis from all sides, Duke Clevein had no choice but to secretly entrust his physically frail youngest son to the family of his close friend - meaning the original owner’s family’s Valmont Duke mansion - asking for temporary upbringing and protection.

Thanks to that serendipity, the two children first became aware of each other’s existence.

The period the two lived together under the same roof lasted a full two years, until Raphael reached the age of five and a half, when the northern frontlines quelled all riots and knights were dispatched to bring him back.

After that parting, due to congenital meridian defects, Raphael could not meet the physical standards to study at the Imperial Primary Academy like the original owner.

Though unable to meet face-to-face, during the early years, the two still maintained regular contact through communication artifacts and handwritten letters. But tragically, that period coincided with the darkest stage in the history of the Valmont mansion.

The talented eldest brother - the bright heir and the family’s pride - had gone missing without a trace amidst the abyss.

Disasters struck continuously: the Lord Duke was severely injured on the battlefield and fell into a deep coma; the sickly Madam suffered a mental breakdown and had to move to the suburbs to recuperate. In their blind despair, both parents silently dumped the responsibility and resentment for their eldest son’s disappearance onto their youngest son’s head.

The Duke mansion had no other children left; Jeremy naturally became the only son and also the meat shield bearing all the coldness and resentment of the entire Duke mansion. A solitary child imprisoned within his own home, his mind and physical strength had long been drained to exhaustion by invisible pressures.

Added to that, under the cover of chaos, the greedy butler colluding with wicked maids deliberately blocked news, secretly discarding all his outgoing and incoming correspondence. Amidst that suffocating survival boundary, the original owner was forced to remain silent, completely severing contact with his old acquaintance, unable to even know if the other party still had the patience to send him letters.

It wasn’t until the original owner turned ten, thanks to a large-scale royal banquet, that the two finally had a chance to meet face-to-face again.

But by then, the flow of time and mental torture had completely worn down the child from years ago. The original owner’s personality became extremely gloomy, cold, and distant. Even though he had never forgotten his childhood friend in his heart, the moment they faced each other, his face remained as stiff as a stone statue, his words sparse.

When Raphael, carrying a sense of nostalgia, questioned how he had lived these past years, and for what reason he was so cruel as to not reply with even a single line of text, the original owner froze. He didn’t know how to begin recounting the tragedies, the imprisonment, or being viewed as a jinx by his own parents, much less did he want to personally tear open the bloody wounds in his heart to beg for pity.

Therefore, he chose the method of evasion.

After a few stiff dialogues, so brief they were suffocating, the original owner made an excuse to leave the banquet early, from then on erecting a freezing wall, never proactively meeting the other party again.

Even so, after that cold reunion, the original owner still continued to receive regular handwritten letters from Raphael - at least two letters a month accompanied by all sorts of rare treasures and gifts.

But a soul accustomed to living in darkness did not know how to face and handle this sincere affection that had been alienated by time. Every time he saw the Clevein family’s wax seal, he fell into confusion and vexation, ultimately only knowing how to choose the method of perfunctorily writing back a few formulaic words.

Later on, the personnel system in the Valmont mansion was overhauled; the parents awoke to reality, wanting to exert all their effort to make up for the love for their only son. But the roots of family affection in the original owner’s heart had long dried up; the relationship between them permanently stopped at forced awkwardness and coldness.

Over time, the original owner’s indifferent attitude perhaps also made Raphael feel discouraged and exhausted. By early this year, the other party’s patience seemed to have hit rock bottom; all communication between the two sides was completely severed.

As for the reason why a Duke family wouldn’t utilize direct communication artifacts... Explained according to basic magic laws, establishing an audiovisual transmission line across tens of thousands of miles required a massive, burning amount of magic power.

Not to mention, the boundaries between the four great regions were always enveloped by countless layers of sealing barriers and military obstruction matrices. If a mage had not set foot on the threshold of tier seven - meaning the Grand Mage realm - activating the film station of a long-distance communication artifact was already a pipe dream, let alone maintaining a stable signal.

Even the communication feature of the Magic ID Card - the proud achievement developed by St. Aetherwing’s leading continental research institute - was strictly limited: it could only be free of magic power consumption within the confines of the Sky City and the twelve adjacent floating islands.

Once stepping outside that radius, even if just setting foot on the deserted island located right beneath the peak of the Sky City, all communication features would be suppressed by the barrier matrix.

Wanting to send a brief message required exchanging the corresponding amount of magic stones, and maintaining real-time images via video link was even harder than ascending to heaven.

This was precisely the reason that thoroughly explained why, when thrown onto the isolated deserted island a few days ago, their entire team was completely powerless to send a message to Griffin, yet that monster instructor could expend high-tier magic power to forcibly send directives back to them.

Jeremy lightly rolled his wrist, finding a comfortable position to lean his back against. He didn’t expect his opening campaign match at the academy would clash right against a character holding a special role in the original owner’s past.

The bizarre chest tightness that just flared up earlier... was precisely the clearest proof of the gnawing remorse and attachment still slumbering in the subconscious of this physical vessel.

Although for the past two years, since officially moving back to the capital, the original owner had always worn an arrogant, gloomy, and somewhat crazy disguise to build a barrier rejecting the approaches of his parents as well as the aristocracy, toward this childhood friend, he had always kept an isolated place.

Both lacking the courage to continue stepping forward to be close, and cowardly not wanting to personally strangle the only bit of warmth that once existed in his tragic childhood.

Jeremy’s ability to read human psychology had inherently been honed through countless instances of having a knife at his throat in his previous life; it only took him a few seconds to see through the original owner’s extremely conflicted yet pitiful contradiction when proactively choosing to sever contact.

His amber eyes narrowed slightly; Jeremy decisively brushed aside superfluous calculations, deciding to maintain this current cold status quo.

After all, since growing up, the two had only met face-to-face exactly once; counting from the beginning of this year until now, more than half a year had passed without any news.

In a situation where both sides had completely lost contact, thinking back on it, perhaps the other party had also long since taken this faded friendship lightly.