Chapter 11

"Because I played a little joke on my classmates." Suddenly called on, Qi Yue shrugged and spread his hands with a helpless smile.

"It seems nobody liked my joke very much."

Many true thoughts were hidden in jokes. How could that count as a lie?

He couldn't possibly say he'd said those things yesterday because he hadn't been sure whether his Esper Ability would hurt everyone, could he? Absolutely not. That would expose his "imperfection."

"..."

Had that been a joke yesterday? What kind of joke was the transfer student playing? The students' lips twitched.

Ah... had Qi Yue joked with his classmates after he left yesterday? Beixing tilted his head toward Qi Yue, who was standing not far away, envy showing in his eyes.

Qi Yue was kind and had a sense of humor. He'd already started joking with his classmates on his first day after transferring. Beixing had been here a long time and had never joked with his classmates.

He was popular and good at socializing. As expected of Qi Yue. Beixing hoped he wouldn't fall asleep as soon as he sat down today, as he had before, so Qi Yue's impression of him would improve.

"Is that so?"

Yu Kaicheng looked at the other students, questioning them with his eyes.

"..."

None of the students spoke.

Yu Kaicheng sighed. "Students, you should be kind to your new classmate. I've always stressed that whether it's Class F or the whole academy, we're one big, harmonious and loving family."

"..."

The students remained silent, looking bored as they listened to Yu Kaicheng's long-winded, unnecessary lecture.

"..." Receiving no response, Yu Kaicheng sighed. Just look at them. Their Esper Abilities weren't much, but every last one of them had learned to imitate the other Hunter Academies' cold, unfeeling ways. He'd always been right to insist on opposing the proposal to camp too close to the other Hunter Academies during the Monthly Assessment. Yet Dean Li always rejected his requests.

"I'll correct that. Don't worry, Teacher Yu." He had plenty more "jokes" to make in the future. After all, it wasn't his fault he couldn't lie.

"I look forward to it." A response was rare enough to be all the more precious, and Yu Kaicheng was pleased.

"..."

What a hypocritical conversation. The transfer student was skilled at hiding his true face behind elegant, proper words! The thought occurred to the students once again.

All the while, Yu Kaicheng's pen never stopped recording, and the Esper Ability testing continued.

"Beixing."

At last, Qi Yue heard the homeroom teacher call Beixing's name.

"...Here."

Beixing seemed accustomed to keeping his presence to a minimum. Neither his voice nor his tone was as strong as the other students'. He also lowered his head unconsciously as he walked, like an empty cloak moving along.

Before Beixing reached the podium, Liao Yuanliang and Yu Kaicheng stepped back with practiced ease, putting more than a meter between themselves and where Beixing would stand.

Beixing shuffled up to the podium, pulled back a little of his oversized sleeve, and placed his hand on it...

In an instant, murky black air stained the crystal ball an almost grayish black, nearly identical to Beixing's cloak.

Qi Yue: "..."

Through copying, he had gained an Esper Ability from the same "source" as Beixing's, but it hadn't displayed the same "Esper Ability effect." How would the crystal ball react to him?

Black air of a different density?

That would be the best possible outcome. He was afraid the crystal ball wouldn't react at all, just as Beixing's Esper Ability had produced no reaction from the homeroom teacher when it was on him.

"Student Beixing, rank F. The test is over. You may return to your seat." Unlike with the other students, Liao Yuanliang did not describe Beixing's Esper Ability. There was no need. In any case, aside from Jian Haosen thinking Beixing couldn't advance to another rank because of his poor stamina, there was another important reason: for the safety of the higher-ranked students, Class F had to be sacrificed, and Beixing would never be able to move up to another class.

Any further description would be unnecessary. There was only ever one correct answer for the result given on Superpower Testing Day: Beixing, rank F.

It was an arrangement the academy had made after considering everything.

"O-okay."

Beixing withdrew his hand, took two steps back, and walked down the center aisle to his seat with his head lowered.

"Next, Qi Yue."

Liao Yuanliang returned to his earlier position near the podium and called out the name of the student he'd been most eager to see today.

He had waited too long for this moment. Liao Yuanliang's gaze fell on Yu Kaicheng and the students murmuring among themselves. He believed the others felt the same way he did.

"Here~"

Qi Yue spoke in a lazy drawl, the corners of his lips curling up as he walked toward the podium with an easy, composed bearing. He would deal with whatever came his way; he would never allow himself to feel "shaken."

"There's that inscrutable smile again. Just as I thought, people with squinty eyes are all monsters..."

"Agreed. Behind that perfect smiling mask, who knows what kind of monster is hiding?"

"But he's even creepier when he isn't smiling. Remember yesterday's physical combat class? The speed with which his face went cold was chilling."

"Hair as white as snow, pupils as red as blood, a terrifying personality you can't get a handle on, and striking looks you can't ignore. Even without all that, my eyes keep wandering to him on their own."

"Forget all that. What exactly is his Esper Ability? I'm dying of curiosity."

As Qi Yue walked down the center aisle, many voices reached his ears. He wanted to know what it was too. The description of Call from Ancient Times on the Panel was no different from the description of his initial Esper Ability. It was a Riddle Panel.

In the restroom.

Hearing Class F's homeroom teacher, Liao Yuanliang, say, "Next, Qi Yue," on the wind, the red-haired twins exchanged a glance, took a deep breath, and tightened their grip on each other's hands.

The answer the many students of Seventh Hunter Academy had paid and were waiting to see was about to be revealed.

The red-haired twins held their breath and listened intently to the sounds carried on the wind.

Qi Yue stopped in front of the crystal ball. Apparently, his Esper Ability hadn't caused Dean of Students Yu Kaicheng any discomfort either. Then... what about the students?

Never mind. He'd find another chance to test it later. The important thing now was dealing with the situation before him.

The students craned their necks, Liao Yuanliang swallowed, and Yu Kaicheng tightened his grip on his pen. Class F fell into an eerily unanimous silence.

With everyone watching in anticipation, Qi Yue raised his hand and placed it on the curved surface of the clear, clean crystal ball—

Bang!

The instant Qi Yue's palm landed on the crystal ball, a tremendous bang rang out.

The crystal ball used for Esper Ability testing exploded into pieces in an instant.

Chapter 11

"Watch out!"

Liao Yuanliang immediately rushed in front of the students, shielding them from the fragments of the shattered crystal ball.

Something exploded beside Qi Yue's ears, and the shock left his palm slightly numb. By the time he realized what had happened, the crystal ball beneath his hand had already been reduced to fragments.

Qi Yue: "...?"

A "way of dealing with it" he had never imagined had appeared.

Indescribable, and therefore impossible to test?

Or... was the crystal ball simply too shoddy, and after being overworked, had he become "the last straw that broke the camel's back"?

Whatever the reason, in any case...

It had exploded beautifully.

"..."

"???"

"!!!"

The students stared dumbfounded.

It... it had exploded?

Since the academy's founding, this had never! happened! before!

That was an Esper Detection Crystal Ball supplied exclusively by First Hunter Academy, which had the most S-rank hunter students, the highest prestige, the most advanced Esper Ability technology... and countless other honors! It was both the hardest and the softest thing, able to withstand the erosion of any power. Even S-rank hunters used it for their monthly Esper Ability tests. It had never broken.

And the moment Qi Yue put his hand on something like that, it had just up and exploded?!

Countless pairs of shocked eyes turned as one toward Qi Yue, who had caused all this.

"I knew the smile he had when he went up there was 'meaningful.'"

"Qi Yue... he really is..."

"Thank goodness I didn't do anything when he warned us yesterday."

"But what... happened?! How did he do it?!"

Shock, bewilderment, curiosity, exclamations... a multitude of voices poured into Qi Yue's ears. To be honest, he didn't know what had happened either.

Of course, those words could never be allowed to leave his mouth.

Qi Yue turned to face the students, whose shock was practically spilling out of their pixelated faces. His gaze calm, he smiled and looked straight at their pixelated faces, delivering the words he had prepared in advance.

"As you can all see."

Qi Yue put on a helpless, troubled expression.

He improvised and added another sentence.

"The quality really was terrible."

"..."

Everyone looked at the shattered remains of the Esper Detection Crystal Ball in the classroom. No one answered. A quality issue? Ha, how could that be? Qi Yue had definitely done it on purpose. Was it because someone had added the words "Please be sure to teach him a lesson" to the red-haired twins' information sales page last night? Had he blown up the Esper Ability testing crystal ball at the slightest disagreement as a warning and a threat?

In short, nothing Qi Yue said could be trusted!

Qi Yue spread his hands and continued, "There was nothing I could do about it."

The situation was indeed just as they had seen it with their own eyes, and the judgment of quality was mainly based on personal experience. How could an answer like that have anything to do with lying?

Now that he'd said that, the school wouldn't make him pay for it... would it?

Still no one responded. The Class F classroom was as quiet as if someone had pressed a mute button.

"Teacher Liao, Teacher Yu." Qi Yue urgently needed to know whether he would have to pay for it. After all, he was penniless right now. "You'd say so too, wouldn't you?"

"...It certainly seems that way." Liao Yuanliang adjusted the black-framed glasses on his nose with a stiff smile. "Wouldn't you say so too, Director Yu?"

"...Haha, that's right." Yu Kaicheng gripped his pen a little harder.