It was difficult to lie in front of an Academy Supervisor. These half-meter-tall owls were special magical beasts bred specifically by the mysterious dean of the Black Wizard Academy.
Their combat power surpassed that of high-grade magical beasts, enough for these owls to handle any dispute between apprentices below the level of Formal Magician.
Not to mention that throughout this Black Wizard Academy, hidden Magic Inscriptions and Alchemy Eyes were everywhere.
Investigating the truth, or even directly reconstructing the details of the battle just now, would not have been a problem.
However, for a mere conflict between low-level apprentices, it clearly had not reached the point where the Academy Supervisors needed to use surveillance eyes to reconstruct the scene of the battle.
When Saine produced the Identity Badge representing an apprentice of a Formal Black Wizard, the supervisor chose to let the matter rest.
As for the latter half of Saine's words, it gave the owl an excuse to back down.
With a sweep of its massive wings, the corpse of the low-level apprentice Yierke, already corroded into charcoal by strong acid, was blown by the Wind Element into the White Crow Forest on either side of the road.
These fragments of corpses would become the finest fertilizer for the underground plants in White Crow Forest.
Considering how often conflicts and battles erupted between apprentices at the Black Wizard Academy, such fertilizer was a common sight in many corners of White Crow Forest.
Saine gave the intelligent owl a slight bow. Ignoring the strange looks from the apprentices around him, he walked step by step toward the dormitory building where he lived.
The Pale Mask, Saine's Spoils of War, was already on his face.
As expected of a magical item, Saine immediately found that his vision had become much clearer and broader after putting it on.
The Black Wizard Academy in the City of Mozhsuobula maintained a total apprentice population of between seven and eight hundred year-round.
Every year, apprentices fell for one reason or another, and every year, new apprentices emerged.
Only a small portion of these newly enrolled apprentices came from children of suitable age in the City of Mozhsuobula.
More than ninety percent of them, like Saine back then, came from the Surface World—children abducted, bought, and plundered underground by Black Magicians through all manner of means.
Saine vaguely remembered some things from before he was six. His luxurious golden hair and handsome features both marked him as a noble.
Even when he had first arrived in the Underdark and could snatch food from other children his age, it was because he had learned some rudimentary swordsmanship and Breathing Technique as a child.
These were things commoners could never access.
There were not many memories left in Saine's mind regarding his origins and childhood.
Other than his surname and the kind, gentle face of his Mother in his dreams, Saine could scarcely remember anything else.
Life at the Black Wizard Academy had consumed far too much of Saine's energy.
Rather than dwell on the past, Saine wanted to live with his feet firmly on the ground.
The dormitory buildings provided by the Black Wizard Academy numbered more than twenty in total. Each had six floors, with eight rooms on every floor.
The stronger the apprentice, the farther inward their dormitory building was located, and the higher their floor.
The reason those powerful apprentices made such choices was that meditation and spellcasting experiments both required relatively quiet surroundings.
It was nothing unusual for some powerful apprentices to occupy an entire floor by themselves.
For the same reason, intense conflicts always erupted over dormitories whenever New Life first enrolled each year.
Saine's room was on the fourth floor of the fifth building behind the dormitory complex.
With his status as a low-level apprentice, he obviously could not have seized such a good location.
The reason he could live here was because he had benefited from his live-in girlfriend, Lina.
Lina was his benefactor, his senior, his guide on the path of magic, and also his girlfriend.
In some respects, Lina should have been considered his mentor.
Even Saine's considerable talent in Fire Element knowledge came from helping Lina complete various magical experiments over the years.
"Click!" As Saine switched on the Magic Crystal Lamp, dim light filled the room before him.
This was a room covering roughly seventy square meters. It was not large.
Moreover, it was piled with all sorts of odds and ends and books needed for experiments, along with a washroom and a separately partitioned small Laboratory Table.
This made the entire room appear even more cramped.
Yet whenever he returned here, Saine felt a heartfelt sense of relaxation, because this was his little nest.
A faint sour smell hung in the air. Saine recognized it as the scent of burning Black Camphor Grass, a low-level magical material.
Lina was not a woman who knew how to tidy up. In fact, throughout the years they had lived together, Saine had always handled the housework.
After looking around and realizing Lina was not home, Saine dragged his somewhat weary body to the large bed in the center of the room.
It was a special large bed made by combining two single beds, born from a night two years ago.
Perhaps recalling certain scenes, Saine's throat bobbed, and he promptly shook his head.
He first placed his gains on the desk beside the bed, then sat cross-legged on the bed. Before him was the large bottle of Intermediate Detoxification Potion given to him by his newly acknowledged mentor, Moxidu.
Saine poured the detoxification potion into his mouth, then guided his Mental Strength and began his routine meditation.
Meditation was the gentlest means of restoring Mental Strength and magic power. Sometimes, it could even replace sleep.
As Saine gradually entered a meditative state, his depleted Mental Strength and magic power slowly recovered. The Blue Moss Poison within his body also gradually dissipated under the effects of the Intermediate Detoxification Potion.
Cultivation knew neither day nor night. When Saine opened his eyes again, it was already the next day.
More than ten hours of meditation had finally restored Saine's body, mind, and spirit to a relatively vigorous state.
Only when he ended his meditation did he discover that his girlfriend Lina had returned.
"You're back," Saine said quietly.
"Mm." Lina nodded.
Standing by the window was a girl only one and a half meters tall, with fiery red hair and a cold temperament.
Lina was not someone who liked to talk. In fact, even though Saine had lived with her for eight years, their usual conversations were still stiff and brief.
Her appearance and height made Lina look like a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girl.
But Saine knew this was not Lina's true age.
Ever since they had met eight years ago, Lina had always looked like this. Eight years had passed, yet Lina had not changed in the slightest.
From rumors circulating around the magic academy, Saine knew that Lina had become this way after suffering some experimental accident with her mentor many years ago.
Saine did not know exactly how old Lina was, nor had he asked.
Just as Lina had never asked Saine about his surname or the origins of his childhood.
Everyone had their own secrets and corners unknown to others.
Although Saine and Lina had already shared physical intimacy, they seemed not to have completely opened their hearts to each other.
"You're injured?" Lina first glanced at the Magic Short Staff and Pale Mask beside Saine's bed, then frowned and looked toward Saine's chest, where blood had clearly seeped through.
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