Thinking back to Victor's strange behavior during class...
Dark's mind raced, but he maintained his noble composure and smiled. "Now that we've introduced ourselves, I'm Dark Dimon. It's a pleasure to meet you."
Victor seemed inexplicably excited. He quickly reached out and shook Dark's hand. "Victor Gaude. It's a pleasure to meet you too!"
"Is that so?" Dark smiled politely. "I'm going to the classroom to do some advance reading. We can talk about anything else another time."
Victor: "Okay!"
After Dark left.
Robert nudged Victor in the arm and whispered, "Well? What did it feel like to shake hands with a top student?"
"I have to say, it was pretty nice!" Victor joked.
Then he picked up Forbidden Love, which he'd just secretly snapped another photo with, and glanced at it. His expression changed at once.
[Name: Dark Dimon]
[Rarity: UR]
[Affection: 44]
Victor exclaimed, "What's going on? Why did his affection go down instead of up?"
Robert
leaned closer to take a careful look, then hesitated. "Could it be because we bothered him? Or did following him around make him mad?"
Victor said miserably, "Could that be it? We only wanted to say hello."
Robert: "How about giving him a present for Halloween? Surely his affection will go up if he accepts a gift?"
Victor: "That's not a bad idea, but what does he like? Would a Toffee Apple work?"
Robert shrugged. "Maybe a Magic Chess set would be nice too."
Victor: "True. Nobody dislikes Magic Chess."
Robert: "By the way, when should we check Emma's?"
Victor looked puzzled. "Wait, Robert, why are you so concerned about Emma? You mentioned her in class too."
Robert froze, then realized what Victor meant. "Don't tell me you think I'm a masochist, Victor. I just want to see how low her affection for you is! Don't you want to know?"
Victor spread his arms and shook his head emphatically. "No, I don't want to know at all!"
Robert: "You do."
Victor: "All right, I do."
Chapter 57: Dark Dimon Finds a Little Pick-Me-Up
Around the corner.m
Dark Dimon hadn't actually left.
As soon as he was out of Victor and Robert's sight, he stopped to listen.
Victor and Robert hadn't made any effort to lower their voices. Dark heard every word of their conversation.
"So that's it. The Flower Card has a new function that lets you see people's affection for you."
"Wait, isn't that an essential ability for the protagonist of a dating sim? So that's how it's represented?"
"So he was trying to raise my affection just now?"
"Is there some kind of reward? Or can he unlock a CG? Hahaha, surely he can't unlock a CG."
"It doesn't seem all that useful, but I can't let him pry into my mind whenever he wants."
"Harry Potter has Occlumency, which seals the mind to protect against mind-reading spells like Legilimency. At a high level, it can even create false memories. There's no reason this world wouldn't have it."
Dark listened a little longer. When he saw more people coming down the corridor, he quickly left.
"My next class is Professor Kazel's. If Professor Kazel really has nothing to do with the Flower Card's creation, maybe I can get some information from Victor."
By the time Dark arrived at the Magic Theory classroom, Emma Metis had already claimed a seat in the front row.
He smiled, then took his usual seat by the window in the last row and waited for Victor and Robert.
Based on their behavior, he suspected that even if Victor really could benefit from raising other people's affection for him, he could probably only do so with certain special people.
For instance, the main characters in a game!
If so, Emma should be one of them.
Sure enough, with five or six minutes left before class, Victor and Robert unusually came in through the front door.
Victor deliberately held Forbidden Love in his hand.
He tried to look casual, but he had clearly used Forbidden Love to check Emma!
Then Victor and Robert hurried over to the other side of the last row.
Without even putting down their bags, the two of them huddled together to check the card.
[Name: Emma Metis]
[Rarity: SSR]
[Affection: 31]
Robert exclaimed, "It's 31, Victor. That's about the same as a lot of people. Looks like Emma doesn't dislike you as much as she seems to. I really want to know how much she likes me. Maybe she doesn't dislike me that much either?"
Victor glanced at him and gave an awkward smile. "Haha."
But then he noticed that there was a lock on the card too!
It wasn't a gold lock like Dark's, but it was orange.
He immediately reached out and touched it. A line of text appeared beneath it: Unlocks at 80 affection.
"Is it because of the rarity?"
Victor immediately spotted the key.
"Dark's rarity is UR, so his lock is gold. Emma's rarity is SSR, so her lock is orange. I don't know which is rarer, but there's no doubt it's related to rarity."
Robert caught on too, and his face grew a little grim. "So the reason there's no lock on my card is because..."
Victor hurried to comfort him. "Don't take it to heart, Robert. We can check someone else, like Professor Kazel?"
Robert's eyes lit up. "If Emma and Dark both have locks, the professors must have them too."
Victor lowered his voice. "Quiet. Once the professor arrives, we'll figure something out."
"My rarity is UR, and Emma's is SSR?"
Dark lifted his pen and wrote a list of ranks in his notebook: N, R, SR, SSR, UR.
"Those are probably the ranks. Rather than 'rarity,' they're more like 'grade.'"
"If reaching 80 affection unlocks some kind of reward, there must be further rewards with higher requirements, like 90 or 100 affection."
"This really is a world born from a dating sim. It has all the standard features."
"But affection in the real world isn't as easy to raise as it is for game characters."
"No, I didn't get to hear the whole story last time. I have to hear as much of this one as I can!"
Even now, thinking about the gossip he'd heard on Friday brought a faint sense of pleasure to Dark.
It had eased his pent-up Wrath quite a bit.
"Victor Gaude might make a pretty good little pick-me-up."
Professor Kazel arrived half a minute late, with a little white bandage still stuck to his head.
Victor and Robert's plan to intercept him at the door had completely failed.
They could only hope Professor Kazel would come down from the podium on his own.
But unless he was assigning coursework, Professor Kazel rarely left the podium.
→ The footstool on the podium explained why.
As expected, in this class Professor Kazel began teaching "General Methods for Making Magic Spirit Cards" and recommended a book called Magic Spirit Transmutation—A General Handbook to the students.
Most of the students listened attentively.
Dark was no exception.
This knowledge was very important for mages, and there was only so much they could learn from the textbook.
Professor Kazel mainly taught a "Basic Transmutation Method" that combined several Transmutation Arrays, ending with the No. 1 Transmutation Circle. By placing materials such as Magic Potions, plant organs, and the teeth, fur, eyes, or blood of magical creatures into the array, one could begin the transmutation process.
However, this method was highly unpredictable. Before the process began, nobody knew what would come out of it.
Dark preferred to call it the "Random Transmutation Method."
By comparison, the Magic Spirit Transmutation—A General Handbook mentioned by Professor Kazel contained more specialized "Basic Transmutation Methods."
The book divided the methods for making Magic Spirit Cards by species and attribute.
There were fifteen species and twenty attributes, for a total of three hundred different Basic Transmutation Methods!
"Excellent. That's exactly what I need."
Dark wrote down the title of the book, planning to borrow it as soon as class ended.
After finishing that section, Professor Kazel gave the students time to copy the notes from the board.
Then he stepped down from the podium to see if the students were taking notes properly.
When he reached Dark, he glanced at his dense but exceptionally neat notes, nodded slightly, and turned toward the other side of the classroom.
Victor and Robert were over there.
They quickly pretended to take notes. As soon as the professor turned the corner and walked past them with his back turned, Victor knew his chance had come!
He immediately picked up Forbidden Love and pointed it at Professor Kazel.
The next moment.
"Boom!"
A cloud of pink mist burst from the face of Forbidden Love, and the card began to shake violently.
Victor jumped and hurriedly pinned the card down.
But Professor Kazel had already turned around, glaring at him with a deep frown.
"Victor Gaude, minus 50 points. Come to my office after class. Novel website."
Professor Kazel's voice was calm, but tinged with anger.
Everyone in the classroom stopped writing.
The scratching of pen tips against paper ceased in an instant, and the whole room fell silent.
In that heavy silence.
Victor raised his head under the weight of countless stares. His face had gone pale, and the corners of his mouth twitched.
"Hmph."
Before you continue