Chapter 25

Carefully controlling his stride, Qi Yue stopped within a meter of Zhou Wei. Still, nothing happened.

Qi Yue was already much taller than him, and now Qi Yue was looking him up and down with a chilly gaze. A chill ran down Zhou Wei's back. "I-is something the matter?"

Hearing Zhou Wei's voice, Qi Yue numbly delivered the words he had prepared. "Money is important, but between money and your life, your life is more important."

Given how much Zhou Wei cared about money, he might very well do something beyond his abilities, and Zhou Wei simply didn't have the strength. The warning was sound.

As he spoke the last word, Qi Yue refused to give up. Using the casual conversation about "money," the thing Zhou Wei cared about most, as an excuse, he took another step closer. He managed to place his hand on Zhou Wei's shoulder without making it seem abrupt, achieving physical contact, and spoke.

"Isn't it?"

Zhou Wei seemed unaccustomed to being touched, and his body was a little stiff, but it didn't melt. His mind... naturally, nothing went wrong with that either.

Qi Yue: "..."

Great. It was confirmed: he'd copied absolutely nothing from Beixing. Heaven was just that cruel to him.

Was life nothing but one wasted effort after another?

Then what did all his earlier precautions, when he'd been afraid his Esper Ability would hurt the other students, amount to?

"..."

Thoroughly emo, Qi Yue withdrew his hand from Zhou Wei's shoulder. He completely lost interest in staying any longer, and all emotion vanished from his eyes.

Who could have guessed? He seemed to be the strongest person in Class F, but he couldn't actually use his Esper Ability at all.

Although Qi Yue had already had an inkling after testing it on Lu Zhaobei, he... still felt disappointed.

At that moment, Qi Yue's heart was as cold as a knife that had spent ten years gutting fish at RT-Mart.

But even with the test over, the result terrible, and his mood gloomy, Qi Yue didn't dare let his guard down. Watching through the reflective pillars and walls around the Item Depot, he saw that Beixing had finished packing.

Qi Yue turned around and used Beixing as an excuse to take his leave of the teachers. "Teachers, the Weekly Assessment is coming up. I need to help Beixing familiarize himself with these items beforehand, so we'll be going now."

Before Qi Yue transferred to Class F, Beixing had always been alone. Based on that fact and the little movements Beixing had made while packing the items, playing with them as if they were new to him, Qi Yue could be sure Beixing wasn't familiar with any of the items he had exchanged for. The excuse was perfectly reasonable and wouldn't arouse any suspicion.

Everyone could see how Qi Yue treated Beixing. There was nothing strange about him helping Beixing learn to use the items, and the teachers smiled as they watched the two leave.

Zhou Wei: "!"

Everything happened so fast that by the time Zhou Wei realized Qi Yue had been warning him, Qi Yue and Beixing had already disappeared from sight.

Zhou Wei's friends gathered around him and speculated in low voices.

"I keep wondering if something's going to happen, and that's why Qi Yue came over specially to tell you that."

"I agree. Qi Yue never does anything without a reason. There must be a special meaning behind what he just said. Speaking of which... is there an Esper Ability for prophecy?"

"I've never heard of one. Prophecy is too abstract, like fortune-telling. Besides, can't an esper only have one Esper Ability? Qi Yue's Esper Ability is similar to Beixing's, only stronger. It can't be prophecy."

"But that's Qi Yue we're talking about, the all-powerful Qi Yue. If it were anyone else, it really would be impossible. But if it's Qi Yue... what's so impossible about him knowing the future?"

"That's true. I've never met any powerful people, but I've heard that the truly powerful are used to planning everything out and keeping a firm grip on everything that hasn't happened yet."

"Anyway, Zhou Wei, you need to be careful in this Weekly Assessment. Money and points don't matter. Listen to Qi Yue: your life matters most."

Listening to his friends' speculation and thinking about what Qi Yue had said, Zhou Wei grew increasingly uneasy. "All right."

Soon, it was the morning before the Weekly Assessment.

The Weekly Assessment would last five days. Each class's homeroom teacher handed out Wristwatches that could record Monster Kill Points. Whenever a student killed an Aberrant, a different number of points would appear on the Wristwatch depending on the Aberrant's level.

A kill of the lowest, fifth-level Aberrant was worth one point; a fourth-level Aberrant was worth two; a third-level, three; a second-level, ten; and a first-level, twenty.

The higher the level, the more points it was worth.

The Special Aberrant Number 8792 could not be killed and was therefore outside the range of targets for students in any class. Moreover, the area where the Special Aberrant Number 8792 was located had been sealed off, and students taking the Weekly Assessment were strictly forbidden from approaching it.

The six students with the highest point totals in each class would qualify for the Joint Monthly Assessment of the Seven Hunter Academies.

After the Wristwatches had been handed out, the students boarded the planes in batches by class, led by their homeroom teachers. There were six planes for the six classes.

To reach the YR Research Institute from the Seventh Hunter Academy, they first had to fly to a dock and transfer to a cruise ship. The whole journey would take a day and a night.

Class F was the lowest-ranked class and was the last batch to board.

To keep the other students from discovering that they were carrying too many items, Qi Yue again sat with Beixing, gazing coldly out the window. Ever since learning that his Esper Ability couldn't even affect the weakest student in Class F, Qi Yue had been unable to take an interest in anything. He simply pretended to stare out the window in thought, eliminating any chance of someone striking up a conversation.

Outside the window, high in the sky, clouds spread out in a beautiful view, but Qi Yue was in no mood to appreciate it.

He had an Esper Ability, but after repeated tests, it had proved useless. He had only the items he carried to rely on, yet he also had to maintain his image as the strongest in Class F and keep up his bearing. In such a terrible situation, how could he earn the most kill points in Class F and move up to Class E? He had to think carefully about that. Qi Yue's brows drew together slightly as he stared out the window, his eyes dark and unreadable.

Beixing watched Qi Yue for a while. He felt that Qi Yue seemed colder today and was a little worried.

He asked cautiously, "Qi Yue, is... something wrong?"

Could it really be as the other students in class said, that Qi Yue had some unknown connection to the YR Research Institute? Was Qi Yue in a bad mood because he was going back there?

Although he was in a bad mood, Qi Yue's mind was still working. Even his perfunctory answer related to the fact that they were on a plane, so it definitely wouldn't let anyone notice what he was thinking.

"I was thinking about Teleportation Devices." He had seen such devices mentioned in the academy library; they had to exist to have been written about in books. Besides, he had only said he was "thinking about" them, not asked why the academy didn't let them use a Teleportation Device and had chosen the tiring, exhausting method of flying instead.

After all, "thinking about" could lead to many possible meanings: for example... knowing the academy didn't have one and thinking about how to get it one; or knowing the academy did have one and thinking about why it wouldn't let them use it.

In short, speaking this way wouldn't break character.

Perhaps he could even find out more about the Seventh Hunter Academy.

"Ah... that." Beixing understood.

From what Qi Yue had said, he must have always traveled by Teleportation Device before. Right now, he must be at a loss for words over the Seventh Hunter Academy's troublesome way of traveling.

"Thanks for putting up with it." Beixing sighed. "But our academy really is too poor. The dean said Teleportation Devices and things like that are too expensive, and there's no need to buy them. We have to spend our money where it counts."

Qi Yue, having learned about the Seventh Hunter Academy's finances, said, "...It's no trouble."

No wonder he'd been sent to the Seventh Hunter Academy. As it turned out, he and the Seventh Hunter Academy were poor together.

Meanwhile, at the Flint Family residence.

In front of a private Teleportation Device, Xiao Yiyuan watched the figures disappear, then looked at Ron with some concern. "You only sent two people to the YR Research Institute, and they're both ordinary people without Esper Abilities. They've been trained, but... they're still Old Humans. Will this really be all right?"

"How could anything go wrong?" Ron shrugged disdainfully. "Against Beixing, ordinary people are the real killing weapons. Old Man Li isn't around either, so let's see who can save Beixing, whom all the espers hate. This time, Dean Zong will realize which of us, Atas or me, is the Flint Family's eldest son who's useful to him."

Chapter 25

On the north side of Katebis Island, in a coastal area the First Hunter Academy had designated as part of Area F for the duration of the Weekly Assessment, a rectangular Light Gate briefly opened inside a cave carved out by the sea. The Light Gate cut fresh marks into the surrounding rock walls.

Two men dressed in fitted black outfits stepped out of the Light Gate and looked their surroundings up and down.

"Ugh... Third Brother, even in broad daylight, this godforsaken place is creepy."

"Wherever New Humans have been, there's always bloodshed. Fifth Brother, you're making too much of a fuss." The man called Third Brother spoke disdainfully.

"I'm not making a fuss. It's just that my right eyelid has been twitching like crazy ever since we got here, and I keep feeling uneasy." Fifth Brother raised a hand and rubbed his right eyelid.

"Don't fall for feudal superstition." Third Brother rolled his eyes at his companion. "You've seen Beixing's file. We've killed more people than we can count. One measly Beixing will be as easy as chopping vegetables."

Fifth Brother thought he had a point and lowered his hand from his eye. As he slipped the transparent Diamond Trigger Device into his pocket, he covered the Teleportation Receiver with rocks from the cave. "I hope so."

"All right, stop covering it. Aside from those Aberrants that lost their minds long ago, what normal person would come to a remote corner like this? You're wasting your effort. We'd be better off using the time to get familiar with the area, so we can get away as fast as possible once we've done the job."

"True..." Fifth Brother paid no more attention to the half-covered Teleportation Receiver, which was still exposed.

As they spoke, the Light Gate closed and vanished behind them, and the two men walked out of the cave.

A Teleportation Device transported people between two precise coordinates. The Teleportation Device in the cave had been left on Katebis Island by the Flint Family earlier. After completing their mission, they had to return here and hold the Diamond Crystal Trigger Device, refined from a special mineral, to be teleported back to the Flint residence.